Pixels

Pixels ~ Right out of the box, this movie had more than a few things against it, first and foremost is that it stars Adam Sandler. Now admittedly, I don't hate Adam Sandler as much as I used to. The Wedding Singer is actually pretty darn good, and there are a couple others that don't make me want to blind myself with scissors immediately when they come on. It also stars Kevin James as the President of the United States. I'll just leave that right there and let that little nugget fry into your brain before I even get to the plot of this one.

Now follow along, folks. Back in the eighties days of videogames and arcades, Sandler and James were champions, along with Josh Gad (the dimwitted but lovable snowman from Disney's Frozen) and believe it or not, Peter Dinklage (who I hope fired his agent for this). Today, they are pretty much losers - yes, including President Kevin James, the others being a electronics installer, a criminal, a conspiracy theorist, and an ineffectual President.

The bad news is that all those years ago video footage of their tournament was sent into space by NASA, and now that footage has been answered by an alien race who believe it to be a declaration of war. These misguided but powerful enemies begin to attack Earth using videogames as their weapons, a la 'the form of the destructor' from the original Ghostbusters. Yes, we get attacked by Galaga on the aliens' first strike.

The situation gets worse from there as Centipede and Pac-Man attack and the president recruits his old friends to 'fight fire with fire,' as only old school videogamers know how to beat the bad guys at their own, pardon the pun, game. It gets old real quick. Now normally I steer clear of Adam Sandler flicks, but this juicy and explicit video review (not safe for work or kids) made it impossible to pass up. I just had to see this train wreck.

What is interesting to me is that before anyone, Ghosthead or not, spoke up about how the remake/reboot/re-imagining of Ghostbusters was ruining their childhood, the same accusations were made at this movie… and in this case, I can kinda see it. I grew up in the era of these videogames, and it does kinda feel like these people are taking a crap on my childhood.

Now it's not as bad as the above reviewer says, but it is pretty awful. If it wasn't for free cable I would be complaining much more loudly. It's watchable, and the kids might enjoy it more than adults, but then again, they won't have the slightest clue about these games or the other dated pop culture references here. And Peter Dinklage should be ashamed of himself…

X-Man

Because I'm a comic book guy, when I say "X-Man" you all probably think I'm talking about Nathaniel Grey, that alternate Cable guy who's the son of Cyclops and Marvel Girl. I'm not a big X-Men guy, so I'm not. I'm actually talking about something a little more game-oriented… believe it or not, an adult game for the Atari 2600.

I had never heard of it until a few months back when my Facebook friend Chico John hipped me to it, but yeah, this is really an X-rated videogame for the Atari. Developed by a company called Universal Gamex, it was their only title, and was banned from most game retailers. If you wanted it, you had to go mail order.

Gameplay was similar to Pac-Man, but you were a naked man pursued by crabs, scissors, and teeth - as you made your way through a maze toward a naked woman at its center. Guess what happens then. Or don't. Yeah, it's exactly what you think. Use your imagination, or Google, but you have been warned.

Super Bowl Pac-Man

In case you missed it the other night (although I don't really get how, it was both the most watched Super Bowl in history, and a hell of a game), here is one of the best commercials of the night, for Budweiser.

Part of their series of #UpForWhatever commercials, a man was put inside a gigantic Pac-Man machine, and made to play the game.

Are we really sure that Marvel Comics super-villain Arcade isn't in charge of the Budweiser's advertising department??

The video below that is the making of the commercial. Enjoy.

The Namco Museum and Xevious

Just to show you all what a big old fart I am, and how out of touch gaming-wise I am, the very first free download I ever got from the PlayStation Store was this - Namco Museum. Yeah, I'm old. Deal with it.

As the name might imply it's a small collection of old games from the 1980s, namely Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Galaga, and Xevious. To be fair, it's actually the trial for Namco Museum Essentials, and has much more available but I haven't purchased the whole package yet. And I have looked, but there doesn't seem to be an option to buy it. One problem with this one is that the games are presented in their original arcade form - vertical, on a horizontal screen. Oh well.

With the exception of Pac-Man, these are all games I spent a generous amount of time with at the arcade. I was never big into Pac-Man, but the others I loved. Dig Dug I've talked about before, everyone knows about Pac-Man, and Galaga is really just a color evolution up from Space Invaders. Xevious is the one I want to talk about today.

Xevious was a vertical scroller from back in the day, 1982, known for its bouncy tunage and unique breaking glass sound effects when you blasted the disc things that spun through the air at you. That effect is recreated here but the controller again makes what was easy on the arcade game difficult here - shooting and bombing simultaneously.

Xevious is a fun game without becoming too monotonous, although it remains much the same throughout. I remember the ship you pilot is called oddly the Solvalou, and that the sides of the arcade game showed pics that didn't exactly match the game itself. Always fun, even in this format.

Wreck-It Ralph

This review, in a slightly altered form, has already appeared on my pop culture blog, Welcome to Hell. Since it's videogame topical, I figured I'd share it here too. Enjoy.

First things first, Wreck-It Ralph being a Disney/Pixar flick, we get a Pixar cartoon before the main feature. "Paperman" was a sweet short utilizing different animation than usual for Pixar, and it also had a bit of a Japanese anime vibe to it. I liked it a lot, a big reason to see this movie is to see "Paperman" first.

Wreck-It Ralph, the newest from Disney/Pixar, is loosely at first glance a cross between Toy Story and Tron. Like the first movie we discover that the entities in our videogames actually live, especially when we're not looking, and like the second flick we discover that they live in their own little universe with its own physical and moral laws, all within the confines of one arcade.

Wreck-It Ralph is the bad guy in a game called Fix-It Felix, Jr., essentially close to Donkey Kong in many ways. Ralph, shunned by the other denizens of his game, determines to leave his game and make good. He goes off to Hero's Duty, a hybrid of Halo and Starship Troopers, to win a medal, and recognition. When things go awry, he becomes stranded in Sugar Rush, a mix of Mario Kart and Candyland. There, Ralph must decide if truly is the bad guy, or a hero.

It's a complex plot that is quite dark in places, but for the most part, it's an enjoyable journey through 1980s videogame nostalgia. It has a sharp sense of humor, great characters, and the voice work of John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, and especially Jane Lynch is first class. There are also many cameos of classic videogame characters that make the flick a real treat.

An added trivia bonus for old school videogamers is the song that plays over the closing credits, "Wreck It, Wreck-It Ralph" by Jerry Buckner, formerly of Buckner & Garcia of "Pac-Man Fever" fame.

I liked Wreck-It Ralph quite a bit, and while I wonder if this might be over or under the heads of some folks who weren't into, or alive for, 1980s arcade games, I highly recommend it. Great flick.

Barcade and the Frustration of Getting Old

A few months back The Bride and I attended a birthday party for two friends, at a place in the Philadelphia/Fishtown area called Barcade. Barcade is exactly what it sounds like, a bar/arcade. It has a couple dozen old school arcade games, and an assortment of local and obtuse brews, all for a quarter - the games, not the beers, that is.

I was stunned to how close to an arcade of the good old days this place was, what with the variety of games and their placement around the bar area. They even had high scores posted. They had a bar menu, but no fries. But it's all good, they carded me, the first time that's happened in years, so I was very happy.

When I looked around at the selection of games, at first I had little interest, then as I walked around, and got a closer look my memory kicked in… I realized I had done time, serious time, with all of them at one point or another in my younger years. Among the games at Barcade: OutRun, Gauntlet, Ms. Pac-Man, Mr. Do!, Golden Axe, Track & Field, Frogger, BurgerTime, Centipede, Double Dragon, Punch-Out!!, Tetris, and Robotron 2084, just to name a few. A full list can be found here.

Spy Hunter, Rampage, Tempest, Dig Dug, Paper Boy, Space Invaders, Galaxian, Joust. I knew them all intimately. And yet I was no longer capable of playing them. The muscles and reflexes honed to each particular set of skills for each game had deteriorated over the years of disuse. Man, playing videogames sure wasn't like riding a bike, you can't just get back on. In other words, I was old.

Lead photo by John Donges.

Pac-Man from Hell

Now I know Pac-Man. Heck, we all know Pac-Man. This thing, Pac-Man Championship Edition DX, that I downloaded from the PlayStation Store is not Pac-Man. I don't know what the hell it is, but it scares me, it scares my heart, my poor poor pacemakered heart.

The board is horizontal, rather than vertical, much like the Atari 2600 Pac-Man game. Unlike that version, this does look like Pac-Man, and the graphics are very precise and very vibrant. Psychedelic acid trip vibrant, and the music is pulse-pounding house techno that seems to get faster and the game gets more frantic. I could feel my heart beating in time to it with the pressure of the game.

There are advantages. You get bombs to blow up the ghosts, but it doesn't really seem to help as they recover quickly, and there are ghosts everywhere, sleeping until you pass near. They just keep coming. It's almost as if someone decided Pac-Man wasn't hard enough, it needed to give you a nervous condition as well.

Malibu Grand Prix and the Mystery of Dig Dug

One of the games I have downloaded from the PlayStation Store has been Namco Museum Essentials. Yeah, they're old arcade games. I figured they would be way more my speed. One of the games included was Dig Dug.

I used to play Dig Dug all the time, probably for the first time at Maibu Grand Prix in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. The big draw was the miniature Indy car raceway in the back, but inside, it was a huge arcade, back in the day when videogames were played in such places. Now it's just at home on the computer or video console. Us old people did it differently.

Malibu's been gone for a long time now. They tore it all down and there's now a medical complex there. Before that, it was closed and abandoned for years. Rumor has it that when they went to demolish it, a body was found on the grounds. Weird. There are still some Mailbu complexes open, in California and Texas, but for the most part, the arcade is a dead thing in our time.

I discovered Malibu in high school. A friend's mother used to work in the offices nearby and he would pick her up after work every day, and take his brothers and his friends with to play at Malibu while we waited 'til the working whistle blew as they say. Malibu was where I first played a lot of great games, stuff like Star Castle, which I used to be able to play for hours on only a quarter - that was my game, as well as Centipede (though I preferred Millipede), Warlords, Popeye, Galaxian, Qix (another favorite I was very good at), Astro Fighter, Time Pilot, Pac-Man, Zaxxon, and another old favorite, Sinistar - and of course, Dig Dug. Hmmm... I guess I'm really dating myself with that list, huh?

Anyway, as I was playing Dig Dug, and getting my ol' skillz back after navigating the PS3 controller, I started to wonder about the game. I mean, what the hell is it, really? It's a guy named Dig Dug, who dresses like an astronaut and digs through the ground... and when he encounters weird creatures and dragons he shoots a hose at them, and inflates them until they explode. That sound about right? Wow. You can not tell me there were not drugs involved in the creation of this game.

After a bit of research (always a dangerous thing to do when you don't know what you'll find), I discovered Dig Dug's real name was Hori Taizo, and he was the father of the guy in the Mr. Driller videogame (never heard of it) and the ex-husband of the heroine from Baraduke (that one either). The creatures are Pookas and Fygars respectively. Collectively they represent a weird incestuous hierarchy in Japanese videogaming. They are everywhere, in dozens of games.

I still got no explanation of what the game actually means. Sometimes a little knowledge, or a lack thereof, is a bad thing. At least it's fun, and at least I can play it without embarrassing myself...