 | | We're all winners! |
As any gamer knows, the media loves us. Unfortunately, it's tough love that often involves stones, bricks and fire. From the news reports of thousands of geeks that lined up a week in advance to buy a PS2 to the media reports of getting sodomized if you played Dragon's Lair. Ever since I got wind of TLC's documentary 'Gameheadz' I feared the worst. Yes, it's The Learning Channel but these are the same people that reguarly inflict pain on us in the format of While You Were Out, A Wedding Story, A Baby Story
and A Miscarriage Story. Luckily for us (and despite the name,) they actually manage to pull off an interesting and enlightening look at some of the brightest minds and ideas in the formulative years of gaming.
Gameheadz isn't so much a documentary on the history of video games as a look into the men (and yes, they are all male. Geeky, long-haired hippie boys - all of them) that have made video games the cultural cesspool it is today. And as such, it is actually very successful for an hour long television documentary. They interview such elder heavyweights such as Nolan Bushnell, Ralph Baer, Alexey Pazhitnov, Shigeru Miyamoto and more. If you have kept up with your gaming history, you won't find any revelations here as far as events, however how often do you get to see Ralph Baer complain to you about how he didn't receive the acclaim and recognition that Nolan Bushnell did as a gaming innovator?
 | | Winners don't get this excited by color bars. |
It's in the expose of personalities and insight where Gameheadz excels - they allot 15 minutes alone to the story of Henk Rogers trying to gain the console rights for Tetris from Alexey Pazhitnov, much to the dismay of Robert Stein. Couple that with some great footage of old game commercials that include cross-dressing Link, classic cold era family archetypes engrossed in Space Invaders, photographs and ancient video footage from behind the scenes (including a racy hot tub scene!) and you have a documentary that doesn't mock gamers, but explores the mind of these pioneering men and weaves it all together in an intriguing and engrossing manner.
If you missed it the first time around, Gameheads will be aired again April 20th at 3pm Eastern.
|
Thenewsite Specifics
