Classic Game Room – The Rise & Fall Of The
Internet's Greatest Video Game Review Show (Documentary/Comedy/Video Games/Internet/Special Interest)
Picture: C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Main Program: B-
For many
years, dated videogames have been getting the shaft and as is always the case
with things that are once popular being left behind, many think that is the end
of them. However, nostalgia has finally
arrived and before there was a G4 Network or the like, a brief-lived Internet
show produced when Internet TV was being touted as the next thing before the
dot com boom went bust big time, called the Classic Game Room.
Running
from 1999 – 2000, the single season show is the subject of a comic documentary
of the same name now arriving on DVD from Inecom. Before creating his remarkable string of
high-profile documentaries (with one on the George Westinghouse history and
legacy up next), writer/director Mark Bussler created this Internet show as
well as the documentary about it seven years later.
In very
off-beat fashion, he and equally wacky, purposely sarcastic and equally loaded
with low expectations for these electronics co-host David Crosson explore the then evolving world
of the home videogame market. With an
extremely dated remote control tapping a thick glass mug of beer, you can
imagine that this will not be a program with the “geek efficiency” and
sometimes bad jokes of G4.
Covering
now-dated hardware like Sega Genesis, Sega Dreamcast, Playstation One, Nintendo
64 and Atari 2600, they would actually have the graphics form these games
projected very large in the background.
If you are sick and tired of bad, junky digital effects in overproduced,
ultra-high budget action sequels, you will be very amused by seeing Frogger
magnified to the size of a garage door behind the co-hosts.
At the
time, a book called Game Over had been written about how Nintendo won the video
game war, but Sony and Microsoft have rewritten that history, only to be
ironically challenged by Nintendo again.
The more things change, the more at least some of them stay the
same. Though oddly humorous and
purposely so, the documentary overall is more of a solid record of videogames
past in a history that has been seen as too disposable too long and is possibly
the beginning of a new cycle of such programming. Gamers in particular will find this a
must-see, but others who need a good laugh should give it a look.
The 1.33
X 1 image combines new footage with old analog Beta SP and digital archival
footage for an amusingly watchable presentation, complete with wacky video
tricks that wackily add backgrounds (not unlike Mystery Science Theater) generated by old video. The Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is stereo at best
and varies throughout slightly as the older shows have some signs of their
age. Extras include trailers for this
and three other solid Inecom DVDs (like Expo
and Horses Of Gettysburg and WWII -
American Legacy, reviewed elsewhere on this site) worth looking into, Bussler
feature-length commentary and 3 blogs on production including one on Atari
2600.
- Nicholas Sheffo
