A good movie

Since I kept hearing some interesting things about this movie, I was quite eager to check it out and I’m actually surprised that it took me so long to finally watch the damned thing. Well, even though it turned out to be a decent watch, to be honest, I didn’t expect it to look so old and so cheap and I don’t mean it as a compliment. Still, it was definitely a strange and intriguing documentary, no doubt about it. In fact, I was myself a hardcore gamer but not with these classic arcade games but with the next generation with the Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Master System and Sega Mega Drive so I did have a connection with the subject matter. Especially in this case, I mean, I think I must have played Donkey Kong a couple of times back in the days but the damned thing was so difficult. At least, I would have to agree, I think retro gaming is actually more fun than modern gaming which somehow doesn’t work really well with my brain (in real life, I have no sense of orientation whatsoever and it turned out to be a major issue while playing video games in 3D environments). Still, I can’t imagine myself being so obsessed by one specific game after all these years. Anyway, while watching this movie, you obviously end up rooting for Steve Wiebe. Indeed, he was a nice guy, he was really dedicated to his craft and he seemed to be respectful to everyone around him. I did sense that they toned down the impact his passion/obsession actually had on his family though. Against him, well, you had Billy Mitchell who was (and still is?) this massive legend in retro gaming but, the more you watch the movie, the more you wonder if his reputation might have been more based on the persona he had created than his actual gaming skills. I mean, you do see him talking a lot but you actually never see him gaming at all through the whole duration which was rather suspicious. As a matter of fact, in the 2010’s, many of his more recent records were disputed as he was accused of cheating. Seriously, grown-up men playing for hours on some ancient arcade games, neglecting their loved ones in the process while maybe only 100’s of fanatics actually really care? Anyway, to conclude, it was a pretty cool documentary and it is definitely worth a look.

7/10