The Oklahoma Electronic Gaming Expo (OEGE) was held on April 26th, 2008. After the show, I threw a gaming party at my house (PIX). There were lots of consoles, computers, and arcade games to play with, but one thing I couldn’t figure out was how to keep people entertained during dinner (pizza!). The idea I came up with was rotating through a few gaming-related DVDs. I thought I’d toss out a list of my gaming/computer-related DVDs. You might be interested in picking some of these up; likewise, if there’s anything missing from my list, feel free to recommend me some! The two I know I still need to pick up are Chasing Ghosts and Once Upon Atari. A couple of these I have actually reviewed on review-o-matic so for those I will add links to the reviews.
Phosphor Dot Fossils: Earl Green (who also goes by the nickname Phosphor Dot Fossils on several online forums) officially released Phosphor Dot Fossils (the DVD) earlier this year in 2008. The PDF-DVD is a 3-hour visual presentation of the history of gaming. The DVD contains tons of clips of games, retro commercials, and trivia. This was probably the most popular DVD of the night. (Full review here)
Classic Game Room: Classic Game Room was an Internet-based video game review show, and their DVD is a “greatest hits” package that contains (I think) 10 episodes. It’s pretty funny and got some good laughs from the crowd. Unfortunately some of the episodes are kind of a dry humor and people lost interest in a party-type setting (it’s better if you can sit down and listen to all the jokes, and the commentary track (I thought) is even better than the actual episodes). (Full review here)
Coin-Op TV DVD Volume 1: We actually didn’t get to watch this at the party (everybody finished eating too quickly) but if you are a fan of retrogaming you owe it to yourself to check out this DVD. Coin-Op TV is one of the slickest web-based gaming shows around. This DVD includes 20 episodes of the show (remastered) with interviews with people like Todd Rogers, Walter Day, and more.
How to Beat Home Video Games: I picked this DVD up at CGE last year; it had a sticker price of $40 and I think I paid $10. It’s 3 old VHS tapes on how to beat Atari/Intellivision/ColecoVision games that have been transfered to 1 DVD. For $10 I didn’t feel ripped off; for $40, I would have. The quality isn’t great but it’s watchable, and interesting to watch people discussing strategies for Space Invaders and ET for the 2600.
King of Kong: We didn’t watch the movie that night, but if you haven’t seen this tale about the battle for the Donkey Kong world record, it’s worth a watch (even if some of the facts are still disputed to this day). Highly entertaining and one of the few videos on this light your significant other will enjoy as well, even if it should be taken with a grain of salt.
Freedom Downtime: Not gaming related, this documentary from 2600: The Hacker Quarterly tells the true story of hacker Kevin Mitnick. It’s a compelling story that anyone who gives a rat’s ass about their civil rights should watch. My copy’s autographed by Mitnick, btw.
Triumph of the Nerds: Another computer-related flick that we didn’t get to that night, but if you have any interest at all in retrocomputers, this is a MUST see. This 3 part film originally aired on television and basically tells the story of home computers, from then to know. I love watching this trivia/fact-filled show.
Video Game Invasion: The History of a Global Obsession: This aired on GSN back in 2004 and has since been released on DVD. It’s hosted by Tony Hawk and it’s a not-bad overview documentary of videogames. Don’t suspect super deep revelations, but as far as entertainment factors go, it’s not bad.
Rise of the Videogame: This was the God-awful five part videogame documentary that aired on Discovery Channel in 2007. It was full of errors and overall just wasn’t very good. Avoid this one.
I’m leaving my fictional films (save for King of Kong, natch) off the list — I love WarGames, Sneakers, TRON, and so on as well, but I’m not really talking about fiction here.