Video games have been around for over two decades now,
though the recent developments in the gaming arena has changed the way people
see gaming today. However, after all these years, there are still some names of
characters and games that have stuck with people and which take them back to
happier times. Many of these characters are of course, classics that actually
made it big during the time of video arcades, a far cry from today’s portable gaming consoles, which have
become the primary source of entertainment for the masses. True and
professional gamers though still prefer to connect with others of their kind at
gaming stations and it is in fact the 20-somethings of today that are
responsible for the craze that names like Pac Man and Donkey Kong still command,
even after all these years.
The
popularity of these names can be gauged from the fact that in a bid to bring
back the 90’s, an entire movie is being made on characters of games that an
entire generation has grown up playing. Adam Sandler’s new movie, Pixels, is a film
that has the basic premise of arcade video games coming to life as villains set
to destroy the Earth. It is up to the band of old time gamers, portrayed by
Sandler and gang, to come together and save the planet.
Despite the innovative premise and definite feel of
nostalgia in the storyline and characters, unfortunately, the film has been
panned by critics and has been deemed beyond childish, even by Adam Sandler’s
standards. This movie is so far gone and has been deemed such a colossal mishap,
that even if characters from the latest games in portable gaming consoles would have been employed, the outcome
would not have been any different.
This begs the question, can gaming characters really
manage to make it big on the big screen? One of the biggest commercial films to
adapt a video game character was Max Payne, which starred Mark Wahlberg and Mila
Kunis. Although the film did well commercially and was lauded for its visual
effects, loyalists of the video game were left unimpressed. Whether it is the
demand for an unusual script befitting the characters, or the sheer inability
to please demanding gamers who have grown up playing and loving these
characters, either way, the experiment of adapting gaming characters to the big
screen has failed fantastically.
Hence, perhaps it would be best if these games and its
characters are left out of Hollywood. Such is the love for these games that out
of sheer demand of such names and games, many portable gaming consoles are forced to keep old titles in stock, such
as Tetris and Pac Man. These are names that have fans that traverse generations
and boundaries. Hence, for a change, Hollywood needn’t take it on itself to
immortalize these characters on the big screen because for an entire generation,
these characters, be it Pac Man or Donkey Kong or others of its kind, are
already immortal.
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