Video Games in TV or Movies

[Dagger Dias]

I think it's cool to see video games mentioned in movies or on tv shows. It doesn't happen that often but I like it when it does. I'll be sitting there watching the show and suddenly someone mentions (or even better, is playing) a game I really enjoy. It provides a fun little moment and can also be a promotional tool for the game to be mentioned onscreen. One of my favorites is from Two and a Half Men. Charlie takes Jake to go rent a video game but all he wants is Final Fantasy and they cannot find a copy.

As a Final Fantasy fanboy I found this hilarious the first time it aired and it remains one of my favorite moments in the show. It also reminded me a bit of me as a kid. Granted I liked other games, but FF was always the best. They made a mistake in the episode though because you can tell that it's the Final Fantasy 10 game box, but when it shifts back to Charlie's house you can hear Final Fantasy 2's battle theme, not 10's. You can tell when the writers of a show have played the video game being referenced in the show/film or not.

 

[Viggo]

I loved the movie "The Wizard" as a kid. The whole movie centered around video games, and it showed or mentioned several different games. I remember Sam (I think that's the name of Fred Savage's brother) playing Ninja Garden at a truck stop and getting a high score. I remember them challenging the villain gamer at Rad Racer. My jaw dropped when the guy broke out the Power Glove. I got the Power Glove the next Christmas, of course, only to find out it sucked. I remember Christian Slater and Beau Bridges playing Zelda 2 at the hotel. Finally, I think every single kid who watched "The Wizard" was blown away by Super Mario 3. I think this was the first time I had seen demos of the game, and I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. The whole game competition at the end was awesome too. The movie seems silly now, but I loved it back in the day.

Another video game reference from one of my favorite shows is in the U.S. version of "The Office," when Jim goes to work for Josh at his branch of Dunder/Mifflin and they're all hooked on Call of Duty multi-player. Good stuff.

With that said, I wish some more video game-based movies would come out. As a kid, I always thought of how cool it would be to have a movie based on Final Fantasy 4 or 6 (2 and 3 in the U.S.). I remember acting out scenes in my head, with me playing the role of Kain. I think a good movie could be made out of Zelda too. I'd go with The Ocarina of Time.

 

[Paralyzer Z]

Mentioning Video games in movies or television is pretty cool I will admit. Today it does not happen often enough (maybe due to the more violent and graphic nature oft today's games). However usually when you put Video games and movies together you get either of 2 disasters... Movies based games, or game based movies! Which reminds me I should make a thread on that.

The biggest example of a mention of games in a movie is of course the wizard! IMO the movie was just used promotional reasons to sell Super Mario Bros 3 (looking at the sale numbers I would say the succeeded). The movie itself I do not find anything special, but again it was just a promotion too, for the game.

 

[The Woo Kid]

I just saw a Modern Warfare 3 trailer today when watching football and I said that it was better then some movie trailers. I know this may not directly connect with a direct reference however the moment was great because it was really intriguing and it made an appearance on T.V.