Gaming in Film and Television

Dont be at yourself

Spaced, one episode he's playing Resident Evil (Inspiration for Shaun of the Dead) and another they do a whole piss take of Tekken.

Spaced represents the pinnacle in terms of videogames in Film/TV. A whole episode is based around Simon Pegg's addiction to Resident Evil, and there's references to the likes of Tekken and Tomb Raider in other episodes.

As has been said, Simon Pegg was also behind Shawn of the Dead, which also features them playing videogames.

L31mr0d

South Park and The Big bang theory did episodes featuring WoW

danbhala

halo 3 was in the background in one of the sets in the show Terminator: The Sarah Conor Chronicles a couple of times...

Mitch Connor

Charlies Angels, can't believe no one has mentioned this - two kids playing multi-player Final Fantasy (8, i think).

Vyse

Tauren wrote: »

Charlies Angels, can't believe no one has mentioned this - two kids playing multi-player Final Fantasy (8, i think).

Was just about to mention that one. There was a good article (I think it was in GamesTM) that covered this side of it i.e. producers not actually having a clue on how games are meant to sound/ be played/ look.

L31mr0d

Vyse wrote: »

i.e. producers not actually having a clue on how games are meant to sound/ be played/ look.

I think they basically have a set of sound bites under video games that haven't been updated since the days of Space Invader. I mean even in the recent episode of "The Big Bang Theory" where they are playing Halo 3 all you hear when they are playing is "pew pew" "crackle" "pew pew"

KoKane

Vince Vaughn - Playstation. American Football game

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XCTSrgBGjk

Tails142

In movies only dialogue is generally recorded while filming.

All sound effects such as footsteps, doors closing, EVEN VIDEO GAMES are provided by what are known as 'Foley Artists'. Named after some guy called Foley, the first person to provide such sound effects for radio.

Now; chances are if someone was playing a computer game in the background of a film scene and it wasnt making the 'lazers pew pew' sounds it would be very disorientating and distract from the actual film dialogue - so that is probably why you will see the likes of Halo 3 on screen but it will still make the pew pew sound

koneko

Off the top of my head, other than already mentioned...

Chuck
In the first episode they're playing Gears of War, in nearly every episode since then they've been playing COD4 (and mention the "COD5 beta" invite they got from Infinity Ward, which Infinity Ward aren't making).

Another episode of the IT Crowd (other than Guitar Hero mentioned above) had Roy on a date with a girl, she had a 360 at her place along with Assassins Creed (not out at the time). Didn't show games playing on a screen though.

Shadow of the Colossus in Reign Over Me.

thelordofcheese

Tails142 wrote: »

In movies only dialogue is generally recorded while filming.

All sound effects such as footsteps, doors closing, EVEN VIDEO GAMES are provided by what are known as 'Foley Artists'. Named after some guy called Foley, the first person to provide such sound effects for radio.

Now; chances are if someone was playing a computer game in the background of a film scene and it wasnt making the 'lazers pew pew' sounds it would be very disorientating and distract from the actual film dialogue - so that is probably why you will see the likes of Halo 3 on screen but it will still make the pew pew sound

^ This.
They're making films and are more concerned with doing that then giving an accurate dipiction of our favourite hobby.

Dr Bob

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Spaced represents the pinnacle in terms of videogames in Film/TV. A whole episode is based around Simon Pegg's addiction to Resident Evil, and there's references to the likes of Tekken and Tomb Raider in other episodes.

As has been said, Simon Pegg was also behind Shawn of the Dead, which also features them playing videogames.

In the spaced commentary at one point , he has a fairly valid rant about "bad video games playing acting" where the actor just mashes buttons and its painfully obvious to anyone who's picked up a controller since 1985 that they're not actually playing the game.Apparently he(Pegg) used to actually play the games onscreen ,which made it look more authentic , although apparently meant he missed cues a fair bit.

koneko

Oh and the movie Stay Alive. Terrible terrible horror film, but video games are pretty much the plot (the reason people are dying).

Stephen

Tails142 wrote: »

In movies only dialogue is generally recorded while filming.

All sound effects such as footsteps, doors closing, EVEN VIDEO GAMES are provided by what are known as 'Foley Artists'. Named after some guy called Foley, the first person to provide such sound effects for radio.

Now; chances are if someone was playing a computer game in the background of a film scene and it wasnt making the 'lazers pew pew' sounds it would be very disorientating and distract from the actual film dialogue - so that is probably why you will see the likes of Halo 3 on screen but it will still make the pew pew sound

You get the same kind of shyte when people use cameras on film and TV. You see guys using digital SLR cameras that make a 35mm film-winding noise each time they click the shutter release Decades old sound effects banks strike again!
All you should be able to hear is the click of the mirror going up. Then there's the likes of TV3's xpose that uses a totally fake camera noise every 2.4 seconds and drives me insane :mad:

Nevyn

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087597/

The Last Starfighter (1984)

This is the story of a videogaming boy, named Alex Rogan who lives in a remote trailer court where his mother is manager and everyone is like a big extended family. Meanwhile, Alex becomes the top player of Starfighter, a stand-up arcade game where the player defends "the frontier" from "Xur and the Kodan armada" in a space battle. After achieving his best score, he is approached by the game's inventor, Centauri. Stepping into Centauri's vehicle, he is seemingly doomed to stay at his trailer park home all in his life, he finds himself recruited as a gunner for an alien defense force when Centauri is a disguised alien who whisks him off to another planet.

Creature

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc7mhiRJEkI

Mark Hamill

I think there was an episode of Heroes where Nikki was playing Heavenly Sword on the PS3 with her son Micah (months before it was released too, I believe)

Branoic

Mark Hamill wrote: »

I think there was an episode of Heroes where Nikki was playing Heavenly Sword on the PS3 with her son Micah (months before it was released too, I believe)

Yeah, I was just about to post this. It's clearly a pre-release version of the game as the format of the prompting icons on the screen is different to the released game.

Dr Bob

Getting way off topic here ,but wasn't one of the minor SG1/S.G. Atlantis characters (Dr Lee) a World of Warcraft player .Apparently he'd a level 70 mage , which at the time sounded like a gaffe as the level cap was 60.However a few months later an expansion was announced which did indeed bring the maximum level to 70.
Either the writers had a bit of inside knowledge , or screwed up but got lucky...

Earthhorse

Don't think it's been mentioned but there's a parody of Grand Theft Auto in Training Day. At least I think it's Training Day. I'm starting to doubt that as I type this.

Maybe it was that other film, Inside Man. It's in something anyway.

po0k

Mallrats
Mentions some hockey game.

MikeHoncho

The Chappelle show had this.

Krieg

luas_dublin wrote: »

Getting way off topic here ,but wasn't one of the minor SG1/S.G. Atlantis characters (Dr Lee) a World of Warcraft player .Apparently he'd a level 70 mage , which at the time sounded like a gaffe as the level cap was 60.However a few months later an expansion was announced which did indeed bring the maximum level to 70.
Either the writers had a bit of inside knowledge , or screwed up but got lucky...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT2D3dJORhs

Wow nerd: The expansion was announced before the episode was done. But they did mess up some details there

He mentions it later again when he goes off-world and describes the area as looking like Elwynn forrest