By John Walker on March 10th, 2011 at 12:35 pm.
Videogaming’s representation in the wider media is, as we all know, peculiar. But nowhere is it more strange than in the world of television. Those bonkers small screen writers seem to have somehow grown up in a society completely free of their existence, talking about them as if they’re an alien artefact on which no researchable information is available. Or another theory: all American dramas are written by my mum. The latest incident of her scripting a show is Season 8 Episode 16 of NCIS, which aired in the States last month. The moment is below, and it’s beautiful.
Now, I admit to never having seen NCIS. While I love crime procedurals, there’s a limit to how many I can fit in my week, and I tend to opt for those with a heavy sense of humour about themselves. NCIS, despite its name suggesting that it’s about naval crime, is the highest rated drama in America, and the second highest rated show of all (after American Idol – man the lifeboats). This particular episode, Kill Screen (see? SEE?!) guest-stars the fantastic Beth Riesgraf (who is stellar in the much underrated Leverage) as a top gamer. She… well, I’m not going to spoil the video for you – it’s best experienced for yourself:
It demonstrates a complete lack of care about the subject. And of course it’s not as if that’s unique to gaming – know anything about a subject and a TV show will drive you potty when it tries to make that the topic of the week. Oh, and try watching a medical drama with a nurse – insufferable. (Apart from the inevitable sci-fi convention episode of anything, of course – they always get those exactly right.) But it’s when their attention turns to our games that we prick up our ears.
There are so many more examples of this, in film and television. What we want you to do is let us know of any you know of, in the comments below. Ideally with a YouTube link. I’ll collect them all together and we can create The Screen’s Ultimate Guide To Those Videogames. It will be amazing, the internet will cheer.
Thanks to 10rdBen for the tip.
10/03/2011 at 12:41 Srekel says:
There’s some relevant info in this reddit comment:
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/g041n/ncis_technical_writers_hard_at_work_trolling_pc/c1jxpjh
Including some additional videos as per your request.
10/03/2011 at 12:58 godgoo says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygB0ZviqXac
REALTIME!? must be cryengine2!
10/03/2011 at 13:41 bowl of snakes says:
awesome, thanks for pointing out that thread! it actually makes a lot of sense that it’s an in-joke, sort of like the wilhelm scream for writers on those paint by numbers grandmother-target-market dramas
10/03/2011 at 14:40 TuesdayExpress says:
Saw that thread on reddit yesterday, and I caught the episode last week (tangent: god, how that show has slid downhill since its first couple of seasons). I gotta say, I don’t buy the ‘in-joke’ thesis.
The entire treatment of tech and gaming was so ridiculously unreal that I never entertained the thought that it was a sly wink-n-nod by the writers. Instead, it came across as a script written by people who grew up playing early arcade games and have a passing familiarity with the existence of online gaming, but really have no idea beyond that.
If it was an attempt at humor, it fell incredibly flat and just made the show seem completely out of touch with its subject matter.
*edited for speeling
10/03/2011 at 17:20 President Weasel says:
I agree that NCIS has gone miles downhill, I get a strong impression that the lead actors just don’t care any more and are just going through the motions, phoning in charicatures of their characters. Tony in particular always seemed seconds from going “Film quote, film quote, I’m the cheeky one, McGee is a geek… sod it, what’s the use?”
It’s gone from a show I looked forward to (as well-made crime procedural with a bit of vim, not as a piece of high art or anything) to one I don’t even bother to obtain from internets any more. What a shame.
10/03/2011 at 12:41 limbclock says:
Ooooh, i remember this movie, yeah? Where this dude was frozen in the 1940s as a part of a military experiment. These two kids find him, and then they manage to unthaw him, before running away.
I remember this scene where like, the kid was playing F-zero in single player mode( Or was it Final Fantasy) on the SNES. It was clear that it was one player game YET THE BOTH DUDES were thumbing around in their controllers.
The scene ends when the kid answers the door, and the unthawed guy is behind it.
10/03/2011 at 16:09 DeathHamsterDude says:
‘Twas California Man? Or Encino Man as it is called in the Colonies?
Ah, Pauly Shore, Brendan Fraser, Sean Astin. Good times . . . Buuuuudddddddyy!
. . .
*EDIT* Oh wait no. Sorry. Didn’t notice the 1940s part! ;( Just read frozen dude and I was like HUZZAH!
10/03/2011 at 16:44 fionny says:
Forever Young, with Mel Gibson
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104291/
10/03/2011 at 18:14 Baines says:
Mistakes like that happen all the time in TV and movies.
It was rather common for TV shows to mismatch the game being shown (or heard) and the system (or controllers) visible. You would hardly ever have the two match, and I’ve even seen cases where the controllers didn’t even match the system being shown. In the old days of sitcoms, you wouldn’t even see the game itself, they’d just add sound effects afterwards. I’d also heard that some later shows actively avoided correctly showing a game, because that would fall into the realm of product placement, so they’d intentionally mismatch systems and game video.
Movies do it a lot too. One in particular that annoyed me was My Schoolmate the Barbarian, as the game actually figured into the storyline. You could see they were playing Rival Schools, but they kept talking about secret kill moves that had motions that bordered on absurd even for a Mortal Kombat title.
10/03/2011 at 18:34 Rich says:
I remember an episode of Lost that had a bunch of Iraqis playing Half-Life. On the Playstation… did that happen? Anyway, one is trying to dispatch a zombie but shouts “I’m out of bullets!”, the other suggest “Use the crowbar”, to which the first guy protests “The crowbar doesn’t work on zombies!”.
As I remember, the writing in that show went down quickly from there.
10/03/2011 at 18:59 Unaco says:
@Rich
Yes, there was a Playstation 2 version of HalfLife… it was ported a few years after the PC release, and contained HalfLife:Decay, an exclusive expansion.
In addition, there were actually numerous references and allusions to HalfLife in LOST. Jacks father, constantly being seen in the distance and then walking off… The G Man. There was also another scene, iirc, when Locke was born, Richard Alpert was at the hospital, in his ’50s style sharp suit, outside the room, seen through the glass window… not sure if he straightened his tie first, but he then walks off, again, very similar to the G Man. I think he later turns up when Locke is a young boy, with a briefcase. There was also a possible smaller reference in “Our Mutual Friend”, the Dickens book that Desmond carried around… that also being what Vance referred to the G Man as.
On the other side, there are also some LOST references in HL2 Ep2… the White Forest Station symbol is a DHARMA Initiative symbol with 3 trees in the middle, and there’s a computer monitor constantly outputting the ‘numbers’.
11/03/2011 at 07:56 MultiVaC says:
Those bald guys in Fringe, the watchers or whatever, were also incredibly G-Man like. They have the weird speech and everything, and the role they play in the show is really similar to his in Half-Life. I’m pretty sure they even used the phrase “unforeseen consequences” at one point.
10/03/2011 at 12:41 mere_immortal says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFfJ4ZC1AtA
Extra points for the papyrus font use.
10/03/2011 at 14:43 bascule42 says:
Fixed:
http://youtubedoubler.com/?video1=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DHFfJ4ZC1AtA&start1=19&video2=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DEGj_gdAAcOw&start2=&authorName=Crazy+Monsta
10/03/2011 at 12:42 Scythe says:
This video caused me actual, physical pain.
10/03/2011 at 23:01 Jhoosier says:
Eight seconds in and I had to stop.
10/03/2011 at 12:42 Batolemaeus says:
Wat
10/03/2011 at 12:45 simonh says:
This could be another explanation:
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/f2i7t/ive_written_for_tv_shows_like_csi_and_numbers/
I really, really hope so anyway.
10/03/2011 at 13:50 bastronaut says:
Which leads to this (Beware: TV Tropes):
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DidNotDoTheResearch
10/03/2011 at 13:58 Man Raised by Puffins says:
This seems apt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNSSCAcyd7c
10/03/2011 at 14:28 Mman says:
If we’re doing TV Tropes how about the trope itself?: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PacManFever
10/03/2011 at 12:46 Easydog says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZlQkzYjs-g&feature=player_embedded
Unfortunately I can’t find a clip that works in britain, but this was an episode of ‘Law and Order: SVU’ about the perils of pc gaming leading to child neglect. It’s hilarious.
10/03/2011 at 12:55 Easydog says:
Whoops, already posted. Sorry.
10/03/2011 at 12:59 Easydog says:
And one that gets it right :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAVvSnE9J9o&feature=related
10/03/2011 at 13:43 SLeigher says:
Yes, that Office episode is still the only thing I have ever seen on TV that doesn’t make gamers feel like 12 year old micspammers and 40 yr old perverts at the same time, but then the office has always been a bit weird like that, firstly it’s a british remake which is actually good and hell they even spent a whole episode just watching glee this seasn
10/03/2011 at 14:25 Oozo says:
“Yes, that Office episode is still the only thing I have ever seen on TV that doesn’t make gamers feel like 12 year old micspammers and 40 yr old perverts at the same time”
I beg to differ:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXj9muy2gM4&feature=related
10/03/2011 at 12:46 Ginger Yellow says:
Spaced is the only TV show I’ve seen that actually gets gaming right.
10/03/2011 at 12:47 Giant, fussy whingebag says:
The Guild doesn’t count, I suppose…
10/03/2011 at 12:48 Hoaxfish says:
Spaced is generally awesome.
I’ve not seen “The Guild”.
10/03/2011 at 12:53 James G says:
Brian: What are you playing?
Tim: Tomb Raider 3.
Brian: She’s drowning.
Tim: Yeah.
Brian: Is that the point of the game?
Tim: Depends what mood you’re in really.
Brian: What sort of mood are you in then?
Tim: Well, I got a letter from my ex-girlfriend this morning, 3 months too late, explaining why she dumped me. It was full of ‘you’ll always be special’ and ‘I’ll always love you’ platitudes designed to make me feel better whilst simultaneously appeasing her deep seated sense of guilt for dumping me, running off with a slimy little city boy called Duane and destroying my faith in everything which is good and pure.
Brian: So it didn’t really work then.
Tim: No, it made me wanna drown things!
10/03/2011 at 12:59 Xocrates says:
The Guild is a web-series. So, no, it doesn’t count.
10/03/2011 at 16:03 Malibu Stacey says:
Probably because Simon Pegg co-wrote Spaced & has actually played some games.
10/03/2011 at 16:59 Dances to Podcasts says:
I find anime gets it right quite often as well. But then they usually set it in some sort of at least near-future kind of setting, so that gives them a bit more wiggle room.
10/03/2011 at 17:33 Hoaxfish says:
“But then they usually set it in some sort of at least near-future kind of setting, so that gives them a bit more wiggle room.”
exactly how much wiggle room do you allow when the computer games often turn into super-magical girls?
10/03/2011 at 12:47 Giant, fussy whingebag says:
John Walker Journalism shall strike again!
Of course, this time will be even more ineffectual, since TV will (in general) always be wilfully ignorant of anything more complex than a… something not very complex.
Still, I cheer from the internet!
10/03/2011 at 12:48 SimonHawthorne says:
Best Comment on the YouTube vid:
And the news headlines the next day were: “TELEVISION SHOW MAKES NONSENSICAL VIDEO GAME REMARK. MMO PLAYERS FURIOUS, NORMAL PEOPLE UNAFFECTED.
JesseZinVT 7 hours ago 9
10/03/2011 at 12:51 Hoaxfish says:
clear evidence that computer games make us violent
10/03/2011 at 13:50 Solcry says:
Seems like a Sims Ticker Tape headline.
10/03/2011 at 14:20 noom says:
Quite brilliantly put. This video doesn’t piss me off at all, but it is hilarious.
10/03/2011 at 12:49 General Frags says:
She beat World of Warcraft! jesus.
But yeah on topic its obvious the writers are trolling the more geekier/gaming fans, I don’t think any TV show has got gaming right even the gaming ones.
10/03/2011 at 13:29 Lambchops says:
As someone mentioned above gets videogaming right, there’s a couple of good gags with it (drowning Lara, Daisy Steiner Wins) but mostly it’s just there uncommented on, something that the characters do in their spare time.
As for specific videogame shows getting it right I think Videogaiden is the perfect example. Sadly only on at silly o’clock in Scotland it reatured Rab “cardboard children” Florence and his comedy partner in crime Ryan Mcleod. It was passionate, funny, never took itself too seriously and by a long way the best TV show on games (though when your competition was pretty much only “Bits” then that’s not really saying much!). Think the episodes are still online, they’re well worth watching if you haven’t seen them. The God Hand review in particular is brilliant.
10/03/2011 at 13:54 phlebas says:
Video Gaiden was on actual TV? I had no idea.
10/03/2011 at 14:04 Man Raised by Puffins says:
Barely, the Beeb handled the final series a bit better and had it going up on the website as it aired. In fact, it’s still there. Good show.
Consolevania on the other hand was an entirely web based series.
10/03/2011 at 14:50 President Weasel says:
GAIDEN!
(sorry, don’t know what came over me)
Best gaming show ever.
10/03/2011 at 16:07 Malibu Stacey says:
It used to be on here in Scotland around midnight on a Sunday night IIRC but that was on “BBC Scotland” so if it showed at all in the rest of the UK it may have been at a different time.
The episode when Rab & Ryan ‘review’ Brain Training on the DS in the 2nd series is a classic.
10/03/2011 at 20:31 theblazeuk says:
Funnily enough I took a peek at VideoGaiden’s broadcast history the other day though I’ve never seen the show in my life (It definitely only aired on BBC Scotland and the web)
10/03/2011 at 12:51 Gap Gen says:
That scene would have been perfect had they started kissing. I want to write that kind of beautiful nonsense screenplay when I grow up.
10/03/2011 at 12:51 robotco says:
damn. the high score in virtually every single MMO? dat bitch must gots da mad cash yo.
10/03/2011 at 13:33 neolith says:
Aw man… there’s HIGHSCORES in MMOs now? We truly live in interesting times!
10/03/2011 at 13:49 Jake says:
maybe it meant the highest number of WoW achievement points in the world, and the other games that probably have these too, except if she really did this she’d look like a freaking paper-skinned gremlin with bloodshot golum eyes. And the scene would be way less cute.
10/03/2011 at 12:53 adonf says:
You know what is not realistic in this clip ? There’s no way this guy didn’t reply something like “I’ve got a 10-Meg pipe for you right here.” No way !
10/03/2011 at 12:54 infovore says:
Perfect timing: the CSI:NY “Second Life” episode was on last night, and managed to bear almost no resemblance to SL or indeed anything that’s possible with technology. Abysmal, even by the standards of the show. (Please don’t ask me why I ended up watching it).
See also the Reddit thread on this exact topic, and in particular, this comment collecting all the terrible instances of US TV drama trolling gamers with increasingly inaccurate allusions. Dexter playing Halo 3 on a PC keyboard is high on the list.
10/03/2011 at 13:07 General Frags says:
Why don’t we have Halo 3 on PC is Microsoft trolling us if Dexter has it.
10/03/2011 at 12:55 pauljeremiah says:
My fav is the Bones epiosde “punkypong” which was pretty much a rip off of “The King of Kong” excpet the Billy Mitchell charatcer kills Steve…..or did he.
and it’s also the epiosde with all the Avatar adverts in it.
10/03/2011 at 13:32 Acorino says:
Back to NCIS, the episode’s name “Kill Screen” also reminded me of King of Kong. This was what players of Donkey Kong called the last screen you can reach in the game, where Mario just dies for no particular reason a few seconds in.
10/03/2011 at 13:43 innokenti says:
There’s also that earlier Bones episode where a kid is supposed to have written a superior FPS game before Doom came out. It was on a (still-readable) 5″ diskette and looked like a very poor attempt from the 00′s.
Oh how I laughed (and cried).
10/03/2011 at 17:33 Shagittarius says:
I have lots of 5.25″ disks and almost all of them are perfectly readable.
10/03/2011 at 12:58 Out Reach says:
LE GASP SPOILERS! we’re still on season 7 here in the UK :|
10/03/2011 at 13:05 Sarlix says:
Skank horde!
10/03/2011 at 13:06 Lars Westergren says:
Tony Soprany “playing” Mario Kart 64 by just holding the controller with one hand. “Watch out for the ghost!” Classic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxy-qjy_cGM
The Swedish/German “Beck” series of movies from the mid 90s loosely based on the Sjövall & Wahlöö books were a treasure trove of anxieties of how horrible and confusing the modern world is, and why-can’t-we-all-go-back-to-good-old-fashioned-social-democrat-values? In one episode (forget the name) there are a number of brutal killings in the Stockholm subway. Turns out it’s a gang of boys in their early teens doing this, in the final scene on of these “poor innocents twisted by the modern world” screams in anguish that “I have to do it, the violent computer games have taught me that you must kill a certain number of people to reach ‘the next level’!”. It is heavily implied that this is epidemic that will spread out of control unless “something is done about it”. But of course the greedy and ignorant politicians refuse to shoulder their responsibility. Beck and his crew of world weary policemen shake their heads. Screen fades to black.
10/03/2011 at 14:11 MadTinkerer says:
I think that was a subtle plot point: “This thing ain’t steering right”, “Kicking your butt with one hand” (while cheating).
Alternately: You saying Tony Soprano needs both hands to play a videogame? You better watch your mouth, or you’ll be getting a visit from some wise guys!
10/03/2011 at 14:51 Lars Westergren says:
Yeah, I know console games are usually easy (tee-hee), but not even touching the controls? Just holding it limply in one hand?
10/03/2011 at 13:12 Hoaxfish says:
Remember that Sony advert about “Lame Castle”, and then someone actually made a game called Lame Castle as a follow-up/free advertising/etc…
Someone should try and make every one of these “screw-ups” into reality. … at least, I wouldn’t mind seeing more MMOs adopt a sort of point-scoring acade mechanic (not like overall, but maybe the odd PvP minigame etc)
10/03/2011 at 13:16 Deano2099 says:
Leverage actually had quite a nice (and timely) Warcraft reference in it.
What confuses me is, they obviously made some effort – someone had to mock up a title screen for that game, and it’s clearly based on WoW… why not spend the extra five minutes to get the facts right?
The biggest perpetrator of this was that damn South Park World of Warcraft episode. It got just enough wrong to make it jarring for people that did play the game (and much of the rest would have gone over the heads of people who didn’t).
10/03/2011 at 14:01 DJ Phantoon says:
I think the episode was really for those orphaned and widowed by that game.
I don’t mean literally, but it might as well be for some people.
10/03/2011 at 14:31 drewski says:
They play it for laughs, though. And South Park is basically 14 years (or however many it’s been running) of exaggeration.
10/03/2011 at 16:10 Malibu Stacey says:
That would be the South Park episode produced with the assistance of Blizzard using a custom version of the engine would it then?
What do Blizzard know about World of Warcraft anyway?
10/03/2011 at 17:36 Shagittarius says:
Yeah it was totally off, I shit into socks not bowls and my mom doesn’t help me.
10/03/2011 at 21:40 Deano2099 says:
@everyone – Exactly my point! It was done with Blizzard, but still had some silly inaccuracies, none which made the episode any funnier.
12/03/2011 at 13:23 finbikkifin says:
Leverage didn’t so much have a WoW reference as it had an episode where one of the team misses the heist because the new expansion released, and then uses it to bond with people while he’s social engineering his way into a company. Bit more than just a throwaway line.
That episode had horrendous cgi, though. The Leverage cgi guys cannot do planes.
13/03/2011 at 10:42 RegisteredUser says:
Oh Shagittarius. You made me lulz. Sincerely.
10/03/2011 at 13:17 Lars Westergren says:
How long since was it Hollywood stopped monitors projecting onto the face of people using it? I don’t watch much films these days. But all text appears a character at a time with a beeping sound right? And if someone is searching in a database, the most efficient way to search is to use the Dijkstra algorithm where every single record is loaded and displayed on the screen, and then the words “NO MATCH” flash for a few seconds, right? I mean, only 0.001% of all humans have ever used a computer, so it’s ok if they add some stuff for drama. Not like anyone would notice.
I mean, even The Wire, for all it’s smarts, have these stupid things. Cops sitting spending day after day staring at an animation on the screen of containers being loaded on to trucks, and only if they spot the container sprite suddenly vanishing into thin air can they see if something fishy is going on. (Reminded of the ThinkGeek t-shirt: “GO AWAY OR I WILL REPLACE YOU WITH A SMALL SHELL SCRIPT”.)
Edit: Ooh, I remembered another one. The whole Simpsons WoW episode. Simpsons is so terribly unfunny these days. They have become the very things they mocked back when their satire had some edge to it.
For a pretty good WoW parody, read the Yarn of Yarncraft chapter of Sluggy Freelance. Starting here.
http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/080728
10/03/2011 at 13:20 Choca says:
Religious people are all fanatics, rich people are evil jerks while poor people are heartwarming goody two shoes, scientists are all giant nerds with no life, gamers are sociopaths in training, teenagers are actually 28 years old, lesbian bars are full of girls looking like models and everyone who isn’t leading a life following the basic principles established as “standard” by the show is portrayed as an enormous freak.
This is TV.
10/03/2011 at 13:53 Gary W says:
You’ve forgotten another character type: the middle-aged divorcee undergoing an existential crisis at his second home in Provence.
Oh wait, that’s Literature.
10/03/2011 at 13:21 Sb3 says:
mmmmm….I want me one of those (apparently) fancy 10 meg pipes.
10/03/2011 at 13:25 Kieron Gillen says:
I’m just glad someone has finally rid the world of the Skank Horde.
KG
10/03/2011 at 13:32 HermitUK says:
But it’s an MMO. They’ll just respawn.
10/03/2011 at 13:46 Sarlix says:
She only killed the ones on the Isle of Cardias in Bloodfun 6, apparently…
10/03/2011 at 19:16 jonfitt says:
If you head into any British town on a Saturday night, you’ll see the Skank Horde are still alive and well.
Ho ho!
10/03/2011 at 13:26 Kaira- says:
Wait, wait, wait. High scores, in MMORPGs? Why no one told me of this before?
10/03/2011 at 13:32 Anton says:
Such writings would be the thing that’ll drive gamers like us to rape and pillage, NOT BULLETSTORM! =P
10/03/2011 at 13:35 WMain00 says:
The entire skank horde?
SKANK HORDE?!
10 MEGABYTE PIPE BECAUSE I NEED THE EXTRA SPEED?
High score in EVERY MMO? There’s a high score?
Jesus…fucking…christ.
10/03/2011 at 15:47 iniudan says:
You forgot she using a 16 cores computer to play freaking MMO.
Wtf use computer cluster to play video game. (other then early day gamers who only option was to play on the university super computer, but that go back to time where people like Sid Meier were student and did punch card tic tac toe program =p)
10/03/2011 at 13:35 Nick says:
NCIS does generally have a sense of humour, plus it has Illya Kuryakin in it. What I’m saying is, its probably worth attempting to watch the first season or so as I know you like your US telly, John.
10/03/2011 at 13:36 N'Al says:
NCIS is terrible. That is all.
10/03/2011 at 13:36 Anton says:
I remember watching an episode of LIFE wherein the protagonist was able to destroy a desktop PC by spilling coffee over the keyboard. I was like, woah! I do that every time, I just replace my keyboard! douchebag writers!
10/03/2011 at 15:32 Bret says:
Also, they did an episode where Prince of Persia has levels and a high score table.
Overall, though, Life was a pretty great show.
10/03/2011 at 13:38 bastronaut says:
I’m desperately trying to think of something to say that isn’t self-evident. I generally hate the televisions. I do not have TV service (cable/satellite). I watch only excellent, short-run shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men. Breaking Bad does some science, and man, they get it right. I don’t know if they get drug dealing culture right, but it doesn’t matter, because the characters are fascinating and the writing is fantastic.
Good writing transcends trivial facts about the subject matter, but any writer worth a damn ensures that it at least feels right if they have to use domain-specific knowledge or depict interactions in a distinct cultural milieu. It is drama, not history.
If you’ve seen The Wire, the same guys also made a short called The Corner. I, for one, haven’t watched it. It’s supposed to be a true-to-life depiction of heroin addiction, unlike The Wire, which is a highly sophisticated drama featuring insightful characters and searing dialogue.
I don’t mind if writers choose to dramatize gamers, to change the facts or even the feel, if they can help give me insight into how people work, and reveal the drama and excitement. But these day-to-day TV writers aren’t after that. Hacks like them need to get words on paper, any words. There’s a big machine, not to mention an even bigger audience, hungry for content, any content. As long as it fulfills a few needs: scare them, titillate them, confirm their biases and satisfy their simplistic sense of right and wrong.
Now, I’m sure there are no games that steep to such simplistic pandering. [cough]Bulletstorm[/cough]
10/03/2011 at 13:40 Nick says:
Nothing beats CSI for amusing computer game stuff though.
10/03/2011 at 17:58 bleeters says:
Indeed. There’s an especially loathsome CSI: Miami episode that springs to mind, ‘Urban Hellraisers’.
Highlights include:
- Students who play a game so much, they eventually become bored and attempt to replicate it in reality by robbing banks, gunning random people down, breaking into a police statios guns a blazin’, so on and so forth.
- When caught, one player who boasts about being ‘ahead on points, Johnny Law’.
- A player known as ‘the wizard’ who kept track of scores, and is found dead at his computer after playing for 72 hours straight. Bottled urine included.
- A games development head who refuses to reveal what else happens in his game, suggesting that they play it themselves to find out. No such thing as the internet, I suppose.
- “Play the game, Mr Wolf. You’re the only one that knows how!”
Watching it gave me a nosebleed.
10/03/2011 at 13:48 Desvergeh says:
Most amusing TV game episode I have seen is one in Ghost Whisperer, featuring some kind of MMO. No idea of episode name, but seemed to be hailed as the nadir of the show (one which is overall awful already).
Also remember seeing some prior episode of NCIS revolving around a MMO (seemingly inspired by Everquest). I think the plot was about some sailor killing another over some sword in the game. It was laughably ill-informed, and probably in response to similar real-life events.
10/03/2011 at 13:55 trjp says:
Worst thing about Ghost Whisperer is that it’s the work of a genuine ‘corpse botherer’ (thanks to Derren Brown for that job title) – James van Praaaaaaaaghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh – or ‘cunt’ as he’s more widely known.
Could be worse tho – could be Medium, which is based on the life of an actual person who really exists and – and this astonishes me – is MORE ANNOYING that the woman in the fucking TV series (hardly possible, you’d think).
10/03/2011 at 13:49 Centy says:
Dare we go into that awful episode of House with the video game developer and the 3 player coop monkeys shooting aliens thing in the virtual reality suite?
10/03/2011 at 15:12 shoptroll says:
That was pretty bad, I’m surprised no one linked that clip in here yet. Which was a weird direction for them to take since the writers seemed to have some amount of a clue in the earlier seasons when they showed House occasionally playing Metroid on a GBA.
10/03/2011 at 15:29 Dan Forever says:
Oh that was awful – they’ve also been playing it in more recent episodes, with light guns…
10/03/2011 at 13:50 Muzman says:
How many cores? What’s it doing, modelling climate?
10/03/2011 at 13:51 bastronaut says:
She got all the top scores on those MMORPGs playing them at the same time.
10/03/2011 at 13:51 Surgeon says:
Oh my God, don’t even mention the whole ‘watching a medical drama with a nurse’ thing.
Bane of my life.
It doesn’t even have to be a medical drama, or even TV.
The rubbing of the defibrillators in Bad Company 2 is enough for an epic rant.
10/03/2011 at 13:53 trjp says:
I think it’s important to understand very little of the world if you wish to enjoy it’s TV Drama.
An understanding of Police procedure, emergency medicine, computers, forensics or – for that matter – common sense! – will spoil all this no-brainer shit instantly.
Now I just need to avoid knowing anything about Meth and I can continue to rate Breaking Bad as my favourite TV ever!!
10/03/2011 at 13:54 Rii says:
There’s an episode of Angel (late S5 as I recall) in which Spike is seen playing an video game. The game itself is off-screen, but the sound effects are clearly those of the original Super Mario Bros (or Donkey Kong, I can’t remember) despite Spike clearly holding an Xbox controller and the year being 2003 or something. > >
10/03/2011 at 13:56 Zogtee says:
Emulator?
10/03/2011 at 13:55 Zogtee says:
So… Is that it? The high score reference? Is that genuinely all this is about?
For the record, NCIS has featured several gaming and geek references during the earlier seasons and you know what? There was nothing wrong with them!
10/03/2011 at 13:57 trjp says:
Ha – you fell into our trap of admitting you watch this brainless shit.
“Oh look – CSI is popular – let’s make a series with letters as the name”
“CSI – hmmm CIS? ACIS? NCIS!! – now, create some bland characters and stupid plots and we’ll screen it next week”.
10/03/2011 at 14:25 Walsh says:
Is that a 12 port?
NO, A 16!
10/03/2011 at 14:00 obvioustroll says:
Can’t be as bad as this
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/43423/Two-hours-gaming-a-line-of-cocaine
What is it with computer games that makes people want to hate?
10/03/2011 at 14:10 vodka and cookies says:
NCIS is made for very old people who love generic procedurals so it’s distorted view of gaming is in a weird way probably what it’s audience actually think gaming is.
10/03/2011 at 14:35 drewski says:
Yes, there’s nothing old people like more than watching a spunky goth girls sass her boss.
Have you ever even *seen* NCIS?
10/03/2011 at 14:14 Headwired says:
Anybody else remember when Karl Kennedy from Neighbours got addicted to Magic Carpet for the PC?
He got some computer geek to hack the high scores so it seemed like he’d beaten the game, but crafty Libby caught him out by asking him how he beat the final boss. That minx.
10/03/2011 at 15:42 jonfitt says:
Yes!
A decade later they would still use the Magic Carpet sound effects when someone was “playing a game”.
10/03/2011 at 19:04 Jimbo says:
I remember that. Libby was such a dream kitten. *nostalgic sigh*
10/03/2011 at 14:23 TooNu says:
This is BS, girls don’t play MMO’s!
10/03/2011 at 14:31 Juiceman says:
Yes they do. They are all just fat and ugly.
10/03/2011 at 15:09 Lars Westergren says:
@Juiceman
Two comments from you on this thread, and both consisting of little but misogyny. Is this going to be a theme with you?
10/03/2011 at 17:43 Shagittarius says:
@Lars Westergren
So can ugly dudes really pick up chicks with that schtick?
10/03/2011 at 20:13 Lars Westergren says:
@Shaggitarius
If I find an ugly guy who uses that schtick to pick up chicks, I’ll ask him for you. I’m sure you need all the help you can get.
13/03/2011 at 11:05 stahlwerk says:
2 out of the three WoW players I know personally are female, slender and attractive. You see, when people say that WoW was a game changer because it was played by gamers from all kinds of backgrounds, that is what they actually mean: you can’t really assume anything about anyone online (just as Shagittarius proved, perhaps unwittingly). We as gamers are not sitting in the club tree house anymore, so we should stop acting like it. Anyway Props where props are due to NCIS for not perpetrating that tired acne’d and awkward male gamer stereotype.
10/03/2011 at 14:28 mandrill says:
Yeah, TV dramas are notorious for things like this.
Star Trek was the most accomplished at throwing in mulligans because the writers were creative about them (Heisenberg Compensator anyone?). Simply throwing jargon from a widely known field of technology around doesn’t work though because when you get it wrong you look like an idiot. (The Parsec Gaff in Star Wars is probably the most notable of these, sci-fi doesn’t always get it right.)
10/03/2011 at 15:04 President Weasel says:
On Star Trek TNG they once scanned a planet and said its temperature was minus 2000 Kelvin.
That has stayed with me to this day.
10/03/2011 at 15:31 Dan Forever says:
Minus 2000 Kelvin?! That’s fantastic!
10/03/2011 at 22:16 RodeoClown says:
It was probably “Minus 2000, Kelvin”.
And I bet Kelvin was impressed.
10/03/2011 at 14:35 Juiceman says:
What do you expect it’s NCIS. This is the show that thinks the US government lets people show up to work dressed up like the ugly goth chick from your high school.
10/03/2011 at 14:37 drewski says:
NCIS might be just another procedural, but it’s written with warmth and wit so it’s a step up from the overdramatised CSI garbage. Not on the same level as Bones or Castle, though.
10/03/2011 at 14:43 trjp says:
I was forced to watch Castle once (too lazy to move) and it was – quite clearly – the worst TV I’ve ever seen.
I’d watch Duff Goldman laughing on endless repeat before I’d watch that again…
10/03/2011 at 14:47 drewski says:
You’ve done well to avoid daytime soaps and late afternoon game shows your whole life, then.
10/03/2011 at 14:41 Oozo says:
This one is almost ok, compared to other stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tXcPc1uZXY
Even though I wonder why they didn’t do the extra research and found out that Sub-Zero is not, actually, the final boss.
(They got The Sims pretty right, though.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0NG3Pxr18k
And then there was this…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2kKfcO7xUc
10/03/2011 at 14:41 Jorum says:
I think I’ll have to reinstall (and finally properly learn) Unity just so I can make
“Bloodfun 6: fury of the skankhorde”
10/03/2011 at 17:58 JibbSmart says:
Please do. Please please please. It doesn’t have to be complex. Just a survival-something with a high-score system, that gets ridiculously hard but is beatable if you’re as exceptional as MaxDestructo. Or whatever.
If you don’t I will, but with uni getting busy and my own game taking up a lot of time it’d have to wait for the Summer. And by then it won’t be funny anymore.
Jibb
10/03/2011 at 14:42 Megasoum says:
Reminds me of that scene from CSI:NY where the girl wants to create a GUI in Visual Basic to solve the problem!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkDD03yeLnU
10/03/2011 at 14:44 Hodag says:
Leverage does computers and gaming right moreso than not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaX_VfDieJo
10/03/2011 at 14:48 Alonzo Harris says:
This may have been mentioned already, but there’s a great moment from another episode of Life where Charlie needs to cause a distraction so he decides to “break the computers” by pouring coffee onto the keyboard of the computer in front of him, which breaks not only the computer connected to the keyboard but the one running the wall-mounted monitor as well.
10/03/2011 at 14:48 Quine says:
I’m going to throw in here the woeful state of newspaper coverage of games- not the headline-grabbing rampage hype, but the coverage in the actual games/technology parts of the press.
It’s like they try and find the most lightweight technophobe buzzword-o-philes and tell them to knock out a few hundred words on Blops by lunchtime because all the other papers are banging on about it, or fill a year’s worth of columns on Second Life like it’s relevant to ‘gaming’, or somehow write an entire column on some totally meta riff about some side-effect of a casual game they once read about, rather than something that might appeal to people that play more than the occasional Wii karaoke session once a year.
And relax…
10/03/2011 at 14:49 Unaco says:
“Oh, and try watching a medical drama with a nurse – insufferable. ”
I tried to watch an episode of House with my brother and his girlfriend, both Doctors. I had to throw them out of the room eventually. Apparently, according to them, ‘Scrubs’ is/was the most accurate television portrayal of the practice of medicine.
That clip was pretty horrible, and so was the rest of the episode (guy uses an MMO to hide and sell secrets? Gibbs destroys the machine about to strip the security from the Pentagon network by shooting a flat screen monitor?).
In the end however, it’s entertainment… so I don’t think you can rag on them too much. How entertaining (for the general public) would a realistic portrayal of the subject matter be? Discussing armour combinations and the stacking buffs? What DPI do you use for mouse control in this shooter? Are you a WASD user, or ESDF user? Similarly… if a medical drama/procedural tried to do that, it wouldn’t be entertaining (House would have been struck off in Episode 1). Same with any other kind of drama, be it forensics, police work, lawyers… whatever. And, I dare say, it’s probably not just TV… movies, books, comics, and games themselves are guilty of this.
I’ve been tempted to pick up SpaceChem (someone I know has been raving about it) so I checked back on the Quinz WIT of it, and I quoth…
“Before we start this review, the first thing you need to do, right now, is ditch any preconceptions you’ve made off the back of SpaceChem’s chemistry-related imagery, or the fact that the screenshots look, at worst, like educational software. I can guarantee that you will learn almost nothing of any value, scientific or otherwise, playing this game. Your leisure hours are safe. If I have any chemists reading this, I can also guarantee that you’ll suck at SpaceChem as much as the rest of us. Sorry, chemists.”
So, SpaceChem has very little relevance to actual Chemistry… in fact, there’s probably a group of Chemists out there some were laughing at silly computer gamers and their silly computer game trying to show Chemistry.
Or, there’s a bunch of Generals getting together (over cigars and fine whisky) to laugh at and complain about all these RTS players… “Ha Ha! What fools… thinking they can pan their view around the battlefield like that, or just order troops at the barracks! Idiots I say! Why are they playing this crap?”
10/03/2011 at 14:52 drewski says:
“Gibbs destroys the machine about to strip the security from the Pentagon network by shooting a flat screen monitor?”
Maybe it was an iMac.
10/03/2011 at 15:25 Lilliput King says:
The thing about Spacechem re chemistry is that
a) It’s set way in the future or not in our universe as we know it. It is not contemporary.
b) SPOILERS (mild, but late in the game) – there are fantasy elements (both to the story and in the literal sense of additional elements). Spacechem is set in a fantasy world that is only attempting to be internally consistent.
The same can’t really be said of NCIS. It’s just pleasantly mindless technobabble for the vast majority of the audience. It’s a bit silly, but who cares.
10/03/2011 at 16:29 Dominic White says:
Spacechem specifically advertises itself as being a game ‘of ‘Fake Chemistry’.
http://store.steampowered.com/video/92800
Also (SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER AVERT YOUR EYES IF YOU WANT SURPRISES) The plot all goes rather Lovecraft as of World 4.
10/03/2011 at 16:45 Unaco says:
OK, so SpaceChem perhaps wasn’t the best example. But where, pray tell, does NCIS claim to be a realistic portrayal of video games or, indeed, anything? It doesn’t… it’s entertainment.
But I think my point still stands… Video games are just as guilty of poor representation as the medium of Television, or Movies, or Literature.
10/03/2011 at 18:04 JibbSmart says:
We’ve been going through Scrubs again lately, and asked a Doctor friend of ours if he found it painful. He said it was better than any other medical drama, and even things I thought were ridiculous stereotypes for the sake of comedy (like medical doctors are the chess club, surgeons are the jocks, orthopedic surgeons are the absolute jocks of the jocks) were actually generally true.
10/03/2011 at 18:48 Lambchops says:
According to one of my Doctor frineds the closest thing to a hospital is Green Wing. Which frankly scares the shit out of me!
As for the portrayel of games I stand by my opinion in the thread about historical innacuracy the Unaco posted further down. Yes innacuracies make me sigh but more often they make me laugh as well and above all it is just entertainment and most people are smart enough to take it with a pinch of salt. We should be more worried about shite journalism and questionable experts as they try to masquerade as truth (see Mr Pope and his cocaine).
10/03/2011 at 14:52 Gundato says:
NCIS is good for this kind of stuff. More often than not, McGee and Abby “hack” computers by both typing on the same keyboard at the same time. You just get used to this kind of stuff, and laugh.
Plus, this clip fails to show the very best part of that episode: To save the day from the distributed super-virus in the computer, Gibbs shoots a computer. With a gun. And it works. And it is glorious.
10/03/2011 at 15:45 Hoaxfish says:
The Net, with Sandra Bullock… a virus which takes over every database on the internet, allowing the villains to alter that data with ease… oh but wait, deleting the virus with a floppy disk restores all the data to its correct state as if the virus never happened, within seconds (via a lovely “screen melting” animation).
10/03/2011 at 14:52 heretic says:
what is it with the pipes?
10/03/2011 at 16:05 Sassenach says:
Well, it’s not as if the internet is a big truck.
10/03/2011 at 15:00 Headwired says:
Of course, there was Killer Net:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_Net
No good youtube clips to demonstrate how computer games turn us into psychopaths, but Charlie Brooker had some good clips of it on his recent episode of How TV Ruined Your Life.
Here’s Jason Orange’s star turn in it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQWqWzzr2JY
10/03/2011 at 15:04 Mephisto says:
“You hold the high score in virtually every massively multiplayer online role-playing game”
Hey buddy, I don’t have time to talk to you. Or eat, sleep, and defecate.
10/03/2011 at 15:06 strange headache says:
Wait, people are still watching TV?
10/03/2011 at 15:12 Hat Galleon says:
I would just like to mention that Walker is utterly right in saying that Leverage is a horrible unappreciated show. I would say it’s probably my favorite television show I’ve ever seen, and yet no one knows about it. It’s a crime, it is. (No pun intended.)
10/03/2011 at 15:13 Mungrul says:
I don’t think it’s really in the spirit of the article, as it doesn’t really get gaming wrong, but the Doom 2 cameo in Grosse Point Blank is AWESOME.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZt0fAZ018E
10/03/2011 at 15:15 Pinkables says:
I can’t quite bring myself to watch the whole of this episode again to find a decent youtube-able soundbite, but this episode of edgy Channel 4 drama Misfits made me actually want to kill someone (unlike any simulated violence or masturbatory practices that i may have engaged in (see below)).
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/misfits/4od#3161509
To spare you the trouble of actually watching the episode, it’s essentially about a chap who thinks he’s in Grand Theft Auto. There are shots from his perspective, which are clearly references to the GTA interface (they use the same font and graphical style) and he seems to have an obsession with killing people while speaking in a drab monotone, apparently thinking that he’s a character in a computer game with the most tedious dialogue ever.
The incident is poignantly summarised by one of the main characters with the line “That’s what you get when you spend all your time playing computer games and wanking”. Yes. You end up on a fully blown psychotic killing spree.
10/03/2011 at 15:45 Acorino says:
I felt that it was a satire about the perception of video games in our society, and not, how you felt, a demonization of them.
10/03/2011 at 16:24 Malibu Stacey says:
How is that any different to the episode of Spaced where Tim (Simon Pegg) stays up all night taking speed & playing Resident Evil 2 & then hallucinates zombies are attacking him & his friends? This is the episode which culminates in Tim puching David Walliams character in the face at an art show.
10/03/2011 at 20:53 Nick says:
Misfits is a comedy.
11/03/2011 at 05:41 Pinkables says:
I didn’t like the lack of context. It was nothing to do with superpowers or any of the other themes of the programme and it didn’t really get any explanation, although admittedly it was evident that the writers had actually played a computer game or two.
I also think that Spaced is a far better comedy. It could have spat in my eye and insulted my mother and i would still remember it fondly.
10/03/2011 at 15:16 BigJonno says:
Chuck is by far the best TV show for getting gaming (and general geek culture) stuff right.
10/03/2011 at 15:23 RagingLion says:
This might be vaguely relevant. There’s a Giant Bomb thread that aims to compile all video game appearances in TV and on film – though this often just includes clip of games appearing in a show/film rather than actually talking about gaming.
http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion/30/video-game-appearances-in-film-a-community-compilation-project/244713/?
10/03/2011 at 15:47 jonfitt says:
There was also an older NCIS where is was all about an MMORPG and some murdering because of it.
I think it was the one this guy is summarising:
http://spoonyexperiment.com/ncis/
10/03/2011 at 15:51 jonfitt says:
On a general computer note I was always amused by Scully’s computer on X-Files. She would type things with a pain blue background and GIANT WHITE LETTERS the size of a fist.
10/03/2011 at 22:20 RodeoClown says:
Obviously someone’s never used WordPerfect… (giant letters are still annoying though).
10/03/2011 at 16:20 Malibu Stacey says:
Awesome. Almost as awesome as defeating an entire alien race by uploading a virus from a mac to their space ships which disables their shields.
10/03/2011 at 16:58 Maxheadroom says:
Episode of Numb3rs (sorry, cant find a link)
They raid a drug barons house and recover his trashed PC. After an unsuccessful attempt to read the data by putting the hard drive into an identical PC (?) the tech lady announces “We’ll have to read the data directly with a magnetic probe”, at which point she pops the top off the hard drive (with surprising ease) waves a silver painted cotton bud over the exposed platters and the contents of the hard drive magically appears on the screen!
TV gold right there
10/03/2011 at 21:00 Nick says:
Magnets are great for your hardrive!
10/03/2011 at 17:07 Doug says:
Tony Soprano playing Mario Kart 64 is still my favorite
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxy-qjy_cGM
10/03/2011 at 17:09 Unaco says:
The other side of the coin. I think this is somewhat pertinent. Those in glass houses and all…
10/03/2011 at 17:12 Dances to Podcasts says:
Score in an MMO: http://www.wowpedia.org/Gearscore
10/03/2011 at 17:25 lafinass says:
The wife regularly has to pause NCIS because my ranting about their abuse of tech terms drowns out the audio.
10/03/2011 at 18:15 Uglycat says:
I’ve only been waiting since 2004 to use this but here’s ‘Anaconda: Hunt for Blood Orchid’ with a ruined ‘hard-drive’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb4J_0yXQdU#t=06m27s
10/03/2011 at 18:25 alseT says:
Criminal Minds had an episode where the IT girl was hacked through an RP server of Dark Age of Camelot but I can’t remember how much they butchered the subject matter.
10/03/2011 at 18:44 The Dark One says:
Supernatural does it right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El32aXMuaJ8
10/03/2011 at 19:19 Lambchops says:
Anything from the film Hackers is utterly silly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2efhrCxI4J0
An example of someone doing something interesting with a gaming concept (though not trying to be realistic in the slightest!) is eXistenZ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existenz). Quite a good film actually, although a bit convoluted and has one too many twisty bits.
11/03/2011 at 12:23 Malibu Stacey says:
Well it’s Cronenberg so twisty random non-sensical stuff is to be expected. Having said that it was the best movie he’d made since The Fly in my opinion until he started doing movies more acceptable to the mainstream like A History of Violence & Eastern Promises.
10/03/2011 at 19:27 dc2005 says:
damn, got late to this discussion.
Anyway, I found something really disturbing (to me), which is a really close relationship between Will Wright and a TV show that promotes the idea that videogames can generate terrorist attacks.
This TV show was conceptualized by Will Wright (that means Bar Karma is something like the natural son of Will Wright, with some Jason Lee Holm being the other father). (http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/02/bar-karma-will-wright/)
I went to check the TV show and I found something very worrying.
Episode 2 (first real episode after the pilot were you meet the main characters): Comic writer makes a new comic about a superhero/villain story -> comic gets translated into videogame -> videogame provokes terrorist acts! (caused by impressionable players that play the videogame).
AND THIS IN A TV SHOW PARTIALLY CREATED BY WILL WRIGHT? how it is that the first “real” episode, the first history presented by this show is about how videogames can cause school shootings, bombings and people sending anthrax to politicians? Please note that in the episode mentioned Will Wright APPEARS LISTED AS CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCER (http://current.com/shows/bar-karma/episodes/102/).
I hope that this get some spotlight, I think its time we stop linking videogames to school shootings, acts of terrorism and acts of violence in general. If we got angry that an ignorant media psychologist talks bullshit about videogames, what should it be our reaction when Will Wright is endorsing similar points of view?
You can watch the episode here http://www.videobb.com/video/jFilMrF8XaN8 just skip forward to minute 15 (or watch the whole thing for context)
10/03/2011 at 19:28 Shih Tzu says:
Veronica Mars. In Season One she puts on a wig and goes undercover at a totally sweet LAN party, picking up a controller and raining ownage on one of her prime suspects. Watching the clip, can you spot the part that might ring false with the coveted 13-29 demographic? (No fair reading the comments directly underneath.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YokF5xC7HRM
Buffy the Vampire Slayer deserves to be cut a little slack because it’s consciously set in a cheesy alternate-reality high school world, but even so, the episode in the first season about Willow falling in love with a demon on the internet, who later materializes as a killer robot, is REALLY bad. I can’t quite find any clips of the relevant awful oh-so-90s internet scenes, but here’s a pretty good one with some of the minor characters laying out the episode’s theme in as heavyhanded a fashion as they can manage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIZdQf_EPVA
And of course there are the “college of video game design” commercials. I remember seeing the first one and cracking up at it with my friends. Now that I’m in the industry, though, I can vouch that in fact it’s exactly like this. Really.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7675519043804402267#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwlE1aASc4g
10/03/2011 at 19:45 dr.castle says:
Try being a scientist and watching this type of show. Every episode is like this.
Disclaimer: I can’t stand this type of thing, so I’m basing this statement on a (thank god) very small sample size.
10/03/2011 at 21:48 Unaco says:
I am a Scientist. More than anything, The Venture Bros. has inspired me to do Super Science! They did something right there.
10/03/2011 at 23:15 Lambchops says:
Whenever made angry by dodgy science on TV a good way to forget about it all is to amuse yourself by watching Look Around You.
An experiment was carried out . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmw7JfsNzoY
So what can we conclude?
10/03/2011 at 19:47 Tei says:
*remove illuminaty mask*
She is a Chobit, thats why she have the highscore on all games!
10/03/2011 at 19:49 PhiIl Cameron says:
All these comments and no one mentions Fringe?
It’s got my favourite Tv-game moment, where, in doing an infection simulation, the entire world is consumed. The entire world, that is, except Madagascar. Bastion against any disease.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkA0RVN4Od8
Which is an reference to Pandemic 2, that flash game where you play a virus. Yeah, that one.
11/03/2011 at 12:25 Malibu Stacey says:
fucking Madagascar.
10/03/2011 at 20:03 BubbaNZ says:
If the nasty TV peeps get you down, just go laugh at the D&D geeks (an oldie but a goodie here):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmgLOKRl5J0
10/03/2011 at 20:08 BrunoNZ says:
There was an episode of Macgyver, where he’s using a computer to create a police identikit image. The long shot shows him sitting in front of a Macintosh, and then they cut to the over the shoulder shot to show the screen, and its Windows 3.1. Technology has always been treated thus by TV and movies ….
10/03/2011 at 20:21 Mxmlln says:
After watching that I am filled with RAGE!
10/03/2011 at 20:36 Stinkfinger75 says:
VR Chimp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8u2pyuPAPI
10/03/2011 at 21:06 DigitalSignalX says:
Yesterday my folks saw some National Geographic show about people who wardrive for wi-fi and try and steal data. I get a phone call that night “Do we have to worry about that, can they break into our email?”
My folks have a DSL connection directly to their PC. The only wireless devices they own are a TV remote and their vehicle door lock fobs.
Furthermore, I’ve installed a firewall on it, and their email is downloaded via outlook to their PC. How do you explain things like that? You don’t – and the writers for crime drama’s know it.
10/03/2011 at 22:02 BennyLava says:
Lies! There are no women on the internet!
11/03/2011 at 03:03 wu wei says:
Charlie Booker’s fantastic new series How TV Ruined Your Life (“don’t say it didn’t. it did.”) just covered this in its episode on “Progress”, how TV has influenced our relationships with other technology.
While it’s played for laughs, it is fascinating to see how British TV had effectively a cop-killer FPS a good 20-30 years before video games did, along with the better known tactic of criticising gaming violence while ostensibly ignoring what it itself shows.
I don’t buy the argument that this is an “in-joke” by writers. I do think it’s intentional though, in as much as no one wants to promote their inevitable replacement…
11/03/2011 at 05:35 adamiani says:
Wow.
This show must be cancelled immediately for its crimes.
11/03/2011 at 08:57 Buttertendo says:
This is quite something.
11/03/2011 at 12:43 JackShandy says:
He never got past level one of half life?
The train killed him EVERY TIME?
11/03/2011 at 10:27 JackShandy says:
Every single 90′s videogame commercial is 100% solid gold.
No exceptions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ1-aL2o_x0&NR=1&feature=fvwp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX4MdXF3OWI&feature=related
11/03/2011 at 12:32 Malibu Stacey says:
SEGA disagree.
11/03/2011 at 15:05 icemann says:
Heres a few video game appearances / episodes that were about them that I recall:
Doom 2 makes an appearance on ER:
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5oRIToWkRA
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlWIMyaz3C8&feature=related
They got it right for Doom 2 which was surprising.
X-Files had one episode where a VR AI was killing people. Can’t seem to find any youtube clips of it.
And one of my most favorite 90s shows of all time “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose” did an entire episode on video game addiction showing MANY shots of the game “Altered Beast” + others after one of the main characters becomes addicted to video games.
Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KEH7lmDYbs