The episode quite comically highlights the stereotypes of generational and gender related differences between players. Pierce, the oldest character in the series (for those of you unfamiliar with it), spends the first five or so minutes of the game walking towards a wall, unaware of which character he actually is and unable to figure out the controls. Annie thinks the evil, flesh-eating 'hippies' of the game are cute and is, consequently, attacked by one of the them when she approaches it. Jeff then proceeds to accidentally kill Annie, whilst attempting to save her, and is then attacked by the hippie, himself. Through a series of other, pretty hilarious, events, the narrative accurately simulates the somewhat embarrassing process most 'non-gamers' through in attempting to figure out video game controls, rules and objectives.
If this episode and "Wreck-it-Ralph" serve as any evidence, the game-to-film/TV adaptations seem to work best when the film or television episode don't attempt to simulate any actual, or existing video game. Although, there are even tele-visual exceptions of this, such as the 'Mega Man' and 'Sonic the Hedgehog' cartoons, which were also pretty successful in their time.
I feel like I could probably write an entire thesis on the whole convergence process based on this episode alone, but:
and this post is long enough as it is (considering the attention span of the average college student).
To make it easy for all of you, and also in relation to Dane's "Next Gen Imaging" post, the main point I was trying to make with all of this is:
The convergence between media forms seems inevitable. Despite all the criticisms and protests over adaptations and whatnot, we have to keep in mind that this process is relatively recent, and still has a lot of growing to do before it can really stand on its own two feet.
If this episode and "Wreck-it-Ralph" serve as any evidence, the game-to-film/TV adaptations seem to work best when the film or television episode don't attempt to simulate any actual, or existing video game. Although, there are even tele-visual exceptions of this, such as the 'Mega Man' and 'Sonic the Hedgehog' cartoons, which were also pretty successful in their time.
I feel like I could probably write an entire thesis on the whole convergence process based on this episode alone, but:
To make it easy for all of you, and also in relation to Dane's "Next Gen Imaging" post, the main point I was trying to make with all of this is:
The convergence between media forms seems inevitable. Despite all the criticisms and protests over adaptations and whatnot, we have to keep in mind that this process is relatively recent, and still has a lot of growing to do before it can really stand on its own two feet.
Hear dat gurlfriend!! :) lol. Respect!
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