Death of the Critic

First Person Shooters

Why Did I Watch That? - Harcore Henry

Written by: Tom Blaich

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I watched a bad movie today. It is sort of a guilty pleasure of mine. Watching bad movies that is. I revel in the terrible plots, paper-thin characters, cheesy effects, and wooden acting. It fuels me. I love them in a way that I can’t quite describe, or feel about bad games or music. To me, bad films deserve to be recognized, talked about, and maybe occasionally ridiculed. This one is no exception.

A frequent statement of derision within the community of movie reviews is to state that the film feels like a video game. To many of us who have actively engaged with games for a long time, this feels like a weird accusation to level. To us, games conjure images of world-trotting adventures, roguish main characters, white knuckled action and spectacular set pieces. And there is a whole realm of games outside of this mold that are doing their best to push the boundaries of storytelling as a medium, seeing how the player character’s interactions within a fixed game space can alter the meaning of the story that it is trying to communicate.

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