Being a gamer used to carry a bit of a stigma. Typically accompanied by the terms’ nerd, geek, or dork, these words have morphed into positives that many people sport as a badge of honor nowadays.
Thanks to Hollywood shining a light on what actual gamers are like, from recent TV shows like Apple TV’s Mythic Quest to the iconic video game movie of the ’80s, Tron, being a gamer, is finally as mainstream as it should be.
1 ‘Mythic Quest’ (2020-)
Ian Grimm (Rob McElhenney), the owner of the thriving video game design company that produces the game Mythic Quest, needs to work on keeping his game popular and keeping his staff happy too.
Mythic Quest is a love letter to the unacknowledged grinders of the gaming industry, the coders, and the creators. The TV series offers an original and authentic take on video games, creators, and gamers in a funny, intelligent, and sincere way.
2 ‘Gamer’ (2009)
In the movie Gamer, computer programmer Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall) develops a technology that allows humans to control other humans’ actions. He creates Slayers, a first-person shooter game whose “characters” are death-row prisoners using real weapons, promising that any Slayer who survives 30 matches will earn his freedom. John “Kable” Tillman (Gerard Butler) is the crowd’s favorite, having survived 27 matches.
Gamer is unnerving both in the plot and the premise. It uncovers what can happen if biotechnology and video games become too closely intertwined, which is part of the eerie attraction of the show. As viewers watch, there is a not-so-quiet understanding that once artificial intelligence and social networking fully connect, the world will drastically alter, although perhaps without any Hall dance scenes featuring Mr. Hall.
3 ‘Ready Player One’ (2018)
Ready Player One takes place in 2045, where people seek to flee from reality through the virtual reality universe called the OASIS, designed by James Halliday (Mark Rylance). When Halliday dies, a statement is released, gifting the ownership of the OASIS to the first person who finds the secret golden Easter egg within OASIS. Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) joins the hunt and finds much more than just the hidden Easter eggs.
Ready Player One is a wistful confirmation and acknowledgment for anyone who treasures gaming or the gaming culture. The film is bursting with cultural connections blended with action scenes and confidence. The audience is as enveloped in everything in the OASIS world just as much as the gamers are.
4 ‘The Last Starfighter’ (1984)
The Last Starfighter describes the story of ordinary teenager Alex Rogan (Lance Guest), who is recruited by a security force to fight in an interstellar war after achieving a high score on the Starfighter game. The game’s designer, Centauri (Robert Preston), reveals that he created Starfighter for the program.
For anyone who spent their childhood playing video games, The Last Starfighter is the utmost wish fulfillment. Not only are the viewers’ gaming skills recognized as unique, but they are also required to save the universe. The best word to define The Last Starfighter is magnetic. The movie is perfectly delightful, with bursts of comedy and action.
5 ‘Tron: Legacy’ (2010)
The son of renowned video-game developer Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) has been troubled by his father’s disappearance nearly twenty years ago in the movie Tron: The Legacy. Ultimately a bizarre signal pulls Sam into the same cyber world that Kevin is in, and they must locate a way to escape.
There is an incredible graphic beauty to Tron: The Legacy since it takes place within a video game. It is a polished shiny movie and delivers an eccentric cast of characters — which is ideal since the whole set is inside a video game. Not to mention the soundtrack supplied by Daft Punk is the perfect fit.
6 ‘Level Up’ (2012-2013)
When a portal to a video game is opened mistakenly by a group of high school students, characters from a video game start trickling into the real world in the TV series Level Up. The group discovers themselves fighting the video game villains and using NeverFail to help transmit the monsters back into the game by “barding” them.
The characters are surprisingly complex for an easygoing comedy series aired on Cartoon Network. The storylines are innovative, and the leaks from the video games are incredible. As a kids’ show, audiences can anticipate a fair share of levity, while the gamers have to go to ridiculous lengths to keep the visitors under wraps until they can get rid of them.
7 ‘Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle’ (2017)
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is about four high school kids who uncover an old video game console and are carted into the game environment when they start to play. Trapped in the game as a group of adult avatars, they must complete a quest alongside another player who has been trapped since 1996.
The update of the movie from a board game to a video game flawlessly mirrors the update of times. The movie is loaded with dynamic emotional power but still has an impressive comedic presence. It does a superb job of making the characters respect the boundaries and rules of the video game in a world that is real — sort of.
8 ‘WarGames’ (1983)
When David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) looks for new video games, he accidentally hacks into a military supercomputer in the movie WarGames. He asks the computer to play a game of Global Thermonuclear War between America and Russia, where he naively initiates the countdown to World War III.
WarGames became a gamer masterpiece that celebrated the nerd hero persona and even had a small hand in changing some of the American defense policies. The cultural influence of WarGames cannot be understated, and its commentary on the shaping role of the emerging technology culture. The movie is humorous and compelling while also bringing awareness to the potential risks of nuclear arms.
9 ‘Tron’ (1982)
The film Tron tells the tale of computer engineer Kevin Flynn (Bridges) and his endeavor to hack into his own system when he learns that Ed Dillinger (David Warner) has been stealing his work. While attempting to hack, Flynn disappears into the computer world, where he has to face off against several foes and ultimately becomes a freedom fighter for the victimized programs of the grid.
When Tron emerged in 1982, the concept of being positioned directly into a video game was every player’s fantasy. Even in today’s virtual reality world, that are still numerous gamers’ dreams: watching the light cycles for the first time may not be as innovative as it was in 1982, but it is still rather impressive.
10 ‘Free Guy’ (2021)
When bank teller Blue Shirt Guy (Ryan Reynolds) learns he is a non-player character (an NPC) in Free City, he evolves into the hero of his own story. In the movie Free Guy, Guy decides to partake in only the positive missions and is determined to save the day his way.
Free Guy‘s charm and appeal is its genuineness. The film also delivers something not ever thought about, asking gamers to find the ability to discover empathy for or with NPCs. In addition, Free Guy breaks down gamer stereotypes altogether, depicting people of all ages, genders, and races playing the game.
