Alex Navarro Assistant Editor

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Game Over: An Apt Title Indeed

As the video game business continues to grow beyond its current means, it is an inevitability that people from other facets of the entertainment industry will attempt to find ways to capitalize on this growing industry. I mean, it's really only natural, especially considering how much these other facets do it to one another on a regular basis. The music industry, the film industry, the television industry--all of them feed off of one another, which leads to various forms of incestuous product tie-ins, spin-offs, and other similar capitalizations that emanate from one industry and extend to another. As far as the video game industry goes--to date--the film industry has really been the only one to truly embrace it, whether it's the plethora of movie-based games that have flooded the market or whether it's the rather spotty smattering of films that are based off of games that have been released over the years. Now, it seems, television wants in on the deal.

Take a good look at these faces, because somehow I don't suspect you'll be seeing them on TV for very long.

Over the past few weeks, while watching syndicated reruns of The Simpsons on our local UPN affiliate, I've come across more than my fair share of ads for its newest sitcom, Game Over. This sitcom is purportedly the first attempt to show what the behind-the-scenes lives of video game characters are really like (albeit in sitcom form). Upon seeing these ads, I will admit to a certain level of apprehension. Considering how most gamers generally tend to be viewed by people outside of our chosen medium, there is certainly a lot of potential for disaster with an undertaking such as a sitcom that would supposedly cater to the "gamer crowd." I had ultimately resolved myself to simply viewing the show on its debut date of March 10--that is, until a tape showed up in the mail that had on it the first two episodes of Game Over. Sensing an opportunity for a GameSpotting column, I snatched the tape and took it home for some weekend viewing.

Before I go any further with this column, allow me to preface the remaining portion by stating that I in no way hate sitcoms. I generally don't care for the "standard funny" that most people go for these days, like Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond or Will & Grace. I tend to go for the slightly more outside, random brand of funny found in shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy, and NewsRadio (Phil Hartman era, of course). However, when it comes to the kind of audience Game Over is clearly trying to draw in, just trying to be like a standard sitcom obviously isn't going to cut it. In many ways, I am very much the target audience of this show. It is this fact that ultimately makes Game Over such a terrible disappointment.

Game Over tells the story of The Smashenburn family, a motley crew of game characters trying to lead a normal existence amid their hectic, action-packed lives. Rip Smashenburn (voiced by Seinfeld alumnus Patrick Warburton), the patriarch of the family, works as a driver in some nondescript racing game and is typically the one who crashes midway through a race. Mom, otherwise known as Raquel Smashenburn (voiced by, of all people, Charlie's Angels star Lucy Liu), is more the adventurer type--think Lara Croft if she decided to settle down with a family in about five or six years or so. The kids are Alice (SNL's Rachel Dratch) and Billy (Powerpuff Girls vet E.G. Daily), and they are your typical self-esteem-lacking teenage girl and hip-hop-obsessed teenage boy, respectively. And, of course, there's Turbo (Dirty Work star and Howard Stern regular Artie Lange), the family pet that looks like a cross between a walrus and a bulldog, who also happens to have an affinity for strippers, kleptomania, and cigars. Within the scope of these characters' basic gimmicks, there are a few laughs to be had here and there, but any time the show begins to deviate even slightly from the gimmicks allotted to them, the show becomes painfully dull.

The first episode of the show is our typical "get to know you"-type of pilot where we meet all of the characters for the first time and learn the limitations of the show's sense of humor. Rip and Raquel are too busy for their kids, and the kids are beginning to get annoyed by this fact. So what better solution for the problem than to get a family pet to help bring the family back together? Enter Turbo. As we start to meet these characters, we also start to get a handle on the running gags that we're likely to see as the show continues. Rip crashes his car a whole lot; Raquel is constantly in search of various types of iconic monkeys made of jade, gold, and what have you; Billy's use of hip-hop slang constantly confuses his father; Alice, again, has no self-esteem, and she constantly whines about it; The Smashenburns wacky neighbors, the Chang family, are a pair of Shaolin warriors who are constantly fighting it out with evil ninjas; and did I mention that Turbo has a thing for strippers?

All of these conventions continue to play out in the second episode. This time, Alice's class is due to take the video game equivalent of a career aptitude test, so the pressure is causing her to predictably freak out. While this goes on, we also get a subplot about Billy falling in love with a blue-haired anime exchange student who can fly and leaves rainbow trails wherever she goes. This episode, even more so than the pilot, suffers from the biggest issue that seems to plague the show--good ideas but bad execution. All throughout episode two, there are funny ideas. The anime exchange student and the idea of a test that determines the career of a video game character could both potentially be very funny. Instead, the show wastes them by barely doing anything with the actual career test or with the anime exchange student. Instead, we get copious amounts of gags about trying to break into the insidious, labyrinthine testing facility to change Alice's score. Additionally, we get a lot of generally confusing and nonsensical scenes, which feature Billy's date with the anime girl, that really don't capitalize at all on what could be a really hilarious situation.

What's even more bizarre about both of these episodes is how little there is in the way of the show's inherent knowledge of games. These are supposed to be characters that live in a universe entirely populated by characters from video games. And yet, we never actually get a sense of what exactly it is that these characters do. At no point does an actual awareness of a world outside of the show's reality ever present itself. Rather than giving the perception that this world actually is made up of game characters, we instead get the feeling that we're just watching these weird, hyperactive characters who race cars, adventure through thick jungles, and fight ninjas simply because that's what they do in this weird world they live in.

While self-awareness isn't effectively necessary to succeed here, the show's occasional "in-jokes" that involve familiar gaming conventions throw the whole thing for even more of a loop. Abe from Oddworld makes a brief cameo as he walks through a toxic waste dump; Crash from the Crash Bandicoot series appears on a Got Milk? ad in one scene; and at one point, while walking through a shopping mall, a Hawaiian shirt-sporting thug runs up and randomly punches Rip in the face and runs away, thus leaving Rip to quip, "What is this? Vice City?" Outside of these vague cameos and lame referential gags, the show seems incapable of actual game-related humor.

Game Over could really learn a thing or two from this film about how to make a hilarious take on a video game universe.

Game Over isn't quite the unmitigated disaster that it could have been, but it definitely lacks the cohesive humor needed to make a successful sitcom. When watching the show, you can't help but feel like you're watching the painfully obvious result of a corporate boardroom's decision to try to cater to that "gamer audience." And yet, somehow, no amount of legitimate voice talent and writing talent could salvage what was ultimately a disingenuous effort to begin with. Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe this was really the earnest brainchild of a lifelong gamer who yearned to tell the tale of a family of video game characters. Whatever the case may be, the show simply doesn't work, either as a stand-alone sitcom or as a parody of the video game universe. Maybe over time Game Over could develop beyond its own gimmick in the same way that Fox's That '70s Show did. However, all I know is that any show that somehow manages to make Patrick Warburton completely unfunny and makes Artie Lange's stripper jokes fall flat is facing a spectacularly uphill battle.

However, despite whatever I've said here, I am actually going to urge any readers of this column to watch an episode of Game Over so that you can judge the show for yourself, assuming you haven't already. I say this because I think anyone who is passionate about games really ought to see what people outside the scope of our interest think we might find entertaining. It's always interesting to see what suits from other industries think we might like, and it certainly shows that we have a long way to go toward proving to them that despite what they may have heard to the contrary, we aren't some rogue sect of their target demographic. We're ultimately a part of the same core audience that everybody wants, and though we, as an audience, may not be quite as easy to please as the standard sitcom-watching crop, on the whole, we like the same crap that everybody else likes. There's really no need for specialized crap like Game Over.