Proper representation of video game players in cinema have been few and far between. They're either represented as vapid children ("The Wizard"), troubled teens ("Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare"), or stoned man-children ("Grandma's Boy"). Well, maybe that time they got it right. "Gamebox 1.0" with its tag line tries to show gamers as average Joes with interests outside of polygons and cell shading. But "Gamebox" ultimately drops the ball when it attempts to recreate the games they play.
Charlie Nash (Nate Richert) has the game every kid dreams of; he tests video games to make sure they play correctly. After the tragic shooting death of his girlfriend Kate (Danielle Fishel), he withdraws from his friends and family, finding solace only in the video game worlds he has control of. One day a mysterious package arrives in his mailbox containing a brand-new console, the Gamebox 1.0. While most game consoles have oversized controllers overflowing with buttons and gigantic cases with all sorts of power and A/V cables shooting out from all sides, the Gamebox is surprisingly simple in its design. The console itself is about the size of a small stack of DVDs, and the controller is a flimsy little thing that fits onto your head and zaps your mind into a 3-D virtual universe.
Once Charlie's in the game world, a disembodied voice that answers to the name "game" and sounds like HAL 9000's less-talented brother becomes his guide. The Gamebox features three different, yet popular and familiar, game genres. The first one Charlie encounters is a blatant "Grand Theft Auto" rip-off that features carjackings, muggings, and all the expected chaos one would find in a Rockstar Games knock off. After that, Charlie ends up inside a silly "Resident Evil"-inspired Survival Horror game. Finally, the game sends him to a low-rent "Halo" first-person shooter game, where Charlie is forced to do battle against a group of goofy aliens. Charlie keeps popping in and out of the exciting virtual world and his mundane depressing reality. Drawing from his memories and photos, Charlie provided the game with, his friends, Kate and the cop that shot her, all show up in the game as compatriots, enemies, or both.
Ultimately, "Gamebox 1.0" misses its mark by its own refusal to dig deeply into the psyche of video-game players and the rich, lavish worlds they would rather inhabit than go outside. The first game Charlie "plays" is an interesting replica of the well-known "GTA" world. It's "citizens" are all wearing those creepy see-through masks and interact with one another in ways similar to the "real" game. But once Charlie ends up in the zombie and alien games, the film loses any pace whatsoever and begins its slow, sluggish crawl to an obvious ending. While one would expect the zombie game to feature shuffling masses of the undead and the alien game to be filled with otherworldly creatures gunning for your hide, nothing could be further from the truth. Both "games" look nearly identical in their emptiness, while the zombies and aliens are simply black, humanoid shapes that jump around a lot. In fact, they look and sound more like dime-store ninjas with emphysema doing capoeira while having epileptic seizures. Rather than induce terror, they almost beg to be laughed at…and they were.
Charlie Nash (Nate Richert) has the game every kid dreams of; he tests video games to make sure they play correctly. After the tragic shooting death of his girlfriend Kate (Danielle Fishel), he withdraws from his friends and family, finding solace only in the video game worlds he has control of. One day a mysterious package arrives in his mailbox containing a brand-new console, the Gamebox 1.0. While most game consoles have oversized controllers overflowing with buttons and gigantic cases with all sorts of power and A/V cables shooting out from all sides, the Gamebox is surprisingly simple in its design. The console itself is about the size of a small stack of DVDs, and the controller is a flimsy little thing that fits onto your head and zaps your mind into a 3-D virtual universe.
Once Charlie's in the game world, a disembodied voice that answers to the name "game" and sounds like HAL 9000's less-talented brother becomes his guide. The Gamebox features three different, yet popular and familiar, game genres. The first one Charlie encounters is a blatant "Grand Theft Auto" rip-off that features carjackings, muggings, and all the expected chaos one would find in a Rockstar Games knock off. After that, Charlie ends up inside a silly "Resident Evil"-inspired Survival Horror game. Finally, the game sends him to a low-rent "Halo" first-person shooter game, where Charlie is forced to do battle against a group of goofy aliens. Charlie keeps popping in and out of the exciting virtual world and his mundane depressing reality. Drawing from his memories and photos, Charlie provided the game with, his friends, Kate and the cop that shot her, all show up in the game as compatriots, enemies, or both.
Ultimately, "Gamebox 1.0" misses its mark by its own refusal to dig deeply into the psyche of video-game players and the rich, lavish worlds they would rather inhabit than go outside. The first game Charlie "plays" is an interesting replica of the well-known "GTA" world. It's "citizens" are all wearing those creepy see-through masks and interact with one another in ways similar to the "real" game. But once Charlie ends up in the zombie and alien games, the film loses any pace whatsoever and begins its slow, sluggish crawl to an obvious ending. While one would expect the zombie game to feature shuffling masses of the undead and the alien game to be filled with otherworldly creatures gunning for your hide, nothing could be further from the truth. Both "games" look nearly identical in their emptiness, while the zombies and aliens are simply black, humanoid shapes that jump around a lot. In fact, they look and sound more like dime-store ninjas with emphysema doing capoeira while having epileptic seizures. Rather than induce terror, they almost beg to be laughed at…and they were.
Proper representation of video game players in cinema have been few and far between. They're either represented as vapid children ("The Wizard"), troubled teens ("Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare"), or stoned man-children ("Grandma's Boy"). Well, maybe that time they got it right. "Gamebox 1.0" with its tag line tries to show gamers as average Joes with interests outside of polygons and cell shading. But "Gamebox" ultimately drops the ball when it attempts to recreate the games they play.
Charlie Nash (Nate Richert) has the game every kid dreams of; he tests video games to make sure they play correctly. After the tragic shooting death of his girlfriend Kate (Danielle Fishel), he withdraws from his friends and family, finding solace only in the video game worlds he has control of. One day a mysterious package arrives in his mailbox containing a brand-new console, the Gamebox 1.0. While most game consoles have oversized controllers overflowing with buttons and gigantic cases with all sorts of power and A/V cables shooting out from all sides, the Gamebox is surprisingly simple in its design. The console itself is about the size of a small stack of DVDs, and the controller is a flimsy little thing that fits onto your head and zaps your mind into a 3-D virtual universe.
Once Charlie's in the game world, a disembodied voice that answers to the name "game" and sounds like HAL 9000's less-talented brother becomes his guide. The Gamebox features three different, yet popular and familiar, game genres. The first one Charlie encounters is a blatant "Grand Theft Auto" rip-off that features carjackings, muggings, and all the expected chaos one would find in a Rockstar Games knock off. After that, Charlie ends up inside a silly "Resident Evil"-inspired Survival Horror game. Finally, the game sends him to a low-rent "Halo" first-person shooter game, where Charlie is forced to do battle against a group of goofy aliens. Charlie keeps popping in and out of the exciting virtual world and his mundane depressing reality. Drawing from his memories and photos, Charlie provided the game with, his friends, Kate and the cop that shot her, all show up in the game as compatriots, enemies, or both.
Ultimately, "Gamebox 1.0" misses its mark by its own refusal to dig deeply into the psyche of video-game players and the rich, lavish worlds they would rather inhabit than go outside. The first game Charlie "plays" is an interesting replica of the well-known "GTA" world. It's "citizens" are all wearing those creepy see-through masks and interact with one another in ways similar to the "real" game. But once Charlie ends up in the zombie and alien games, the film loses any pace whatsoever and begins its slow, sluggish crawl to an obvious ending. While one would expect the zombie game to feature shuffling masses of the undead and the alien game to be filled with otherworldly creatures gunning for your hide, nothing could be further from the truth. Both "games" look nearly identical in their emptiness, while the zombies and aliens are simply black, humanoid shapes that jump around a lot. In fact, they look and sound more like dime-store ninjas with emphysema doing capoeira while having epileptic seizures. Rather than induce terror, they almost beg to be laughed at…and they were.
Charlie Nash (Nate Richert) has the game every kid dreams of; he tests video games to make sure they play correctly. After the tragic shooting death of his girlfriend Kate (Danielle Fishel), he withdraws from his friends and family, finding solace only in the video game worlds he has control of. One day a mysterious package arrives in his mailbox containing a brand-new console, the Gamebox 1.0. While most game consoles have oversized controllers overflowing with buttons and gigantic cases with all sorts of power and A/V cables shooting out from all sides, the Gamebox is surprisingly simple in its design. The console itself is about the size of a small stack of DVDs, and the controller is a flimsy little thing that fits onto your head and zaps your mind into a 3-D virtual universe.
Once Charlie's in the game world, a disembodied voice that answers to the name "game" and sounds like HAL 9000's less-talented brother becomes his guide. The Gamebox features three different, yet popular and familiar, game genres. The first one Charlie encounters is a blatant "Grand Theft Auto" rip-off that features carjackings, muggings, and all the expected chaos one would find in a Rockstar Games knock off. After that, Charlie ends up inside a silly "Resident Evil"-inspired Survival Horror game. Finally, the game sends him to a low-rent "Halo" first-person shooter game, where Charlie is forced to do battle against a group of goofy aliens. Charlie keeps popping in and out of the exciting virtual world and his mundane depressing reality. Drawing from his memories and photos, Charlie provided the game with, his friends, Kate and the cop that shot her, all show up in the game as compatriots, enemies, or both.
Ultimately, "Gamebox 1.0" misses its mark by its own refusal to dig deeply into the psyche of video-game players and the rich, lavish worlds they would rather inhabit than go outside. The first game Charlie "plays" is an interesting replica of the well-known "GTA" world. It's "citizens" are all wearing those creepy see-through masks and interact with one another in ways similar to the "real" game. But once Charlie ends up in the zombie and alien games, the film loses any pace whatsoever and begins its slow, sluggish crawl to an obvious ending. While one would expect the zombie game to feature shuffling masses of the undead and the alien game to be filled with otherworldly creatures gunning for your hide, nothing could be further from the truth. Both "games" look nearly identical in their emptiness, while the zombies and aliens are simply black, humanoid shapes that jump around a lot. In fact, they look and sound more like dime-store ninjas with emphysema doing capoeira while having epileptic seizures. Rather than induce terror, they almost beg to be laughed at…and they were.
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