7 Documentaries About Classic Video Gaming- From Tetris Masters to The Perfect Game of Donkey Kong, Via The Fabled Atari ET Landfill Site
/Being born in 1980, I was a kid at the tail end of the golden age of gaming. Santa brought my brother and I a NES console one year, and a Game Boy the next. While I never really spent much time playing games in arcades, I did play console versions of Donkey Kong and indeed Pacman.
So I indulged in a bout of extreme nostalgia, watching documentaries about classic arcade gaming and the original Mega Games like Tetris.
1. Chasing Ghosts
This tells the tale of Twin Galaxies Arcade, who originated a scoreboard for players to submit their high scores of video games to. We also meet Billy Mitchell, the first person to complete a perfect game of Pacman. Watch it for free here.
2. The King of Kong
Another documentary starring Billy Mitchell, but this time he has a slightly villainous role. It sees a regular family man try to play a perfect game of Donkey Kong, and beat Billy's record.
3. Man vs Snake.
You'll end up really rooting for the guy in this documentary as he tries to reach the high score on an arcade game called Nibbler. Again Twin Galaxies and Billy Mitchell make appearances.
I saw this a while back on Netflix, but there's a free copy here.
4. Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters
Arguably the world's most played game, Tetris is the star of this documentary. It explores the highest score, the legendary kill screen of level 30, and gathers the best players for a tournament of kings.
5. Get Lamp: A Text Adventure Documentary
Now this is really old school. I remember playing text adventure games on the BBC computers in primary school. This documentary explores the history of the games and their creators.
6. Atari: Game Over
There is an urban legend about Atari and the worst game ever made. This documentary tells that story. Atari rushed production of an ET game, to coincide with Christmas. The game was too difficult, boring and absolutely no fun to play. This led to the demise of Atari and the rumour of a huge landfill somewhere in the States where they buried millions of copies of unsold ET games. The film makers try to find the site, while explaining just what went wrong for Atari.
Watch on Netflix, or for free here.
7. Nintendo Quest
Ending on a happier note, Nintendo Quest sees two best friends try to buy all 678 NES games within 30 days, with no online purchases. The documentary also delves into the history of Nintendo and is a must watch for nostalgic folks of my generation.