Rise of the Video Game

Tonight at 8PM on the Discovery Channel, World of Wonder's well-reviewed five-part series, Rise of the Video Game, airs Level Five, exploring the tumult that occurred when the games went live on the Internet and gamers battled friends and enemies across the world from the safety of their home computers. Rock, Paper, Shotgun says: "Rise of the Video Game demonstrates a depth of research and work that lifts it above the usually banal, patronizing rubbish that television normally produces on the subject. It interviews all the right people, knows to show clips of all the right games, and makes the assumption that you’ve already a basic knowledge of the subject." Check it out. Rise of the Video Game. Tonight. 8PM. Discovery.

Rise of the Video Game

Tonight at 8PM on the Discovery Channel, World of Wonder's well-reviewed five-part series, Rise of the Video Game, airs Level Four, exploring the "God games" of the '90s, like SimCity and Civilization, which simulated entire worlds and let players experiment with cause and effect. Rock, Paper, Shotgun says: "Rise of the Video Game demonstrates a depth of research and work that lifts it above the usually banal, patronizing rubbish that television normally produces on the subject. It interviews all the right people, knows to show clips of all the right games, and makes the assumption that you’ve already a basic knowledge of the subject." Check it out. Tonight. 8PM. Discovery.

Rise of the Video Game

Tonight at 8PM on the Discovery Channel, World of Wonder's well-reviewed five-part series, Rise of the Video Game, airs Level Two, exploring how the release of Sega's Genesis and Sony's PlayStation encouraged gamers to eschew cutesy cartoon characters in favor of grittier heroes like Sonic the Hedgehog and the anti-heroes of games like Grand Theft Auto III. Says Rock, Paper, Shotgun: "Rise of the Video Game demonstrates a depth of research and work that lifts it above the usually banal, patronizing rubbish that television normally produces on the subject. It interviews all the right people, knows to show clips of all the right games, and makes the assumption that you’ve already a basic knowledge of the subject." Check it out.

Lost in Translation – and Japan in General

I, Videogame's supervising producer Jim Eckels writes:

Because World of Wonder's show formerly known as I, Videogame is airing on Wednesday nights on the Discovery Channel at 8:00 (am I plugging it shamelessly?), I was asked to write a blog entry…or a blurb. I’m not really sure what you kids call it these days. Just so you know, the show is now called Rise of the Videogame for Discovery US’s purposes. But before it began airing here in the United States at 8:00 on Discovery US (shameless), it was airing all over the world in those international hotbeds of video game technology (video game is actually two words) like French Guiana, Lichtenstein, and Middle-earth (just testing you!). And to get to those countries, our production had to shoot in Japan first (great segue, Jim!).

So of course they sent me. The master of international travel. Up to that point, I had been to Cozumel, Mexico, once for Spring Break while in college and had four years of high-school Spanish under my linguistic belt. Though I've lived in in Los Angeles for nine years, I have yet to visit Big Bear, Palm Springs, or even the La Brea Tar Pits. I have been to The Body Shop on Sunset. I have a terrible sense of direction and still don‘t know where or what Sepulveda is or where it leads. Regardless, World of Wonder bought me a ticket, slung a camera over my shoulder, and filled my suitcase (more of a trash bag really) with 1,400,000 yen in cash. I was to meet up with Fenton and some bald, photographical genius named David Kempner in Tokyo. Notice how there was no insult before Fenton’s name ‘cause he writes the checks.

To avoid appearing long-winded (too late!), I will bullet point my discoveries in Japan after the jump: