#Wargames

I hate FMV games.

Yea, I’ve said that before, but that really doesn’t apply here. You see, #Wargames isn’t a video game. And I don’t mean that in a sarcastic, dude-bro, “go back to Call of Duty you casual gamer” type of way. I mean literally it is not a video game. It’s an interactive movie by the guy behind Her Story. And it’s made in collaboration or under license or whatever from MGM under the guise that this interactive whatever is somehow based on the 1983 Matthew Broderick film. But let me make something clear: #Wargames is actually not a sequel, a spinoff, a remake, nor is it set in the same universe as that movie. It is about hackers, and that’s where the similarities end. The only connection is that the hackers use very brief clips from the 1983 movie in their hacking shenanigans. The marketplace page describes it as a “reimagining” but that still feels shady to me. “Loosely based on” would be more accurate and STILL not set right, because it doesn’t feel like the 1983 WarGames. I mean, they could have worked a Tic-Tac-Toe reference in there somewhere. But I suppose that’s a little too gamey for this not-a-game game that I bought from the game section on my game platform.

“She’s posting a review of THIS on National Video Games Day? HA!”

#Wargames is technically “season one” of a planned series. Well, I’m guessing that’s overly optimistic. The story centers around Kelly, a coffee barista by day who works with a group of misfit hackers at night. Her mother, a soldier, has been unfairly painted as a traitor by a Laura Ingraham caricature working for a Fox News type of outfit. It sounds on the surface overly-politicized, but actually it’s really just a basic “you fucked with my Mom so I’m going to fuck you” plot. It’s straight-forward, it’s lacking depth, it’s lacking character development and arcs, and the amount of interesting moments were far out-numbered by all the times I looked at my phone and asked myself how only five minutes had passed since I last checked.

Don’t mistake #Wargames for an FMV type of experience, because it ain’t. And the “interactive” aspect of the movie leaves a lot to be desired. “Interactive” suggests that you act into the movie. You don’t. You switch which of several webcam feeds is the primarily focused one. At one point, your boyfriend does a striptease while you take pictures. And by “take pictures” I mean the facade of a photo-taking app is shown on-screen and if you press a button the video feed does a still-image as if you took a photo. But those photos don’t factor into the story as far as I found, nor do you even get to review the pictures you took. But it does make a clicking sound. That counts I guess, especially if you want to unleash your inner-dolphin.

As cringey as the acting is, let’s be real here, anything is an upgrade over Matthew Broderick.

I’m not a movie critic, but #Wargames is sold on the Xbox marketplace under “games” and people are probably likely to mistake it for a Sega-CD-ish FMV title. Small aspects of the story can play out differently depending on what feed you focus on at what times, but you can literally just turn the game on and leave it running and score over 400 Achievement points. The one and only aspect of the entire concept I can give props to is that the game tells you approximately how long each chapter is. But, the story wasn’t interesting enough to warrant me going through multiple “playthroughs” to get the remaining 550 points I didn’t get. Especially since there’s no prompts or notifications that you have the ability to alter the story. At least as far as I can tell. The fact that you get achievements just for sitting through it.. I mean, the jokes just write themselves. #Wargames offers so little in the way of stimuli that it could be labeled as a homoeopathic sleep aid.

Hell, you can’t even appreciate it in the same, detached irony sort of way that you could FMV games of days gone by. The acting is bad, but not in a Sewer Shark “charming in failure” kind of way. In fact, lead actress Jess Nurse doesn’t embarrass herself at all. I mean, she often has a face about her that says “I need to fire my agent”, but otherwise, her performance single-handedly prevents it from being the worst gaming experience of my life. Oh, it CAN be bad. At times, even “cringe so hard you just added a permanent wrinkle to your face” bad. But it doesn’t seem like it’s on her. She’s too good during other scenes, so I have to chalk it up to the script and director. The other actors aren’t horrible either. Well, the boyfriend is. He’s probably the closest to a traditional FMV performance in #Wargames. He comes across like he knows this shit is schlock, but hey, the check cleared so he might as well chew scenery like he’s on an all particle-board diet.

But, what stood out to me is just how fucking bored all the actors look. And why wouldn’t they be? The majority of their screen-time is spent watching their monitors (which I’m guessing their scripts were on because if you look REALLY close, you can sometimes see their eyes moving left to right while they say their dialog). There’s a reason why film and TV uses shot/reverse-shot. Because watching people listen to people talk is dull. And hell, Nintendo already beat you guys to the market on “game where you watch people watch TV’ by 15 years. It’s called Pokemon Channel.

#Wargames, you’re more boring than this. Bravo.

I don’t have an issue with the concept of an interactive short film, or even one where all you do is switch your point of view. But #Wargames fails to entertain in every single way a film can. Dull acting, bad writing, boring characters, overly-simplistic storyline, and even film-school levels of pretentious cliffhanger bullshit. #Wargames is an “interactive movie” about hacking, but the REAL hackery took place behind the camera. It’s horrible. BUT, I think this format could work. No joke. Take 2014’s social media-themed horror film Unfriended. THAT would work under this system. And #Wargames could have worked as well. It just needed an editor. And a better script. And better directing. Probably a better supporting cast too. And more interactive elements. And a better ending. And a closer relationship to the original 1983 movie. You know what? Just change everything about it and it would have been fine.

#Wargames was developed by Eko
Point of Sale: Xbox One, Steam

$4.99 is very proud of itself for not using the obvious “the only way to win is to not play” joke in the making of this review. Which, as noted previously, wouldn’t be accurate, anyway.