Last Chance to Watch Charlie Brooker's How Video Games Changed the World

Dealspwn writes: I imagine many of our UK readers are familiar with our favourite satirist, Charlie Brooker with his sardonic take on the world that over the years has seen him rip into the worst of television and broadcasting, and write a few screenplays for satirical pieces like his zombie infested take on Big Brother, Dead Set or the ever-strange tales of Black Mirror.

Turns out he's quite the gamer though, hell he might actually even like them. So much so, he's put together a show entitled How Video Games Changed the World on Channel 4 to pick out the biggest titles from gaming's history, we imagine with an idea of educating newbs.

[JasonBloodbourne]

i watched this when it aired and still a bit miffed Halo or Halo 2 never made it on the list!!

[SniperControl]

The programme was about pioneering games in their genre, of which the Halo series is not. Rightfully Wolfenstien and Doom were shown as pioneers of the FPS genre.

[Muffins1223]

Yea,it may of not been the first in that genre but it certainly changed it and the shooters we know today go off the same backbone of the original halo formula so in a way you can say it pioneered the fps genre,honestly todays shooters are nothing like doom and wolfenstien,they feel like their a different genre.Only thing they have in common is shooting and perspective,thats it.

[JasonBloodbourne]

i seriously think halo 2 bought online gaming to the masses so should be on this list in my opinion.

[Hellsvacancy]

I was already gaming online EVERYDAY with Quake 2, that was way before Halo

Those were the days when I was a PC gamer

[Mister_Dawg]

It pretty much brought fps to the console masses. Even more so than goldeneye ever did.

[SPAM-FRITTER-123]

His number 1 game is Twitter?

Never liked this guy in the first place.

[Zepherite]

I think that was for the viewers that weren't gamers.

If you asked a non gamer how influential games are, I'm certain they would tell you they aren't.

The twitter bit was spelling it out for them: Video games influenced something many people use everyday.

[Zepherite]

I understand what you mean. There were loads of influential games that were missed (Ocarina of Time?).

But then I realised that the title of the show was 'How video games changed the WORLD'. Halo was hugely influential for games themselves but had little impact on the world whereas the games in the show were specifically chosen for there impact on the world we live in. Multiplayer had already arrived with Doom so that social aspect that Halo did so well wasn't new, it just did it better.

[texaswolfsrain]

LINK!

[Hellsvacancy]

http://www.channel4.com/pro...

[iWishTifaWasReal]

doesnt work for Canadians.

[SniperControl]

I loved the show, I started gaming on a Atari 2600 and owned most of the systems.
I especially enjoyed the 8-bit music.
The show bought back so many memories of my gaming days.

[bunt-custardly]

Watched this when aired. Cool program.

[toddybad]

can't stand the man, he's a moron. nothing clever or incisive about what he passes off as comedy. There Are much much better people at doing what he does badly.

[hazelamy]

it's a shame he couldn't get that Gameswipe show going.
mainstream channels still don't get gaming.

[Picnic]

Without rechecking what was in the programme again, I don't think that there was a great deal about what I consider to be an influential genre, survival horror.
A large amount was spent discussing Doom (and yet not the slightly later, more refined, Quake) but perhaps something could have been made about Alone in the dark, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Bioshock.

Or Sega's part where the Megadrive and Dreamcast heralded pretty much the first genuinely cool advertising / marketing. But how Sega ending up being too much too soon whilst neglecting what had already brough them success. They were far ahead of their time (FMV games about 15 years before anyone tried a similar thing again on a large scale e.g. David Cage). Jet Set Radio at least 5 years before the free running genre was popularised in gaming with Mirrors Edge.

Was Dragon's Lair mentioned? Not just for of its animation, not being seen much since (except for The Curse of Monkey Island) but for its QTEs, later seen in Shenmue and an increasing number of games ever since Resident Evil 4 included them, the uneasy relationship gamers have with QTES coinciding with Resident Evil's diminishing critical praise as Western studios tend to be bettering Japanese ones, Nintendo and SCE Japan excepted.

Or Rare, last (well known) flagbearers of British gaming surrealism to date e.g. Conker.

[LoveSpuds]

Enjoyable show that treats games and gamers with a more mature angle whilst still being funny.

I personally really like Brooker too, I remember reading his reviews back in PCZone magazine way back in the day so its kind of funny to see him as a TV celebrity these days.

Anyway, for those not in the know, Brooker has always been a gamer and a journalist, its this type of person I like to see discussing games and trying to raise the profile of games amongst mainstream journalism.

This was quite funny recently http://www.channel4.com/new...

[Picnic]

Yes, Charlie Brooker is a great man. I like when he has appeared on Would I lie to you opposite the great David Mitchell, both having a cynical edge to them and Brooker enjoying playing up to the notion that he has more sense of humanity to himself deep down than Mitchell's icy logic.

[DerekFlint007]

I really like Charlie Brookers acerbic dry wit and take on the world. I watched his review of 2013 programme last night on BBC2.

If any of you incompetent paedophile defending, red hot BBC Socialist television executives and programme makers peruse this. Please do the following ---------------

Turn down that fuck!ng loud irrelevant annoying music in the background, or better yet get rid of it altogether so that i can actually hear what the fudge the man is trying to say.