In the decades since names like Sony and Nintendo released their first consoles, video games have become inexorably rooted in popular culture, with multiple crossovers with films, comics, and more.
This week’s episode of Gamer’s Paradise examines the shared space between video games and culture, spotlighting the impact games have had on movies and even artistic expressions such as cosplay.
Episode 8 puts radio DJ Renzo and cosplayer and ONE Esports content designer Carla “Foxrots” Vergara in the hot seat to answer the question: What is the best video game movie?
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Gamer’s Paradise Episode 8 combines gaming and popular culture
On The Pulse, Renzo was adamant that the question could not be answered, because there was no such thing as a good movie based on a video game.
“[Video games] don’t follow the same rules that cinema does when it tries to make a good movie,” he said. “You get these half-baked, weak stories that try to take something unique to video games and turn it into a passive [medium].”
In fact, the best video game movie will have to lean hard into the game itself, and would actually be considered a bad movie by most standards.
“I’m talking about Mortal Kombat 1995,” he said. “It’s got costumes that are just cheesy, it’s got action that is just over-the-top. But it works — because that is what Mortal Kombat is.”
However, Foxrots disagreed. Several good video game movies have been made in recent years, she said, including Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog.
“I think [Detective Pikachu] was a really good movie,” she said. “It stood on its own and it paid homage to Pokémon.”
With the argument far from settled, the episode turned its attention to Hero Story, featuring full-time cosplayer Kiyo, known for her cosplays drawn from Jujutsu Kaisen, Attack on Titan, and Spy x Family.
For the episode, she was dressed up as Jett from Valorant, Riot Games’ new competitive shooter. Cosplaying is hard work, but she had plenty of tips to dole out to aspiring cosplayers. “For cosplay, what I realized when I started off was that everyone’s face is different,” she said. “So a makeup style that might work for someone might not work for you.”
“If you just started, take the time to figure out what is best for your face. I just did trail-and-error until I arrived at something that I felt looked right.”
Moving forward, the veteran cosplayer has her eyes set on cosplaying one of the characters from Apex Legends, her latest video game obsession.
The episode wrapped up with all guests putting their acting skills to the test with a game of video game character improv, where they had to act out adorable scenarios, such as Jigglypuff finding out that their partner had been cheating.
Gamer’s Paradise airs every Monday on ONE Esports’ social channels, including Facebook, Twitch, YouTube, and AfreecaTV at 8.30 p.m. GMT+8.
READ MORE: Exclusive: How cosplayer Shunsuke deals with body image insecurities
