Fake video games: what film and TV characters play on screen

Blast deadly enemies out of the sky in Space Paranoids – a vector graphic tank game from the golden age of the arcade. Show off your acrobatic skills and rack up ultra-combos in Ninja Ninja Revolution. Can you convert all the heathens in classic high-octane first-person shooter, Billy Graham’s Bible Blaster?

Sadly all of these titles are fictitious – made-up games to hang a plot on, tell a throwaway gag, or make an uncomfortable comment on the state of society. The fake video game is a storytelling device that’s now so ubiquitous as to go practically unnoticed.

Sometimes the fictional game is the film. Tron (1982) imagines what would happen if the player was unwillingly thrust into the video game for real. There’s no Pac-Man or Space Invaders in the world of Flynn’s Arcade, its ‘Space Paranoids’ that’s the video game connoisseur’s coin-muncher of choice. One of the earliest examples of a fabricated on-screen game, Tron looks to contemporary high-tech vector arcade games as the key influence on its striking set design and futuristic costumes.

It’s impossible to ignore the influence of Atari’s seminal Battlezone here – precise neon lines contrasted against inky backgrounds; an elegant stage for the frantic tank warfare playing out within the virtual world. Space Paranoids acts not only a wholesome celebration of the arcade game as an emerging form of entertainment, but also as a surprisingly accurate representation of arcade culture of the time. 

Wreck-It Ralph (2012) mixes imaginary game elements with legendary historical video game characters to create a rich landscape of references and a joyful narrative that explores video game tropes from the inside. Ralph is the unfairly labelled ‘villain’ of ‘Fix-It Felix Jr’, an old school arcade game featuring a character who might remind audiences of another primary-coloured plumber. The fictional game contains nods towards Donkey Kong, Rampage and the original Mario Bros, but what’s most striking is how accurate it is to the aesthetic and gameplay formulas of the time. The pastel-coloured cabinet adorned with vivid cartoon art, sharp 8-bit pixel visuals, crackly voice samples – they all successfully imitate a language that perfectly encapsulates the essence of the classic arcade game.

Fix-It Felix also succeeds where numerous fake games fail – it actually passes the sniff test as a real game. Given the multiple official and unofficial playable versions that now exist (from a fan-made version on the Sega Megadrive to an official mini-system release) it would have undoubtedly have been a hit in arcades, bowling alleys and holiday camps across the country.

Where Space Paranoids looks to the future with an unbridled enthusiasm and excitement for the potential of an emerging medium, Fix-It Felix looks backwards, the fictional game acting as a catalyst for viewer nostalgia. Classic gaming tropes and half-remembered memories of smoky arcades are channelled into a fake game that almost passes as the genuine article. 

Transcending film and television genre, fictional game titles aren’t only relegated to these examples and other family friendly fare such as Jumanji (1995) or Ready Player One (2018). The Black Mirror film Bandersnatch (2018) merges the branching path gameplay of the ‘choose your own adventure’ text adventure genre with a dark psychological thriller that invites the viewer to take part in an interactive narrative played out over the 1980s UK computer game industry.

Although probably now most famous for starring Take That’s Jason Orange, Killer Net from 1998 explores what happens when the real and the digital merge in an extremely unconvincing online murder simulator. Capitalising on the video-nasty-style panic that had taken place around Night Trap and Mortal Kombat a few years earlier, the series positions the video game as a dangerous conduit – a seductive trap that lures the player into a world of vice and violence.

Meanwhile, Stay Alive uses its fake game as a horror device that essentially functions the same as the dreamworld from A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) – die in the game and you’re dead in real life. Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) had also earlier toyed with this concept, with an outrageously dated parody of a video game that manages to look even worse than the much-maligned real Nightmare on Elm Street game from 1990.

When not solely the focus of a film’s plot, fictional games can still be used by filmmakers as vehicles for satire and social commentary. Spike Lee’s Inside Man (2006) briefly shows us a game clearly based on Grand Theft Auto, with the film touching on concerns around the exposure of children to violent games at a young age. A key scene of Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler (2008), features Wrestle Jam ’88, a game that functions as a relic from the past for Randy to desperately cling to as proof of his previous fame.

It’s worth noting the difference in believability between these two depictions as actual games. Wrestle Jam ’88 was created to be completely playable by the actors and is fairly convincing as a product of its time, right down to the authentic chiptune soundtrack. The GTA clone is less convincing as it’s clearly made from pre-rendered animated footage as opposed to a product being played with and interacted with live. The game also looks too advanced for the hardware that the game is being run on – another common issue when filmmakers decide to utilise fictional games, and one that can sometimes even prove distracting from the core message.

Styx, from Paul Verhoeven’s Elle (2016), lies somewhere between these two examples. The game sometimes looks convincing and other times extremely fake, but is this important when it’s ultimately there to function as a comment on the treatment of women in games? The friction between authenticity in form and the importance of the message is a frequent problem with the portrayal of fictional games in other screen mediums.

When it comes to fake games however, special mention has to be given to The Simpsons, with a portfolio of parody titles that would be the envy of any major games corporation. Bonestorm, Escape from Grandma’s House I and II, Grand Theft Walrus, Larry the Looter – there’s something for every taste here. And for those eager to play Kevin Costner’s Waterworld the arcade game – good news, an unofficial fully playable version is available online right now.