Gamer [2009] (DVD)

Gamer is set in the near future where the public are addicted to two online games owned by the Castle corporation, called Society and Slayer. They are both exactly what they sound like, a social game where people get to meet people, go to nightclubs and have sex, and a battle game where the players get to kill each other The thing that fascinates players about the games is that the avatars are real people, with nanites in their brains that enable them able to pick up a signal and follow instructions. The avatars in Society do it for pay. It's relatively harmless although players can have the avatars doing some fairly unpleasant and degrading things. However, ...  Read the complete review

In 2034, Ken Castle, the America's richest man, has come up with a mind-control game that enables players to control other human being's actions. The most successful player of the game is Kable, who is controlled by Simon and is forced to kill his best friend. this leads to a murder conviction and time on death row. Then Castle comes up with a game called Slayers, whereby death row convictees are allowed to play the game with the chance of winning their freedom. Kable takes part, planning to rescue his wife, who is a character in another of Hall's games and his daughter, who has now been adopted by another family. Can Kable get to Castle in time to stop him doing any ...  Read the complete review

In 2034, Ken Castle has changed the world by creating mind-control technology and turning them into simulation games. These games involve taking control of a real person and sending them into a society to do with them as you wish, playing them against other people. Society was his first game where characters could do anything they wanted and be anyone they wanted. But Castle's latest game, Slayers has taken the world by storm, allowing gamers to control death row prisoners in a real-life shoot out game. If the shooter reaches 30 games without being killed first, he wins his freedom back. Kable, the most popular character in Slayers, has only 3 games left ...  Read the complete review

"The ultimate game show" said Chuck Barris, creator of the Gong Show, "would be one where the losing contestant was killed." The Etruscans started it. But it was the Romans who marketed it to the world as a popular event. Civilisation it might have been, but the Empire was capable of some thoroughly nasty deeds, not least when it came to inventing creative ways to end the lives of those who displeased it. Originating from the tradition of funeral games, by which the blood spilt would appease the ghosts of the dead, the ruling patricians quickly learned that the fascinating specatacle of humans fighting for their lives was a useful ...  Read the complete review

'Gamer' is a film I really wanted to like. The trailer set things up nicely and it starred two of my favourite actors, Gerald Butler and Michael C Hall (of Dexter fame), what could go wrong? Sadly plenty. Set around 25 years in the future the film shows a world where social networking and virtual reality have evolved to produce online facilities which allow you to control another person. The two most popular choices are Society and Slayers. Society is like an advanced version of current sites where people can meet and interact through their controlled people. Slayers is the one this film mainly concentrates on. It takes prisoners from death row and gives ...  Read the complete review