Feature By

Chi Kong Lui

Being directed by Chris Carter himself and co-authored by William Gibson who coined the term 'Cyberspace', I had high hopes for the episode of X-Files, which put videogames (mainly First-Person Shooters) front and center under public scrutiny. But like Dale, I too was thoroughly disappointed. The usual smart writing that X-Files is known for was totally missing-in-action in the case of this episode.

I was mildly amused at the obvious overtones of the Unreal Tournament like costuming and the 'killer babe' who bore a striking resemblance to Lara Croft and wore costumes befitting Rynn from Drakan and the Mistress from Dungeon Keeper 2. I even liked Mulder stepping up (however poorly reinforced by the overall plot) in representing the gaming population.

Yet a half-baked plot with poorly written and horribly underdeveloped technological impossibilities and improbabilities overshadowed all those positives even by science-fiction standards. Playing fast and loose with the storyline is completely uncharacteristic of the complex show that has been coined a mythology. Even the presence of the 'Lone Gunman' trio was fabricated for the sole reason of being guilty-by-association. In other words because they are typical geeks and freaks, they must be well suited as game developers.

Yet, the one thing that I found most appalling is the way the episode characterizes ALL games as being mindless ducks-in-a-barrel shoot'em-ups and a huge misappropriation of innovative technology. Ignoring that not only are there many diverse games outside of shoot'em-ups, but that some games actually can be expressive, creative or even intelligent. Obviously the writers have never really played any games to any great extent. Otherwise, they might have understood the elegant historical reenactment of Sid Meier’s Civilization, watched a beautiful Hyrule sunset in Shigeru Miyamoto's Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time or got euphorically jiggy-with-it while jamming to one of the tunes in Masaya Matsurra’s Um Jammer Lammy. But I guess that kind of research is asking for too much from the network who brought us reality-based shows like Cops, When Animals Attack IV and Who Wants To Marry A Millionaire.