Saturday, May 20, 2017

The Review: Man Vs. Snake


Man Vs. Snake 8/10

Whoever would have thought that a documentary about a 80's video game that I never heard of could be so damned good? Man Vs. Snake is about the quest to get the world record in this game called Nibbler. I grew up playing a lot of video game sin arcades as a child and never heard of this one. The modern equivalent of it is called Snake. In 1984 in the small town of Ottumwa, Iowa a 16 year old kid named Tim McVey (not the terrorist as they point out) spent two days playing the game and set a world record for it. He got a key to the city and everything. It was a big deal. The way the game is set up if you have enough lives you can take a break and just let the character die for a few minutes.


Tim was watching a Ms. Pac-Man champion named Tom Asaki and said that whatever score Asaki got at Nibbler he'd beat him. In 1984 he did it, went home, and fell asleep for thirty something hours after his mom made him macaroni and cheese. Years later, in 2000, he finds out that this kid named Enrico Zanetti in Italy had beat his score and was being recognized as the real champion. Tim acts as if this isn't a big deal and he doesn't really care but its eating his ass up and he decides to try again Joining him is the bad boy of gaming from Canada who is now a grown ass man named Dwayne Richard. Enrico laughs about all of this. He does martial arts and seems happy as hell. He even laughs at everyone making a big deal out of it all.


Tim starts training and brings in his own machine to his house. He has a job and wife and seems good. But he really wants to break this record. He goes between saying he doesn't care to getting angry when shit happens. This thing had so many ups and downs, defeats, victories, and a really nice story. There are also some really cool animated sequences. They go deep with this shit. I watched it on Netflix. Check it out.

Click here for previous The Review.

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