I might be squeezing in on Penny Arcade’s territory with this comic a little bit. But if we’re talking about movies, then I say it’s fair game!

I don’t do a lot of online gaming. If I do, it’s on titles where there is very little human interaction. I haven’t bothered to invest in a headset because I’ve seen too many YouTube videos of players screwing around during Halo death matches, humping the corpses of someone they tagged with a headshot from around a blind corner. I’m not interested in trash talking. I just want to play a round of Tetris with some anonymous person from Columbus, Ohio – is that too much to ask?

Gamer comes out this weekend and it looks like more explosive trash fun from Lionsgate. We talked about the movie a little bit during the end of The Triple Feature on Monday. Joe is excited for it because it’s directed by Mark Neveldine – the guy who brought us Crank and Crank: High Voltage.

I was unaware of this fact until Monday and it has increased my interest in the movie substantially. As you might remember, I saw Crank: High Voltage earlier in the year and it left quite an impression. By comparison, Gamer is almost cerebral. So it will be interesting to see what Neveldine can do with a script when the movie isn’t a complete over-exaggeration.

My only concern is that people made many comments to the effect that Crank: High Voltage was like a live-action video game (myself included) – all the way down to cheesy 8-bit graphics and a hero who “respawned” when he ran out of energy. Gamer doesn’t look to be stepping too far outside of the same paradigm in terms of the “movies as video games” conceit.

What has been your impression of the movie? Do you think it’s going to do anything original with the concept? Is anyone expecting any insightful social commentary about our society’s increasing bloodlust and disconnection from each other as individuals, or do you think this will be just another festival of explosions and violence from the studio that brought us Punisher: War Zone?

Are you planning on seeing Gamer this weekend? Leave your comments below!