"Gamers say we're 'retro', which I guess means 'old, but cool'"-- Wreck-It Ralph

Retro gaming is so big now, it's inspired a movie! Centered around a fictitious arcade game of the 1980s, Fix-It Felix Jr.

Went to see Wreck-It Ralph at the weekend with the kids. Despite having almost zero interest in or personal history with games, I was totally captivated...  until about half way through, around the time when Ralph enters the Sugar Rush candy world.  In a seemingly involuntary response to  the relentless barrage of digital maximalism, my neuro-perceptual apparatus  suddenly slumped into a zero-affect coma.  I sat out the rest of the movie in a numb trance.  

The subject might be retro but the presentation is nowtro -- high definition to a painful degree, totally maxed out on on every level: the sheer number of events per minute; the density of visual detail and simultaneous movement within each "shot"; the gloss and dazzle of the colors and textures; the compressed and digi-crisped audio;  the hyper-real sound effects and super-upclose-miked character voices (Sarah Silverman's go-kart racing pixie in particular was excruciatingly vivacious)


Thank goodness we didn't opt for the 3D version...