Cyberpunk guru William Gibson takes his second turn at co-writing a script for The X-Files. I thoroughly enjoyed “Kill Switch,”, his first episode. “First Person Shooter” is a bit lacking, however. I can sum it up in three reasons. One, I have not cared much for video games since Sega Genesis was all the rage in the mid ’90’s. so this is not my thing. Two, the CGI is badly dated. Three, there some moral preaching about the effects of violent video games on society which feels forced, then quickly dropped. Three strikes, you are out.
The Lone Gunman ask for the agents help when a virtual reality game they are helping design kills one of its players. The guys and the game’s main programmers want to keep the murder on the downlow because the IPO is in a week. A virtual character not designed to be in the game is the culprit. The Lone Gunmen inconveniently get stuck in the game themselves. Mulder heads inside to rescue them, but gets trapped, too. The game disappears with mulder inside. Through enough techno babble to make a fan of Star Trek: Voyager blush with shame over the cop out, scully finds a way to enter and save him. Pheobe, who characted the murderous main characters, inputs the kill switch she should have used in the very beginning to shut the game off before the agents are killed.
Up above, I said it has been a long time since I was into video games, so the subject matter does not thrill me. More to the point, I never cared for first person shooter games even in my younger days when I did play. Sports, adventure, and role playing was more my speed. Sdoom, Castle Wolfenstein, and now Halo do not ring my bell. You should take my personal bias into account for whatever it is worth in judging the value of this reviewe.
I also said the CGI was dated. Maybe I am being unfair here. Technology changes so rapidly that hardly anything remains cutting edge for long. I would probably be willing to overlook the distracting element of bad CGI if the episode were otherwise good, but it is not. Therefore, I am piling on.
The main problem with the episode is the preachy video games are bad because they are violent. This argument is laid out by Scully, who thinks it is a horrible thing for fourteen year old boys to be inundated with violent imagery and g-string clad virtual characters killing in uncontrolled rampages Mulder, who announces he is a fan of such games, though we have never heard that before or since, disagrees. He thinks they serve as an outlet to indulge in behavior society deems inappropriate. I am not entirely certain where I fall on the issue--more towards Mulder, but scully has some good points--but it is a topic for later discussion. The matter is promptly dropped as scully, who hates violence in video games, becomes a violent video game character in order to save Mulder.
But that is not the only issue. Scully is quick to point out this game is a male fantasy of violence, even though the killer is female. Pheobe, who created the character, admits she did it to be part of her own game. She wanted to compete in a male dominated world, and put all her pent up frustration into the character. So I think gibson is trying to slide in an indictment of man as possessing violent tendencies versus dainty woman, but contrast it with making both the murderer and the hero (Scully) women who committed extreme acts of violence. So what is the moral lesson? We are violent, so let us get it all out of our sytem by playing video games? Your guess is as good as mine, but I would suggest not putting a whole lot of thought into it. Gibson certainly did not bother to do so.
Further irony: the character is named Matreya, which means ‘loving one” in Sanskrit. It is the name given to the future manifestation of Buddha who will eventually bring peace and enlightenment to the world. I suppose choosing that name for a half-naked virtual character who fills one guy full of lead and chops another’s head off is supposed to be poignant irony, but it is as lost on me as how virtual reality literally killed people, or how Pheobe escaped manslaughter charges over the deaths.
Like I said, do not think about this one too much. Some of the jokes are funny. Mulder has a boyish enthusiasm which is amusing compared to how dryly the character has been played throughout most of the season. Seeing Scully blasting away hypocritically with a huge, futuristic gun is worth a view, as well. But those points are only worth an extra star. “first Person Shooter” mostly fires blanks.
Rating; ** (out of 5)
Cyberpunk guru William Gibson takes his second turn at co-writing a script for The X-Files. I thoroughly enjoyed “Kill Switch,”, his first episode. “First Person Shooter” is a bit lacking, however. I can sum it up in three reasons. One, I have not cared much for video games since Sega Genesis was all the rage in the mid ’90’s. so this is not my thing. Two, the CGI is badly dated. Three, there some moral preaching about the effects of violent video games on society which feels forced, then quickly dropped. Three strikes, you are out.
