Rogueish

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World includes a lot of visual references to video games, but they all seem to have been added by someone who doesn’t know how video games work. The point of all the little glyphs, meters, effects in games is to communicate something, to show what the player can interact with and which actions get the player closer to achieving the games goals. For instance, when I saw the “pee bar” appear in this scene, I thought they were setting up a running joke where the pee bar would later appear at inopportune moments, letting us see that Scott Pilgrim needs to pee. But that’s not what happens; although there is a running gag about Scott running off to pee to avoid awkward moments, it’s conveyed entirely verbally, and the pee bar never appears again after this scene. The point of these visuals in video games, that is, is to induct the player into the logical world of the game, explaining a series of rules through which this world can be navigated, but that’s just what Scott Pilgrim vs. the World lacks. Nothing in the film ever happens for any kind of reason, and so it lacks any kind of weight; it is, instead, like some guy saying “oh, do you remember Street Fighter 2” for two hours, which is, sadly, a bit boring.

(Source: youtube.com)