The topic is very interesting so no wonder the doc turned out well. These iconic NES tetris players and the first modern main tournament to declare the best tetris player in the world is frankly close to must-watch stuff. It's a crucial part of gaming history and especially speed run history. It's just very cool to see the best tetris player Thor and other guys who competed in the initial 1990 tournament turn up in 2010 and hang out together to restart the tetris scene. We meet everyone slowly and especially Thor's arrival is made into a huge thing. He's the biggest legend of the game and has gone underground. His records are self-declared and seemingly impossible. He never recorded any of them. Many think he's lying. Finally he shows up, but never quite delivers. But the doc does show him prove his world records later on on camera until he finally went underground forever and didn't even take part in the next tournament. This left the scene open for Jonas to become the greatest tetris player of all time until speed tapping and rolling took over. Techniques that smashed world records by miles regularly. Today these old records are broken regularly by players just trying to advance in online tournaments. Rolling is so powerful that the kill screen, a screen supposedly impossible to play on a few years back, now is quite simple to play on. This doc shows how this whole scene restarted. It shows people meet and give each other gaming advice. Like doing the well on the right not the left side. Incredible that top players back then often didn't understand this. It reveals how relaxed it all was. They even show 2 woman play at the top level. Which of course today is not seen. Today with extremely fast play largely young Asian American guys are on top.
The doc presents a bit older nerds. Even Jonas looks weird and nerdy. Overweight with a weird ungroomed beard. Later he started to wear a leather jacket and had an attractive wife. He was seen as a superstar of the scene and everyone liked him. He just looked cool. A regular middle-aged guy playing on the top level. Incredible how nerds can become cool as soon as they understand the power of the camera. All this is gone forever now. Streaming and online gaming has made the scene more professional.
Where the doc suffers is how old it looks and how cheaply made it is. It's clearly just some averages guys walking around with a cheap analog camera. It just looks dirty and old. Everything looks like the 1990's. And the players clearly don't quite understand how to do interviews or dress for a tournament setting. But then that's understandable as it's all just starting up so no one took it seriously.
While it does look cheap and not quite up to the standards of modern docs it's quite good and the topic makes it a very cool experience.
The doc presents a bit older nerds. Even Jonas looks weird and nerdy. Overweight with a weird ungroomed beard. Later he started to wear a leather jacket and had an attractive wife. He was seen as a superstar of the scene and everyone liked him. He just looked cool. A regular middle-aged guy playing on the top level. Incredible how nerds can become cool as soon as they understand the power of the camera. All this is gone forever now. Streaming and online gaming has made the scene more professional.
Where the doc suffers is how old it looks and how cheaply made it is. It's clearly just some averages guys walking around with a cheap analog camera. It just looks dirty and old. Everything looks like the 1990's. And the players clearly don't quite understand how to do interviews or dress for a tournament setting. But then that's understandable as it's all just starting up so no one took it seriously.
While it does look cheap and not quite up to the standards of modern docs it's quite good and the topic makes it a very cool experience.