Game Over: Control Alt Death is a bit of an unusual movie. For starters, it was composed mainly of FMV cutscenes from old, forgotten Sega CD games. On top of that, it features "stars" like Yasmine Bleeth and Walter Koenig... who only appear in the recycled FMV footage, and the latter of whom is entirely overdubbed by a child actor. Even worse, it was released Direct to Video by a company called York Entertainment. And the back of the box promises features like "Spanish Subtitles" and, yes, "Menus".
The basic plot is that a video game designer is called in when an AI addicted to his games goes rogue. Defeating the AI requires going into the games, and so we cue the FMV footage.
In case you're not able to comprehend how epically weird this movie is, a trailer is available here
, and at least some of the FMV cutscenes which make up most of the movie are available elsewhere on YouTube.
Game Over: Control Alt Death provides examples of:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Our villain for this film.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: One of the scientists notes with horror that Drexel could launch nuclear weapons, crash the stock market, and make Gary Coleman President.
- Lady Not-Appearing-in-This-Game: The topless woman in vinyl pants on the DVD cover. In Spoony's words, "And before you get too excited about that, this woman does not appear topless in the movie, nobody goes topless in this movie. In fact, this woman does not appear at all in this movie."
- Large Ham: Practically every actor in the movie.
- Meaningful Echo: As the protagonist is first interacting with Drexel, he asks it a lateral-thinking puzzle: if there are twelve birds and you shoot two, how many are left? Drexel answers, "Ten", and the protagonist tells it that it's wrong. At the end, as Drexel dies, it gives the correct answer: none, because the gunshot scared the others away.
- Playful Hacker: The protagonist.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Drexel comes off as this, considering its obsession with video games.
- Stock Footage: All of the virtual reality scenes are taken from FMV games including Quarterback Attack With Mike Ditka, Supreme Warrior, Prize Fighter, Corpse Killer and the unreleased FMV game Maximum Surge (where a majority of the footage is taken from).
- Techno Babble: Raised to an art form. At one point, a scientist mentions that an evil AI was able to use his vast intellect to spontaneously generate new technologies like force fields. And he didn't have to do any R&D or engineering, nor did he need any materials or labor to construct the damn thing. Yeah.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: The main character bleeds profusely while losing a boxing game.
