Dead Gentleman takes a sharp look at all the fun and wit at the game table in a hilarious way that has not been done since the Dead Alewives in their (now famous) Dungeons and Dragons skit.
As with any lampooning, exaggerated stereotypes and outrageous situations are tightly packed into one session. For anyone who has played an RPG, you'll either see yourself of someone you know in at least one of the scenes. For anyone who HASN'T played, the humor is still accessible. Stealing someone's pants is just funny; plain and simple. Shoe-string budget or not, that's a note-worthy feat.
Some of the sound is rather poor - location and microphone placement hamper your ability to hear everyone at times; especially the game master. You may want to watch it once with subtitles on for that reason. However, the quality is what you would expect from a low/no budget project, and as such I find that forgivable.
The ending is the weakest point of the entire movie, and primarily the reason I gave it four stars. I generally draw parallels to Monty Python & the Holy Grail in that regard - strong movie until the last three minutes or so where it simply just jumps the rails and goes into "who-the-what-now?" land.
I know many people who have considered Gamers to be a gateway (drug?) for non-players to learn about what an RPG game is like. While that is certainly debatable, I would say that it may be wise to warn any new person that this is a strong exaggeration.
Otherwise you may scare the bejeezus out of someone. ;)
Being a big fan of scenery and miniature use, I was very happy to find this product in my FLGS. Within five minutes of opening the box, I was hugely disappointed.
Each piece is brittle, super-cheap plastic. We're talking dollar store plastic, here. I can appreciate that they are probably trying to show proof of concept in design of a niche product, so it is very cost sensitive. However, one of the major characteristics of this type of plastic is that it is very brittle and weak. This showed up in trying to join more than two pieces together.
Gently bending any wall, or even the act of joining them, tended to snap at least one of the hinges right off. Some of them were already broken, straight out of the box! Trimming the flash did little to save the small clips. In the end, you may get one or two uses out of them before none of the parts hold together any longer.
With petroleum prices they way they are, I find it hard to believe that they will be able to afford better plastic or even a more rubberized approach. As it stands now they are not worth 2.49, much less 22.49.
It’s a great concept with horrible execution. Unfortunately, that's a deal breaker.
