Viewed from France, where the Japanese game is king, the importance and influence of Midway on video game history is not always recognized as its true value. If its final years were clearly not glorious, the American publisher is behind mythical titles and licenses. Today a documentary invites you to (re) discover the Midway years.
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Insert a coinThe documentary film about the history of the Midway Games was only released after several years of production. This 1h42 film looks back on the entire history of Midway, from its beginnings under the name Williams, the making of Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam to the making of Terminator 2: The Arcade Game with the approval of James Cameron. Apparently, it also mentions the various controversies caused by the publisher’s games.
The documentary not only gives an overview of the history of the company and its games, but also delves into the makers of the latter. And many of them were interviewed for the purposes of the documentary. Speakers included here include, for example, Eugene Jarvis (creator of games like Defender, Robotron: 2084 or the Cruis’n series), John Tobias (co-creator of Mortal Kombat) or even Mark Turmell (creator of NBA Jam)).
Josh Tsui, the director of Insert Coin, is a Midway alumnus himself (where he worked as a designer on titles like WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game and Mortal Kombat 4). In addition to these testimonies, the documentary is illustrated using rare archive images that will be of interest to those who are passionate about the history of video games.
The American video game
Insert Coin was originally funded through a Kickstarter campaign and, like many projects of this type, took much longer than originally expected. Given the interest that the project has aroused across the Atlantic since it was released, the team behind the documentary has decided to offer it to European internet users and thus also to the French.
Interested parties can therefore go to the website ofAlamo on Demand and rent or buy Insert Coin. The rent is offered at a price of 8.40 dollars, the purchase costs 13.44 dollars. Note that the documentary will be accompanied by a 59-minute Q&A involving Josh Tsui, Sal DiVita, and Mark Turmell.
Can such a documentary interest you? What memories do you have of Midway? What are your favorite games from this publisher? Do you think its importance will be recognized for its true worth? Give us your thoughts in the comments below.
