In the classic situation comedy Gilligan’s Island, which deals with seven colorful castaways stranded on an island, there are two versions of the theme song. In the first version, five of the castaways are named, while two of them are filed away under the phrase “and the rest”. The actors playing The Professor and Mary Ann were, unsurprisingly, offended by this, so the second version of the song simply says “The Professor and Mary Ann”. The difference is only three syllables, so it’s not really clear why this degree of economy was important. I open up with this rather specific and not video game related anecdote because it’s the best way I can think of to describe the final episode of Secret Level which is, generically, the “Playstation” episode that has so little to do with the Playstation I wasn’t sure it was actually supposed to be inspired by the Playstation or just video games in general until Kratos from God of War showed up.
I can’t really understate just how….random that was, by the way. The setting of Playtime is a vaguely futuristic city where Courier O just drives around on her bike making deliveries in a very video gamesque manner. References to actual Playstation games only start to show up when she’s entrusted with a mysterious package. If Courier O thinks there’s anything at all odd about the fact that apparently she lives in a world where can suddenly be attacked by a Greek God or a Colossus, she certainly doesn’t indicate as much. There’s Helldivers too. They basically function as generic cop characters, so if you’re not familiar with the reference, you’re probably not going to realize they were supposed to be from a specific game at all until the end credits.
Oh, Sackboy’s in it too. Remember Sackboy, from Little Big Planet? He doesn’t really do anything, just floats around looking vaguely cute. I’m not sure what I was expecting from a short animated film based on the Playstation, but Playtime: Fulfillment has a remarkably lazy approach to the point of being borderline offensive. God of War, Shadow of the Colossus, Little Big Planet, and Helldivers are all Playstation games, yes, but they have almost nothing to do with each other aside from that. And what few similarities they do have, none of them line up with the semi-futuristic city that’s the setting here. Maybe I could overlook this much if Playtime: Fulfillment was at least interesting on its own merits but it’s just…not. The story’s really generic. While I guess the animation is OK, it’s a pretty big misfire when I come away wondering why God of War and Shadow of the Colossus couldn’t just get their own episodes instead of being reduced to background noise here.
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