While the game will be of great interest to anyone who saw the movie and said, “I want to see all these people get punched in the face,” the motion-capture performances prove to be just as wooden as Adam Sandler’s performance in the film. Punches that seem like they should land turn out to be thrown-off missteps, much like the stand-up comedy performances that punctuate the two and a half hour movie.

I stare at the screen and the universe clicks. Beholding the orgiastic dashboard is like looking into the eye of creation – hearing Shakespeare improvise a sonnet or seeing a Picasso before it dries.

Festival organizer Melanie Brown told us, “In past years, I’ve often found myself face-to-face with top players who couldn’t speak to me or look me in the eye because I was a woman. But this year, I actually had at least four players go so far as to talk to me about the balancing of the mid-range game in BlazBlue.”

I volunteer to take in Big Daddy’s meal – stale bread, unidentifiable meat and a glass of water. I unlock the door, step inside, and then stop at Big Daddy’s loud, mechanical croak. I set the plate down before him, but he pushes it away with a big, metal finger.

I don’t know quite what you were thinking when you thought you’d show him how cool it was to be a Japanese dogfighter. Or when you told him, “Oh, don’t worry, we’re leading, so we’ll respawn quicker. As long as we control more of the points on the map, we’re basically invincible.”

Some may say that the writing in Red Faction: Gorilla is “lacking in depth,” or that it “may have been written by a seven-year-old whose only knowledge of a gorilla came from a ripped up ZooBook.”

I ask where Ali’s flying. “He can’t run forever,” I say, words I had heard in some movie that somehow felt relevant. She looks to see if Ali’s around, then whispers, “He’s off to Vietnam. “But why?” I ask. “Ali hates Vietnam.”

Over the next two hours, Berryman grows increasingly agitated with the game. “How am I supposed to remember all these buttons? Shit, if they’re gonna rip off Gears of War like this, they might as well rip off the real controls. Lame.” A bottle of Scotch quickly disappears.