All of the Times in The Sopranos where someone is playing a videogame

[Gaagaagiins]

Another half entry, another moment now predictably including, of course, who else but the Certified Gamer Gangster Anthony Junior aka “AJ” Soprano. It’s blink and you’ll miss it, but it looks like our boy had a good Christmas in 2000:

I almost didn’t catch it, but in this moment (and one very quick one later) he is handling what very much appear to be shrink wrapped, multi-disk jewel cases of disc based games.

There is also a box on the table, which you can see better, if out of focus, in the top left of another shot:

At first I was a bit mystified as to what this gray, Sony PlayStation branded box could be, since I do not recognize it, and with that particular size and shape it was too big to be a controller or game and too small to be a PlayStation 2. Then I remembered that, of course, there was a console that was that size. The [sans serif font] PS one [/sans serif font] _~TM was certainly that size and shape:

Perhaps Tony Soprano’s earlier vitriolic anti-gamer sentiment wasn’t anti-gamer sentiment at all, but merely his virulent Sony fanboy coming through.

Fuck’s a matt-ah wit’ you, ‘dis is a Sony house, for cryin’ out loud! Get dat Nintendo stunad shit the fuck outta here!

-Tony Soprano

[Gaagaagiins]

Also re the above and also the mention of the PlayStation 2 in the hotel room in an earlier episode: I wonder why it‘s a PlayStation 2 mentioned in the earlier episode, but Certified Gamer Gangster Anthony Junior aka “AJ” Soprano is getting a _{~PS ~one} for Christmas this year. The PlayStation 2 was commercially available in North America as of Christmas 2000, and surely the crime lord of North Jersey could have gotten one for his kid one way or another, so diegetically this doesn’t make sense.

Any wild conspiratorial theories from anyone about things like shady backroom product placement deals between HBO and Sony?

[yeso]

what if in the next Kingdon Hearts they warped (never played these games so don’t know the mechanics of it) into The Sopranos world?

[Gaagaagiins]

@yeso

what if in the next Kingdon Hearts they warped (never played these games so don’t know the mechanics of it) into The Sopranos world?

Sesame Street: James Gandolfini Talks About Feeling Scared

[MoH]

@Gaagaagiins lol

[connrrr]

@Gaagaagiins eh Ton’ hold off on that new Nintendo PS2 or whatevuh da fuck dey got now. You remember AJ had to play dat launch PS1 upside down to keep it from cookin itself! Madon’. Great for CDs though. Gabagool.

[Gaagaagiins]

@connrrr

eh Ton’ hold off on that new Nintendo PS2 or whatevuh da fuck dey got now. You remember AJ had to play dat launch PS1 upside down to keep it from cookin itself! Madon’. Great for CDs though. Gabagool.

Silvio Posting

[yeso]

what if Kingdom Hearts went to the Pathologic world? that’s for a different thread though

[connrrr]

Just when I tought I was out…….dey pull me back in!

[Gaagaagiins]

I have a feeling that this might be perhaps the final pseudo addition. But, we’ll see.

Seems that Tony may in fact be anti-gamer after all. He should be grateful to purchase something as perfect as videogames, and this is the thanks and the respect videogames get? Madon’…

[Gaagaagiins]

Another partial entry, this time with some interesting features, though. Season 4, Episode 5:

1. One of the few entries in this list that has no involvement whatsoever from Certified Gamer Gangster Anthony Junior aka “AJ” Soprano. The other one being the earlier post with Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero talking about running a heist on a shipment of Pokeyman cards.

2. It’s the debut, in this big fat American series, of the first big fat American console, the XBox.

3. This is the clearest intersection in the whole series between videogames, which is a primary theme of the series, and crime, which is a subtle background theme to the series. Videogame piracy!

Season 4 was likely shot between late 2001 and early 2002. The original XBox made its debut in North America in November of 2001. Maybe I underestimate software pirates, but, that seems alarmingly fast for there already to be XBoxes primed and ready to just play burned games like that. Would this have been feasible? Or is this one of those famous anachronistic blunders the movies and TV are so famous for?

Sadly you can’t really see what is written on the surface of the burnt DVDs, so it’s unclear what games Janice could have brought over for Bobby Jr. (who may or may not be the gamer consigliere of Certified Gamer Gangster Anthony Junior aka “AJ” Soprano).

[Gaagaagiins]

Game Theory: Were Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero and Gennaro “Little Pussy” Malanga perhaps coded references to the Atari Jaguar and the Atari Lynx, respectively?

[Gaagaagiins]

It’s time for… a continuation of the “All of the Times in The Sopranos where someone is playing a videogame” thread… Discourse style!!!

Here is a very homeopathic entry:

…It’s only been like 3 or 4 days and I forget the context of this one! I do remember he was lying to Ronnie, though. So, not only is this not someone playing a videogame, it’s also not even a reference to videogames that were actually being played!

[Gaagaagiins]

And here’s another one, with our little buddy Certified Gamer Consigliere Bobby Juniour! I mentioned this in the Discord chat, but this game got done quite dirty by getting the dreaded generic arcade style beeps and bloops overlaid on to it treatment.

I put it out to the folks in chat at the time to see if anyone could guess what game got this particular treatment, because I thought no one could guess it. It turns out I was correct about that.

No one came closer than @ana (who I don’t know how to tag because their name is that kanji character) who guessed, right off the bat, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. She did not know that Bobby was playing on Windows, though. Weird coincidence, this very same episode also features Tony Soprano taking a trip to Miami (which in the world of The Sopranos is what they call Vice City).

Some other guesses from some absolute jokesters included:

• Kingdom Hearts
• Ico
• REZ
• Soul Calibur
• Shenmue 2
• Super Mario Sunshine

…none of which got even remotely closer.

And so, without further ado, here is the game that somehow got ( VIDEO GAME SOUNDS )-i-fied, for some goddamned reason:

That’s right! It was somehow America Online Suomi’s own Max Payne! He was even doing his signature Max Payne Dive!

However, we have a bit of a confession to make here…

As depicted in the scene, I find it very dubious that Bobby Jr. was, shall we say, actually playing the game.

You see, the action on screen actually looked a lot more like he was just watching a trailer, even though he was kinda whacking away at the keyboard like he was playing it. Was it even possible in this time period to just watch trailers of games online? I don’t think so. Anyway, I suppose this is someone diegetically playing a ( VIDEO GAME ), but sadly there was no way this little kid was actually playing Max Payne. So, this is more like a 3/4s entry than a true entry.

[Gaagaagiins]

Finally, to clear out my backlog, another half entry, but this time it’s a pretty good one:

Did you know Steve Buscemi was in The Sopranos? I didn’t! But I was very excited to see that Steve Buscemi, appearing as himself, is depicted as having bought his two sons their very own Games Boys Advanceds, which they unboxed on screen.

These kids honestly did not seem that excited. Perhaps it was because they got the somewhat washed out looking Glacier (Transluscent Blue) colour and not that beautiful Insert Credit Indigo colour. Or perhaps they, unlike their father Steve Buscemi, know that you can’t do much with a Game Boy Advanced without any games to play on them.

Anyway, that was a time in The Sopranos when two people simultaneously were holding a videogame console.

[MoH]

sopranos in books

[Gaagaagiins]

It is with great sadness and regret that I must update the thread with some more anti-gamer activities.

For shame, Steve Buscemi! You should have purchased more Game Boy Advanceds if you wanted to donate some to the Salvation Army, and not taken away the Game Boy Advanceds of your own children!

[Gaagaagiins]

However, just as it seemed like The Sopranos had turned its back on gaming (the noble pastime), they pull me right back in!! For at least a half entry:

An attract mode for True Crime: New York City!

This is in some kinda freaky rich person Luxury Lounge giveaway room. I definitely reacted just like Chris in this scene, just, incredulous and even a little horrified that there are these weird rooms where people give rich people shit for free for no reason. Regardless of that, I do appreciate that, here, the Playstation 2 and True Crime, New York City for both and Xbox and PS2 (which came up on the subtitles for some reason), GUN (for the Xbox, and also one of my favourite names in gaming because, like, GUN lol), and Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland are being presented as highly desirable luxury items, alongside luxury watches and shit like that.

[Gaagaagiins]

And here’s a real blast from the past, something videogame adjacent to the Godfather who started it all: Certified Gamer Gangster Anthony Junior.

In the sixth season, he gets a job at Blockbuster. I figured it would be impossible for any shot inside of the Blockbuster to not include some reference to games, and I was not disappointed:

Looks like this Blockbuster is advertising games for the brand new Xbox 360 console. We got oversized case mockups for the following games:

• Perfect Dark: Zero (very Xbox 360)
• Project Gotham Racing (I bet Certified Gamer Gangster Anthony Junior would like this one (also, was it just me, or was anyone else just not able to think this wasn’t some reference to Batman? Like why was there a Batman racing simulation game))
• Kameo: Elements of Power (as if Perfect Dark: Zero didn’t make it Xbox 360 enough…!)

I think the mockup box to the left of Perfect Dark Zero is just for the 360 console but I could be wrong.

Very pleased to see that Certified Gamer Gangster Anthony Junior has turned 360 degrees around and walked away from his avoidance of gaming.

[Gaagaagiins]

And… wouldn’t you know it… there was an even more exciting update a few episodes later.

Drum roll, please…

* drum roll * 
* drum roll * 
* drum roll * 
* drum roll * 
* drum roll *
* CRASH *

That’s right, we finally once more have a real entry in this thread, someone in The Sopranos is playing a videogame!

And, it’s no surprise who it is…

Certified “Made Gamer” Gamer Gangster “The Godfather of Gaming” Anthony Junior!!!

…and one of his douchebag friends, with whom he was playing splitscreen multiplayer with (remember splitscreen multiplayer?). Also, don’t ask about what the punchline to his friend’s joke was, I intentionally forgot it because it was just a bad homophobic joke. Oops!!

I wasn’t sure what game they were playing when I first saw it, but after reviewing my backlog of entries in this thread, the answer was obvious: they are naturally playing Perfect Dark: Zero, as predicted by the subtle product placement earlier.