Game Over follows the life and times of the Smashenburn family, a typical traditional family save for the fact they are video game characters(kind of). The family consists of family patriarch and racecar driver Rip(played by Patrick Warburton), mom/wife/secret agent/archaeologist Racquel(Lucy Liu), cynical mopey and activist daughter Alice(Rachel Dratch), wannabe rapper Billy(Elizabeth Daily) whose gimmick is speaking in incomprehensible "urban" slang and mindlessly following whatever the current trend is at the moment, and lastly Turbo(Artie Lange) a cigar smoking, binge drinking, philandering schemer who scores what few laughs there are to be had in the show and is more or less the show's equivalent of Bender from Futurama.
None of the characters really make much of an impression and it's all on the part of the writing. Despite the show taking place in a world whose basis is "after the game ends" we never get much of an idea as to how the world operates nor are there many jokes about video games or the surrounding culture/fandom attached to them. Racquel is probably the most defined human character if only because of the surreal nature of her job that involves taking monkey statues composed of various elements from temples and other obstacles that are reasonably well animated and have some entertainment value, but they're humorous dry spots in this alleged comedy. Rip is more or less the Homer Simpson/Al Bundy archetype but drives a car(badly) and his inability to keep his car in tact for the entirety of a single race is something of a running gag I suppose. Billy and Alice never really go beyond their surface level identities and they're basically used to go through traditional sitcom motions be it stories involving going on first dates or losing your "identity" when others copy you.
The show is credited with its creation to David Sacks and the writing team has had success in other shows such as 3rd Rock from the Sun and The Big Band Theory, but the show feels like it has little to no understanding of its subject matter save for a few points. There are some references here and there to Pong, Frogger, and asteroids, and there are some walk on cameos by characters and mascots such as Crash Bandicoot and the Oddworld Inhabitants, but the most indepth piece of video game parody comes from Turbo who with his lechery, scheming and generally bad behavior I guess is supposed to be a parody of Sonic the Hedgehog type characters like Bubsy the Bobcat, Aero the Acrobat, and Gex. This illustrates the underlying problem with the show, namely that it doesn't seem to know anything about video games past the early to mid 90s. If they were going to do a show like this, then they should've tried to at least make an attempt to stay at least somewhat relevant.
The one point of praise one can say for Game Over is that it is a nice looking show. The geometry and polygons are well rendered and do well to avoid the uncanny valley(save for some scenes) and the characters are expressive and move with fluidity. With that said however the show's art direction is severely lacking when compared to reboot with rather bland and uninspired environments and an overall lack of creativity in its characters and settings.
Game Over has a decent enough premise, and a talented cast who has done good work elsewhere, but its technical competence does not make up for its poor writing and bland characters.
