As a fan of everything Tech my friend Sarah knew I would like the show Kiss Me First, she didn't think she would personally like it but turns out she did just as much as me (we had a lot to say on this show to one another). It all centers around a VR (Virtual Reality) game, something I find very difficult to play due to the motion sickness it causes, but I have always loved the idea of VR and I'm looking forward to seeing how far VR goes in the gaming world, it is, after all, a very different experience to just using a controller in front of a tv or monitor. The game in which the VR is used in this show is called Azana, you need credits in order to play the game and pay a monthly subscription much like WoW, it looks really fun and like it could keep people busy for hours, within this game a hacker has created another world, a world where players can actually feel pain by using a device called an Azana Band which have been banned by the game as they don't want their players to feel pain from killing one another when playing but this hacker who has selected certain players to come to his world insisted and I think sent the players an Azana Band to use.
Kiss Me First is based on the book by Lottie Moggach but didn't have any elements of VR, it was more based on social media, Bryan Elsley actually adapted the book to have VR in which I think makes it a lot scarier as people are closer to the hacker who says he wants to help his chosen players but it's a lot more sinister than that. The main character Leila is a very quiet young lady who has recently suffered the loss of her mother, she doesn't tend to show much emotion about it and can seem very closed off to people but I felt this protected her from being sucked into the bullshit, Sarah was ahead of me by an episode and told me to just wait and see why she acted the way she did, now I'm glad I did!
Whilst playing Azana one day Leila comes across another player who keeps creeping on her in the shadows within the game, I personally would have found this to be weird and wouldn't have wanted to follow the player but something intrigues Leila whose online name is Shadowfox, whilst following the player she comes across another world called Redpill, for those of you who can't get the referance it's in relation to The Matrix, if you take the Red Pill you stay in Wonderland and can be shown how deep the rabbit hole goes which world well with this world within the game that she is now part of. She then find out that there are more players in this world including the one who had been creeping on her, they all have online names they go by:
- Mania - real name Tess the girl who had been watching Leila
- Adrian - the leader of Red Pill who Leila is very wary of
- Calumny- real name Cyryl who has a very troubled life at home
- Force - who is in love with another member of Red Pill and wants to be with them one day
- Jocasta - is a very welcoming person, who Force is in love with but Jocasta has a secret
- Tippi - is very wary of Leila and doesn't seem to trust her, she seems to only worry about herself more than anything.
- Leila - online name is Shadowfox, can be very closed off and hard to read facial expressions at times.
Red Pill looked like such a beautiful and promising place until Adrian showed his true intentions with the people he had invited, he was a hacker who had created this paradise for people and claimed he just wanted them to be happy and to give them what they wanted but not in a good way, when Leila caught on to this Adrian wasn't happy and would try his best to destroy her life and get her out of his way. Leila ends up meeting a lot of the people who are part of Red Pill some are more welcoming than others and listen to what she has to say about Adrian. What I ended up liking most about Leila is that she will stop at nothing to help those who are in danger and will risk her life in order to get the help she needs, the adaption of this book really stuck with me as I spend so much time gaming as it is and would probably be gullible enough to be sucked into a game like Azana which just proves how easy it can be to manipulate those who are gullible online which is terrifying. I should warn you though there is suicide in this tv show and it can be very triggering for people so if you need to avoid anything like this I don't recommend you watch this show and the reality of it can be a bit too real.
I was disappointed with the end of the show but that doesn't mean it wasn't a good show overall, it had so many elements that kept me hooked and nervous about what would happen next. I think the show will make people see how dangerous being online can be in a different way. We are warned of the dangers online throughout life but when it comes to a video game we brush it off and tend to just mute people, when hackers are involved and can get hold of personal information that is something we don't tend to think about as personally, I try to be careful about what personal information I post online. But when it comes to hackers they can get into saved passwords when you use a password keylogger online and get into different things such as bank accounts, social media etc and this is the kind of thing Kiss Me First makes me think of, Adrian was able to hack into peoples webcams and watch them and that's fucking terrifying. I'm going to give this show 4/5, my reason's being is they were able to incorporate mental health and gaming really well together and although I didn't like the ending it was left open for the story to be carried on.
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