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In El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019), Skinny Pete (played by Charles Baker) is seen to be playing what appears to be a driving or racing game with the HUD disabled. The movie is set in September 2010 as per the Breaking Bad timeline (continues immediately after the final episode of Breaking Bad).

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What video game is Skinny Pete playing in El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie?

galacticninja
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2 Answers2

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Putting in a vote for Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010). The following video shows the Boulder Desert environment, which seems to show the same road style and graphics:

It seems they've managed to turn the HUD off, and have a nose-mounted camera angle from the game.

EDIT: As a note, I realized that NFS: Hot Pursuit was actually released in November 2010, which would be 2 months before El Camino's events. Could just be an oversight on the producer's part, but who knows.

EDIT 2: Watch the video from 1:05 on. Pete is definitely not actively playing the "game", as he turns the stick hard right, and the car on screen turns left.

nightsurfer
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  • It's possible, but difficult to say. My thought was that it was a Need for Speed game, since there is a film of the same name starring Aaron Paul (who is an actor in Breaking Bad) – Wondercricket Oct 21 '19 at 13:19
  • @Wondercricket agreed, they did take steps to obfuscate any real indication as to what the game is. But graphically it looks pretty much the same, and although it was 9 years ago now, I played the crap out of the game, so I definitely recognized it! – nightsurfer Oct 22 '19 at 11:52
  • Could you bring up a couple of screenshots for comparison purpose? I don't see anything that suggests that the game being played is a real game at all. – Wrigglenite Oct 22 '19 at 12:01
  • @Wrigglenite Not at the moment, no. I had the game on Xbox 360, and that burned out last year. If someone else from the community at large has images, from the nose camera, at night, and the desert, that would be sweet. – nightsurfer Oct 22 '19 at 12:47
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    It seems nose mounted camera angles were possible for this game but that example shows the hood of the car still. I know in other racing games you sometimes had the ability to have a nose mounted camera angle with both the hood being shown, as well as no hood being shown. But it seems odd that in the movie they do not have a hud whatsoever, making me think its not a real game. – Timmy Jim Oct 22 '19 at 12:55
  • Considering the two edits, are you still putting in a vote for this game? It's weird to have conflicting information within a single answer. – Wrigglenite Oct 22 '19 at 13:13
  • I'll let my answer stand. It looks similar enough to have at least been based off of that game. – nightsurfer Oct 22 '19 at 14:19
  • Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit came out on PC too, there's more to gaming than consoles :) The PC version has a mod that removes the HUD, and another mod that allows you to modify the camera position. – Alan B Dec 16 '19 at 16:06
  • At the time of writing, I'm getting this message when trying to view the video: "Video unavailable - This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated." – galacticninja Jul 21 '20 at 09:47
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Given the lack of HUD, the controller being turned off, the unusual camera perspective, the extremely generic setting, and the lack of any real player feedback when hitting the rocks, I'm sure this is not a real game, but a pre-rendered computer animation.

Wrigglenite
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