I am going to assume that we have all played video games at one point. I grew up in the N64/GameCube era and eventually moved to the Xbox 360, which became my first real gaming console. After that, I ultimately lost interest in video games. I wanted to build a PC and didn't have the money for it and stopped playing console games all together around the Xbox One era. Now that I have built myself a PC I am getting into gaming again, but during this gap I found something I really enjoyed in gaming. That was retro gaming. I could run the games on my crappy laptop and so I fell in love with the era. I can remember searching up YouTube videos just to see someone else talk about a particular game, I didn’t care who it was. I wanted to see someone else other than myself share their thoughts about whatever game it was. I found figures like The Gaming Historian, ScrewAttack, GameTrailers, AVGN, and several others that I have forgotten about, but those hours spent watching these people talk about games decades old, it kept my passion for gaming alive.

High Score aims to recapture some of that childlike wonder about gaming while also giving those who created and shared in that time a voice. I have to say that this will not be a complete history of gaming, but capturing gaming from the late 60s to the late 90s. It starts with coin-op games to 3D graphics at home, leaving itself open for a sequel series if it so desires to. Again watching this, I knew pretty much all the information being exhibited, but I enjoyed hearing the creators of these series/tech talking about their processes. One interview I found to be the most enlightening was the interview with the creator of Space Invaders Tomohiro Nishikado, who touched on how he designed the characters with graph paper and started trying to think of cute looking aliens to fire at. High Score is full of interviews like this and if you are someone who is passionate about retro gaming, this is a series I would recommend for the interviews. Though the interviews only make one segment of the series.

The other parts of High Score the presentation, the narration, the animation, and all things that don’t incorporate the interviews lack the same gripping information that this series aims to hold. My biggest issue with the series is the narration by Charles Martinet, who is a great voice actor, but the lines he’s given to read are beyond cringe-worthy and halt the tempo. It tries to have a maudlin sense of humor that never lands and is schmaltzy it makes my head spin. This is a series trying to appeal to a younger audience and be populist, but in pursuit of that it loses the edges that make it stand out. It doesn’t help that the animation is unappealing trying to replicate the retro style but is plain ugly. I would hypothesize that the reason those sprites are appealing to a vast majority of people is because of their cute aesthetic but also conveys what the objects are or who they are representing. This however does not do that, I found it boring and unappealing to look at. It feels like something tacked on, even though it is one of the biggest parts of the series.

High Score while it has the treasure trove of interviews with these famous creators of beloved series, still lacks anything interesting about it. For every piece of new information that comes along, it follows a paltry joke, one after another. It attempts to recreate the spirit of those sprites whilst having an ugly look to it, making up a majority of the time on screen. It cannot interest those who already have an interest in the history because of the surface level coverage of the series, but still I think that if you are someone who has an inkling of interest in this portion of gaming history, there might be something for you to enjoy. Though my personal recommendation would be to watch someone like AVGN who while crude at points actually taught the information in a captivating fashion which this severely lacks.

I am going to assume that we have all played video games at one point. I grew up in the N64/GameCube era and eventually moved to the Xbox 360, which became my first real gaming console. After that, I ultimately lost interest in video games. I wanted to build a PC and didn't have the money for it and stopped playing console games all together around the Xbox One era. Now that I have built myself a PC I am getting into gaming again, but during this gap I found something I really enjoyed in gaming. That was retro gaming. I could run the games on my crappy laptop and so I fell in love with the era. I can remember searching up YouTube videos just to see someone else talk about a particular game, I didn’t care who it was. I wanted to see someone else other than myself share their thoughts about whatever game it was. I found figures like The Gaming Historian, ScrewAttack, GameTrailers, AVGN, and several others that I have forgotten about, but those hours spent watching these people talk about games decades old, it kept my passion for gaming alive.

High Score aims to recapture some of that childlike wonder about gaming while also giving those who created and shared in that time a voice. I have to say that this will not be a complete history of gaming, but capturing gaming from the late 60s to the late 90s. It starts with coin-op games to 3D graphics at home, leaving itself open for a sequel series if it so desires to. Again watching this, I knew pretty much all the information being exhibited, but I enjoyed hearing the creators of these series/tech talking about their processes. One interview I found to be the most enlightening was the interview with the creator of Space Invaders Tomohiro Nishikado, who touched on how he designed the characters with graph paper and started trying to think of cute looking aliens to fire at. High Score is full of interviews like this and if you are someone who is passionate about retro gaming, this is a series I would recommend for the interviews. Though the interviews only make one segment of the series.

The other parts of High Score the presentation, the narration, the animation, and all things that don’t incorporate the interviews lack the same gripping information that this series aims to hold. My biggest issue with the series is the narration by Charles Martinet, who is a great voice actor, but the lines he’s given to read are beyond cringe-worthy and halt the tempo. It tries to have a maudlin sense of humor that never lands and is schmaltzy it makes my head spin. This is a series trying to appeal to a younger audience and be populist, but in pursuit of that it loses the edges that make it stand out. It doesn’t help that the animation is unappealing trying to replicate the retro style but is plain ugly. I would hypothesize that the reason those sprites are appealing to a vast majority of people is because of their cute aesthetic but also conveys what the objects are or who they are representing. This however does not do that, I found it boring and unappealing to look at. It feels like something tacked on, even though it is one of the biggest parts of the series.

High Score while it has the treasure trove of interviews with these famous creators of beloved series, still lacks anything interesting about it. For every piece of new information that comes along, it follows a paltry joke, one after another. It attempts to recreate the spirit of those sprites whilst having an ugly look to it, making up a majority of the time on screen. It cannot interest those who already have an interest in the history because of the surface level coverage of the series, but still I think that if you are someone who has an inkling of interest in this portion of gaming history, there might be something for you to enjoy. Though my personal recommendation would be to watch someone like AVGN who while crude at points actually taught the information in a captivating fashion which this severely lacks.

Really good; I’m hoping that this gets a second season because I want to see the show runners tackle Fortnite, micro transactions, and the “console wars”.

Really good; I’m hoping that this gets a second season because I want to see the show runners tackle Fortnite, micro transactions, and the “console wars”.