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[Torchkas]

I was thinking about this earlier. James Rolfe had a pretty huge influence on the internet sphere of gaming critique. I feel like he's really the person who made it acceptable to talk about games in a criticizing manner even if he didn't do it in a very profound or serious manner. In some ways I feel like if we didn't have James Rolfe we wouldn't have Matthewmatosis, Joseph Anderson, Noah Caldwell-Gervais, or even things more in its comedic tone like Sequelitis. Without these I personally would have never been as interested in looking at games critically, and I think they really influenced the way I talk about games.

[Slowminder]

Dunno.

Personally I doubt it. I love AVGN, but he has never reviewed a 5/10 or 6/10 game. It's easy to destroy 1/10 game - it's just hard to make it look funny. So no, I don't think that he's the pioneer. I bet you can find tons of negative reviews on shitty Atari/Nes/genesis games from 80s and 90s.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/nintendo-64/batman-beyond-return-of-the-joker

[Torchkas]

I'm talking about video essays specifically.

Oh yeah Satchell Drakes I forgot to mention him.

[s0]

i used to like avgn and sometimes still watch his newer stuff out of nostaliga.

Personally I doubt it. I love AVGN, but he has never reviewed a 5/10 or 6/10 game. It's easy to destroy 1/10 game - it's just hard to make it look funny.

there were a whole bunch of avgn clones back then who tried to apply avgn's style to mediocre and unremarakble games. they all sucked because the games being terrible was part of the humor.

but yeah while i found him funny at the time, i dont think his criticism was ever very deep or insightful. i guess he did an ok job showing why the games he played were awful in an entertaining way but in the end it mainly just amounted to "this game has bad controls/bad graphics/glitches/is difficult for stupid reasons". pretty much anyone else playing those games would probably come to similar conclusions.

[Bad_Dude 2017]

Comedic in character videogame reviews was nothing new at the time because proffesional videogame medias were at full swing, the novelty was actually showing him playing the game and pinpointing whats exactly upsets him instead of saying "its a lacking experience" like some asshole.

[alvarop]

I'm pretty sure the influence AVGN has had on modern video format reviews / game content is enormous.

[DireLogomachist]

Oh yeah Satchell Drakes I forgot to mention him.

Satchell Drakes is fantastic.

Mark Brown also does amazing and in-depth stuff.

[s0]

Satchell drakes, as in multiple clones of Drake (the Canadian rapper) carrying purses.

[Torchkas]

Mark Brown also does amazing and in-depth stuff.

Mark Brown is cool with a lot of his analysis, but for some reason I feel like his videos swing a lot closer to explaining game theory than to game analysis which is why I didn't include him. He doesn't really "review" games so to speak.

[Schoq]

I like campster

[Torchkas]

yes campster

this is now a game analysis video essay thread

[Raptor85]

Aside from AVGN I actually have no idea who any of the other names mentioned here are :/  I'm not really a fan of the "angry" review format, as every single reviewer seems to just absolutely blow up at tiny nitpicks for the sake of comedy, you get fairly inaccurate reviews on many games because they make a good game with a few minor issues and turn it to sound like a pile of elephant shit.

AVGN often complained about problems that literally didn't actually exist in the game if you had actually played it, for instance in the terminator 2 review he complains about the bike section being impossible to control and no way to tell what the buttons are....but as I owned the Genesis version of it you held A and pressed left or right just like every other top down racing game in the 90's, plus the instruction booklets had all the controls listed. It's like someone complaining that in half life nothing ever tells you how to shoot your gun, well it's a common control scheme most games in that time use. The game did have some issues (for one, level 1 is VERY difficult then the game actually gets quite a bit easier after) but 90% of the things he blows up about in reviews of that game really weren't problems at all. There is also commonly bitching about not having any way to know you're supposed to do something to progress....when a NPC in the game literally tells you what to do if you're not whipping through it at mach speed skipping text to do a review.  

Personally...I like Yahtzee Croshaw‏ as a reviewer a lot more, not only does he have a fun style he goes far deeper in depth to the games he reviews and talks about both the good and the bad.

It's a persona though, I understand, and meant to be more entertainment than actual decent reviews, but a lot of people take it too seriously and his fanboys literally spam anything RELATED to the games he reviews trying to be like him when honestly quite a few of the games he reviewed are actually not bad.

[Torchkas]

All the people listed here have a far deeper understanding of games than even Yahtzee Croshaw does. I like his style too, but my point was more that without AVGN initially, despite his not super-deep analysis of games we'd have never had the video essay format for reviewing games the way we have today.

[Derek]

I like the official AVGN videos and I'd like to watch them just play games casually, but it's too painful to listen to James complain about a game being cheap just because he can't beat it on his second try. When Mike and Bootsy play together it's better, but Bootsy is a fairly irregular guest.

Are there any channels that are in the format of James and Mike Mondays (casual banter and only lightly edited), but where they know a little more about game history and design?

[Bad_Dude 2017]

yantzees "lets drown out" series where he plays half life and his games is the closest thing i know
for yantzee hat8s, hes got much more restrained and more reasonable sounding than in his early reviews.

[Schoq]

(I'd probably watch Derek play and talk about games)

[Tanner]

(I'd probably watch Derek play and talk about games)

[Superb Joe]

(I'd probably watch Derek play and talk about games)

we're going to make a show together

[Schoq]

(I'd pay money to watch that)

[Derek]

(I'd pay money to watch that)