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High Score a Six Part Netflix Documentary on the Golden Age of Video Games

Oh, I think these are just fine. So what if they are trying to be a bit more inclusive in their coverage? My gf is actually watching these with me, so if it keeps her entertained on that end, then I’m all for it.
Inclusivity is the least of this series' problems.
 

TrainedRage

Banned
Eh, I turned it off after a trans person was talking about how transformative Space Invaders was to them transitioning.

I didn’t want to watch the rest.
 

Mistake

Member
Eh, I turned it off after a trans person was talking about how transformative Space Invaders was to them transitioning.

I didn’t want to watch the rest.
She’s also married to a trans person, so I went through some mental gymnastics trying to figure if they’re gay or straight. I still don’t know. After I turned it off. I thought it would be about gaming, not gayming
 

Nymphae

Banned
Meh, it was nicely produced and had a few good tidbits here and there, but could have been better. I miss that old show on G4 that did similar things with more focus, Icons I think it was called.

The blatant propaganda inserts were dumb. What does this trans person have to do with anything? Why does the episode on RPGs spend so much time with some random gay developer and a gay game he made and completely lost (lmfao), I skipped the end of that episode when I realized they were bookending it with this dude's story instead of focusing on any other number of actually important RPG milestones.

There's a part in the RPG episode where they're talking about where Richard Garriot got the ideas for morality or whatever, and it literally cuts to a picture of a church and plays evil ominous organ music, the narrator says "no not that place".

iYjSUaOC6gIpMjPL2Hh3Tz2Mc8JR7QPAesg03IPPpIQeCjgBvAU5Hyb2MhvEkkFMtEpyLuTfwDfaYblb0-rLr4n3wt2-o-UnmKB7hAopzsDu31bOUOAV
 
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Airola

Member
Yeah, it's had some more or less cringy parts about sociopolitical things. Kinda trying to go for the "inclusivity" angle.

The hyper-nerd side of me was alerted though when it became about black people and they, if I recall correctly, claimed EA was very brave for having black athletes on the game covers for the first time.
I was like, hey, was the first game I ever got as a christmas present a dream or something?
dsABzNg.jpg
 

NecrosaroIII

Ask me about my terrible takes on Star Trek characters
Meh, it was nicely produced and had a few good tidbits here and there, but could have been better. I miss that old show on G4 that did similar things with more focus, Icons I think it was called.

The blatant propaganda inserts were dumb. What does this trans person have to do with anything? Why does the episode on RPGs spend so much time with some random gay developer and a gay game he made and completely lost (lmfao), I skipped the end of that episode when I realized they were bookending it with this dude's story instead of focusing on any other number of actually important RPG milestones.

There's a part in the RPG episode where they're talking about where Richard Garriot got the ideas for morality or whatever, and it literally cuts to a picture of a church and plays evil ominous organ music, the narrator says "no not that place".

iYjSUaOC6gIpMjPL2Hh3Tz2Mc8JR7QPAesg03IPPpIQeCjgBvAU5Hyb2MhvEkkFMtEpyLuTfwDfaYblb0-rLr4n3wt2-o-UnmKB7hAopzsDu31bOUOAV

They skipped Dragon Quest so they could focus on Gayblade.
 

Futaleufu

Member
Yeah, it's had some more or less cringy parts about sociopolitical things. Kinda trying to go for the "inclusivity" angle.

The hyper-nerd side of me was alerted though when it became about black people and they, if I recall correctly, claimed EA was very brave for having black athletes on the game covers for the first time.
I was like, hey, was the first game I ever got as a christmas present a dream or something?
dsABzNg.jpg

I'm not going to watch the documentary, but i hope that when talking about that subject they were referring to this:

One_on_One_-_Dr._J_vs._Larry_Bird_Coverart.png


9e183126dc7b18c9efe734399f00cd50.jpg
 
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Reallink

Member
Wow I thought you guys were exaggerating, but no. Nearly every episode spends about 1/4 - 1/3rd of its run time highlighting a different podium of Oppression Olympics, the pandering is absolutely shameless.
 
Wow I thought you guys were exaggerating, but no. Nearly every episode spends about 1/4 - 1/3rd of its run time highlighting a different podium of Oppression Olympics, the pandering is absolutely shameless.

This is exaggerated to the point where it is an outright lie.
 

Airola

Member
I'm not going to watch the documentary, but i hope that when talking about that subject they were referring to this:

One_on_One_-_Dr._J_vs._Larry_Bird_Coverart.png


9e183126dc7b18c9efe734399f00cd50.jpg

Could be they meant that but what they talked about and showed on screen was Football games and Madden covers and nothing else, as far as I recall.
 

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
Watching it now. It's pretty good - there's some interesting interviews. Not a whole lot of depth to the information, but it's pretty entertaining. But holy hell, they are going way overboard with the woke shit. Random trans/gay/POC human interest segments that have no relevance whatsoever to the big picture. It really bogs it down.
 

autoduelist

Member
Do they inject it with political stuff or is it truly just a video game documentary?

Yes.... sort of.

An obvious example is the story of Jerry Lawson. The documentary claims he invented the cartridge, and does this odd bit about how he was forgotten while others made bank on the idea. It is lightly implied he was another black man that got the shaft with lines like [paraphrasing] - 'being a 6 foot 6 black man in the Valley, I could only imagine what his day to day existence was like, working with people that did not look like him'.

Now, in addition to that being absurd, implying he was mistreated when he could have just had easily said 'nah, everybody was cool' were he still alive, the bigger issue is that...

He did not invent the game cartridge.


Which means this is just more rewriting of history, like Biden claiming a black man invented the light bulb, or recent documentaries finding the closest thing to a minority in any situation and giving them all the credit.

I have no issue giving credit where credit is due, and i have no issue with them featuring Lawson [in fact, little known stories are the best stories]... but why rewrite history when his actual accomplishments would have been just as interesting?

They also front faced Becky Heineman, who was born as Bill. This was done... relatively tastefully, though it felt forced. We don't need to hear about how uncomfortable someone is with their genetalia [yes, this is dicussed] in a video game documentary. Again, no issue with her being included... but... just present her as her, we don't need a sidebar on transgenderism. It makes it feel like they only included her because of that, and would have passed on the segment if it was some pasty dude.

More importantly, while I have only watched the first episode... they didn't even mention her later contributions to the role playing genre through Interplay. They may later?

That said, I won't find out. Any documentary that intentionally lies to me clearly trying to rewrite history to serve an agenda gets the ax from me... I want to be able to trust the history a documentary presents, and it's clear they play loose. Netflix pulled some of the same bullshit with their recent WWII docuseries, which was generally good when it wasn't slightly fudging things to frame certain Allied decisions in a bad light.

Other than that? It jumped around and was fairly interesting. But it was definitely trying to at least be a little woke.
 
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brap

Banned
Episode 1: Did you know that there's an important programmer in the industry who just happens to be TRANS? Did you know vidya invented inclusion for people of an infinite number of genders? Did you also know that black people invented ROM carts?

Episode 2: Did you know that Ms. Pac Man was the first female vidya character? Did you know that the game introduced women to vidya? Did you know that there are more women vidya players than man actually? Did you know it was actually a woman who saved Nintendo?

Episode 3: Did you know about an RPG called Gayblade? Did you know that Gayblade was created in opposition of the evil Republican Party? Do you know about the struggles of LGBT people in society?

Episode 4: Did you know a gay black guy saved sports games & popularized Madden? Did we mention he's black AND gay?

Episode 5: Did you know conservatives tried to ban vidya in the 90's because Mortal Kombat was too violent & inclusive? Conservatives are the root of all evil, BTW. Christianity is also a mistake.

Episode 6: Did you know that the Nazis in Wolfenstein are similar to the Trump Administration of today? Did you know Republicans tried to ban Doom after Colombine? Did you know John Romero might be bi?
 
Willing to bet that this documentary skips over the whole home computer gaming scene of the 1980's and fixates on the same old narrative about the great crash of '83 and how Nintendo saved it all...Yawn.

(Would be happy to be wrong, but I like seriously doubt I will be)

Yup well meaning but ultimately cliche effort with a side salad of woke
 
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Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Yup well meaning but ultimately cliche effort with a side salad of woke

What bugs me is that in the 80's console and arcade dev was mostly a closed shop, if they want to talk about inclusivity they need to talk about home computers because they were the only platforms open to anyone with the skill and desire to create. Its where influential figures like Will Wright got their start after all.
 
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