Such is the problem with “High Score,” a show that sets out to look at the early decades of gaming, from arcade glory days through to the advent of 3D graphics. Netflix has been the biggest buyer of video-game-adjacent properties: In addition to investing in The Witcher and its upcoming spinoff and developing a movie version of … JOIN NOW. Netflix Netflix. Every new introduction of a particular game or the person behind it is teed up with the same winking reveals (“….called…The Internet.”). But with those testimonies and an influx of timeline markers, “High Score” is either unequipped or uninterested in providing a rigorous history of early video game companies and the people they comprised. The series’ willingness to address racial disparities in certain contexts and its indictment of right-wing policymaking during the AIDS crisis makes the relative lack of cultural engagement elsewhere all the more baffling. The overriding smoothness of this history leaves it sapped of any dramatic tension. The handful of times “High Score” actually focuses on the details and logistics bringing these games to life, there’s a sense of inspiration simmering underneath the glossy surface. Interviews with leading film and TV creators about their process and craft. Netflix's 'The Great British Baking Show' Offers Comfort in Quarantine, How a Nollywood Netflix Drama Sheds Light on Nigeria's Human Trafficking Crisis, 'Bridgerton': Everything You Need to Know About Shonda Rhimes' First Netflix Show, 10 Must-Watch Shows Arriving at Peacock's Launch. Each episode of the new gaming history series “High Score” could sustain a much larger tale all its own. The primary goal of “High Score” is not as much to inform as to present a neat and tidy narrative, a largely uncritical mythologizing meant to sell the perpetual worth of gaming as a whole. That lack of curiosity results in a handful of gaming pioneers relaying their successes in some shiny, aesthetically jumbled packaging. You will be redirected back to your article in, Get The Latest IndieWire Alerts And Newsletters Delivered Directly To Your Inbox. Sometimes that can be a benefit in nonfiction storytelling, but there are always pitfalls in responding to a wealth of ideas by overstuffing them into a particular predetermined structure. Copyright © 2020 Penske Business Media, LLC. 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As “Space Invaders” designer Tomohiro Nishikado pores over his original sketches for the monsters of Space Invaders, the show doesn’t have the patience to dig deeper into the artistic evolution of that design. The appearance of “doc series as branding initiative” isn’t new, or even a stranger to Netflix menus. As designers smile at the innovations driving consumer frenzies — introducing the concept of a high score or crafting a game with multiple component parts that players would have to buy each time — their engaging with the same content churn-ideas that have dogged Netflix for years. A sequence talking about crafting the sound elements of Mario’s movements in the original “Donkey Kong” is drowned out by explanation rather than hearing the fruits of that labor. But here, he’s used as an omniscient dispenser of information who painstakingly delivers and reframes context for an audience assumed to have a cultural knowledge that barely stretches back a decade. This Article is related to: Television and tagged Documentaries, High Score, Netflix. One sequence outlining the 1993 Congressional hearings spurred in part by response to violence in Mortal Kombat treats those developments with a shrugging removal, as if these kinds of overblown culture war objections were purely a product of the early Clinton administration. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Instead, these cherry-picked pieces of gaming lore are told with an overwhelming enthusiasm that often seems misplaced. Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. Schauen Sie Netflix-Filme und -Serien online oder per Streaming auf Smart-TVs, Spielkonsolen, PCs, Macs, Smartphones, Tablets und mehr. The early-’90s console wars, the rise of digital RPGs, and the general cultural intensity of Nintendo each get their own tidy overviews. The design approach of “High Score” tries to create the same propulsive visual atmosphere for its stories that you might experience playing one of the games it’s describing. Whenever some development of the past has the potential to speak to a more modern concern in the gaming community, we’re whisked away to the next profile. The general “get a load of these eSports! Release year: 2020. JOIN NOW SIGN IN. “High Score” is now available to stream on Netflix. One of the series’ main sources of contradiction is its connective narration. Limited Series. This docuseries traces the history of classic video games, featuring insights from the innovators who brought these worlds and characters to life. As that feeling adds up over the course of the series, “High Score” feels an awful lot like a corporate orientation video, designed to instill in the viewer the idea that the companies behind these games are purveyors of magic doing an essential service for a thankful consumer base. UNLIMITED TV SHOWS & MOVIES. All of the successes are a foregone conclusion. Over time, that sacrificing of coherence for visuals just turns “High Score” into just another product to be absorbed.

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