The Video Game Years

Great reviewers and well put together show, endlessly entertaining. Someone bring this show back!

Mostly the 80s decade as previous decades are on Youtube via the Retroware TV channel. It's a great documentary with interviews with Youtube video game celebs as well as footage you've seen on Youtube before. It's educational and worth watching if you're a video game fanatic like me. The quality of the video is fine and the soundtrack classy; the production values are usual Youtube fluff.

So I found that the majority of documentaries about the world gaming I've ever watched have been rather dull, lacklustre or just plain terrible, but this one I found to be a very fun and excellently done show that's all about video games and the gaming systems from their earliest beginnings all the way through the 80s in a year-by-year basis with the episodes consisting of about three for one year, starting with 1977 and going on from there. They talk about stuff like what the most popular games were at the time and how they were culturally received, as well as the wonderful arcade machines and then moving on to the consoles as they came out and how the technology began to improve as the years passed by, as well as some of the politics and scandals that went along with the business and more political side of the industry. I really found all the episodes, even much the longer ones, to be quite interesting and engrossing to watch, I would recommend this show if you're into video games in general or even if you only were years ago with consoles like the Atari or Nintendo because it's a very well done series, it's episodic but if put it all together it really makes for one of the most thorough and satisfying well-written and presented documentaries about the world of video games that's ever been done, and it very much deserves its high rating on here. And the people talking are guys that are old enough to have lived through most of those gaming innovations and remember when they came out, so they definitely know what they're talking about and they speak of their own personal memories of playing the games, and a lot of them are pretty well known internet game-related personalities that you've probably seen on youtube if you're into all that, like Pat Conti who did "Pat the NES Punk" and many many podcasts since on his channel, and Joe Redifer and David White of "Game Sack", a well made gamer show with a lot of research put into its episodes even if Dave and Joe certainly are not the most sparkling of presenters ever. There's Jay and Daryl Hatfield, two of the three brothers that feature in "The Game Chasers", a down to earth excellent little series about tracking down rare games and toys on the road. James Rolfe and Mike Matei put in an appearance, do I even need to really say as to what certain agitated game playing nerd character they're associated with? There also Norman Caruso who does a much more seriously-toned factual series in the history of gaming of his own, and there's quite a few others besides, it is a gamer experience type of a series not a technological one about how the games were made and stuff like that, I've seen that kind of doc before, no thanks, I much prefer the more personal approach to this what's supposed to be a fun subject! It's a fan campaign funded series, so among things, I think that makes it hard for them to produce new episodes, and that's a real shame because there's a lot of content that they haven't covered as of yet and I don't know if they ever will, they never reached the 90s, and that would've been so awesome to hear everyone's thoughts on my favourite console the Super Nintendo, as well as all of the cool computer game innovations that emerged throughout that very special decade. It's a show that could easily continue and I hope it does someday, but even if it doesn't it's still a brilliant hidden gem of a show about consoles and games that's very much worth checking out if you have an interest in the medium. Have a good one and always happy gaming 🕹

The Video Game Years was a series Pat Contri (Pat the NES Punk) created back in 2012. It's a great time capsule of three key timeframes in video game history: The rise (and fall) of Atari, the Golden Age of Arcade Video Games, and the domination of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Other platforms like Sega, PC gaming, and others also are given mentions. Starting in 1977 and ending in 1989, it gives a snapshot of 12 very important years in the growth of the video game industry.

The show is set up in similar style to VH-1's "I Love the 80s" series. Key games are highlighted, as are accessories, consoles, moments, and more. The show also airs old advertisements, talks about pop culture at the time, brings up more obscure games, and even points out the popular pinball machines of the time.

The series is a bit of a time capsule. This was YouTube in the early years, when retro gaming was at the height of popularity, and seeing many of these gaming YouTubers together is a bit strange. For example, Tommy Tallarico is a part of the series, yet he and Pat the NES Punk had a very prominent falling out, so very odd seeing them together. Other YouTubers in this series have long since left the platform or retro gaming, some have passed away, and of course others, like Pat or James Rolfe, are still going strong. It's a time capsule, not just of the early years of video gaming, but of a different era of YouTube.

Two reasons I give this series a 6. One, there is a little too much reliance on YouTubers instead of industry professionals. Yes, some are here like Intellivision's Keith Robinson, Nintendo's Howard Phillips and Atari's Howard Scott Warshaw, but I wish there was more from them to give the series a little more authenticity. The other thing that annoyed me was when a subject came up that obviously was something that either wasn't known by the show or wasn't of interest, they would do a very basic "uh yeah, it's a game, cool." It felt almost like a check box they felt like they had to so people wouldn't yell at them about "hey, what about this game?" I almost would have rather they just put in a quick mention or something, it comes off a bit lazy.

Overall, it's a fun series, but it's quite apparent in many ways that this was an early YouTube production by some of the production choices and somewhat "on the cheap" feel to it. You will learn a few things, but they will drive you nuts by how they skim over or skip certain subjects.

If you enjoyed the VH1 series of "I Love the xxx" shows many years ago, you'll enjoy this. It's the exact same format, but all video games. Well-known podcasters & YouTube self-made celebrities give their overview on various video game releases by the year. They occasionally hit the obscure stuff, which is a treat.