High Score
» Service: Netflix » Episodes:6
We’re rather conflicted about Netflix’s new videogame series. On the one hand, it offers some truly fantastic presentation with exceptional access to key developers, on the other it’s an incredibly biased look at certain aspects of gaming, changing or ignoring key things in gaming history to tell its (admittedly informative) stories.
Granted, the show does have a tough task on its hand, as it’s an impossible feat to tell the story of videogames across six episodes. So High Score focuses on bigger elements like the console war between Sega and Nintendo, the rise of 3D gaming, and the popularity of the NES and the success of Pac-man and Space Invaders, and this is where France Costrel’s creation comes unstuck.
Even topics as focused as these feel broader than the 40-minute-plus episodes allow, so you have baffling omissions like deleting pioneer Ralph Baer from gaming’s history, pretending Dragon Quest never existed and that Final Fantasy became a huge franchise without its earlier success, and a narrative that suggests 3D games didn’t exist until Doom and Star Fox came along. The thing that is likely to rankle readers the most, though, is that the rise of gaming in Europe is barely mentioned.
Admittedly, High Score’s US and Japanese-based focus makes sense when you consider the target audience, but it still feels like a clumsy move. If High Score had simply chosen to focus on individual games like The Toys That Made Us it could have been something sensational. It’s a pity, because in many ways, High Score really is excellent. While key Japanese figures like Hideo Kojima and Shigeru Miyamoto don’t feature, the likes of Nintendo’s Hirokazu Tanaka and Street Fighter II’S Akira Nishitani join a diverse cast of speakers to candidly talk about the subjects – the piece on cartridge creator Jerry Lawson is worth a watch alone – and it’s even narrated by Charles ‘It’s a me, Mario’ Martinet. There’s a huge amount of rare footage too, which further enhances High Score’s narrative. It’s just a pity it’s a story we don’t always recall growing up with.