High Score

High Score might not tell hardcore gamers anything they don’t know. But they, along with those of us who might’ve stopped at Spy Hunter or the Sega Genesis — and are susceptible to this type of colorful nostalgia — will binge all six episodes compulsively. Netflix knows a little something about flow, too.

If High Score's goal is to be an enjoyable, colorful and whimsical overview, it at least delivers on that with some flair.

High Score is narrowly focused – the US and Japan dominate, as if the rest of video game history never happened, and while Atari’s early consoles and the Nintendo Entertainment System crop up in almost every episode, the Amiga, Spectrum and Commodore 64 are never so much as mentioned. ... But this series does well at explaining what was exciting about this time, and the way that each of the landmark games featured built on the foundations of what came before.

While it isn't the game-changer we had hoped for, it's a solid nostalgia-fueled starting point for anyone interested in the early days of gaming, even if its approach to gaming is to mash as many buttons as it can and hope a solid story comes out of it.

It’s a show obsessed with loving games, not understanding them. ... The series is at its best when it’s focused less on what it was like to see these games come out, and more on what it was like to design them.

These personal and often unexpected stories are easily the highlight of High Score, and they’re occasionally the only thing that saves it from turning into the public school version of a video game history lesson.

The pieces are there to make something that actually conveys a greater appreciation of what went into building these dominant cultural forces, to fill in that mystery gap between a revolutionary idea and plenty of dollar signs. But investigating that insightful middle ground just isn’t one of this show’s objectives.

Each episode focuses on a few stories/subjects for its running time, but often bounces around them within the episode, leading to a sense that the entire thing isn’t as focused or complete as it should be.