Now that the new series of videoGaiden is over, I can say that I did not enjoy it. When I first saw Rab and Ryan in Consolevania all those years ago, they opened my eyes to treating videogames as wonderful and exciting things to be passionate about, which can be so infectious as to spark your heart. They loved games so much and so deeply that they just had to do something about it. So long as it had something to do with games. And that's how Consolevania came about, and it was evident throughout the entire series.
But, as is the trend nowadays, the games are no longer enough. And Rab and Ryan are both so deeply wrecked by their existentialism that the entire show is ruined from it. By trying to make the show about more than just games, they've made it worth less than nothing. They show you a game, try to say something which reaches beyond it and fails, before gently landing back at the game under discussion, only to attempt lifting off again after only a short while. It betrays a certain resistance to engaging with the games, and rather a gnawing need to engage with something higher.
But will they? Games like
That Dragon, Cancer and
The Talos Principle are discussed in this series, games which suggest, however imperfectly, Christianity. But they either brush it aside or turn it into a Satanic message, and go along their merry way. Content in their sickness.
From
Notes from Underground
Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote:
I am a sick man.