001 - Goal For Round One
THE VIDEO GAME GAME SHOW
For years, I covered game shows on Game Shows I Suppose and was having so much fun talking about one game show every week, and I never got to cover every game show, which is sad in it's own right, but luckily I have a fast-paced podcast now, and hopefully I can cover it more here.
The most popular episodes of that podcast, turned out to be the ones covering Video Games. It makes sense, most of the game shows at the time come from the 80s and 90s like Video Power and Nick Arcade.
Other shows like Starcade, has been on repeats on G4 in it's early years, and now on it’s reboot. And G4 had things like High Score that was a UK trivia game, Game On that was a Kenny vs Spenny knockoff, and Arena, that they also have rebooted, although it's with less video games and more Physical Challenges and WWE superstars.
For the 2000s there was still game shows, although segmented in things like Nickelodeon‘s Game Farm, or on things recently like Disney XD’s Play With Caution and whatever was that show they had with twitch streamers playing games… that isn't a game show, and I think that could possibly be why Venn was a bad idea?
It's not even a stranger to the Reality Show craze with RoosterTeeth’s The Gauntlet, WCG ULTIMATE GAMER on Sci-Fi and The Tester featuring the game grumps guy talking about his minimal trophy collection.
(CLIP: HOW MANY ACHIEVEMENTS DO YOU HAVE)
It's still way more than my accomplishments… which is still none.
Now, I could spend the entire segment talking about every one of these programs…
There is Hugo in Latin America, where people play with a Troll like creature on their phones.
There is Blokken a trivia show where they play Tetris to score points after a quiz round
And in the UK, Dara O’Brien had Go 8-Bit with Celebrities playing video games against gamer comedians, because all they have is Panel Games.
Canada had this show called Video & Arcade Top 10 that was talking about the current games while having a mini competition on its show.
But instead of dissecting each of these, I'm actually going to highlight my three favorites… GAMESMASTER, BUTTON MASHING and STARCADE.
But first, because I know some gamers are going to rant about how I didn’t talk VIDEO POWER or NICK ARCADE – I need to explain why.
Video Power is memed to hell online because of Johnny Arcade, and while it’s gameplay leading to quiz leading to gameplay and then a supermarket sweep in a fake game store is actually really exciting. It also started as a Captain N knockoff, and was very short-lived as a game show, as early 90s really wanted more GameProTV.
Don't get me wrong, it's fun seeing Battletoads, but the games were the same.
Nick Arcade is the American 90 Kids Game Show. Phil Moore is a fun host, but I think all people remember is the sound of Mikey moving (sfx) and the Video Challenge and maybe that final round where they are behind the green screen.
But a great chunk of the show is spent answering trivia questions, trying to figure out puzzles that just amount to “what did we put in this blender?” and if they don't know their left from right they do a spelling mini game… fun.
Even the goal is a trivia game, so it’s mostly a gaming-themed quiz with minimal gaming
Yes, your nostalgia of these shows are perfectly fine. Because absolutely these shows had great moments, maybe you really loved Turtles in Time and Video Power showed it off, or Sonic the Hedgehog 2 debuting with the cast of Clarissa Explains it All. It's there, and I'm not saying they are bad shows.
All I'm saying, as a game show fan and casual fan of interesting interactive entertainment – I have three that are better – Starcade, Button Mashing and Gamesmaster.
STARCADE is one of the very first video game game shows, at the time you might see Atari games on 3-2-1 in the UK or as a novelty on Krypton Factor, but one couple in San Francisco made an interesting format – take five games, two contestants and have them play these games for a limited amount of time, and have whatever their scores were carry over, with the most points playing a bonus round to win a new arcade cabinet. That’s the epitome of video game game show. The toss-up is a question about video games, the mini-game involved recognizing a screen shot, and yes, the bonus round was just getting the high score in a video game to win a gaming cabinet.
Obviously, you can't bring a show like this back - it's all narrative, and co-op e-sports however. Gaming has evolved into things like Speedrunning. And as I've said in the Game Shows I Suppose episode – the way to make this for a modern day is time trials – fastest lap in Mario Kart plus finding the code in Resident Evil and getting 4 lines in Tetris. All to win a high-end gaming PC or a console package. It’s format works because it was simple, it was quick, and stood out.
BUTTON MASHING
Most likely none of you know what Button Mashing is, and that's actually really okay, because this isn't really a game show that aired on TV, but rather THE INTERNET.
One of the first pieces of online content I ever was glued to was on Gamespot featuring a very young Rich Gallup and later pre-giant bomb and Nextlander Vinny Caravella as they got Gamespot editors and later fans of the website to play three different rounds. The first is a console-ation round where they had to compete 3 or 4 challenges very quickly like stomp on a goomba in Mario 64 or smash a box in Tony Hawk Pro Skater with the two left going back and forth in a trivia game based on the top games from the website through flashing screenshots called memory leak, with the winner going up against another editor in the game of their choice, so a very young Jeff Gerstmann or Alex Navarro in a final round called “owned” that as we know, is timeless and will never be seen as “cringe” by today's modern gaming audiences.
But seeing that button mashing, even if it never had any influence, paved the way metaphorically for things like Arcade Pit and Super Nerd and all the shows on twitch with gamers asking trivia questions to other gamers who are quickly looking at their chat and Google for the answers.
GAMESMASTER
But the one that I argue is the best is GAMESMASTER, this is the game show that is also a video game show.
This is what Electric Playground was to Canadians and X-Play is to Americans. That cultural phenomenon that gamers say was a major influence on them as a child and now as grown ups can complain online in the form of podcasting, lovely.
As fans of my Patreon will know, I've been doing a watchalong of the show and going through the show as gaming evolves, we're still in the Super Nintendo and Mega Drive, but we're heading into the CD-ROM and PlayStation years really soon and it's going to be just a system shock to it.
The show is very segmented, but very enjoyable. They start the show with a cool blade runner intro, and then get straight into a video game, how novel!
They get competitors to talk about the game for a bit. And then they go play it, while comedian Dominik Diamond and a gaming journalist like Dave Perry provide commentary on the events.
Sometimes it’s a head-to-head game, others it's a race against the clock, and sometimes it's an ultra rare no-time limit defeat the really difficult stage.
If they complete the challenge, they win a trophy – a coveted “golden joystick” (before it became just another game of the year award)
If they fail, commiserations by the crowd watching onward, unless they did really Terrible or cheated, in which they get set “sent to the pit”.
Many gamers confuse the show with similar show Gamesworld, as it had production members from both shows, and had characters like Big Boy Barry on – I say that because watching the modern reboot of GAMESMASTER on YouTube.
That version, had reviews, it had features, it even had a silly skit, just like the original, they didn't have the console-Tation Zone where kids ask for help defeating a boss to a floating head, probably because GameFAQs still exists.
But something still feels different, Maybe it’s the lack of Dominik Diamond, maybe it was because it was made during the pandemic.
I didn't get that same magic this time around and strangely enough, I found out recently that Dominik Diamond brought back his gaming columns and has a column hybrid podcast on Substack that you could check out! https://dominikdiamond.substack.com/
However, the thing that made the show special, was still the very reason I say it's the best video game game show – the challenges.
It's a contestant or contestants and it's just playing modern games in incredible, nearly impossible settings to still win a small trophy - that's about it.
You don’t need to be very flashy, you don't even need a big gimmick (even though I'm sure the budget went towards the set and licensing)
All you really need, to be a great game show is have fun video games and make sure the contestants are also equally the focus and watch them perform.
You don’t need stakes and drama like a reality show, and the lavish sets like any esports telecast.
Although to be fair – I think esports is making more money than all these game shows combined, so, I guess ultimately. It’s LCS and Overwatch League that will have the last laugh.
Ha ha… yeah, I'm old.
