Gaming Review. A new prospect that I'm sure that nobody has juiced to death already. I'm typing this out because of my intermittent interest in actually reviewing a game, influenced by the likes of Running Shine and Lute to an extent, just without the credibility and the actual successful humor.
It's just like making a university essay, make an outline, fill in the detail, cite your sources, and make some good clean persuasion. If you haven't taken that speech class that's there to satiate your degree credit, it's basically ethos, pathos, and logos. Credibility, relatability/values, and logic. This simple triangle helps in establishing enough of a bond between the speaker and the audience in a short amount of time to give whatever the speaker is presenting a few minutes of their time. It's a skill that needs practice, and I am a bit out of practice for a few months to a year.
In this case, it's a review/persuasion of Tony Hawk's Proving Ground, no s. Half of my thought process in making a script to assemble this massive video is to approach it in typical academia fashion, and also to approach it in a more casual manner. Making a video that appeals to both is going to take some time and energy to pull off, not counting the real life stuff I have to take care of because there's more to a life than what internet clout I farmed for. Making a long video essay is a very divisive thing for me because it's easy for me to babble on and on about stuff tangentally related and only getting to the surface level of things. Lots of people put these on as noise, which is what I did to youtube drama videos that I used to listen to until I realized that it was just Highschool gossip.
Go watch a Sonic 06 review video that's under 50K views, and see if they make any other points that isn't Sonic bashing or the game being blatantly rushed for the seasonal release.
To make a point in that string of time is worthwhile but more difficult, but the rewards are worth it. Again, Running Shine, a group of people who review games that they really enjoyed, release quality videos for free that entertain and inform me about the finer things with video games. I would call it a case of minor anthropology as they aren't afraid to let go of the video game in question and talk about the information that leads into the game they're reviewing. They covered Kirby 64 and how that game was spawned from being a franchise that was lead by a different Video Game Director, in the same video they inject some old internet humor that makes me feel like my best friend is joking about this game that we get a kick out of. Then another point after they swing back with how certain elements were influenced by the culture and the times that it released in, like Klonoa riding a hoverboard because it was released on the PS2 in 2001, where skateboarding was still being taken seriously and because Namco's Klonoa brand just wasn't selling much.
It's getting to be a genuine problem now, I'm imagining Melo's voice narrating this as I type like the parasocial idiot that I am.
And a side note, they're great at this minimalistic editing with visual and audio humor. No stupid bits that overtake the video like the Nostalgia Critic, or rambling on about nothing like a guy like Jacob Geller, just enough to inject some humor or to drive some point and then it's time to move on.
But anyway, I tried to type out a script as usual out of inspiration from the small sub count of youtubers that I appreciate. Not like or love, that's suspect, I like their work, I don't know the guys in person.
Starting out I just typed my stuff free flowing, until I revised it and realized that I inserted way too many jokes, depreciative and sarcastic, which hurted my Ethos and Pathos. I played the hell out of this game, yes, but I need to convey to an audience member that I am taking points out of the game because of a fault, not because I got angry and said an off-kilter joke as rebound. My Ethos is already at a deficit since I have no other credibility for people to think of besides that I played and enjoyed my time with the game. The Pathos in my script is also a bit on the sour side, with some sweet thereafter, which is par for the course in internet. I added a note to incorporate more views of the Tony Hawk games than just my own, as I do know the divisiveness of the Nail A Trick that some players have. Again, still rusty despite having some practice with both verbal and written kinds of persuasion. There was this entire rant I cut out because it had the enjoyment of your racist grandfather lamenting the newest generation being soft during the Thanksgiving dinner. Also there was this story portion that I had to nix because there's not that much plot to get into besides what fanfiction I propose in this game about plywood surfing.
The logos for me is the thing that started this whole thing. I liked Tony Hawk's Proving Ground, and I wanted to talk about it to proclaim my insight into this game. I played it to the point that I can estimate the goal bounds to some of the challenges, and I want to pass this knowledge on to somebody that also wanted to beat this game without much tears and sweat.
The number one mind killer when it comes to these videos is over explaining for no reason, like padding an essay to fufill the word count. If I can explain it more succinctly and in a simple and casual manner, then why not go with that? It'll cause more revisions, but it'll make for a shorter and better video (hopefully) in the end. Nothing too simple, otherwise the engagement of my piece goes down because there's too many 'duh' moments. Apologies that I overthink to myself, and I know that some people enjoy that, but I don't. I want to make a quality product not sandbagged by my own personal issues. An artwork not hampered by the artist.
In all, while my script isn't completely finished and still up to review, I'm at a point where I believe that I can organize with my friends and review it again, as well as playing the game again for the purpose of footage and note taking. This is like second work, but it's in something that I can enjoy, and for others that might enjoy the same thing. If there isn't, at least I got the practice.
My structuring for today's entry is so script like that you can already imagine the video editing notations in between the lines. That's all. Enjoy the rest of your day, I pretty much covered all of my thoughts I have with my project today.
