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Matt and Shelby are the duo behind Girlfriend Reviews
Photo: YouTube
The world of games has continued to turn: while the digital arenas have become larger, more colorful, varied and imaginative, our view of games has also changed.
Where in the past it was mainly scoring tables, fun curves and technical checks that dominated conversations about the medium, today there are many unusual lenses through which video games can be seen and discussed.
We present five of them here.
Girlfriend Reviews: He plays, she talks
The idea of "Girlfriend Reviews" is easy to explain: Shelby watches her boyfriend Matt play a video game - and then creates a review based on these impressions.
Through her role as a spectator, Shelby repeatedly makes observations, detached from the classic rating categories, that the player himself likes to miss: From the almost compulsive permanent employment in open world games to the eye-catching hairstyles of secondary characters.
Last but not least, she compares games with regard to their entertainment value for viewers who - like themselves - do not use the controller.
The concept often leads to funny reviews: when Matt raves about the action spectacle Ghost of Tshushima for minutes, for example, he finally cuts off with a short and dry review: "This is a game for people who have to be morbid and constantly busy."
The videos of Girlfriend Reviews are informative, humorous and offer added value for both gamers and people who are only superficially interested.
Meanwhile, "Girlfriend Reviews" is streaming more and more often live on Twitch, where the videos offer situation comedy instead of the lavishly produced videos on YouTube.
The now over one million subscribers enjoy both sides of "Girlfriend Reviews" - and finance new videos and live streams on the Patreon crowdfunding platform.
Noclip: The professional documentary filmmaker
With his project Noclip, the journalist Danny O'Dwyer reveals what has been hidden from the gaming press for decades: the work and sacrifices of development teams who have to deal with deadlines, time pressure, overtime and budget planning before a game can even appear.
With his documentaries and interviews, O'Dwyer brings these often dramatic stories to the fore, and lets his interlocutors tell of lows, but also triumphs.
The entry barrier for those interested is low: O'Dwyer repeatedly enriches his videos with presentations and context that enable non-gamers to follow the developers' stories.
Meanwhile, O'Dwyer and his Noclip team have been producing elaborate documentaries for over four years, which in the past revolved around the greatest titles in the gaming world, but also debut works and insider tips: From Fallout to Hades and Don't Starve, all facets are of the gaming industry gathered here.
Guided Tour: A game designer plays
Marcel-André Casasola Merkle is a German developer and game designer who has started a special project on YouTube: With its "Guided Tours", Casasola Merkle offers guided tours through the locations of digital games.
He comments on puzzles, level architecture, character design and other details from the perspective of a game designer.
In addition to the commented tours, the developer also repeatedly tries to make interesting experiments.
Particularly noteworthy is the nine times playing through a level from The Last Of Us 2 to find out how far the player can really get with very different play styles - from skillful sneaking to an aggressive frontal attack.
Value: Archaeologists at the controller
The historical human history has been one of the medium's most popular settings since the 1980s: The European Middle Ages in particular, but also the age of colonialism and antiquity, have repeatedly served developers as the most important source of inspiration for stories, characters and architecture.
This not only fascinates gamers, but for several years also historians and archaeologists, who are increasingly replacing trowels and digging brushes with controllers and notepads.
They want to explore how developers deal with history, where they replace facts with artistic freedom, and how they make historical events playable.
In order to share these observations with as many people as possible, the Dutch University of Leiden founded the VALUE project: archaeologists and historians who are crazy about games regularly explore digital worlds and comment on what they notice.
Sometimes it's about architecture, sometimes about depicting barbarians, sometimes about the question of how the ancient Egyptians really built their pyramids.
First Five: Reviews for time savers
Time is a precious commodity, but many game developers don't seem to care: Gigantic game worlds that still show blank spots even after 60 hours are standard in the industry.
Older gamers in particular, however, who have to balance their time on screen with their work or family life, increasingly want shorter adventures that can be completed after a few hours.
For them, the YouTube channel First Five is an important point of contact: Games are presented here that rarely require more than ten hours of play.
The videos are an all-round sweep of content: Essential aspects of the story are presented as well as special features of the game mechanics that make it worth investing valuable time in a game - or just let it be.
All of this goes under the motto that "First Five" repeats in each of his videos: "This is about the question of whether games are worth your time - not your money."
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