High Score review: Netflix’s story of gaming’s “golden age” is honestly solid

Enlarge / The series' title is silly, but it's actually such a good series that we found ourselves nitpicking its faults instead of feeling entirely embarrassed by it. In the gaming-media world, we'll call that progress. (credit: Netflix)

We at Ars Technica's gaming section are flattered by High Score, the newest docu-series launching August 19 on Netflix. The easiest way to describe this gaming-centric interview series, split into six 40-minute episodes, is to give a shoutout our own War Stories video series.

For a few years, War Stories has been asking developers of beloved game series to explain how they overcame problems and got their eventual classics to your favorite PCs and consoles. Netflix's new series does something very similar: it asks members of the game industry to stitch together a narrative of gaming's so-called "golden era," which, in their eyes, begins with Space Invaders in arcades and ends with Doom on PC.

All in all, I'm happy High Score exists. If you want to watch it uncritically, especially with people who don't necessarily play video games, you can look forward to a mix of intriguing and all-too-familiar classic-gaming tales, told with high production values and clear storytelling throughlines. For the most part, the series is dignified, not embarrassing-a fact that delights the inner 12-year-old in me, who still has a chip on his shoulder about being a gamer "outcast" for most of my youth.

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