ACTION BUTTON REVIEWS PAC-MAN

I did it! I reviewed PAC-MAN. It will premiere here at 4pm Eastern Time today.

The review, as per usual, consists of an introduction, six stories, and an epilogue.

Like the DOOM review before it, this PAC-MAN review firmly occupies the category I expect we'll all later look back on as "The Weird Ones." I researched and composed it largely under unsatisfactory working conditions--doing most of my PAC-MAN playing on a Nintendo Switch in handheld mode, etc--while enduring a two-front Landlord Nightmare. What I'm saying is, I wrote and researched this review in a hotel, on top of a mountain, and then in an empty apartment without without access to the internet, air conditioning, my computer, or furniture. 

This video has, in fact, actually been done since about a day after I last spoke to you here on this page. I only sat on it for a while because I wanted to be able to say, on the day of the PAC-MAN premiere, that editing on the TOKIMEKI MEMORIAL review is "half finished." I can now confidently say that: and nothing breeds confidence like hyper-factuality. (I'm insinuating I might be more than half finished editing it.)

Perhaps I so strongly wanted to be able to make that promise in this post here because, well: the TOKIMEKI MEMORIAL video finds us finally, for the first time since my review of The Final Fantasy VII Remake, returning all the way back to my original vision for these videos: in summary, I did all the playing and researching and editing myself, right here, in my own desk chair, at my own computer. It has felt pretty good so far, and I expect it to feel pretty good right up until the end. I got a hecka fancy-lookin' layout for this one.

I'd love to type a little bit more text here in a little bit more of a celebratory tone, though the truth is I just want to get back to polishing up the TOKIMEKI MEMORIAL video. I think it's the best "game criticism" . . . thing I have ever made, and certainly the best thing yet on this channel. I mean, I don't wanna throw this PAC-MAN thing under any sorta moving vehicle--call it lowering your expectations. I don't know. I'm just saying: my curse, I suppose, is that I'm always all about The Next Thing.

And man, once ACTION BUTTON REVIEWS TOKIMEKI MEMORIAL has premiered, I can finally, finally get back to streaming video games as I research them. And what better game to start with than . . . well, the one I'll do as a quick lead-in to our several-months-long CYBERPUNK 2077 review process.

In closing, I just want to thank everyone backing me on Patreon. Thanks to you all, I was--for example--able to purchase a PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X myself, for the purpose of researching whatever future videos I'll need to research. Instead of having to accept a free console in exchange for some video coverage, I was able to pay for them and enjoy them on my own terms. ("My own terms" currently means they're both still in their respective boxes, though I promised myself I can splurge-purchase Demon's Souls, Spider-Man, and Ghost of Tsushima (and crank up Forza Horizon 4 on the XSX) as soon as I finish the first editing pass on this Tokimeki Memorial review.)

Instead of having to make eighteen-hundred short videos about the PlayStation 5 (Best Controller Ever?!?! Spider-Man is BACK!!?? Demon's Souls: Better Than Bloodborne?!?! I Just Can't Even With This One PlayStation 5 Menu!?) under the arms-akimbo gaze of a grimacing editor-in-chief, you all enabled me to literally research, compose, and produce a, uhh, labyrinthian, frankly bizarre review of literally 1980's PAC-MAN.

I wonder, though, if now, immediately at the start of a brand-new video game hardware generation, is actually the exact correct time to review PAC-MAN? Hmmm. It seems as though I . . . timed this extremely appropriately. Did I do so on purpose?

Find out, later today. 

Anyway, I gotta get back to work. (It's Monday, right?)