The five best gaming critics on Youtube

Games criticism is difficult to do well in any form, but doing it on video has its special challenges. The critic has to worry about delivery, tone, humour and of course what to show on screen as well as what they say.

These are the best 5 of the bunch, in my opinion:

5. TotalBiscuit

Total Biscuit is one of those critics who manages to make you understand and see his point of view even if you completely disagree with him. His controversial stance on the user game market (video above) is a particular highlight, attacking the defending arguments for used games and making an excellent case against it. His reviews are also enjoyably harsh.

4. Super Bunnyhop

Super BunnyHop’s critical close-ups are a real highlight of the YouTube gaming-verse. He articulates what makes a game good and bad extremely well, and is one of the few critics I’ll watch a critical close-up of on a game I haven’t played.

3. Digital Foundry

Sticking to the nitty-gritty in terms of frame-rate, lighting and resolution, Digital Foundry is the best place to go for in-depth technical analysis and comparisons of the latest titles, and their conclusions can at times be surprising and counter-intuitive. Essential viewing if you care about frame-rates and pixel count.

2. Zero Punctuation

Yahtzee’s hilarious but utterly harsh reviews have gained online notoriety – but he remains the only critic that manages to make me laugh out-loud when watching one of his videos. The little animations sync perfectly with his fast-paced narration, providing the viewer with content that’s equally informative as it is funny.

1. Matthewmatosis

By far the least prolific on this list, but also easily the best for my money. Matthew’s videos provide insight so well thought-out it’s easy to see why his videos are so sporadic. What he does so well is explain why he thinks designers made the choices they did, citing both the context of the release and the game mechanics themselves. He really is essential viewing if you are interested at all in game design, particular highlights are his 2+ hour Dark Souls commentary, and his Zelda in-depth review series.

If there’s a critic that you particularly enjoy that I haven’t mentioned, please do share a link in the comments.