Nobody knew fairly what to anticipate throughout Nintendo’s newest Indie World Showcase, nevertheless it undoubtedly wasn’t videogamedunkey. After years of reviewing video games, the favored (and divisive) gaming critic YouTuber popped up out of nowhere to try to promote followers one, straight from a lately thawed forest river.
After saying his indie publishing label Bigmode final yr, Jason “videogamedunkey” Gastrow appeared in Nintendo’s Wednesday livestream to advertise its first first sport, the Metroidvania puzzler Animal Nicely. “Howdy, I’m humorous online game man dunkey from Bigmode publishing and I’m joined in the present day by the creator of Animal Nicely, Billy Basso,” he stated, introducing the duo in the midst of the showcase by tossing a frisbee.
Whereas Basso described his five-year journey to make the atmospheric exploration sport from scratch, dunkey tiptoed throughout rocks within the shallow a part of a river within the background. “Simply attempting to offer folks the expertise of discovering one thing new in a spot they’ve already been earlier than,” Basso stated. It labored. The YouTube chat misplaced it, and viewers on Twitter have been tremendous confused:
Dunkey’s finest identified for video critiques of the most important new video games that lean into comedic riffs and visible gags. His destructive critiques roasting blockbuster releases are likely to get probably the most consideration. A 2022 evaluate of the unwieldy open world sport Sonic Frontiers went particularly laborious, culminating in a Metacritic evaluate bombing marketing campaign the place followers and detractors alike waged a meme struggle towards each other in dunkey’s identify. However he’s additionally been equally gushing about video games he loves, which tends to incorporate loads of Nintendo’s first-party lineup. His evaluate of 2017’s Tremendous Mario Odyssey known as it the “final collectathon that’s in equal components comedic and wondrous.”
When he launched his publishing label with Leah Gastrow, his spouse, final yr, he stated he needed to make use of his years of expertise tastemaking and explaining why some video games have been dangerous and others have been good to assist find hidden gems and convey them to the remainder of the world. Animal Nicely, which started its advertising marketing campaign on the PlayStation Weblog, would be the first however most likely not the final sport launched by his studio. Nintendo Direct viewers ought to most likely preserve an eye fixed out for him sooner or later.