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I am testing out the games on YouTube Premium, but I am having trouble finding them. I expected to open the app and see a prominent red button labeled GAMES…but it is not there. Instead, I have to subscribe to Premium and then navigate to the YOUR PREMIUM BENEFITS section. From there, I have to select EXPERIMENTAL FEATURES and choose to TRY EXPERIMENTAL FEATURES. Then, I have to locate the TRY GAMES ON YOUTUBE option and click on TRY IT OUT. To add to the confusion, there is an EXPLORE tab and a SEARCH tab, making it feel like a nonsensical poem. It takes me longer to navigate through all the menus than it does to load and play Lords of Midnight on the ZX Spectrum.

Upon discovery, I noticed that the GAMING section does not consist of actual games, but rather a repulsive environment filled with individuals murmuring or yelling while playing video games. These individuals are most likely the Content Creators, and their content is excruciating to endure. I can only imagine that they use these videos as a form of torture at Guantánamo Bay, for those inmates who cannot be broken by Metallica songs. It is disheartening to think about how many prisoners may have succumbed to insanity while watching videos such as “I DID THIS IN ZELDA AND MY NOSE FELL OFF FOR LOLZ” by CoolRizz23.

The games on YouTube are located in a section referred to as Playables. This brings to mind Lunchables, where miniature versions of food struggle against excessive plastic packaging, allowing kids to assemble cracker-based pizzas with processed ingredients that may later be regretted.

I will begin with 8 Ball Billiards as it is listed first, and I am curious to see how YouTube could enhance a game that has been released in numerous versions on every type of device since the invention of the abacus. The answer is, they cannot do much – unless you consider adding a computer AI that is unbeatable on level two, yet unbeatable on level four.

Brain Out was an interesting lateral thinking game but the screen was covered by a message telling me that I couldn’t connect to the cloud so gaming progress could not be saved. Nothing seemed to fix this. Galaxy Attack: Alien Shooter manages the trifecta of screen lag, stutter and crashes whenever multiple enemies are on screen. Crazy Caves was like an old Nintendo Game & Watch affair where a goldminer fires pickaxes skyward to smash plummeting rocks. It’s almost unplayably bad. I can’t write about Super Score because it is so bad it defies language.

The game Scooter Xtreme requires continuous thumb contact on the screen in order to control the scooter. This not only drains the phone’s battery, but also causes the screen to become hot enough to potentially melt your thumb. It is evident that this product lacks intelligence, as it exhibits a lack of consideration for user experience. I questioned whether these games were created by artificial intelligence, but it is apparent that only humans can possess such malicious stupidity.

Many of the games that function properly are simply copies of popular trends and titles. For example, Collect Em All is a game where you match shapes and colors. Merge Heroes and Merge Pirates are variations of tower defense games, while Jewel Planet is similar to Bejeweled. Hurdle is comparable to Wordle, but with five puzzles to solve. FarmLand is a lesser version of Harvest Moon, and Words of Wonder is just another game where you slide your finger to create words for a crossword puzzle. Is there really a demand for these games? Do people really want or need them? Personally, I refuse to play Basketball FRVR due to its spelling errors.

It’s not entirely awful.

“Experience the excitement of Slice It All! as you maneuver a knife through a course, slicing objects and avoiding traps. However, the use of an exclamation mark in the title may not be necessary unless it is a musical. Additionally, the sound may disappear at one point. Draw Climber challenges you to race a block along a track by drawing legs on it. These legs can be redrawn to overcome various obstacles. While I cannot verify the accuracy of the physics, I can confirm that a penis drawing surprisingly functions well as a wheel. State.io offers a faster and simpler version of Risk, using only dots. In Stack Bounce, happily bounce a ball through colored sections of a wall.”

However, engaging in these activities is comparable to picking one’s nose: it may bring temporary satisfaction, but ultimately, one knows it is not a socially acceptable behavior. These games do not hold the same appeal as the options available on Apple Arcade, which must be the goal in order to entice even the most casual of gamers to switch. Perhaps they may appeal to an extremely casual gamer who does not bother to change out of their pajamas or shower, and simply lounges in yesterday’s dinner remnants.

The sole licensed game of high quality here is Angry Birds Showdown, released in 2009. The same can be said for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which I do not wish to revisit.

YouTube seems to have instructed developers with limited capabilities to create generic versions of old video games that we lost interest in ten or more years ago. These games are similar to knockoff toys found at flea markets, with a plastic, imitation face wearing an Iron Man suit.

I requested my children to test them out to determine if it was only me. They played for ten minutes before being placed into custody. I personally played 29 of the games, but it would be impossible for anyone to complete all 48. It would be more merciless than the events in Squid Game. Your biological instincts would kick in and you would likely stick a pencil up your nose and into your brain.

This tawdry affair is curated either by an idiot who knows nothing about games, or thinks consumers are idiots who deserve nothing but to be ripped off. YouTube has killed language and irony by making Playables unplayable.

Source: theguardian.com