Emmett Watkins Jr

VGU.TV • 29th June 2024

Bad Boys Ride or Die Review: Lost Sauce Restored

It took me a while, but I get it now.


Anyone who knows me knows that Bad Boys II is one of my favorite films of all time and I hold it up in my mind as a near-perfect movie. So I was beyond excited for Bad Boys 4 Life (which should have been the title of this movie). Well, while the excitement of the franchise returning carried me through the movie, I soured on it the more I thought about it. It wasn’t a bad flick, but it felt like a very utilitarian film, trying hard to fit within modern tas...

VGU.TV • 14th May 2024

Mullet Mad Jack Review: Millionaire Murder Simulator

It’s really hard these days to not be addicted to consistent stimulation. Even I am guilty of picking my phone up immediately upon waking up most mornings. Often I don’t focus on one single task when at work, as I have music or podcasts in the background or, at worst, a whole video playing despite not having the excess attention to give to it properly. Anyone who grew up, even in part, in front of a screen knows this struggle, and we’ll likely spend a bulk of our lifetimes getting our fix or fin...

VGU.TV • 13th February 2024

VGUt.v’s 24 of ‘24 Part Four

Okay okay! Everyone else on the site has had their turn to discuss what they’re excited about this year. I’ve kept y’all waiting long enough, but it’s finally time for me to get hyped with the rest of y’all. On with the list!


This one may maybe a bit of a surprise to folks who know me. My experience with heavily anime-inspired games is shaky at best. Played a few hours of Persona 5, but just haven’t gotten around to playing more of it, but it’s well-documented how much I adore the Bayonetta...

26th January 2024

Life Bar 001: GOTY 2023 (En Garde Feature)

The first issue of the digital magazine, Life Bar, featured a piece from me on the game En Garde. If you'd like to read the full zine, you can pick it up here: https://jarrettgreen.gumroad.com/l/gevpl

VGU.TV • 4th January 2024

The Top 23 Video Essays of 2023

Welcome back to yet another list of my favorite video essays of the last year! Some might be glad to hear that I have not been terminally online as much as 2022, as this is the first time I’m delivering this article after the year I’m writing about has ended. But being outside a lot more didn’t stop me from watching a bunch of video essays. We got writing on everything from US back genocides to games about nuclear war to several bafflingly bad video games. Once again, there’s no real ranking to...

VGU.TV • 27th November 2023

Disney's Wish Review: I Wish They Didn't

Wish is the most soulless corporate “creation” I’ve seen in a very long time.


It’s very cool to have a traditional Disney lead be an unambiguously black woman. This is a legitimately great move and considering how this film is being positioned in the canon of classical Disney, that’s a pretty massive move. It’s cool that the art style attempts to be a hybrid between the classical 2D and modern 3D styles. And it’s cool that the movie has some parts where it’s about anti-fascism and resistance...

VGU.TV • 31st December 2022

The 22 Best Video Essays of 2022

Welcome back to yet another look at my favorite video essays of the year, this time of 2022. I have been just as terminally online this year as I was last, so I have a lot of videos to shout out. And of course, I’m always looking for more, so if you know a video I missed, please share it with me on Twitter! This list, much like last year’s list, will also not have any real ranking to it, except the final video is definitely my favorite of the bunch. But I clearly would recommend any and all of t...

VGU.TV • 8th June 2022

Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers Review: This Shit Hard

I’ve talked about it at length elsewhere on the internet, but Kendrick Lamar genuinely changed my life when he made To Pimp a Butterfly. There are several aspects of my personality and worldview that wouldn’t exist, or at least exist in the same way, if I didn’t listen to that album during my earliest years of adulthood. So, of course, I loved DAMN a few years later, and of course, I loved the Black Panther album a little bit after that. In the final track of To Pimp a Butterfly, Mortal Man, whe...

VGU.TV • 22nd April 2022

Everything Everywhere All At Once Review: AYE YEOH!

Many years ago, I left my home state for the first time in my life alone. I’ve stayed over at friends’ houses, and I’ve gone to conventions nearby up until then, but this was the first time I was out, all on my own, with a group of friends I had either only known online or were just meeting on this trip. Despite any concerns that would be perfectly reasonable to have, it was a fantastic trip. But at the end of that trip, after meeting so many new acquaintances, trying so many new experiences, an...

VGU.TV • 9th March 2022

Shadow Warrior 3 Review: Lo Key, Lo Brow, High Fun

Back when I was a young child trying to survive the harsh heat of summers in south Georgia, one of the most exciting parts of my breaks were the days I spent at summer camp. It wasn’t the kind of camp one might think of from things like 1998’s The Parent Trap or 2005’s Psychonauts, where you would leave home for the entire summer to adventure in the wilderness. No, this was more of a daycare center for kids whose parents didn’t work any less despite the summer break. Most days at camp would be c...

VGU.TV • 11th February 2022

Emmett's Games of the Year 2021 (And Some Other Years Too)

Welcome to yet another year-end list where someone gushes about the games they’ve played over the last 12, and now 13, months. Much like 2020, 2021 hasn’t been anything like we expected. But unlike last 2020, the past year has had a deeper effect on my headspace. So, throughout this list of games, you might notice how many of these games speak to how I’ve been emotionally over the last few months and my emotional needs during that time. So, when you notice that heavy hitters like Halo Infinite a...

VGU.TV • 30th December 2021

The 21 Best Video Essays of 2021

As someone who is terminally online, I watch a lot of internet video, and I do so especially on YouTube. For years I’ve watched all kinds of content there, from movie and game reviews to vine compilations and music videos to even a video podcast every now and then. But this year is the year I got really into video essays. Now, I’ve watched video essay-like content for a few years already. Channels like GVMERS and Game Makers Toolkit have given me some of my favorite documentaries and game analys...

VGU.TV • 20th December 2021

Keepin It 💯 Ep 10: The Grand Finale

Welcome to the final propper episode of Keepin It 💯, the podcast in which I, Emmett Watkins Jr go through my top 100 games of all time to sort them in proper order.


Over the last few months, we’ve had:10 Episodes (+Ep 0 and 9.5)534 Matchups100 Rejected Games100 Properly Sorted Games1,273 minutes of audio recorded (over 21 hours!)And one live finale that is 11 hours long over two streams.


As for that live stream, it’s embedded into this article, so if you are averse to reading, check it out...

VGU.TV • 6th September 2021

For Better or Worse, It's Kanye: Donda Review

Some of my most cherished memories in life are attached to when I experienced certain pieces of art for the first time. Seeing Spider-Man Homecoming for the first time in a theater full of the overwhelming love of dozens of new and old friends. Playing Shadow of Colossus in a Walmart gaming chair right after marathoning through Modern Warfare 3 on Christmas night and finally having its obtuse design click with me. Being introduced to Kendrick Lamar through Good Kid, Maad City while riding home f...

VGU.TV • 31st May 2021

Knockout City Review - Dodgeballin'

Despite participating in little league sports up to eighth grade, I was not an athletic child. As the son of a football and track and field coach for over 2 decades, this incidentally ended up being a defining trait during my childhood. But my lack of passion for traditional sports didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy physical games, it just meant those games were never seen as “real” sports. I grew up running chariot races in Latin Club and participating in crabwalk races on several field days, but above...

VGU.TV • 3rd May 2021

What Kane and Lynch 3 Could Be, If It Could Be

The Kane and Lynch franchise, however short-lived and obscure it is, has remained a point of fascination for many game enthusiasts. In an industry that often rewards brightly colored worlds and lighthearted tones with critical acclaim and high sales, this series envelopes you in a dark universe full of terrible men doing terrible things. But despite how hideous the games are, both in very different ways from one another, the series has remained fascinating to play, and even more to discuss. But...

VGU.TV • 1st March 2021

Emmett Watkins Jr's Most Anticipated Games of 2021

Only a month into the year, we’ve had plenty of games get unexpected delays and the next-generation consoles are expected to be tough to find for many more months. And that’s only in the gaming space, as several other newsworthy moments have happened outside of interactive entertainment. But, while it might just be the optimist in me, I still think 2021 is set to be a year full of new beginnings that, in comparison to last year, should kick of a much brighter future. But here, I wanna focus on t...

VGU.TV • 13th February 2021

Judas and the Black Messiah Review

I’ve been hearing about Fred Hampton for years but I’ve never sat down and really engaged with him and the real purpose of the Black Panther Party until watching Judas and The Black Messiah. Shows like The Boondocks and podcasts like Throughline have made sure that my knowledge of black history didn’t stay relegated to the narrow teachings from school. But even then I didn’t know everything. I don’t wanna say I’m glad I waited until now, but it feels perfect that I saw this now of all times....

VGU.TV • 19th January 2021

Emmett Watkins Jr's Games of the Year 2020 (And Some Other Years Too)

Jesus Fucking Christ, 2020 is finally over. I don’t need to dwell on it, but this year has been a shit show in dozens of ways. But hey, I have a few reasons to not completely throw the whole year in the garbage, like video games for example. There were an impressive amount of excellent new releases that capped off the final year of the PS4 and Xbox One generation and a bunch of older titles I was happy to finally get around to. So, let’s take a little bit of time from complaining about quarantin...

VGU.TV • 27th November 2020

Spider-Man: Miles Morales Review - Big Thwipin' Up In NYC

You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about Insomniac lately. Before Spider-Man, they’ve made great games for over two decades, many of which are all-time favorites of mine, but our collective perception of them seemed to have changed. Early on, they were known as a fun developer, known most for their whimsical worlds, wacky weaponry, and vibrant color palates. This made their games just that, fun and the quality of their catalog earned franchises like Ratchet and Clank and Spyro that description....

VGU.TV • 8th September 2020

Risk of Rain 2 Review: The Catharsis of Control in Chaos

I personally put an incredibly high premium on my free time. Much of the films I watch are those in long-running franchises that I’ve already enjoyed for many years or from writers and directors of movies I already love. My tastes in music are, sometimes embarrassingly, narrow, as I only listen to the same few dozen artists in the same 2-3 genres. I rarely watch TV as the dozens of hours spent on one story can come off as a waste of time, and I’ll often only watch shows that have a finite ending...

VGU.TV • 12th June 2020

Gods & Monsters Early-In-Development Build, Gameplay Leaks through Google Stadia

Almost a full month before the Ubisoft Forward event, Google Stadia has accidentally allowed an early in-development version of Gods and Monsters to be publically playable to users. Before quickly being taken down, this mishap resulted in a number of gameplay clips appearing all over Reddit and Twitter, including an extended video sent to us by an anonymous Stadia user. You can watch that gameplay in the unlisted video below:


The gameplay provided to us which, again, is early in development f...

VGU.TV • 26th March 2020

The Hunt Review

I’ll be honest, I was totally ready to hate this movie. Ultraviolence in live-action movies really turns me off, even with otherwise great action. So, I assumed this would be a nonstop gorefest due to the trailers presenting it as such. Yes, I knew about it’s politically charged premise, and that’s the primary reason I had any interest in the movie, but I was sure it would have taken a backseat to all of the blood and viscera on display. The only reason I ended up seeing it is because a friend o...

VGU.TV • 2nd January 2020

Emmett Watkins Jr's Games of the Year 2019 (And Some Other Years Too)

I’ll be 100% honest upfront, 2019 was an off year for me personally. Due to responsibilities at work and school piling up, and me being in an emotional funk for half of the year, I didn’t even feel up to the task of playing video games most days. So, unfortunately, while I did get my hands on a lot this year, I didn’t play many of them to completion, and even more of them I didn’t even get to touch, despite knowing I’d love them. Because of this, the way I’m listing my games will be a tad differ...