Reviews WebVideo / Jon Tron

Jon Tron. He "Gets" It.

The web is crawling with video game critics and commentators, but only very, very few of them actually go beyond cursing and screaming to show what it really feels like to play a video game. James Rolfe gets it; Yahtzee—when he isn't making silly similes—demonstrates a keen understanding of what makes a game, and its player, tick. Jon Tron gets it, too, but he expresses his understanding... very much in his own way, different from anything we've seen before in the amateur game critique biz. Rather than mounting elaborate set pieces (though he does that too) or developing an outrageous, over-the-top persona (he's good to go on that front), Jon does away with the artifice and gets straight to the raw emotion: what you see, hear, and feel when you pick up your controller and get lost in a particularly good—or bad—game. And I've never, ever, seen anyone have that much fun puttin' on a web show.

When you watch a Jon Tron episode, be prepared to get lost amidst a flurry of wacky colors, sounds, and images. Expect our gracious host to laugh at his own jokes. Be aware of cutaway gags, caption humor, malapropisms, and all the random, nonsensical video clips you can safely pack into ten minutes of footage. If you haven't seen his show, this might not seem any more appealing than a YouTube Poop binge, but if you have... you know. You just know, okay!? Jon's sincerity makes the show; he doesn't appear to have a single cynical bone in his body. Bad games don't make him angry, they make him (realistically) sad and perplexed; good games make him act... the way you act when you play a good game. That's the thing about Jon. He's not acting funny, he's a genuinely funny guy, being himself. He doesn't have to put on a show, he is the show. And in an Internet full of synthetic, fabricated personas, it's kinda nice to see the real deal in action.

I give Jon Tron five robot parrots out of Spoony.