Weekend Watchlist, 5/1: Do it yourself

Happy Friday, PV Guide readers! I hope you have a great weekend ahead of you. If you missed it, check out my review of the new Jason Statham movie Shelter. I liked it.

Here are this week’s picks.

The history of charging the mound part one

The mad geniuses at Secret Base are back with another compelling series, this time about baseball’s history of players charging the mound. The first episode is out on YouTube now (more are available on Secret Base’s Patreon for paid subscribers), and it’s already a rich text of colorful characters, unwritten rules, and cultural insights.

Tom Walker tries to bake a virtual cheesecake

Streamer, comedian, Great Australian Bake Off Host, and friend of PV Guide Tom Walker has been featured here before for his very funny YouTube videos, and this latest had me laughing harder than anything else I saw this week. Tom puts his Bake Off skills to the test in the slightly janky Cooking Simulator, and things go off the rails very quickly.

Marathon’s Maintenance Bastards

My favorite games create emergent narratives through play – sports games have long been my go-to for this, but multiplayer games like Marathon are also a great avenue for this particular kind of experience. Writer, editor, podcaster, and game designer Austin Walker first dipped his toes into the Marathon video editing scene with “Is that knife in your hand for me?” last month, and this latest catalog of his time as a Bastard of Maintenance is  truly excellent. I particularly enjoy Austin’s usage of text, which encourages you to actually watch and sit with the video while also adding context, allowing people not so familiar with the game to keep up.