I have a love/hate relationship with them. I watch a few of them, but when they're bad, they're REALLY bad.
I don't care if they talk about the game. Some hate The Game Grumps because of that, but I love their early stuff and some of the newer stuff even though it's basically more of a podcast with video games. I hate stuff like PewDiePie. I'm not sure who watches that shit. Though, when I was 12, I liked Tom Green, so I guess I have no room to talk.

I'd rather just play.

Mostly they're pretty stupid, especially when they'd done by some moron who thinks they're funny, playing the game badly and shouting their mouth off about everything. The only reason they're sometimes useful is because too often gameplay trailers don't show more than brief flashes of gameplay.

Animavore wrote:I'd rather just play.

I prefer them over reviews. I get to see more of the game and decide for myself if I like the gameplay.
I also like seeing the ways others play games I like. I sometimes learn new shit too.

minininja wrote:Mostly they're pretty stupid, especially when they'd done by some moron who thinks they're funny, playing the game badly and shouting their mouth off about everything. The only reason they're sometimes useful is because too often gameplay trailers don't show more than brief flashes of gameplay.

This is why I hate DarkSydePhil.
There was a Retsupurae parody of the guy that's pretty funny:

Mac_Guffin wrote:

Animavore wrote:I'd rather just play.

I prefer them over reviews. I get to see more of the game and decide for myself if I like the gameplay.
I also like seeing the ways others play games I like. I sometimes learn new shit too.

With the PS4 my friends and I tend to just let each other try out new games with the Share Play feature where by a friend can play your games remotely from his PlayStation. Beats the hell out of a Let's Play.

Does PC have something like that? I suppose using remote desktop would be the same.

Good ones are better than a usual review since they're showing the actual game and not some reviewer's paid for opinion.

Animavore wrote:

Mac_Guffin wrote:

Animavore wrote:I'd rather just play.

I prefer them over reviews. I get to see more of the game and decide for myself if I like the gameplay.
I also like seeing the ways others play games I like. I sometimes learn new shit too.

With the PS4 my friends and I tend to just let each other try out new games with the Share Play feature where by a friend can play your games remotely from his PlayStation. Beats the hell out of a Let's Play.

Does PC have something like that? I suppose using remote desktop would be the same.

I've been getting into obscure retro games though... and I don't own a PS4. That's great for those games though.

Rome Existed wrote:Good ones are better than a usual review since they're showing the actual game and not some reviewer's paid for opinion.

I like watching reviews, but not for a tool to find out whether I want to buy a game. It's more or less for entertainment.

Though, there are a few reviewers that I trust. TotalBiscuit/The Cynical Brit is one of those.

Depends on what you mean be a Let's Play, if you mean someone like Pewdepie or whatever is name is who plays games to get hits while screaming and over acting I tend to hate them. If you mean Let's Plays of older games done by people with a fair or even some knowledge of the game who can manage to both be a little funny and engaging I love them.

There are a couple of main stream LPers I watch, thesw1thcer (Two Best Friends Play) and Achievement Hunter. But mostly I stick to watching older games so I watch people with under a thousand subs. Some of them I know rather well, some are my best internet buddies.

I should mention I am one, or at least was one of those under a thousand subs guys for a while. I think I did a good job and some people I like seemed to enjoy it so I had a blast doing it. But youtubes content match system got more draconian and more companies seemed to want to press claims on snippets of music from a twenty year old game so I stopped. After google plus my subs spiked for some reason, possibly by spam accounts looking for legitimacy or just because my videos got higher in the search lists so I am no longer under a thousand in fact I recently just cracked 2k...even though I haven't uploaded a video in years.

I like Northernlion. Seems like a nice, funny dude and he plays games that interest me. Other than that, I don't really care about the whole phenomenon.

I browse through some lets play's before buying games.

Mac_Guffin wrote:
I've been getting into obscure retro games though...

Yeah, I find they're good for that too. Especially those games that are pretty cryptic about how you're supposed to play them. I was recently on an Ultima and Wizardry kick, and wanted to see what the original PC games looked like. Great for games that you can't play, or have no interest in actually playing. I also enjoy watching videos of people who are really fucking good at those old games, though a lot of those are speed runs instead of let's plays.

I tend to prefer the more personality-free Let's Plays, the less talking the better. But then you get stuff like Ulillillia's playthrough of Ultima: Exodus which are so bizarre it's hard not to watch out of pure curiosity.

DarthHelmet86 wrote:Depends on what you mean be a Let's Play, if you mean someone like Pewdepie or whatever is name is who plays games to get hits while screaming and over acting I tend to hate them. If you mean Let's Plays of older games done by people with a fair or even some knowledge of the game who can manage to both be a little funny and engaging I love them.

There are a couple of main stream LPers I watch, thesw1thcer (Two Best Friends Play) and Achievement Hunter. But mostly I stick to watching older games so I watch people with under a thousand subs. Some of them I know rather well, some are my best internet buddies.

I should mention I am one, or at least was one of those under a thousand subs guys for a while. I think I did a good job and some people I like seemed to enjoy it so I had a blast doing it. But youtubes content match system got more draconian and more companies seemed to want to press claims on snippets of music from a twenty year old game so I stopped. After google plus my subs spiked for some reason, possibly by spam accounts looking for legitimacy or just because my videos got higher in the search lists so I am no longer under a thousand in fact I recently just cracked 2k...even though I haven't uploaded a video in years.

I hate PewDiepie too. Though, I don't mind some hyper LP'ers as long as their reactions are genuine. I feel like PDP is overacting. I like Dopefish and he laughs a lot, is hyper, etc., but it just feels more genuine. He's a bit of a guilty pleasure and so are the Game Grumps. GG are kind of inconsistent. Some videos will give us some interesting conversations (not always about the games), reactions, and stuff, but some are just stupid. I don't mind when they suck at the games, but I hate when they (well, mostly Arin) blame the games for their own incompetency like DarkeSydePhil does.

I love a lot of the original Something Awful LP'ers like Diabetus, ProtonJon, Slowbeef, etc. I also love JoshJepson. He's one of the only younger LP'ers I like. he's like a mix of Chuggaaconroy and ProtonJon.


Link me your channel please.

Mazille wrote:I like Northernlion. Seems like a nice, funny dude and he plays games that interest me. Other than that, I don't really care about the whole phenomenon.

I need to check him out. I've heard him on a podcast before and meant to earlier, but forgot.

SafeAsMilk wrote:

Mac_Guffin wrote:
I've been getting into obscure retro games though...

Yeah, I find they're good for that too. Especially those games that are pretty cryptic about how you're supposed to play them. I was recently on an Ultima and Wizardry kick, and wanted to see what the original PC games looked like. Great for games that you can't play, or have no interest in actually playing. I also enjoy watching videos of people who are really fucking good at those old games, though a lot of those are speed runs instead of let's plays.

I tend to prefer the more personality-free Let's Plays, the less talking the better. But then you get stuff like Ulillillia's playthrough of Ultima: Exodus which are so bizarre it's hard not to watch out of pure curiosity.

You might like Bisnap's Ratchet & Clank playthroughs. He's like the NPR of LP, and I don't mean that in a bad way. I'd be so relaxed listening to him. He may have made a few jokey comments, but I can't remember any.

I understand not liking the ones with personality. I am almost embarrassed to admit to liking some of them... almost.

If not for LP's, I'd have never found out about Chulip, Pocky & Rocky, the Bonk games, and others.

I'll have to check those out, though I've played all the R&C games to 100% I do also like to watch them sometimes late at night while falling asleep, so I hear the relaxing thing. It's also just cool to see how someone else plays a game that you're really familiar with. I've played the original NES Ninja Gaiden series to death, so much so that going through the games are mostly automatic for me. I very much enjoy watching other people's styles of playing them, just as good but different. Sometimes learning new things, which is great for a game you've been playing for 27 years.

I like LP's where there's personality but the person playing isn't necessarily aware of it. Stuff like Pewdiepie is so self-conscious and attention-grubbing, it isn't about the game at all. Another Ultima LP I recently watched was done by this older woman who is clearly a nerd from back in the day, she was probably the only female she knew playing games in the 80's. Unfortunately most of the female-hosted LP's I see are girls trying to be cute and appealing in a really generic way.

SafeAsMilk wrote:I'll have to check those out, though I've played all the R&C games to 100% I do also like to watch them sometimes late at night while falling asleep, so I hear the relaxing thing. It's also just cool to see how someone else plays a game that you're really familiar with. I've played the original NES Ninja Gaiden series to death, so much so that going through the games are mostly automatic for me. I very much enjoy watching other people's styles of playing them, just as good but different. Sometimes learning new things, which is great for a game you've been playing for 27 years.

I like LP's where there's personality but the person playing isn't necessarily aware of it. Stuff like Pewdiepie is so self-conscious and attention-grubbing, it isn't about the game at all. Another Ultima LP I recently watched was done by this older woman who is clearly a nerd from back in the day, she was probably the only female she knew playing games in the 80's. Unfortunately most of the female-hosted LP's I see are girls trying to be cute and appealing in a really generic way.

That is the big reason why I like LP's of games I love and play all the time. I also like seeing people play those games for the first time. Watching them fail at something like Mario 3 brings me back to being 5 years old and not getting past Cloud World. I can almost speed run that game now so it's nice to see someone play it as if it were new.

Speaking of women who played video games in the 80's, I really like Lucahjin when she plays games I like. I thought for the longest time that she was in her 20's like me, but she's like 37 or 38.
She just talks like one of your friends, has a dirty sense of humor, and is really chill.

Let's plays are my guilty pleasure. But there aren't very many good ones.

I really enjoy watching Bdoubleo100 for his honesty and he has a good conversational gift of gab. Probably my favorite.
Achievement hunter is fun for their antics.
Sips of Yogscast is a magnificent bullshit artist. Cracks me up constantly.