Does anyone watch LPs alot? (LP = "Let's Play")

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Yeah, just curious as to if anyone here watches that sort of thing. I used to watch TV and such when having a meal, way back when, but as time went on and shows got, well... more and more crappy/awful, I needed something else to watch. So these have taken the place of that.

I end up watching them pretty darn frequently and have a large number of subscriptions on Youtube. I also end up rewatching old ones alot... it's like going back to a favorite season of some TV show. Or at least, it's like how that USED to be, when I actually cared about TV... I always feel like I"m the only one that actually re-watches ones I've already seen.

But yeah, does anyone else watch these at all? Or even make some yourself?

I watch a lot of Markiplier's lets plays. He's an awesome LPer and gamer in the sense he actually critiques the games mechanics/elements, and does more than just screaming and laughing when playing a horror game or comedy game.

As for me, I'm planning to start a Let's Play of Quake 64 on my Youtube sometime.

I watch them when I'm trying to decide whether to buy a game or not. Sometimes I also watch them after I play the game to see how someone else did it differently.

I've watched a couple, but I prefer to watch playthroughs without commentary. I enjoy hearing the game, especially if I want to see/hear the story to a game I suck at...or if it's a Nintendo game as they always have the best music.

I don't watch any nowadays to be honest. I mainly look for strategy videos on bosses or puzzles in games that stump me after many, many tries. As long as they aren't offensive and actually talking about the game, I'll watch some.

I do! I do! Sometimes they're even more fun than movies or shows.

Not really. I'd rather watch videos of the gameplay itself. I find the commentary on Let's Play videos is not always helpful.

I know everybody loves to narrate things, and now thanks to YT everybody has a chance to try it. The problem is, most people aren't very good at it.

I've watched a few here and there, but it's not a very satisfying experience for the most part. Good for revisiting old favorites if the commentary is good (rare) or having a look at the gameplay before making a purchase/no purchase decision.

I watched Two Best Friends play on YouTube for awhile now. Their too funny that their talking about random stuff and make mistakes in games (ex. On Silent Hills Downpour, Matt throw an axe into the pit by pressing the wrong button and Pat laughed so hard). Recommended to check them out.

I watch a fair few long plays and comentary-free demonstrations, but I don't usually watch let's plays unless there aren't any other options for seeing how the game I'm curious to see handles itself against my preferences for purposes of gauging a purchase.

I'm currently mostly interested in NES games and Japanese import titles for PS3, so it's nice to be able to look such obscurities up to decide if I'd like anything more than the game's cover art... which in quite a few cases, the art has been far better than the games themselves, and for that, I'm rather grateful for being able to see them before being stuck with them.

Let's plays can be good, but I think the problem is, you either need someone who is witty-funny on the spot while also mindful of their actions in relation to their audience's attention span, two friends that can keep each other funny by changing the subject when one goes off on an annoying tangent, or a well thought out script being laid out over the gameplay through a good voiceover editor to avoid putting the audience off with repetitive comments and rantings. The problems with most I've given chance to see, is that they're typically some shrilly voiced guy playing a long game with improvisational dialogue without possessing the grace to do so. All that tends to flesh in result is repetitive growling, moaning, and game blaming for their poor play performance... All the annoying elements that make you want to up and leave the room when someone plays like that near your person.

I've personally thought to do some long play challenges of my favorite NES games(things like playing through the Ninja Gaiden trilogy without using continues), but it looks rather costly to do so as it requires converting analogue video, and then editing software once the recording is in a format that can be read by a computer... So for now, I figure I should just go about having fun learning the games I like(that'll take a fair while anyway), and then I may or may not end up recording them in the future depending on how important it is to me to be able to watch them, because I doubt many people are as excited by such games as I am myself :/

Last edited by Lace-Bane on 22 Dec 2014, 1:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm subscribeed to a few Let's Play channels on Youtube. Dilandau3000 is one of my favourite LPers.

I do watch them from time to time. There are only a few lets play channels that I constantly watch though like blueskulldragon87 and pieceofpiesoftware.

Agree. For me it's very rare to find a Let's Play where the commentaries doesn't annoy me to the point that i stop watching.
But i do enjoy watching when i find one that doesn't irritate me.

Actually they're almost never, ever done this way. I've not even once seen one done with that method, and I've watched a TON of NES-based LPs.

How they are done: Emulators. Every single time. They offer functions that are often found to be of absolute necessity for LPs, and they can make sure that the video aspect of it actually works right (weird things can happen when recording from an actual device), and prevent a large variety of other problems. Recording software is simple screen-capture types, like Fraps, or a variety of others. There's plenty of free options.

^
The only person I'm aware of who records directly from the actual old consoles is James Rolfe for his "Angry Video Game Nerd" show. He's the only reason I know such recording can be done outside using emulators(He made a how an episode is made... episode).

As far as using an emulator, I like watching how games play on long plays that are recorded with them, but I don't suspect that the crystalline experience would feel authentic. If the games felt easier to play than playing on the NES, I wouldn't feel comfortable uploading videos that used them, and I almost can't imagine they wouldn't feel so, as they look so polished and fluid in comparison to the original experience. I'll have to look more deeply into them, and try one out and compare a few games to their originals at some point to be certain though... free is more cost effective.

Emulators dont make games easier... the very idea doesnt actually make any sense. The games are exactly the same as usual. The visuals arent really different either. The reason they might appear different is if you're playing an actual console on a modern TV, because those do NOT handle it well, and distort the image a bit, among other issues. It's why old games like Duck Hunt, designed with the Zapper, literally dont work whatsoever on modern screens. The display simply doesnt create the proper "flash" effect that the Zapper registered in order to figure out wether a target was hit or not... so it never registers anything at all. Those consoles as a whole were designed for CRT monitors that are just as ancient as they are. And a quality CRT doesnt really look different from the emulated version. ....unless the screen is old as heck, at which point it too is probably distorting the image. Or if it was just a cheap screen to begin with.

In addition, many games in actual cartridge form will now start to break down at this point. Specifically, any game that used an internal battery to save. Many cartridges of that type are simply dead at this point... you cannot save your game anymore, and there's nothing whatsoever that you can do about this. Emulators simply dont have that issue. Furthermore, for the purpose of recording gameplay, you almost always NEED savestates to be available. These can allow you to finish one episode of an LP, and when you go to record the next, you start *exactly* in the spot you were in. They also mean less problems if a recording should corrupt or get lost somehow, as you can go back to the savestate used to start that particular recording, and simply begin again from there. If you DONT have that, and something goes wrong.... you cant do anything about it. That's lost content that cannot be redone unless you go through the entire game again, and even then things are likely to not be in the same state as they were when you'd left off before that video.

James Rolfe gets away with doing it the way he does for exactly two reasons: 1, it's literally his job. It's how he makes a living, making those Nerd videos and the other assorted things he puts on his site. Because it's his job, he can put a huge amount of time towards it, which is good because the kinds of editing he does is NOT a short process. And 2, he's absolutely mastered the hyper-expensive (seriously, something like what he uses is *absurdly* expensive... and that's just the software side, it gets even worse when the necessary hardware is considered) editing suite that he uses on all of his videos. Videos taken directly from consoles need alot of post-processing and editing in most cases to show up well and without problems, and simple capture devices dont come with that stuff (yet are expensive anyway). Even "cheap" editing software will cost you WAY more than normal software. With an emulator, you only really need something cheap like Fraps, and it produces a video that's pretty much ready to go right away. The only editing functions you need with that sort is the ability to cut/trim parts of the video out, and change the volume... which is pretty much the only things that ACTUALLY cheap editing software is good for, as those are the simplest types of editing.


I know all of this because I've already done this stuff a bunch of times now, and not only am I a fan of retro games (really, the things are just littered all over my room, and an ancient 7800 unit sits next to the keyboard) but I'm also a perfectionist... the things either look exactly right or I get aggravated and inevitably wont end up with a final product at all.