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What are your favourite let's plays?
Do you have any favourite videos / playlists (or the rare cases of writing with screenshots) where someone plays through a whole game while supplying their own commentary in an entertaining and/or informative way?
On the old text and image LP side we have:
Boatmurdered was a classic, though Kruggsmash has been around since before steam release and his videos are a lot of fun and I think a bit more approachable.
Kruggsmash is absolutely amazing, both the illustrations and storytelling he's presenting in his videos are top-notch. Easily my favourite Dwarf Fortress let's player and also one of my favourite let's players in general.
Boatmurdered is a classic. It was my introduction to DF.
Same here. Something Awful really was the king of Let's Plays. They had an expectation that the writer of a Let's Play thread should know the game inside and out, and was really giving a complete look at it. They'd usually include history and trivia about the game too.
It kind of got lost once video Let's Plays got popular and everyone started recording themselves playing games for the first time.
Many a True Nerd - Fallout New Vegas - Utter Chaos - Jon, the voice behind MATN, takes on the randomizer mod for New Vegas. It is utter chaos, overall, but it's fun to watch him go about trying to make sense of it.
I could link probably six or seven of his Let's Plays here but I'll stick to just one. If you enjoy it, check out the YOLO runs as well.
Euro Brady plays Slay the Princess. He's a psychologist and it's interesting to see him go through the psychological aspects of the various character interactions, where it's apparent that the developers were well versed in these things and did a fantastic job of using them to bring the most possible impact out of what seems at the surface to be a fairly confined scenario.
Mind you, the game is psychological horror, so not for everyone!
While I have played through the game myself before and so have all the possible spoilers, it's still really fun to revisit it and see someone do a psychological analysis of the characters. I just started watching today but I already got to episode 4. Thanks so much for the rec!
This might be a little more obscure than other recommendations, but I'd like to suggest Kay Plays Dark Souls. It's a blind playthrough, and watching it made me feel like I was playing DS1 for the first time.
The first episode is a little slow, but that's because she spends some time learning the menus and controls. A lot of other content creators will zoom past that stuff, then get confused later once they're needed (frustrating every viewer). Kay however is methodical, learns the game well, and applies that knowledge. She picks up on mechanics and systems very quickly, and is attentive to detail. She noticed things on her first playthrough that I missed after... more than a dozen runs.
It's not a "modern"-style Let's Play. There's no facecam or Twitch emotes or any of that nonsense. It's slower, simpler, and more easy-going. I found it quite enjoyable.
Recommended for Dark Souls fans hoping to rekindle their initial sense of discovery for the game, or for those who have heard much about the series, but bounced off it for one reason or another. I think it's a great way to enjoy the game vicariously.
Markiplier playing Baking Simulator. This is my favorite one to show people when looking for funny videos, it always makes me laugh out loud. I might list some more videos and creators after I think about it a bit, but this is my go-to one.
Griffin McElroys "Trial by Fieri"
It's a randomised run of a Link to the Past where Link is modded to look like guy fieri and every time he dies he turns into a hotdog. Oh and also he dies in one hit. It's so funny and entertaining.
If anyone has any recommendations for similar streamers who have a wholesome or slighy more mature vibe I'd love more content like this.
A few come to mind. I don't really watch a whole lot of LPs (even though I'm trying to do my own). Like I gotta be in the mood for it, often since LPs are so long.
Anyway, Welonz' LP of 'Judgment', which is a Yakuza series spin-off, is probably my favorite LP. She's thorough, which is kinda how I tend to play games. Not necessarily achievement hunting, but just taking the time to explore everything. She takes the time to think through things, as well. Her "Not for Broadcast" LP was good, too.
Another is by ChristopherOdd. I enjoyed his "Prey (2017)" LP. Now he's not as thorough. I've definitely found myself yelling at the screen, "It's right there! Look underneath the table!" while watching him play Deus Ex HR/MD and other games lol. But I do enjoy his LPs. I couldn't tell you exactly why, but he's entertaining enough.
Oliver streams: Minecraft Blind
It's a series of livestreams where a guy who has knows absolutely nothing about Minecraft just plays through the game, figuring things out as he goes along. The first stream is done on Bedrock edition but every subsequent stream is on Java. I stumbled upon this letsplay in a Reddit thread somewhere, having never heard of the creator, but I immediately started binging the series. Oliver is an incredibly charismatic and funny guy, and it's very entertaining & endearing seeing someone who knows nothing about Minecraft, not even the most basic concepts like crafting, piecing everything together over time.
Minecraft is one of those games where I think most gamers just "get" a lot of it without thinking: like, obviously you make things in a crafting table, obviously you make a crafting table from four wood you get from punching a tree, obviously you need to make tools to go mine and collect iron and so on and so forth. The game is so ingrained in the gaming world that basically everyone with a passing interest in the medium has played it for a while, and seeing someone without that knowledge base working things out is really cool and interesting, and puts into perspective just how complicated a game it can actually be at times if you don't know how it all works already.
It's a 10/10 background video to have on while you're playing a game or something. Would highly recommend checking out.
Was actually going to mention that Oliver also has an incredibly intuitive Outer Wilds playthrough.
Since he has a background in Astronomy and Science, it has the same tone as reading The Martian or Project Hail Mary where you have people using their own depth of knowledge to chip away at the unknown.
Its a very lengthy series but there is a nice supercut if you want to cut it down to a 3hr (+2hr DLC).
Also recommend his Obra Dinn and Tunic series.
Great idea for a thread!
I struggle to rememeber the ones I really enjoyed the most, my memory sucks. But one haunts me is Mr Samuel Streamer plays Robochild Rimworld.
I do not like Rimworld playthroughs but holy shit Sam picks up a mod and he just rips it to shreds. It made me laugh so hard I cried.
His latest series aren't great these days because he admits himself they've become mass produced. But his earlier series are so good.
I might edit this later if I think of others!
Edit: I suppose this is a good place to call out a very small YouTuber I like CowsAreEvil. He's just some Australian dude who plays Stationeers particularly well. He's got a bunch of playlists which are hopefully self explanatory. I think you've gotta be very into space and thermodynamics to really enjoy it, but if you are he's great. Very dry humor and he goes into detail about what he's doing.
Jurassic Park Trespasser by Research Indicates. Trespasser is not a good game but is arguably ahead of its time in terms of, well, attempts at physic puzzles. RI is a great LPer as he knows the game and its background very well.
Some of my favs:
Joel: Signal Simulator (finished), Voices of the Void (for now in progress?) - one let's player, long streams, guy scared of aliens plays through games about SETI-esque facilities, very entertaining and very chill
Two Queers Play: Higurashi When They Cry (in progress), Umineko When They Cry (finished) - visual novels, two let's players, fun voicing of characters, long streams, lots of very intelligent commentary, discussions and speculation on the in-game mysteries
Keith Ballard ft. Stephanie: Route 65, Echo, and Arches (finished, I personally skipped Route 65 at my sister's recommendations), Adastra (finished) - visual novels, two let's players, fun voicing of characters, long streams, lots of very intelligent (and in places very emotional on Keith's part) commentary and discussions
LPDarkSoulsHD: Dark Souls (finished) and others from the series - single let's player, 100% playthrough, very knowledgeable and informative about the game franchise, very calm
It's something between a let's play and a machina, but Accursed Farm's Freeman's Mind is an absolute classic.
Ross Scott narrates what goes on in Gordon Freeman's mind as he goes through the events of half life.
His channel is great overall, lots of great game reviews and retrospectives as well (game dungeon)
https://lparchive.org/Blade-Runner/
This is probably the most comprehensive Let's Play I've ever seen. It's covering a game version of Blade Runner, but also goes into the book, the movie and explains all the references and differences between them.
It's not exactly a popular game but I really have to respect the work that went into this.
https://lparchive.org/Animal-Crossing/Update%201/
This play through of Animal Crossing explores the game through a horror lens. It keeps the dialogue and events the same, but sort of cracks fun at just how creepy and threatening a lot of the characters can sound under the child friendly cartoon veneer.
Oh man, I remember that Animal Crossing one! I read it as a kid and it spooked me a bit, it was probably one of the first horror/creepypasta-esque things I'd read on the internet. Even though my memories of the details are hazy, Penny still stands out to me after all this time whenever I play AC.
I've enjoyed jacksepticeye's overenergetic playthroughs. Like for instance his Outer Wilds (which I never bothered to play myself beyond the first 2 hours or so) was a good watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQURmvvECpI
Fire Emblem: Binding Blade. Yes, the one with Roy in it.
While it is a text & image LP, it is by far my favorite. And given the nature of this site, I figure someone on here might enjoy the read. Fire Emblem's story and gameplay can be convoluted at times, but this writer put in a ton of effort to fully capture the game and spice it up in hilarious ways.
For reference, Binding Blade (released 2002, #6 in the series) was originally only released in Japanese with a English, fan translation eventually released about a decade later. So a lot of fans of Fire Emblem have actually never experienced the story that Roy (one of the many Fire Emblem sword users in Smash Bros) comes from. This game also preceded the first Fire Emblem game released in western markets, so if you played Fire Emblem Blazing Blade (a prequel to Binding Blade) there are a ton of references that piqued my nostalgia.
At one point I went through all of Markiplier's SCP Containment Breach series when it had 30 videos. It was fascinating because it went from "Heh, I'm playing a scary game" to "I will fucking BEAT this shit," and gets really intense as he starts to have better and better runs.
Spanj is an excellently funny and informative let's play content creator. His latest stream is here : https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeXxYGyW3yFQnJ0SaPyih8ac_hrKoWysq&si=FrpRk8VK45E_07yO
I got into his stuff when I picked up Empyrion Galactic Survival for free from Epic and needed a little early game help. That game is one of his most played, but he does spread it around quite a bit.
The three that immediately came to mind were:
Otherwise, speedrunners tend to be on camera for hours on end, forcing them to be somewhat entertaining, with some rising to the top, like ItsJabo(Fallout/Bethesda) and BlueSR(Hollow Knight). Although they strictly speaking don't meet the Let's Play format. But I've linked challenges that make the game more interesting for them too.
I'm an old head who frequented the Let's Play forums since I was on the internet - I think my favorite from SomethingAwful is still Let's Break Pokémon Blue, poking apart all the balsa wood and duct tape holding the game together.
I don't think of it as a let's play per se, but Northernlion and Sinvicta Play - GeoGuessr! is great to run in the background or on a second monitor. They're both good at the game, they have an easy chemistry with each other, there are four or five seasons with almost 300 episodes, and you can pretty much play any episode at random since there's no real progression to keep track of from game to game. It's good, entertaining banter with some passive learning about the world thrown in.
Lt. Danger textual Let's Play about Neverwinter Nights 2 - Mask of the Betrayer
Their analysis of why MotB still resonates and influence how I appreciate and appraise video-game.
Some excerpt :
I've been getting really into this "Was it any Good?" Series of videos.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBYnbRg_snmoV7e5Lgi4IgPGq8z-pv3zp&si=98ppuI0fHYB33Lbl
I'm not sure if it counts as a "Let's Play" as it condenses entire games into an hour or two of video.
It's sort of assuming you played the game in the past at some point but haven't played it for a while. It's a playthrough but also a analysis of the game and how well it's aged and how well it lives up to its reputation.
I very much enjoy HCBailly, he's been Let's Playing for like 14 or 15 years. Mostly JRPG's but he does play other older games.
His playthroughs of Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Majora's Mask, Final Fantasy 6, 7, 8, and 9 are fantastic.
His playthroughs are well practiced, he knows a ton about the games, how to beat them efficiently, along with a lot of secrets and Easter Eggs.
He's a bit of a nerd, his humour can be hit or miss but he's an old school LP'er and I still like coming back to his content now and again.
Another one I've recently started watching is Mapocolops. An Australian LP'er who does Blind Playthroughs.
He's a decent gamer and he tends to get through most games without too much issue (although he seriously sucks at stealth games). His strength lies in how involved he gets in game lore, he really dives into appendices, codexes, ingame books, newspapers etc.
His playthrough of Deus Ex is great (although any attempt at stealth generally ends up a failure). His playthroughs of the Soulsbourne games are fantastic, and his playthroughs of the 3D Zelda games, which he's recently started, are great.
Today I stumbled on Akruas after a long break. I used to watch a lot of his videos before falling asleep. He's treating Cities Skylines like a tool for model building, and it's very calming to listen to him explain his creative process behind creating cities.
Here's his biggest projects: