TSM Let's Play: Are You Up For It?

[Kageho]

As I mentioned in the Random Thoughts and Topics, briefly what this was, but I figured since oldskool said sure, there would be some people interested and so I'll just do this anyways.

What Let's Play is referring to is that the community/player selects a game and plays the game fully for our enjoyment and his or her suffering. There can be certain objectives the player may wish to add or let the community decide upon, but it can even be played without those as long as the person playing can make it entertaining.

About the only real restrictions would depend on the player themselves and/or the community. And cheating devices. We're playing the game's pure, because that adds to the hilarity of it, since there's probably a lot of you (like me) who haven't played a game in ages and will die a few times. The other stipulation would be that a game can only be Let's Played once, baring multiple paths (like Tactics Ogre), otherwise we'd have a ton of people playing Final Fantasy VII and Ocarina of Time.

So anyone interested in the concept?

 

[Thoth]

I'm up for it. I would have done this earlier, but I sort of feel like TSM's Gaming denizens are relatively apathetic. Wii Secret Santa died an ignoble death due to lack of interest.

 

[Master Thrasher]

I would be up for it. One of my favorite parts of SomethingAwful forums is the Let's Play posts. I have a microphone so I can commentate. I don't know to record footage directly to the computer. I have a capture card but it has a delay when you input button presses so it's not good to play on it.

 

[fazzle]

Sure, just as long as we don't have something AWFUL like a "OAO Let's Play thread" because that would be fucking annoying as hell if multiple LPs were going on at the same time.

 

[Thoth]

The biggest problem I see here is that among us, there's little we all play in common. I'm up for trying new things, though.

 

[Kageho]

Ok, I didn't know that Something Awful did this. I was just thinking this because I was playing Tactics Ogre. So hurray that people like it. For emulating games, or PC games, I think just screen shots and writing them up in posts would be sufficient.

To combat like millions of LPs, I think just running two would be fine. Let's Play Person and Let's Play Gang. ...ok, shitty names I admit, but it'll get my point across.

Whoever is doing Let's Play Person selects some games that he or she would like to play for the community. This would mostly be the "safe" LP, in which the Person would be choosing the genre they are most comfortable with usually, because why else would you select the games? There would be a queue for this.

Let's Play Gang would be the opposite of that. The Gang would select 5 games that they would like some poor schmuck to jump to humor us with. This would allow for anyone to jump in to do it who wished to give it a try. Also if a game has multiple endings/routes to play, the Gang can choose each route from the game.

I think that would work well, wouldn't it?

 

[Master Thrasher]

I would like to Super Mario RPG. If I can figure out how to do screenshots of Fallout 3, I would do that.

 

[Smues]

I'll start!
Smues presents a Smues production of a Smues film: Let's Play Desert Bus from Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors (Sega CD)

We're clocked in and ready to rock. Off to Vegas baby!

Let's start this sucker up

Lights and engine on, onward and...onward! With a top speed of 45 mph our trip should take us about 8 hours. With apparently no passengers onboard (looking at the rear view mirror) it should be a quiet trip. Thankfully there is no 'Leonard Nemoy sings Super Tramp' tape stuck in the 8-track player.

Look at all that beautiful desert.

I have to pee.

OH SHIT we're stuck in a ditch. We'll never make it on time to see Chris Angel now!

Oh thank god the red lights of the tow truck. We're saved!

Hitched up and ready to rock!

Back on the road and being hauled back to the start.

Finally back to where we started, and it appears to be game over :-[ EPIC FAIL

Thank you Buggs & Rudy's Towing. You're a life saver.

And on that note this concludes Epic Fail Let's Play: Part 1. I'll be back with attempt #2 sometime in the future!

 

[Master Thrasher]

I always wanted to play that for some perverse reason. It takes 3 hours to complete and has no payoff, correct?

 

[Smues]

8 hours, and there's no such thing as completion! You get one point, then you turn around and go back. One point each way you complete. The counter tops out at 99 points, so you could count that as beating the game. I figure though for let's play purposes though getting to one point is probably far enough.

 

[Twisted Intestine]

I don't really get it, but I want in. Does one person go at a time or we all start playing games and keep updates on the board? If you get a game over is that it, or do you have to play the game to completion? We pick our own games?

 

[fazzle]

I think people should be able to start up LPs whenever they feel the urge (in SEPERATE threads, don't need 17 games in one thread confusing the fuck out of me) and just let the natural order of things happen, let the weak LPs die when the player either gives up or nobody cares about it.

 

[Kageho]

Well what does everyone think? Should we just let anyone just start an LP and this be the LP discussion thread of what LPs people would like to see and what LPs have been done (also linking to the threads)?

I was originally thinking that, but I saw a lot of people didn't want too many threads clogging up the folder. However, I still stick by the idea that multipath games are the only ones that should be played more than once.

 

[fazzle]

The first page of the games forum has stuff that hasn't been updated in over 2 months. It's impossible to clog it.

 

[oldskool]

What about games like...say, SMRPG & FF6, where there is only one path but there are multiple characters you can use? Would it be OK to run multiples of those if they all started after the point where you can start making roster moves?

 

[Thoth]

Oh, I get it now. Like when the Scotsman pushed the Big Boss Man as his top face in EWR.

 

[Kageho]

I think only multiple paths should be allowed to be played, because otherwise, we'd end up with a whole bunch of people playing the same game at those points. Maybe eventually that would get brought down.

 

[DrVenkman PhD]

I'd love to do this as quick, short blurbs about going through my library and such and whatever thoughts I have or trials and tribulations I face... but as a 100% legal eagle when it comes to gaming and no way of taking screenshots of my TV (outside of a camera, but that's more effort than it's worth) it would just be a bunch of text and people taking my word for it.

 

[muzzington]

I've never heard of this concept before.

I would be up for it.

 

[Kageho]

I'd love to do this as quick, short blurbs about going through my library and such and whatever thoughts I have or trials and tribulations I face... but as a 100% legal eagle when it comes to gaming and no way of taking screenshots of my TV (outside of a camera, but that's more effort than it's worth) it would just be a bunch of text and people taking my word for it.

Unless its a newer game, most people do Let's Play to older games and emulators to do screen captures, and therefore just do it that way. If I wasn't doing a lot of stuff today, I would've likely had my LP up.

 

[DrVenkman PhD]

Yeah I get the emulator deal, but I only play old games on the Wii.

 

[Kageho]

Ah, I see. That would cause some problems then. Do your best how you can. Honestly as long as its entertaining, who cares if its short on picks?

 

[Smues]

Thinking of doing a drunken Let's Play later. Suggestions on a game? I assume shitty games would be more entertaining, even though they'd be more painful for me, and I'm still recovering from OogieLoves. Something I can emulate is easier to screen cap/get video of, but I'm not above taking pictures of a TV for modern games if it's a chance to embarrass myself!

So, suggestions? I was thinking maybe Superman 64 but...fuck that game.

 

[Kageho]

Beyond The Beyond, Lagoon, Drakkhen, Shadow Madness, and finally, Paladin's Quest.

Pick your poison. I dare you.

 

[Smues]

I hadn't heard of any of those games, so I discussed them with someone who has played them all. My response: FUCK YOU ASSHOLE!

But I'm up for the challenge! I'll pick one later.

 

[Master Thrasher]

I've played a little bit of Lagoon, so I say that. I'll probably do another Let's Play and actually put some effort into it soon.

 

[vivisectvi]

Heart of China

 

[Smues]

What really sucks is not only did Flik recommend bad games (Lagoon sucks, and I'm told by *redacted* that the others are painful as well), but his name reminds me of GOOD games. You couldn't have said Suikoden 2 could you? ASSHOLE! (or say Suikoden IV, which sucks, but I haven't beaten it yet so I should actually do so).

 

[Kageho]

I hadn't heard of any of those games, so I discussed them with someone who has played them all. My response: FUCK YOU ASSHOLE!

But I'm up for the challenge! I'll pick one later.

At least you didn't play them as an RPG hopeful and be blissfully unaware of them sucking heading in. Imagine if you were a young child and you played them without the knowledge.

What really sucks is not only did Flik recommend bad games (Lagoon sucks, and I'm told by *redacted* that the others are painful as well), but his name reminds me of GOOD games. You couldn't have said Suikoden 2 could you? ASSHOLE! (or say Suikoden IV, which sucks, but I haven't beaten it yet so I should actually do so).

Doing an LP of a game you haven't played is a good one, simply because it allows for natural reactions. Even if someone tells you "oh, hey, its sucks".

Lagoon was one of the first action RPGs released for the Super Nintendo. Beyond The Beyond was the first RPG released for the PS1. This is why both of those games sucked. Short development times and tons of places in which you can go "I can so see where this is going", but it just ... Yikes. Lagoon also is a port of a game made for the Sharp X68000. May want to try finding a way to LP that one to have a different experience than probably a lot of people (myself included).

Drakkhen is another port from originally the Amiga system. So again. Scaled down to fit the SNES, so you may want to try the Amiga version if you can find it. Also this game somehow spawned a sequel in an action adventure game called Dragon View. ...wait, what, is the perfectly acceptable reaction.

So really, they probably are lesser ports and yes, I did look this stuff up because I could faintly remember it, but wasn't sure.

Though, Paladin's Quest and Beyond The Beyond... *sigh* Its brought to you by the guys who made Dragon Quest and Golden Sun respectively. That's right. If there were ever games that needed remakes, its these two.

...okay, you know what? I take that back. Beyond The Beyond can rot in gaming hell.

Suikoden 2 is actually where my name does come from. If you were to do an LP of it, I'd do a 1 & 2 simply because unlike the others in the series, this feels more like Suikoden part 1 and part 2 if you know what I mean.

 

[Kageho]

...I'm so going to regret this.

Instead of doing my Let's Play Saga Frontier 2, like I promised Smues, I will take suggestions of games (that can be emulated) to Let's Play. The reason being I don't think its fair that I got to choose for Smues and I get to pick something for myself.

I would prefer you guys stick to games that don't suck, but if you feel like torturing me... I get why you'd like that done. If there's an RPG you'd like me to LP that you haven't played or don't have the time, I could certainly do that too.