Shmup 'Let's Plays'

[kengou]

In case anyone doesn't know, a "Let's Play" is a video where someone plays through a game while adding commentary. I've been enjoying them a lot lately, and just this week decided to try my hand at making my own. One thing I've noticed is the extreme lack of shmup LPs! I've decided to do a few myself. Of course, I'm still a beginner at recording and commentary, not to mention that I'm not particularly great at shmups. In any case, I made a full run of DDP (continuing a fair bit, mostly because I couldn't play that well while talking, I guess) and I'll post a link to it when I finish editing and uploading it to youtube. I had fun with it and I think it turned out to be reasonably entertaining, but I'll have to let other people be the judge of that.

edit: Part 1! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sstcGzrWeI
The quality didn't turn out very well in either visual or audio, but it's clear enough most of the time. As I said, I'm still a newbie to Let's Plays, but I'm trying to improve. Enjoy my hilarious suckage due to the fact that playing while talking isn't all that easy.

Edit: Part 2! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RF6sXTCHQg

Edit: Part 3! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EibYuDQmJ3k

This thread isn't meant to be just an advertisement for my LPs, though! I would love to see more shmup LPs being made and this thread is a callout/central repository for anyone else to post or create shmup LPs! I hope I'm not the only one who enjoys these things?

[Domino]

My friend keep telling me I should do one.

Maybe......

[MathU]

I've never found an enjoyable "Let's Play" video with audio commentary. The player always is incredibly obnoxious and unskilled.

The written ones from SomethingAwful can be interesting, but that's about it.

[gs68]

It doesn't seem very easy to do an LP without resorting to creditfeeding.

[Taylor]

Just add the commentary track after.

[Mero]

Indeed, all the ones I've seen are by credit feeders who dont know what they're doing

[Smraedis]

I don't have enough replays?

I don't see much appeal to these added commentary videos, and the players are always so very poor. I think good replays speak for themselves and what is the fun of some person talking over nice music?

[ncp]

the LP style is really not suited for shmups at all. Checkpoint-death shmups would be slightly better I guess.

I'd still watch a sirronlionheart shmup LP though
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTr__Vv739I

[Anesthetize]

Well, for someone who has just started playing shmups, and specifically just started playing DoDonpachi, I really enjoyed these videos. Thanks!

[xris]

There is an older LP of some dude playing DDP for the 1st time. The guy says, thankfully the hit detection on the ship is pretty poor.. Then the game chews him up.
Let's Play videos are stoopid.

[Ebbo]

I actually enjoy watching these, don't really understand the hate. If I want to know how to score well, I'll surely find superplays for that. 'Let's Plays' are more about sharing the experience with other players and it's always fun to see people struggle with same patterns or bosses as yourself. So thanks kengou for that Dodonpachi playthrough, it actually inspired me to keep working on my own 1CC of DDP

[adversity1]

Bow the fuck down.

[Taylor]

And then what happens?

[xris]

I have to agree with MathU and adversity with this one. playxplay, bwah haha ha! The only good ones are xoxak (make more) and gmintyfresh (more like a preview?) Angry Game Nerd playing Silver Surfer..

[Udderdude]

Shmups are not conductive to "Let's plays".

Also previous comments about LP's being full of unskilled and annoying tards are true, I can't stand watching any of them.

Shmups are better for "Let's superplay, and also keep our mouths shut and let the replay speak for itself".

[clp]

Surely it would be much better to see super plays with the player commentating through after the play obv to give some insight and general interest in what there doing where they made mistakes etc.

[Taylor]

I guess this doesn't really count because it's heavily edited, but nonamenoskill trying to clear Resident Evil 4 on professional with a knife is still entertaining. There's about a day's worth of footage now, though.
http://www.nicovideo.jp/mylist/7785098

[Udderdude]

Surely it would be much better to see super plays with the player commentating through after the play obv to give some insight and general interest in what there doing where they made mistakes etc.

I think some superplay DVDs did that, but it was text on the side of the screen, not commentary.

[kengou]

Glad a few people enjoyed my videos!

I don't think Let's Plays are meant to be like superplays, to demonstrate a game; there might be a few like that but in general they're just videos to share the experience of playing, like Ebbo said. I'm not sure if shmups are the most conducive games to Let's Play, but I'd like to see more of it and find out!

[lgb]

good let's plays are when retsupurae comes around

[ubersaurus]

good let's plays are when retsupurae comes around

There is no greater truth in the world.

[Gozer]

It's not a true "let's play" unless you frequently save/load state and don't register hypercam 2.

[captpain]

How about playing very well and then adding commentary after the fact? As it is, these are unwatchable, sorry.

good let's plays are when retsupurae comes around

yeah

[kengou]

Playing and then adding commentary after the fact is different from playing while talking. You're not actively reacting to the game when you're just adding commentary after you've played it. For me, that takes away from the whole experience, if the commentary is disconnected from the gameplay like that. Of course your mileage my vary.

[captpain]

Playing and then adding commentary after the fact is different from playing while talking. You're not actively reacting to the game when you're just adding commentary after you've played it. For me, that takes away from the whole experience, if the commentary is disconnected from the gameplay like that. Of course your mileage my vary.

Some of the best LPs ever put out have added commentary after the fact, along with using plenty of editing (editing is probably a bad idea in shmups, of course).

I don't see why anyone would want to watch a player divide his attention, providing distracted commentary and distracted playing.

It Is Not Shmuppish

[BIL]

I love that there Sonic 2006 LP... pleasantly mind-numbing.

Maybe an LP of a horrendously bad shooter would be a good idea?

[kengou]

I remembered Dr. Ian's hilarious Ikaruga videos, the top two on this page:
http://www.ikaruga.co.uk/downloads/video_drian.php

Much better than mine, at any rate. Worth watching!

[Gunbirdie]

I don't see much appeal to these added commentary videos, and the players are always so very poor. I think good replays speak for themselves and what is the fun of some person talking over nice music?

Especially Darius

Btw. rly enjoy your videos.

[Pulsewidth]

I don't believe anybody is capable of both playing well and improvising an interesting commentary at the same time. The Let's Play format doesn't work with shmups.

[Gungriffon Geona]

I was planning to do one for Thunder Force 4, but I got about as far as this before i realized that it was utterly ruining my input response to be recording at the same time as I was playing, and that it would take a fuckton of getting used to. that circling motion before going underwater was me testing the input lag. it was pretty bad.