Anarchic Fox on 11/4/2020 at 14:06
I'll describe my favorite Youtube gaming channels here, and solicit recommendations. I've only found a handful of channels to watch long-term, characterized by fewer, better-edited videos than most. I have no onus against Let's Plays, but I'm not willing to spend time on them. I also have no onus against topical channels, but I prefer to read people's opinions rather than watch them. Here's my list.
(https://www.youtube.com/user/videogamedunkey) Video Game DunkeyThese videos are tiny, almost fragmentary looks at specific games. If you watched the wrong Dunkey video, or watched any Dunkey video in the wrong mood, you would think he's an idiot. However, the simplicity of his words belies a thoughtful critical stance, a broad passion for gaming, a natural sense of comedic timing, and a delightful whimsy.
(
https://www.youtube.com/user/SovietWomble)
Soviet WombleThere are many tightly-knit online communities, but few with their own bard. Like many other channels, Soviet composes videos from funny moments of communal gameplay. Unlike other examples of this style, the videos have a coherent emotional arc, and a sense of comedic timing not just within excerpts but between them as well. In addition, Soviet puts a great deal of craftsmanship into each video, particularly evident in his captioning.
(
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjdQaSJCYS4o2eG93MvIwqg)
The Kilian ExperienceThe most polished videos of this list. Each video forms a coherent story, and the topics range into areas other than gaming, like cooking, anime, movies and travel. The best word to describe him is "perverse." His gaming videos approach a videogame in exactly the wrong way, form a deliberately obtuse reading of its plot, and thereby poke fun at the game's self-importance and fanbase.
(
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC477Kvszl9JivqOxN1dFgPQ)
Iron PineappleIronPineapple was one Dark Souls Youtuber among many, his sense of humor good but not good enough to keep my attention. However, he's started a series called "Souls-likes you've never heard of," which is fantastic. Most of these are student projects or glorified tech demos, but IP has a deft hand at summarizing them humorously. More recently, game development has given up entirely on hiding its debt to Dark Souls, so now there are high-budget games interspersed with the rest.
(
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC21uZkfXpT8rPY-gPgMiCwA)
Civvie 11The closest thing to a contemporary Spoony One. Civvie 11 does comedic, abridged playthroughs of shooters, ranging from obscure 90s-era Wolf3D clones to the current genre renaissance. He quickly endeared himself to this genre's developers, and gets a callout or easter egg in every new shooter as of late. His videos have an overarching MST3K-style narrative, but with a much lighter touch than either MST3K or The Spoony One... brief appearances by recurring characters, rather than painful, extended skits.
(https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSDiMahT5qDCjoWtzruztkw) Ambiguous AmphibianHe does challenge runs of simulation games. (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDzQ82juOlA) This, for example, is a Kenshi playthrough using only quadruple amputees, led by "Torsolo." Has a solid sense of humor and whimsy, but some of the series are duds, due to the self-imposed condition not always leading to interesting gameplay.
In Memoriam --
The Spoony ExperimentThe best of the pre-Youtube video creators, by a large margin, and a classic of the medium. Many of Spoony's videos are available on Youtube. (
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpaNqz1vDmSixriNnNTD3FKXJ5D_y9wKS) The Ultima Retrospective is particularly strong work. Sadly, his struggles with mental illness left him unable to continue producing videos.
Recommendations are welcome! I'll also keep editing this post with my top recommendations.
WingedKagouti on 11/4/2020 at 15:59
Quote Posted by Anarchic Fox
Recommendations are welcome!
(
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRHXUZ0BxbkU2MYZgsuFgkQ) The Spiffing Brit
A British guy showcasing various exploits in a large variety of games, but lots of Paradox grand strategy games are featured as are Bethseda games. He mostly keeps the mood leaning towards silly fun while trying to be as stereotypically British as possible (Tea, The Queen and Colonialism almost always get mentioned).
(
https://www.youtube.com/user/Miles923) Maximilian Dood (and (
https://www.youtube.com/user/YoVideogames) YoVideogames)
If you're into fighting games at all, it is hard not to mention this guy. He is vastly more skilled than the majority of players even if he doesn't reach the pro players of any individual game. He's also well articulated and good at describing what he likes and doesn't like about any given game. His personal channel is about 90% fighting games and 10% "currently hot mainstream game" while YoVideogames is him and several friends doing more general gaming stuff.
WingedKagouti on 11/4/2020 at 17:08
Forgot to mention this one, Clint (the host of LGR) is really chill to listen to even when something annoys him.
Anarchic Fox on 11/4/2020 at 18:06
That's a large number of new channels to check out, thanks very much!
Jason Moyer on 14/4/2020 at 02:11
(
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6PNZBb6b9Ltgl6WM5rn2pjrXd_qdit2S) Ross's Game Dungeon is pretty good, although he generally does oddball games. He also did what I consider the best critiques of the first 3 Deus Ex games.
[video=youtube;rxOKEsBx4NU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxOKEsBx4NU[/video]
[video=youtube;pPwpLDvAnvo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPwpLDvAnvo[/video]
[video=youtube;vYLEuQrvND0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYLEuQrvND0[/video]
EvaUnit02 on 15/4/2020 at 07:43
The guy who explains game mechanics as if he's talking to infants? Righto.
(
https://youtu.be/gesNWgxuv8I?t=5378)
Further on the topic of Mark Brown, he's a fedora-tipping white knight who got assblasted over fictional women dying.
(
https://archive.fo/Ia7UR)
He fedora tipped so hard that Square Enix censored away the blood in Shadow of the Tomb Raider through a patch.