I’m not sure why, but I’ve always enjoyed watching other people play games almost as much as I enjoy playing them myself.
Indeed, in some cases I enjoy it even more.
For instance…playing NetHack? Incredibly frustrating.
Watching someone who actually knows what he’s doing play NetHack? Fascinating.
Which you can do by telnetting to nethack.alt.org. (Or just by running this groovy Java app.)
And you can watch people play Slash’Em by telnetting to slashem.crash-override.net.
And you can watch people play Dungeon Crawl by telnetting to crawl.akrasiac.org.
If that’s a bit too primitive for you, how about some replays? There are enough Warcraft III replays at www.wcreplays.com to last you a year or more!
Of course, if Warcraft III isn’t your bag, www.gamereplays.org is quickly becoming the replay clearinghouse, with replays for Rise of Legends, Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander, Battle for Middle-Earth I and II, Command & Conquer 3, Age of Empires III…indeed, practically every RTS that isn’t Warcraft III.
The reason I love replays is because they’re such a small download for a lot of content. But sometimes you just want to watch somebody absolutely destroy a game and you don’t care that you’ll have to download several hundred megs to do it. That’s where speed runs come in.
There are two basic kinds of speed runs – straight and tool-assisted. Straight speed runs are just like they sound. Someone plays the game normally all the way through and demonstrates a great level of skill as they do so. Tool-assisted speed runs use emulators, luck manipulation and other tools to provide an eye-popping, but not particularly “authentic” experience. (If you’ve seen that stupendous video of someone beating Super Mario Brothers 3 in eleven minutes while racking up 99 lives and never taking a hit…that was a tool-assisted run.) Tool-assisted runs require patience, but no real skill.
Me, I like both. I don’t mind tool-assisted videos as long as they are labelled as such.
For straight speed runs, the place to go is the Speed Demos Archive. This is the home of my favorite speed run of all time.
For tool-assisted runs, TASVideos is a great place to start. Since tool-assisted runs require emulation, they tend to be done on older games.
Of course, you can just type the name of your favorite game into YouTube and you’re practically guaranteed to get something…
But my second-favorite speed run wasn’t found by any of these methods. Instead, I found it while doing research on “Metroidvania” games. It’s a complete run through the first castle of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night – non-tool-assisted – in 71 minutes.
(Why was I doing research on Metroidvania-style games? You’ll see…)
Heh, speed runs are fun 8) Some time ago Ive found at youtube the speed run of Aladdin (old Nintendo game) which I played at the SEGA console a very long time ago… Watching it reminded me my childhood 8)
I’m not that into watching people play. If I don’t like what they’re doing, I just find it frustrating. “No. Go left. Click on the…get the thing! The thing with the flashy… To the left! Over there!” I’m not a good backseat gamer. And if they’re better than me, I either get all glassy-eyed with despair or at least ennui. What’s the point? The mysteries have been laid bare. Or, in the case of a competitive game, my fingers just twitch with the desire for my turn, so I can get better.
I like watching speed runs. Speed runs nicely reveal how wonderful human mind is in finding different solutions for a common problem. Also people doing those show quite a devotion towards a game. Also, you can always treat a replay as a learning lesson!
thanks for the direct telnet link to nethack. i hadn’t ever really given the game a chance. just like you said, it was entirely too complicated to even play, much less fight against the odds stacked against you. but at the same time i find myself coming back to this blog entry again and again, to click on the link and have one more shot at it.
as i thought about why i was so fascinated by the game i started to think about how i play other games like it. diablo is a good example. i actually haven’t beaten diablo2 yet. i play the game because i’m interested in making my character grow, whether through skills or items. i find that when i come back after not playing it for a while, i make a brand new character. why wouldn’t i pick up the game from where i left off? well, i like starting fresh and seeing what kinds of things i can get this time through. how can i improve on my techniques this time?
i find that having a game with so many random variables allows a whole new experience each time. sure, its the same game every time – find some things, grind some monsters, explore a new map. i discover something new every time i play. its fascinating! the last time i played, i found a shrine and dropped something on it. when i picked it back up, it was labelled uncursed. i started bringing things from lower levels and dropping them on the shrine. it made the initial level worth coming back to. the game before, i killed a dwarf and found among his possessions a pickaxe. i wasn’t aware until i put the two things together that i could use the pickaxe on the huge boulders to remove them and explore behind them!
i completely agree that it can be a little frustrating that you can die so easily. i agree that you don’t know anything about the properties of newly found items. i’ve still only fluked a few wands, and that was from taking a big chance and trying to Zap with them. having my kitten Mittens steal stuff out of shops for me was a great idea though ^_^
i’m probably not going to stop playing anytime soon, and i’m fairly certain i’m going to have a roguelike in mind the next time i open metapad to start writing up plans for actionrpg. sorry virid, i love this game.
D has ascended a tourist…
-kytyn
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