Interesting. I read Concerned, and have been reading Living in Oblivion for a few months. I had heard of After Action Reports before, but never really looked into them. It's neat knowing other people are also doing them on blog-type sites. Probably pretty hard to find them, though.
There's something similar over on the Something Awful forums, which I'm completely addicted to: the Let's Play [http://forums.somethingawful.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=191] thread. The biggest difference, though: LPs that conclude on the forum usually get archived in the massive Let's Play Archive [http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/]. The number of games in there is insane - most of them, I've never even heard of.
Here's a short quote from their FAQ thread, which explains them pretty well:
Q: What is a Let's Play (LP) thread?
A: It's a documented playthrough of something that, at the very minimum, resembles a game; how the author chooses to present it is incredibly varied. Some use screenshots, some use video. Some let the readers make decisions, others plow on through and use the thread for discussion. Some are serious and informative while others are parodies. For some examples, see the LP archive - details below.
Naturally, I have some awesome recommendations. I'm keeping my eye on a few ongoing ones, (there are lots on the forum I linked above) but some of the archived ones are just plain
epic.
Dwarf Fortress - The Saga of Boatmurdered [http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Boatmurdered/]. Since CanadianWolverine already mentioned DF, I feel obliged to add this.
Referred to as one of the major reasons people get involved in Dwarf Fortress in the first place, it's both hilarious and horrifying, an account of a succession game where each player saves the fortress and passes it onto the next person in line at the end of every ingame year. Basically they take turns
running it into the ground. Boatmurdered: It's what you'd get if you took a Dystopia, set loose a pack of murderous vomiting elephants in it, and lit the remains on fire.
Fallout [http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Fallout/] and Fallout 2 [http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Fallout%202/]. Both written as first-person journals, for the most part, of the main characters going through their respective games. The first is about Smith, a ho-hum good-natured guy around whom people die horribly, as he tries to save Vault 13. The second is a 3-intelligence playthrough that
am all about Trogg. Trogg am on quest! Trogg punchstuff verygood! Trogg am go findstuff and save home. Trogg am make lots friends, but Trogg am be confuse veryverymuch. Both are a riot. They can be read in either order, since they aren't really related.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas [http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/GTASA/]. When I say "some LPs are epic in scale", this is the one that towers over top of them. It's 92 chapters long. It took me over 2 months to read through it in my free time. It's essentially what you'd get if you crossed a full novelization of GTA:SA's story with a
100% completion playthrough (a medically accepted sign of insanity). It's also a hybrid of screenshots and video, as it has frequent animated clips in it. I've never played a GTA game before and doubt I ever will, they're just not my kind of thing, but this story was amazing.
Also of note, the LP'er
raocow does some utterly crazy video-LPs. This Commander Keen [http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/CommanderKeen/] one, for example. He's an unstoppable motormouth and something of a klutz, and watching him stumble through a game, talking a mile a minute the entire time just cracks me up.
Finally, this "Half-Life 2 [http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Half-Life/]" (cough) LP. Trust me - it has to be seen to be believed.
So... there ya go. If you're anything like me, I've just about killed your free time for the next 3 months...