214: Society of the Spectator

[BWIceSoldier]

I love watching others play games. Whenever I play, I can never stay on task enough to see a game to its end. It's a bit of a relief when the task of playing gets handed to someone else.

Something else to mention is the Let's Play, where someone plays through a game for the Internet to watch. I absolutely love watching videos of games I don't have the patience (or the system) to play myself.

 

[CrazySlyHawk]

I never had the patience for Resident Evil 1 remake for the GC, so I watched my friend as he played through it on a speed-run. Immense fun, especially my ceaseless (good-natured!) lack of seriousness when faced with horrific zombies and the fun of being consulted when a puzzle came along. Some things just went by easier with two players.

 

[civver]

I experience this regularly. My brother watches me sometimes, and vice versa. Sometimes we get a little controlling, but most of the time we share the experience. We share laughter at funny moments, congratulate each other for awesome moments, and recognize (and laugh) at defeat. I usually do the watching. For me, watching someone play a video game is a close second to playing video games. I also watch Let's Plays and enjoy spectating and commenting on them.

 

[Vorocano]

Back when I was in college, I was a huge game-watcher. The reason for that was because my computer was a pile of crap (it could play "Half-Life" if I turned the settings way down, and this was in 2002), but some of the other guys in my dorm had fairly new, fast computers. So if I wanted to see what the new games looked like, I had to watch on one of theirs. So if I wanted to see what "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" or "Black and White" or "Battlefield 1942" looked and played like, I had to watch.

 

[kreftron]

One of my top 5 gaming experiences ever was playing through Ico with a friend. I call it playing through, even though I never once touched the controller. We sat there, he controlled, I watched, and we both reasoned through the puzzles and soaked in the atmosphere during the 2 separate 4 hour blocks it took us to get through the game. The emotional impact on both of us was the same - whenever we had to leave Yorda to complete a puzzle, we were both anxious and sweating. Whenever she got captured and started to get dragged down the black pool, we both sat up straight, hearts pumping, and could not relax until we had rescued her. I found it amazing that I could experience the game so directly without ever playing it, but it seems from this article and these comments that it's not so uncommon, and I love that. I have since played Ico through multiple times trying to recapture that feeling, but although great, it's never quite the same.

Now my wife and I are going through Braid, swapping the controller, and it's been a really great experience.... I'm thinking I should do this more.

 

[Emperorpeng]

Games were the focal point that got people together in my dorm hall last year. If it weren't for Halo 2 or SSBB playing in my friend's room I would never have met alot of my other friends. (at one point we had 11 people in that tiny dorm)

 

[Idocreating]

I was about to fire off about how this was complete poppycock and that most games are not fun to watch being played.

Then i remembered that recently i dug out Zelda: Majora's Mask and had a crack at the Great Bay Temple while my brother was in the room and we had a pretty good time trying to figure out what the smeg you had to do and where you had to go in the dungeon.

 

[cobra_ky]

this is pretty much the story of my life. my earliest gaming memory is watching my dad play atari and bally games i wasn't old enough to grasp. when i got older i went to my grandmother's house and watched in awe as she tore up the NES.

My brother grew up watching me play final fantasy, and i would eventually watch him play disgaea. my best friend and would switch off in order to get through RPGs we'd never get through on our own.
when i went to college, my roommate and i sat on opposite sides of the room playing WoW. i'd go idle in a town somewhere and watch him raid.

Now that I live alone, I find i have lot less interest in games than I used to. People make such a big deal about games as an interactive medium that we forget they're perfectly enjoyable as passive entertainment, too. i've wasted hours watching people play through entire games on youtube; the gameplay forms a narrative that can be more engaging than the actual story.

 

[jaeman]

This is the Article that made me sign up to The Escapist. Im really proud of the work that went into this, even if i can't always apply it to my life. I had aspirations with games like Fallout 3 and Oblivion to play it again on a different karma status and different specializations. None of them fell through, and i really don't feel like i missed the experience because of it. I am glad to see that other people fall into the trap of playing a moral choice RPG over again to see how the 'evil' path turns out, only to be immersed in the experience and begin to care about characters all over again.

Even though a lot of games are multiplayer in a lot of senses, ive always liked games that don't make it boring for everybody. Great Article!

 

[Deviluk]

I get my bro to do all the evil paths too. I think siblings are born with alternative good/evil mindsets. Sometimes at LAN parties, we have one computer set up as 'observer', so some of us can watch stuff unfold whilst the others try to destroy each other. Its the secret power! Also my friends have only seen the whole of Skies of Arcadia because they watched me play it, as they kept getting stuck halfway.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Co-op Single player is fun. My old roommate and I would swap games, He'd do one, then I'd do the other, or we'd swap bits and pieces through the games. Great first article, I hope to see some more contributions on the Escapist from you in the future.

 

[AntonioDaFly]

I often have more fun playing a single player campaign with other people, taking it in turns death for death, I've often said that more games should have co-op but that is another topic. GTA and MGS are great examples for me of games, that are great to play on your own, but a lot more fun with someone else enjoying it with you.

But like I said, I would love for more games to have co-op, even games like GTA and MGS

 

[HentMas]

me and 3 other friends used to gather on weekends (usually to sleep in each others houses) and played every RE game there was for the play station, Parasite EVE, Final Fantasy VIII, Dino Crisys, Silent Hill all those "survival horror" kind of games wich we enjoyed (it was like gathering to watch "the night of the Zombies" or something) more recently when i bought Fatal Frame: Crimson Butterfly, i got with a friend and played in the night with all the lights out (NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN WE ALMOST SHAT OUR PANTS), also, a lot of Ace Combat games were finished that way (my friend finished 1-3 i finished 4-6)

we did it mostly because of the story, it was a great way to spend time toguether and if one died in a scene, the other guy would take over (something that almost never happened in those games, well, except Ace Combat and in some bosses in RE the controll changed hands rather fast and the award to whoever won the boss fight was to keep playing untill death)

but more recent games have forgotten a good story, a good setting, me and my friend were absolutelly horrified of Ace Combat 6, such an awfull story telling (the other games had simmilar if not stupider storyes, but at least they were told in an amazing way) i dont know, whenever i call a friend to play we never again play a game to finish it, we play to "entertain" owrselves (play a few tunes on Rock Band, kill each other in Halo 3 or Call Of Duty 4... and thats about it)

no game that haves "multi-player" included feels good thought, in Gears of War 2 you can play the story "Co-op" but as my friend stated, "what´s the point??? its just a stupid story anywhay we are better off with the horde"

perhaps RE were horrible storyes too, but at the time, any game that involved a setting that at least resembled something scary was good in our book, we jumped and i panicked when Nemesis got into the police station trough the window and we were all amazed that i managed to kill him (by severall runing in circles and i took so much damage we thought i was done for), we were puzzled by the fact that his body was not there after going to save, i trew the controller when he showed up again later in the game, we all got startled and panicked when the dogs jumped into the building trough the windows, we screamed when the locker door opened and a cat jumped out (this one in the school of silent hill), it was all good fun, we were "living" a story, i still have to find a game in this "next gen" era that allows me to recreate that "feeling" of "being there", they had taken so much time in creating all those amazing grafix and implementing multy player in new ways that they have alienated the good storytelling, or at least thats how i feel.

 

[Hawks_Pride]

God of War.

Awesome to watch when the friend playing knows what the hell he's doing.

 

[Capo Taco]

"...which allowed you to choose between becoming a beacon of light or a feared scion of malice"

I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed that individual sentence.

I'd also like to add that I rarely enjoy seeing someone else interact with a computer game, but I love to "perform" while playing a game. I like to create enjoyable experiences for people to spectate.

I like to show people this hidden gem: http://soytuaire.labuat.com/
and then I pretend that I'm doing more than I'm actually doing by clicking the mouse at the right moments or moving the mouse in such a way that it seems I have more control over unfolding events than I actually do. I never tell them I do: but tech savy persons tend to take in the illusion if they hear a mouseclick and see something happen that the mouseclick must have instigated it: never mind that it took me half a second to respond to actually make the mouseclick.

 

[Gamer137]

I don't enjoy watching people play games unless it is multiplayer and I am in the game. However, my brother and my best friend are totally fine with it. I just don't get it. Not always a bad thing though because more time for me to play without either of them complaining.

 

[messy]

One game that immediately sprung to mind was dynasty warriors empires. Doesn't particularly matter which one they're all pretty samey. Now most of the recent games offer two player in the actual battles but between battles there is a "diplomacy section." A brief pause between button mashing your way to a one (or two) man/women genocide to decide what areas to attack, replenish troop numbers, upgrade characters/weapons, cause rebellions in rival countries and you finish your turn deciding where to attack. Your are limited by how powerful you are, with more countries under your control the more actions you can take, and how much money you have since resources are spent on each action.

I usually play this game round a friends (in fact he's bought pretty much every dynasty warriors game since no.4 and I've played them all co-op with him) and it's amazing the amount of debate we have. Since he's player one he has, in theory, final say it what happens with our growing empire but that doesn't prevent me voicing my opinion. I'm all for taking as much gold and treasure as we can from the peasants and upgrading our particular favourites (Cao Pi for me and Ling Tong for him) to God - like levels of awesomeness. He however is all up donating gold, training up every possible officer to spread out the power. Now we're too great friends but it's amazing how much our opinions over the control of a virtual China.

Similar thing occurred when got Warcraft three before I did, I spent a good few days watching over his shoulder as we defended Azeroth from the Scourge (undead army) and then went online to play the various player own maps that are out there. It allowed me to voice that strategies that I though would work, if they did he'd proceed normally or if they were catastrophic and would lead to a night elf extinction he'd go another route. It allowed me to learn a few tricks of the campaign to make some of the harder levels that tiny bit easier, and allowed me to break into the online "scene" (footman wars one of my personal favourites) with a bit more skill the most and probably avoided those inevitable messages of "Who the hell is this kid, please leave the game" (I got this exact message on a game of DOTA once)

 

[man-man]

Works sometimes; with certain games and certain people. I know I've had good times with friends either watching over their shoulder or them over mine, either on a game they've not played to see how it's done before taking a turn, or just along for the ride.

The other side is the situation where you go to see someone and play some games, then their favourite new game is singleplayer only so you watch for a while, vaguely expecting to get a turn eventually. It slowly becomes clear that not only do they not really have any objective (beyond running around doing whatever comes to mind in a sandbox game) but they also have no intention of stopping.

I had one friend... very bad at this, he even did it when he came to my house and got deeply and intensely involved in a game of mine. It wasn't even that good of a game, but his capacity for blinkered focus on a game in front of him was unparalleled (to the point where it could take a few tries to get him to respond when you spoke to him) and I quite literally fell asleep behind him without him noticing.

 

[El Poncho]

When i'm at my friends most of the time I just decide to sit back and watch him play the game unless he really wants me to play.

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

I am in complete agreement. Case in point is Resident Evil 4 Wii.

When I was in halls of residence in university, whenever I booted the game up, one of my flatmates who I must have seen a total of only 2 days out of the entire year (a Korean student, his english was impeccable, but he was just shy, he had a monster rig though), would come into the room and watch me play, as well as one of my other flatmates.

He would always give me advice onto how to pack the inventory, what to upgrade, and whenever he spots ammo or collectibles, and I didn't mind because he gave good advice. My other flatmate who watched just used to scream in terror anything was coming at me in the distance, which made the game even freakier.

And when another one of my flatmates came into the room (I lived with around 9 other people) and asked 'what's going on?' they would say 'we're playing Resident Evil!'.

It was cool, we were all gamers which was a pretty lucky draw.