I love to play video games. Enough to write about them, obviously. I also love to watch people play games. I could (and often do) spend as much time playing games as I do watching videos of other people playing. Here’s a few of my favorite things to watch:

Tool-Assisted Speedruns (TAS)

Speedruns are cool to watch. Tool-Assisted Speedruns are cooler to watch. I know unassisted speedruns take far more skill and practice to actually do, but a TAS is far more entertaining. The impossible things done in TASs are incredibly cool, and that’s what I love about them. The best part, I think, is that you can watch a full run of a game in a few hours time. For example, I’ve been watching a TAS of Super Mario Sunshine (in honor of my recent repurchase of the game), and the whole thing is done in an hour and a half. Awesome.

Competitive First Person Shooters

I’m not a huge fan of first person shooters, mostly because I’m bad at them (also because there are just SO MANY OF THEM). But that doesn’t stop me from getting some major enjoyment out of watching dudes who are really good play them. The best videos to watch are the ones where you get to hear team chatter (callouts, banter, etc.). It’s really amazing to see players work together and utilize their teamwork to overcome their opponent. 

The Megas Commentary

The Megas is a band that writes songs about MegaMan (they’re good, check them out). One of the members (Josh Breeding) is a pretty good at playing MegaMan. He sometimes records a playthrough of a MegaMan game and then the whole band provides commentary over it. The guys are hilarious, so that’s where most of the entertainment comes from, but Josh is actually really good at playing, so it’s still quite a spectacle to see him play the game.

Role Playing Games

This isn’t something I can watch YouTube, because there’s something about sitting in front of the TV watching someone else play an RPG. I think my first experience of this was watching my brother play Final Fantasy X back in the early 2000s. Ever since then, I’ve been totally cool watching friends and others play RPGs. It’s weird, because RPGs are incredibly boring, but there’s just something about watching them that I can’t get enough of.