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Has anyone ever substituted actually playing a game with watching a playthrough?

A few times, mostly for games where I wasn't sure that I wanted to buy it. So, I watched maybe 25% of the LP or playthrough and make a decision then.
Shank, for example, after sampling I decided it wasn't worth the asking price, so I watched the rest.
 
Deadly Premonition (GB's ER) - never really planning on playing it.
Assassin's Creed 1 (just the cutscenes) - don't want to trudge through the terribleness of the first game.
 
It's hard for me to do this, since any game I can get satisfaction through solely watching is scarcely a game at all.

I was tempted to try for Alice, since I barely played the first one and wanted to try Madness Returns, but after five minutes I got bored of it.
 
Torraz said:
Has anyone ever substituted actually playing a game with watching a playthrough?
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Yes but only because i had no intention at all to play that game, sometimes it's happened that the game i watched was so beautiful that immediately after i bought it and played it, Deus Ex comes to mind... but usually i see Let's Play of old games i already played.
 
Silent Hill 1, because I didn't have it but had the second and third games and wanted to get a primer on how it started, I watched through a Let's Play (it was a good one that made sure to keep all the surprises intact).

I also didn't play Resident Evil 1, the remake, on GC the first time through, my brother did and I watched. I played through it later, but I'm still very bad at it, so often I prefer watching others play it well than me fumbling around. Somehow it's still one of my favourite games ever.
 
I do it lots of times. My main reason is to clear out my backlog. I don't like to leave games hanging around in there. Either I finish it, or don't come back to it again.

If its a game thats frustrating to play or the mechanics to me have become boring but I'm somewhat into the story, once I'm fed up of playing it I'll likely watch the rest of the key cutscenes and ending.

The only time I did it with a game I never played at all was Ico because I had a really hard time finding a copy of it.
 
Currently watching a playthrough of Rise of Nightmares since I don't own an Xbox anymore nor will I get a Kinect if I ever get another Xbox. Quite interested to see how Sega did with a Kinect controlled 'core-game' but it just turns out to be House of the Dead Kinect Edition :P
 
Arkham City, financials limited my spending and it worked out, watching was enough, i would have sold the game at a massive loss had i bought it as planned. i've watch quite a few speedruns and lets plays of certain niche and classic games.
 
In the run up to MGS4 i did a playthrough of every Metal Gear game. I didn't have Portable Ops though, so i just watched every single cutscene in order, on YouTube. Much easier than playing through the whole game.
 
infinityBCRT said:
I do it lots of times. My main reason is to clear out my backlog. I don't like to leave games hanging around in there. Either I finish it, or don't come back to it again.

If its a game thats frustrating to play or the mechanics to me have become boring but I'm somewhat into the story, once I'm fed up of playing it I'll likely watch the rest of the key cutscenes and ending.
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I've only done it like 2-3 times, but this is exactly how I've viewed it.
 
I have watched playthroughs for some of the Pokemon games before. I do want to actually play a few of them though eventually but I guess you can say I have substituted playthroughs for the time being. I have also watched a level or two or 30 minutes worth of gameplay on average with playthroughs to see if I would enjoy the game or not before purchasing them. The reason why I love playthroughs so much is so I can get a taste of gameplay, music, etc. before purchasing.
 
I havent done it yet but my friend watched a vid of someone playing Xenosaga II so he can jump straight to III
 
No. The closest I ever came to doing anything close to that was last year when I followed along a couple of Let's Play series on youtube so I could get through Alundra.
 
WARP10CK said:
Yes I watched a playthrouh of this

42_ja_ps3.jpg
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Playing it myself felt like watching a play through :/
 
Once. Uninvited on NES. I figured I'd probably end up using a guide anyway (it has a handful of puzzles that make no sense at all), and since it's just a point-and-click adventure game, I might as well just watch it be played for me.
 
I actually did that for gears of war 3, hated playing the games as they bored me to tears gameplay wise, but the story modestly interested me
 
lr8RW.jpg


Played Amnesia for ~1h at the time day9 started streaming his playthrough. At first I just wanted to watch only the first hour of his playthrough so I wouldn't spoil anything, but it was just too damn funny to turn it off. After it didn't really make sense to go back and finish the game.
 
i'll do this with sequels i don't have the energy for (RE3? more of the same you say? pfft), games i've already gotten substantially through and gotten bored of, and games on consoles i don't have where i know by the time I get the console I just won't be able to motivate myself to go back and play them (uncharted)

i have no regrets. it lets me enjoy the new art that is being produced that I otherwise just wouldn't be taking in because i'm not gonna play it.

there's really some awesome LPs out there. I highly recommend the KOTOR2 and Blade Runner ones at lparchive. I think they were done by the same guy. Simply awesome.

watching an LP is basically identical to sitting with your friends/siblings while THEY play a game and you watch. except you aren't dependent on having other cool people around who want to perform for your amusement on cue.
 
I'm having my friend come over at the moment to play through Uncharted 3 for me since I have no real desire to actually play it. It sure is fun to watch though.
 
Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 2006. Was never going to touch those two, but the Sonic fan in me wanted to at least see what the games were about.
 
Yeah, I really enjoy Let's Play so I've "watched" quite a few games I'll probably never play in their entirety, like Uncharted. Just finished Supergreatfriend's Deadly Premonition which is fantastic.
 
Did it for deadly premonition, and I'm glad I did because that endurance run was amazing and made the game very entertaining.
 
Kind of. I'm completely addicted to watching Video Games Awesome! and they do a lot of playthroughs for games. But most of the games they play I already finished, but the few I haven't played (MW3, Gears of War 3 etc.) I watch them play. Thing is, I think those two examples are terrible games to begin with so I would never even think of playing them myself, so it works out in the end.
 
I do it all the time. I have little desire to play non-competetive games nowadays so i just watch them for the story!

Did it recently with catherine.
 
I watched StarCraft 2's single player campaign on YouTube and I'm satisfied, don't feel like I ever have to play the game now.
 
I had to do this with the last hour or two of Darksiders. It has a game-breaking bug towards the end that makes it impossible to finish the game. So instead of starting over on a pretty mediocre game that I wasn't enjoying, i just watched the story cut scenes on youtube. Turns out I wouldn't have missed out on much either way.
 
johnsmith said:
I had to do this with the last hour or two of Darksiders. It has a game-breaking bug towards the end that makes it impossible to finish the game. So instead of starting over on a pretty mediocre game that I wasn't enjoying, i just watched the story cut scenes on youtube. Turns out I wouldn't have missed out on much either way.
Click to expand...

Thanks to the fact that I use Dropbox for all my game saves, I was able to get around that bug by reverting my save file to a previous revision. Feels good man.
 
Deadly Premonition
Sonic 2006
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand
Cabella's Dangerous Hunts
FFXIII
Darksiders
Skyward Sword
MK Shaolin Monks
MGS Series

Those are all the ones I can remember at the moment.
 
I did for the Assassin's Creed 2 DLC.

My saves wouldn't allow me to play those DLCs or something. Pretty stupid.
 
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