Over the last year or so I’ve gotten away from MMO gaming and have spent most of my time in single player games, mainly Fallout 4 and Skyrim SE. When getting back into these games, and especially in the modding these games I turned to the gamers favorite resource – YouTube. Some of the more fascinating sites I ran across were people doing lets play videos.
This led me to Twitch and people streaming their play experience but I quickly tired of that since it seemed to be mostly about the players, and the people in chat, instead of about the game itself. Back on YouTube though there were several really good creators doing interesting lets play videos that were mostly in character (links down below). Many of these were almost like an episodic TV series and I kept coming back because I wanted to see what happened to the character next.
I also ran across several really good audio lets play’s that were like listening to a radio drama from the early days of radio (or the BBC even today for those lucky enough to get it).
I’ve wanted to try making one of these myself but between two dogs and sharing an office with my wife who has conference calls throughout the day my environment is far to noisy to record any audio. So what I’ve decided to do is write the about my latest characters adventures in Skyrim (and Beyond). A text based lets play if you will (sometimes called fanfic).
For this I have a basic idea for a character and a bit of backstory. I’ve also got a collection of mods that tweak the base gameplay of Skyrim and help flesh out a character more. I’ll be going over these in a later post.
For anyone interested here are a couple of my favorite “Let’s Play†style YouTuber’s:
Gopher: I originally found Gopher when trying to figure out how to use Mod Organizer for the original Skyrim. His tutorials for that are still some of the best out there and are actually still relevant for MO2 and SkyrimSE. He’s also recently done a series of tutorials on Nexus’ newest mod manager, Vortex.
I started out watching his more recent lets play series for Fallout 4’s Nuka World which is one of the funniest things I’ve ever watched. This got me to go back and watch his original Fallout Let’s play which was just as good though not quite as funny since this character is much more a good guy.
I’ve now gone back and started at the beginning watching his original Skyrim let’s play featuring Stiv. I’m currently on chapter 5 of his Let’s Play Skyrim Again series featuring Richard the librarian as well as watching his most current Skyrim SE series featuring Leonard. I highly recommend going back and watching some of the older series as it’s fascinating to not only see those characters evolve but to also watch Gopher himself become more polished as a presenter.
Ej Lowell: I was introduced to Ej Lowell via the Skyrim Addict podcast a few weeks back. I haven’t really had a chance to watch much of her stuff but I’ve watched the first episode of Intonation and found it fascinating. From what I’ve seen so far it’s not so much a traditional Let’s Play but more along the lines of using Skyrim to tell the characters story. Also check out her website, The Tales of E.J. Lowell for more information and some great art
Oxhorn: Oxhorn isn’t really a Let’s Play creator but is an excellent resource for Fallout 4 mods and settlement building information as well as the lore of the Fallout universe. If you’re interested in taking a deep dive into the lore of Fallout he’s a great place to start.
You must log in to post a comment.