Sorry, I take it all back

I used to watch some Nebraska football - in this state, it's hard to avoid - but I haven't in years. And I've always been pretty dismissive about watching sports on television.

Yes, I'd say, I can understand the interest in playing sports. But sitting and watching someone else play them? It's not just a horrible time-waster, I actually find it hard to see anything positive about it.

But just today, I realized that I've been spending more time watching other people play computer games - in YouTube videos - than I've been spending playing them myself! Suddenly, I realized that I was being a real hypocrite criticizing couch potato sports fans.

OK, you've got me. I hereby apologize for everything I've said about watching football and golf on TV. And yes, even basketball, too. Hockey? Well,... I don't know. I've got to maintain some standards, right? :)

But yeah, I've been busy lately - trying to get some yardwork done while the weather's still nice - and I haven't wanted to spend too much time reading or playing games. But somehow, I've still worked in plenty of time for watching YouTube videos. And most of them have been of gamers playing games.

For example, I've been watching Tales of Lumin as he plays Minecraft, Terraria, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I've got the first two games myself, but Lumin goes into them without knowing very much about them. It was especially fun to see him play Minecraft. He brings a lot of enthusiasm to his gameplay.

I've never played Deus Ex - neither the original game nor this sequel - and it really doesn't seem to be my kind of game. But it's still a lot of fun to watch. (Note: for this and the other games mentioned here, click on the correct "playlist" on the right side of the screen at their YouTube channel. If you start with the first video clip in a series, they will usually load in order automatically after that.)

I've also watched Jef Major ("one 'F' Jef") play a number of games, including Mount&Blade, Silent Storm: Sentinels, and It Came from the Desert. I've owned Mount&Blade for a long time, and it's lots of fun, even though I'm really, really bad at it. But watching Jef play it makes me want to play again - or, better yet, buy one of the newer sequels.

Silent Storm is a game I somehow missed when it first came out. I really wish I could find a copy of it, because I'd love to play it. But it doesn't seem to be available anywhere. (The Sentinels expansion is still being sold, but you need the original game to play it.)

And I'd never even heard of It Came from the Desert. I don't suppose I'll ever play it, but I enjoyed the playthrough.

I watched Revocane play Fort Zombie and made the mistake of thinking I might be able to play it myself. Heh, heh. Well, it was only $10, so I wasn't risking much. But it's almost unplayable for me. I'm pretty bad at games like that, and the controls are just terrible. Frankly, it was a lot more fun to watch.

I also watched him play Dwarf Fortress a little bit - and Jef Major, too. But although that's a wonderful game, it doesn't work very well on a video clip playthrough. It's just too hard to tell what's going on. That's really one I need to play myself (and I will, again - sometime).

I watched Tanit playing Combat Mission: Shockforce, which got me to buy Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy, which I do intend to blog about sometime soon. It's lots of fun! And watching Box MacLeod playing Jagged Alliance 2: Urban Chaos got me to reinstall JA2, myself. (Ah, so many games, so little time!)

Even that isn't all of them. I've been watching gameplay videos for some time now - from Paul Soares, Jr., PlumpHelmetPunk, GrimithR, and many others. What can I say? It's addicting. Almost invariably, I get enthused and either buy the game or jump back into it, if I already own it. But I seem to spend far more time watching these videos than actually playing the games myself.

So, yes, I take it all back. I guess I understand why you watch sports on TV for hour on end. Of course, those games seem kind of dull to me, when you could be playing - or even watching - Minecraft, Silent Storm, or Mount&Blade. But to each his own. :)