Donkey Kong Country Let's Play Walkthrough (Part 5)

In this episode of EXTREME Let's Play, I once again tackle a few levels in the Super Nintendo epic classic Donkey Kong Country. I'm already nearing the end, even though we can't be more than two hours into the game! Oh well, the levels are getting a little more tricky, and so I may (or may not) happen to die a couple times. Be prepared for some lights on, lights off levels!

Let's Play Alan Wake video game walkthrough (Part 4)

In this episode, part 4 of the Extreme Let's Play of Alan Wake for the Xbox 360, I'm tasked with the monumental task of having to deal with a boatload of bad guys in the woods. Luckily, I'm kind of getting used to the notion of how to kill these guys with the flashlight and gun combination (I still find it weird that a flashlight makes them tangible enough to be able to kill with bullets).

Let's Play Alan Wake walkthough video (Part 3)

In this episode of EXTREME Alan Wake Let's Playing on the Xbox 360, we cruise for awhile through the woods and the like, until all of a sudden... oh no. Is it.. is it a puzzle we have to complete? Nooooo!

Are you prepared to listen to my thought process, to truly see how bad I can sometimes be at thinking how to make a make-shift log-bridge?

Let's Play Alan Wake, Xbox 360 walkthrough (Part 2)

In this, part 2, of playing Alan Wake, we have a little bit of a run-in at a local diner within this weirdly-small, island-town. Of course, it's some sort of creepy diner, plentifully-filled with creepy people.

But, to be fair, there's a dude in the diner that is just blatantly ROCKING OUT. You really have to check out this pirate dude (I call him a pirate dude because of his extreme eye patch).

Let's Play Alan Wake video game walkthrough (Part 1)

I've been looking to play a horror/scary/thriller game for awhile, and I strolled upon Alan Wake and decided to give it a chance. It's a pretty fun game to do a Let's Play of, because it's more like a movie or film than it is a video game. Either way, it's a fun experience, and in this part, we're introduced to the nightmare within a nightmare within a dream within a... who knows where this game is headed, but it's kind of a weird start. All we know from the get-go is that we're en route to some sort of lighthouse. The problem is that there are quite a few "obstacles" in our way. What are we to do? Hint: flashlight!

Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 Let's Play (Part 6)

Surprise! After all the wait and anticipation, it turns out that we don't actually get to play Quidditch (or at least not yet?) but at least we get a pretty sweet animation, watching Harry kick some ass at the "sport" (seriously, I still stand by the statement that a game like this doesn't take that much skill compared to muggle sports like, uh, anything).

Either way, watch this short episode! In it, we trek across the stadium to attempt to stop the evil Snape from doing anything bad to Harry Potter. Watch as we set his ass on fire.

Let's Play LEGO Harry Potter Walkthrough Years 1-4 (Part 5)

In this episode, we have a little bit of a puzzle we have to take care of. Taylor gets pretty dang confused during this process, but luckily, Jessie is here to save the day and keep things going so they don't slow down too much. After a bit, we figure out how to make the potion, and then we get to the outside of the Quidditch stadium! Is it time to play Quidditch yet? IS IT!?

Let's Play Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 (Part 4)

In this episode, we get to meet the famous "plant" professor, Professor Sprout. But, for one reason or another, I have a feeling that something might go awry within her classroom... something.. that didn't necessarily happen within the books.

Quickly after, we get to learn how to fly on brooms! I wonder which one of us is going to have more trouble trying to figure out how to maneuver on them? I bet it's Taylor. But there's only one way to find out who's worse at flying on brooms in this video game, and that's to watch!

EXTREME Vlog #1

THIS IS WHAT I LOOK LIKE!

Also, yeah, I'm going to get used to not shaking the camera so much. I didn't realize I was doing it, but I'll learn - I promise.

Let's Play LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4 Walkthrough (Part 3)

Jessie and I have gotten off to a good start, but now we're set to deal with what might be the first "boss" in the Lego Harry Potter game. I don't really know if this is a boss though, nor if there are even bosses in Lego video games. Either way, I'm calling it a boss here, because it's a big bad guy that we have to defeat in order to progress the story.

After that dude's done (we knock him the heck out) we're able to go and meet up with Flitwick and company again. I bet it's time to learn another spell or something (I think I'm finally starting to figure out the structure to this game).

Let's Play Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 (Part 2)

Ahhhh yeah. Time for some LEGO Harry Potter time. This time around, I realized that I'd be a lot more efficient at beating these levels with someone who actually has some sort of LEGO video game experience (and specifically, this Lego video game).

Jessie joins me, and she pretty much leads the way, as I'm able to really "soak up" what it is to be a Hogwarts student like Harry Potter. What does that mean, exactly? That means do as much work as Harry Potter does at school: basically nothing.

I'm pretty much just rambling now. If you want to check out some amazing team-play action, you've come to the right spot, as this is the first multiplayer Let's Play video I've posted here!

Donkey Kong Country Let's Play Walkthrough - Part 4

Finally, we're nearing the end of the godless snow levels. I'm calling them godless here, because that's what they are: straight-up evil. The boss of the snow levels is kind of a joke compared to the rest of the levels within the world, so at least the world has that going for it. Then it's on to the last world before the main main boss. I'm scared.

Donkey Kong Country Let's Play Walkthrough - Part 3

We've gotten past the easy first few levels, gotten through the strange man-made (Kong-made?) architecture of the second world, so what could be next? That's right, we've ventured into the snow levels; some of the hardest levels I remember from any Super Nintendo game.

Seriously, I hated these levels when I was a kid. The whole "ice world" in general was a pain in the butt, what with all the barrels and the inability to SEE the barrels. And of course, there are water levels, too.

Donkey Kong Country Let's Play - Part 2

Now that we've gotten past those easy first levels, things start to get a little more serious. The second world starts off with a bang, where all of a sudden we've started to have to go through man-made (or Kong-made) structures. Can we handle the stress?

Donkey Kong Country Let's Play - Part 1

I've begun playing Donkey Kong Country. This game is awesome, and the first few levels are great because you don't have to worry much about doing anything too complicated and can simply focus on playing. Or on playing and talking about how awesome the game is. In an EXTREME way.

Lego Harry Potter - Level 1 of Years 1-4 (Part 1)

Here's video of me playing the video game Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4, the first level. The game started off quite confusingly, and I'm glad to find out I'm not the only person who felt this way. I asked some friends and they each had the same struggles in the first moments that I had (SO DON'T JUDGE ME).

I found it quite amusing that the Lego people only speak in their Lego language.

Best Let's Plays, Funniest Let's Play

This blog post, or FAQ post might be changed intermittently, because as I create more and more episodes of Extreme Let's Play, I'm sure that there will be more and more episodes that I like.

That is to say, I have what I consider to be my best let's play video, or the funniest let's play video, but I'm sure that as time goes on, that could change.

Right now, though, I believe my favorite Let's Play episode to be my Let's Play of the LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4 video game (Part 4). That was the episode that I seemed to start to really feel comfortable being able to continue to talk and talk and talk in these video game videos, and not feel like I'm repeating myself or becoming boring.

It helped, too, that I had someone to bounce ideas and jokes off of. Thanks to Jessie for taking part in that episode! It really does help, from a humor-standpoint, to be able to have two people talking instead of one. You have the sort of play-by-play talking, paired with the sort of "color commentary."

Let's Play Video Game History

If you want to watch some awesome Let's Plays of video games, go to the home page!

But when it comes to the history of things, I, like you, am going to check Wikipedia before I check most other places.

So, I went to Wikipedia and discovered that this is the Internet community's stance on the history of "walkthroughs" of video games:

In video games, a walkthrough is a document or video showing a player how to win a game. Walkthroughs date from the earliest text adventures, graphic adventures, and puzzle-adventure games. They are common for role playing games and strategy games. A FAQ provides similar information, but does claim to be comprehensive. A walkthrough variation is "progressive hints." This provides a series of hints, increasingly explicit, to guide the player without completely spoiling the puzzle solving. The player has control which progressively explicit hints are revealed. Walkthroughs are free on the Internet, as opposed to the more involved strategy guides, which are professionally printed with graphics. One form of walkthrough is the humorous "Let's Play", where the player gives running (often humorous) commentary on the game, in the vein of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 is absolutely awesome, by the way. If you've never seen any of the television series before, check it out RIGHT NOW on Netflix streaming.

Favorite video game franchise I've played.

When it comes to console gaming, I've been around quite awhile. In fact, I played NES (or the Nintendo Entertainment System) before I could walk (and I've heard, before I could talk).

Either way, I've been a Nintendo fan from the get-go, but that doesn't mean I stick to only the system. I now have an Xbox 360 and had a regular Xbox, so I'm not only loyal to Nintendo.

On Nintendo, though, you can't get any better for a franchise within the video game market than Super Mario. It's amazing to me that, even though the Super Mario brand has been spread so unimaginably thin over so many different consoles and types of games (from sports, to puzzle, to almost anything) the franchise brand still stands. That is, it's simplistic and easy to learn, but challenging enough to make it fun and interesting enough to continue playing until you're all the way through the game.

It's fascinating to me that almost every Super Mario game I've played (short of the sports games that aren't Mario Kart games) I've finished to completion. You just don't see that with many games, save entire video game franchises.

If you've never owned a Nintendo system you're really missing out, because you can't get more genuinely "fun" than the Super Mario video game franchise.

Why Make a Video Game Blog?

To this date, all of the Extreme Let's Play video game videos have been posted on Blip.tv. We love Blip.tv because of its modest limitations on length of videos and the fact that they have an easy to use distribution method.

At the same time, sometimes Blip.tv has trouble at allowing viewers and fans to easily access certain episodes that are in a Internet TV show's archive. That's where we come in here at this site!

This blog is an easy way for everything to stay organized within the world of Extreme Let's Play. It allows us to post the videos, include a short description, as well as simply be a base camp for all the different online activities that we might take part in. If you want to read about the news that's going on with Extreme Let's Play, this is the best place to come.

So, go ahead and subscribe to the RSS feed if you want, that way you can easily be told by your feeder when you should come back to check the latest video game blog post!

Best Videogame Videos, Top Video Game Videos

Well, I assume you're not talking about my best video game videos, or my top video game videos, so I'll spare you the time of clicking to view my videogame videos and tell you about some of my other favorites.

As I've mentioned here and there, my first motivation to get into the world of online video game commentary was by watching the legendary Day[9] do commentary over epic StarCraft II battles. He's incredibly intelligent about the game, and shows his knowledge by often pausing the game to give detailed run-throughs over what players might be thinking. I find this to be an amazing way to become an excelled player at the game, and I think that it's way cool of him to go out of his way to record himself in an easy to understand manner.

Another one of my favorite video game commentators goes by the name of Toby Turner, or Tobuscus. He's a huge YouTube sensation, and after watching a bunch of online videos that I found were funny were created by him, I clicked on his YouTube channel and realized quickly that he was hilarious in doing commentary over video games. He basically inspired me to do the humor approach to video gameplay footage.

Are videos of video games fun to make?

Yeah! Why wouldn't they be?

Of course, sometimes it can be kind of irritating when I continue to die over and over again (really, that's when it becomes a little stressful and embarrassing).

I think it can become a little stressful sometimes when I am playing a game and I know I'm going to have to go through a lot of post-production editing.

For instance, in the very first Let's Play video game playthrough video I recorded, I recorded the first part of Lego Harry Potter. In this episode, I got about 10 minutes in of talking and playing the game simultaneously, when all of a sudden I got to a position where I simply had no idea what to do or where to go.

I stopped the video capturing, then stopped the audio capturing. Then I had to figure out what I was doing, then start everything up again, continuing to record. Then, in post-production, I had to put everything together and align everything again and again. That gets annoying.

But nothing is as annoying as when my audio gets just a liiiiiitle bit off, and then I have to spend my time watching the entire episode several times to make sure that everything correlates perfectly.

That gets really annoying.

What does Let's Play mean?

This is a question that is asked a lot, as with a name like EXTREME Let's Play, it's reasonable to assume people are going to ask what it means.

Well, a "Let's Play" is nothing more than a video game played by someone else, with commentary stacked on top of it. Have you ever sat down to watch someone else play a video game before? Of course you have (why else would you be here?). Now, imagine that that person isn't someone you know, but rather someone online named Taylor. Now imagine that that person (Taylor) is pretty dang extreme. Now you're pretty much where you need to be.

Let's Play are video game walkthroughs (or playthroughs, whatever) of games that from (hopefully) start to finish, split up into separate Parts, in order to best be able to distribute online.

EXTREME Let's Play, or ELP, distributes parts of our videos on our Blip.tv channel, and embeds the videos for easy organization on this website. We try to be humorous, so if we're not, we apologize.

How to Make Video Games Let's Plays

Let's think about this logically, what are you seeing and hearing when you watch a Let's Play walkthrough?

First off, you're watching the visualization of the video game. This is very often captured via a GameBridge, Dazzle, or one of many other component-based video game capture devices, that allow you to capture the audio and visual that's being sent from the console system.

Then, you have the commentary. I record my commentary into the Cakewalk Sonar system, and do all post-production sound editing within that program.

I then export the audio after I have finished mixing it, then take the video that was captured from my video game, and place them on top of one another in some sort of video editing software. I know that most people across the Internet who do Let's Plays simply use Windows Movie Maker, but there are plenty of different video editors to choose from.

Then, export from the video editing software once you've got everything aligned, and you're set! You have your video with commentary, so go post it on some video site like YouTube for everyone to watch!

Why make video games walkthroughs?

When you get down to it, why not?

I want to play video games, so I do. I have the equipment to record both audio and visual, so why not take two and two and put them together?

I've always been searching and striving for an outlet that I could be able to make people laugh on a regular basis. I've created and written for humor blogs for a long while, I've written and acted in humorous videos, and on and on.

Anyway, nothing has really caught on thus far, which is kind of a bummer. What does excite me is the fact that this specific outlet (that is, playing video games and doing voice over commentary on them) is a fun thing that I know people enjoy. So far, it seems like the perfect mix between fun and being able to easily distribute "my voice" to large audience via podcasts and the like.

Do you have the equipment to create Let's Plays? Yeah? Well, as it turns out, it takes a lot of time and effort to continue with this hobby, as there really is a lot of editing and such involved.

Video games, not PC games? Why?

So far, I've only been interested in doing Extreme Let's Plays of video games so far because it's what I play. I really only play video games because for the most part, my computer isn't capable of handling the process speeds of the "good" computer-based PC games that are out today.

Couple that with the fact that I would also need to be recording the gameplay footage, and that is asking quite a lot from my computer that only seems to have 2gb of RAM currently. For those of you who don't know much about computers, that's not a lot when it comes to the standards of  gaming on a computer in today's world.

The only PC game that I really play anymore is StarCraft II, and there are PLENTY of Let's Plays and walkthroughs already available for that game. In fact, Day[9] was my original motivation to do Let's Plays (he's a big StarCraft commentator).

Anyway, I love consoles and I've always been a video game fan. If you've got a problem with that, I suggest you buy me a new computer.

How to Record Video Games on TV?

A lot of people ask me how I do it, and, after you get the hang of things, it's pretty simple.

I personally primarily use a GameBridge, which brings the component to my USB drive on my computer. But I feel I should start somewhere sooner than that. Here, let me explain...

First, let's say I want to record something from my Super Nintendo. I plug my SNES in and put a game in. I run a component cable (the yellow, red, white cable thing) to my TV set, and then have a separate male-to-male component cable running out from my TV as well.

Then, I take one of the male ends from that new component cable, insert them into my GameBridge, then put the Gamebridge into my computer. From here, I use the software that the GameBridge came with (Intervideo Home Theater) and set things to record from there.

Everything else is post-production (editing) after that.

How to make a funny let's play?

This is obviously a learning process for everyone. When it comes to humor, the only thing that you can really do to become "better" at humor, or being funny, is through practice.

At the same time, there are only so many times you can say the same one-liner before it becomes repetitive, monotonous, and people begin to ignore you.

What that is to say, is that the only ways in which you can get better at "being funny" in Let's Plays or in general is through practice, and by having people watch to tell you whether or not you're actually being funny.

When you're trying to make a funny let's play, it's not so much about if YOU think you're funny (because of course you're going to think you're funny) but whether or not other people think you're funny.

So, how do you make a funny Let's play video game walkthrough? You do what I have done: make let's plays and then ask people to critique you. So please, if you would be so kind, could you watch some of my Let's Plays and critique them? Pleeeeease?

Let's Play YouTube vs. Blip

The reason why a majority of the Extreme Let's Play video game playthroughs are hosted on blip.tv instead of YouTube has mainly to do with the fact that blip.tv has no time limits on videos they allow Internet TV shows to post.

This is very convenient for Let's Players like us, because sometimes I want to cut Let's Plays to about a half-hour, and blip.tv allows it!

Also, I really appreciate the distribution methods that blip has compared to YouTube. If I really want to, I can set up blip to distribute to an assortment of different Internet video outlets across the web. But that really does require a lot of work and very likely would necessitate me upgrading my blip account. Either way, I'm happy with how things are going right now.

Oh, and one more thing, I really do like that blip makes it so easy to follow statistics of viewership and audience watching habits! Now go watch more of our Let's Plays!

Let's Play Videos of You and Whom?

Well, so far, I've kind of realized that it's a lot more fun to do Let's Plays when I have someone else to bounce ideas and jokes off of. This is pretty much the norm in a lot of "funny" Let's Plays, and I can easily see why. If it's just one person talking to themselves throughout the entire Let's Play video game walkthrough, things can sometimes get a little repetitive.

So far, at the time of this writing, the only person I've done any Let's Play playthrough with is my friend Jessie, but I hope and am excited to do Let's Plays with a bunch of other friends. It's mainly just a pain to get people together, because so many of my friends live so far away nowadays.

As time goes on, I expect to have a plethora of different Let's Play co-hosts on many different video game consoles and systems. I mean, why not? It's more fun that way!