Watching other people play video games...

[Eric]

Drives me up the wall I swear to god lol.

Does this happen to anyone else? Sometimes people just take longer to figure out things I immediately recognize and I find myself facepalming as they waste time recognizing or figuring out something I just find obvious to me.

I'm clearly an elitist gamer prick, but surely I'm not alone in my frustration. :p

[Shrinweck]

I have much more trouble being watched while gaming for basically your exact same reasons.

[Flip]

I like to watch Starcraft 2 1v1 games, but thats not really the same thing.

[Eric]

Yeah when it comes to competitive games like fighting games, RTS, or even shooters, I understand what's going on, and these guys do this at a pro level, I respect it, I can see they understand what they're doing.

I'm subscribed to a few youtube channels of guys that are good in a specific genre, and sometimes they branch out and play other games and post it, and it's just painful to watch lol.

For instance I watched an SC2 player, who crushed all the SC2 mastery achievements on brutal(somewhat impressive *adjusts monocle*) then play Bioshock Infinite. He gets to the first vending machine that sells an upgrade to possession for $50, and he's like "Nah I don't need that." That drove me fuckin nuts. lol Then he gets to the first fire throwing dude, kills it, is like "man I could use health", but of course he's not looting corpses so he just passes by the 80% health med kit that fire dude was carrying.

On the flip side I watched a Starcraft 2 commentator, struggle to beat the WoL campaign on Hard, and then when he got to the final mission all in he switched to normal, and in addition he blatantly copied a strategy off of youtube and tried to pass it off like "Ok guys, I'm gonna try somethin here!" I think I lost all respect for him as a commentator that day lol.

[SineSwiper]

I have trouble watching people play VGs because I end up being a backseat driver and impatient. On the flip side, when I'm playing a game, I'm generally OCD about searching for items, which generally drives OTHER people up a wall.

For instance I watched an SC2 player, who crushed all the SC2 mastery achievements on brutal(somewhat impressive *adjusts monocle*) then play Bioshock Infinite. He gets to the first vending machine that sells an upgrade to possession for $50, and he's like "Nah I don't need that." That drove me fuckin nuts. lol Then he gets to the first fire throwing dude, kills it, is like "man I could use health", but of course he's not looting corpses so he just passes by the 80% health med kit that fire dude was carrying.

Fucking n00b.

[Zeus]

I have no issues with this at all. I have played through many, many games with others and do so on a regular basis. Right now, my cuz and I are going through Bioshock Infinite and Metal Gear Revengence while my buddy and I are playing Bioshock 1 at his house and Metroid Prime 3 here. In both cases, we have plans for other games once we're done with the current ones too. Another friend and I are going through Other M and Bionic Commando Re-Armed 2 but they've been on hold for a year as he's been dealing with health issues. We're hoping to get back into them soon.

There are at least 50 or 60 other games fully completed with me present over the last 10 years which involved only 1 person playing but at least one other watching, including the entire MGS series and God of War trilogy. Just recently with Tomb Raider Underworld, Trine, Resident Evil Code Veronica, Bayonetta...and these are some of the games which have been completed in the last year. Hell, that's how my cuz got into the Bioshock and Batman Arkham series', he came over when I was playing them and watched for a while then got so into them, he insisted on going through all of them with me and bought the special editions for each. RPGs are done well this way too since they're slow moving and two people can easily talk it out.

I'm OK with it either way, whether I play and someone else watches or vice versa. Gaming can be either a solitary or social form of entertainment for all games in all genres. I actually kinda prefer the social version myself.

[Shellie]

I have trouble watching people play VGs because I end up being a backseat driver and impatient. On the flip side, when I'm playing a game, I'm generally OCD about searching for items, which generally drives OTHER people up a wall.

I can recall many times pointing out items/solutions you missed

[SineSwiper]

Only because you spotted it first. I probably would have gotten to it eventually