Am I alone here? I watch other people play games, and it I usually have to stop because it often begins to seriously annoy me. I see my friends walk into a new room, and literally try the same thing 30 times for 10 minutes, meanwhile there is an obvious frickin switch on the other side of the room, but they have not even explored that half of the room yet. Then they look at me and ask me what they are doing wrong.

This seriously happens to me all the time. I am not so arrogant as to say I am just a better player than them, I think its just a personality flaw on my part, but still...

 

It depends. If they are, as in your example, absolute morons...yeah it can be bothersome. If, however they are actually real good then it can be quite entertaining.

It also depends on the game. Certain games are just meant to be single player experiences (these tend to be slower paced, more story driven games. A good example being say..Hotel Dusk [love the game, gotta give it a nod  ]). But a good round of Smash or some good players on Rock Band is one hell of a show.

 

Yeah, I get really really bored watching someone else play a game, but my fiance loves watching me play just about anything, so that works out pretty well for me. Back in the day, my friend and I used to piggyback on Final Fantasy 7, 8, and 9, where I'd play my save file for 2 hours or whatever, and then he would play catch up on his file and pass mine a bit, then we'd switch and I'd play again. We were both pretty competitive though, so we'd learn from each other's mistakes and whatnot, making watching a bit more tolerable.

 

I only enjoy watching other play sports or fighting games. Then again, I rarely get the opportunity to watch anyone play a video game.

 

I can not stand watching another person play a game... even if they are good! But especially if they suck... I get really pissed off if I am watching somebody play a game, who can not figure out the simplest crap! (why I am never in the same room as my Mom when she plays Zelda..)

But even if a person is good at playing a game, I can't stand it. "Uhh... why am I watching? shouldn't we either be playing multi-player, or doing something else? I'll just leave if you are gonna make me watch you play all day..."

 

I feel the same way. It's even worse when you try to help said player and they dont listen to a word you say and die OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

 

I love watching other people play video games; especially games like Resident Evil or Silent Hill. I get to sit back and watch the story unfold, kinda like a needlessly long movie.

 

Silent Hill, Uncharted, and Resident Evil are great games to watch because they play out like a movie, especially uncharted, which has a very smooth pace, even during the non-story elements.

 

I have the opposite problem, really. I can't stand it when people watch me play video games. It stresses me out, for some reason.

 

I like watching my brother in law play Silent Hill. Thats a game I don't mind sitting down to watch. I dont like watching others player shooters because they get lost and do some stupid crap, like waste ammo on a door that doesnt do anything... twice.

And then when I give advice, no one listens.

 

Word.

I almost included Zelda, but I usually play that with others watching and I have no idea if they enjoy it. I'm a terrible host though.

 

The entire Let's Play subforum disagrees with you.

 

I used to love it when I was younger. Now it depends on the game and the player I guess. My wife loved watching me play Uncharted, and thought Heavenly Sword was good. She hated Portal though.  

 

probably because watching that game induces nausea. both my fiance and my best friend couldn't watch me play it, no matter how much I wanted to show them the game. I'm the same way with fps. watching, and sometimes playing them makes me sick.

personally, I can't stand watching someone play. but my buddy though will watch me play HIS games for an hour. especially tomb raider and gta. he loves just sitting back and watching them, apparently because I'm good and make it look really fluid.

 

I kind of like watching other people play. Sometimes when I enter a new "room" on COD or something, I'll just choose the option of watching, because that's usually a good way to find good camping spots and stuff.

 

I guess it depends on the person playing, I guess. When I was in the military, my roommate and I would watch each other play for hours. I guess the point I am trying to make is "the most annoying thing in the world is watching people who have no common sense play video games."

A good example. I have a friend who was playing Half-Life 2. There was a part where he had to climb a ladder. But instead of looking for a ladder, he seriously spent like 30 minutes trying to run, jump, and even blast himself up to the ledge with a grenade! And he still at this point had not even looked the entire room over, or he would have seen the ladder.

Another friend was playing Devil May Cry 4 last night. He spent 20 minutes running around in one single area jumping al over trying to find a secret exit because he was "stuck." He said that because he had found a Vital Star (health) in that area, because he had used one earlier in the game, he thought that that meant that he had to travel all the way to the beginning where he used the health because it was a hint. :~

So because he found health in one area, he had to travel back to an earlier area where he had also used health, and it would progress the game. WTF.

I guess my main point is games depend on a certain degree of common sense, and its frustrating to watch people play that do not pick up on the subtle ways that games guide players through them that to some, like me, is obvious, but to others, it goes three miles over there heads.

 

Fighting games like Tekken or Mortal Kombat are fun to watch.

 

Ranks right up there with watching someone surf teh internet....

 

My experience is seeing all of Mortal Kombat Deception's 'story' (if you can call it that) modes and Resident Evil 4 all the way through twice. I never want to play or see those games again. Ever.

Also, after I had played LoZ:TP on Wii, I had to watch a friend go through it up to the Master Sword all in one go.

 

Slightly off topic, but I can't stand watching a video on the internet that is supposed to showcase a game, and the person is horrible at it.

Nothing pisses me off more than downloading a three minute video and half of that time is the person selecting his save file, cycling through submenus to load weapons, etc and the other half is watching him FAIL FOR GREAT JUSTICE and everything he does.

IGN is notorious for this.
Attention IGN: none of your gameplay videos should start at the title screen -ever.