Or rather, the last few minutes, but the Katamari Damacy mod starts ten minutes in. The whole thing is a pro watch if you have 20 min to spare.
posted by Sebmojo at 10:43 PM on May 27, 2017

Has Touch the Skyrim not been posted here yet? It's almost an adequate replacement for Car Boys
posted by DoctorFedora at 10:53 PM on May 27, 2017

Post your favourites, imo.

MAKE HIM INTO A LOLLIPOP FOR ME
posted by Sebmojo at 12:32 AM on May 28, 2017

Polygon's youtube channel is pretty great, isn't it? Compare it to IGN or GameSpot and it's a weird, funny and surprisingly deep at times.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 1:24 AM on May 28, 2017 [2 favorites]

Polygon's youtube channel is pretty great, isn't it?

Absolutely. I think​it's probably fair to say that a lot of that is to do with the seemingly steadily increasing role and influence of Thirtyunderthirtymedialuminarygriffinmcelroy.
posted by howfar at 2:06 AM on May 28, 2017 [3 favorites]

Susan Crushbone's Sexcapades with the Sonic Voyeur Horde Deathgasm is still my favorite moment.
posted by FatherDagon at 2:11 AM on May 28, 2017 [1 favorite]

In case it's kinda' opaque about what's going on: Skyrim is a fantasy role playing game with a lot going on inside of it and a pretty active modding community. "Touch the Skyrim" is a YouTube series with the original premise of Griffin patching in mods until the game breaks completely, and Nick being required to call out the mods as he sees them. It's since kind of shifted into a series where Griffin is still driving but Nick takes a more active role in suggesting things to do with the game.

There's a lot of inside baseball in the videos but there's also so much going on at times that I don't feel left out when they're discussing games I don't recognize (for example, they both love the Zelda series, which I know bupkis about). Roll with the absurdism and something new will come along shortly.

Previous to this episode, Griffin had added mods that make the whole world (and certain characters, such as cattle) render as low-polygon textureless blobs. The Skyrim PC (player character) had been transformed into the PC from Animal Crossing. When you see what looks like a command console appear across the lower half of the screen, that's when Griffin's opened a terminal shell within the game and is requesting information, and then using that information to enable cheat codes (such as the ability to jump incredibly high, not be damaged when falling from an incredible height, have the game generate a lot of specific things in near proximity to the PC, etc.). That's in addition to the mods, which are called out in really brief "MOD DISCOVERED" inserts that credit the creators of each mod.

You can get a lot more out of the series by watching a few minutes of a straightforward Skyrim Let's Play by somebody else, or if you feel like strapping in for the long haul, you might kind of get a reasonable overview of how Skyrim was originally intended to be played by watching the entire "Touch the Skyrim" series, just because in each iteration they're bashing on different aspects of the software.
posted by ardgedee at 3:24 AM on May 28, 2017 [6 favorites]

Much like Monster Factory and Car Boys this show is by design inconsistent in its goofs but this episode is one of the clear highlights. I had to give up on eating my dinner for fear of choking.

For highlights for the whole show, the whole Susan Crushbone arc had me in legit pain from laughing so much - it goes places and is wildly NSFW. For a good time, search 'Susan Crushbone' on tumblr. Less NSFW than you would think. She immediately became the go-to sex-positive weed smoking dance-party-having trans orc fantasy icon.

There's a lot of standout moments but I think this part where they discover the dance mod is a pretty strong contender: https://youtu.be/jXZ_bAzYjCM?t=6m29s

It's worth nothing that less than a minute prior they discovered the weed mod that adds weed as a herb into the game and allows for any/all characters to smoke joints.

Or when they first try out the sex mod(s) with Crash Bandicoot. Do I need to warn people that this is NSFW? https://youtu.be/bEmcpnqIVfI?t=3m44s

And now I'm just rewatching Touch the Skyrim and this is what my Satruday is about.
posted by slimepuppy at 4:52 AM on May 28, 2017 [3 favorites]

Tbh, just start at episode 1 and watch them all b/c omg people o, m, &g.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:16 AM on May 28, 2017

Also, thanks so much for that context, ardgedee.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:18 AM on May 28, 2017 [1 favorite]

More grist for the argument that gaming+mods+VR are preparing the ground for a rediscovery of the classic engines of surrealism.
posted by Devonian at 5:57 AM on May 28, 2017 [2 favorites]

DOHVAKIIN DO YOUR BEST
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:35 PM on May 28, 2017 [1 favorite]

I've always said that Bethesda doesn't sell Elder Scrolls/Fallout games, they sell example files for the Creation Kit that they put out for free.

Here's one of their lead developers giving a talk at Game Developers' Conference 2015 on How Modding Made Bethesda Better.
posted by radwolf76 at 6:22 PM on May 28, 2017 [2 favorites]

I think what's nice about the various "fucking about with videogames" shows that Nick and Griffin are part of is that they are mainly about using games as toys to explore silly and/or interesting ideas, or as means for them to tell their own stories. They're nice illustrations of the ways that the systems in games are open to be played with, in the same way a child might play with a doll, a boardgame or a cardboard box. And it's notable that this perspective isn't only employed through modding. Monster Factor typically uses stock games (although admittedly some of the most interesting stories have used tools or at least console commands), and Peacecraft similarly tells its story within the confines of the game. I think this kind of unscripted play is a big part of the fun in games generally, and watching these various series has helped me enjoy my own play more.
posted by howfar at 12:35 AM on May 29, 2017 [2 favorites]

Games are art like telephones are conversations.
posted by Sebmojo at 4:15 PM on May 29, 2017 [1 favorite]