Hey there, everyone! Before this blog starts, time for shameless promotion! Check out a double dose of reviews, including my thoughts on Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale on Vita and Saints Row IV on PS3!
Considering that I'm taking a break from professional game journalism for a while, I thought I'd make a (hopefully) weekly feature for my blog highlighting great Youtube channels I've found. Each week, I'll spotlight a Youtube channel that I believe is worth your time (or even your subscription). As a kickoff, here's a trifecta of Youtube channels that you should definitely check out. Here we go!
Jon Jafari debuted on Youtube in 2010 with a two-part review of the absurdly disappointing Daikatana game, but he didn't hit success until he started upping his production values and letting his outspoken and frantic personality start becoming the focus of his videos. He's reviewed a number of games since then, including but not limited to Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis, Sonic R and Final Fantasy XIII. His now-defunct website NormalBoots.com featured a number of other Youtube gaming personalities like the team behind The Completionist and the cast of Continue?.
Jon also became the co-founder of the famed Let's Play channel Game Grumps, in collaboration with animator/voice actor Arin "Egoraptor" Hanson, but retired from the channel after relocating to live with his girlfriend and to dedicate more time to future episodes of his own channel.
His video style has become his most iconic feature, usually featuring bursting text, shaking and inverted images and brief, but comedic image editing. His video style has been a major influence on other Youtubers like Brutalmoose and SpaceHamster. He is frequently joined in his videos by his pet robotic parrot Jacques, who has been known to die on occasion and reconfigure later in the same video.
Featured video: Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts
Jon has constantly expressed his love of SNES and N64-era Rareware games like Donkey Kong Country and Banjo-Kazooie, so when the newest Banjo-Kazooie game was announced, he was one excited fella. But like many of us, he fell for the ol' "bait and switch" once Rareware removed the series' platformer roots in favor of, as Jon said, "LEGO cars." Jon's writing reaches a wonderful high here, with the editing once again benefiting from his critiquing of the game's structure and constant influx of goofy humor. If you got introduced to Jon through GameGrumps, check out his channel to see some of the funniest videos you'll find on Youtube. Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts is his best yet.
Austin Hargrave joined Youtube in 2009 as PeanutButterGamer (or PBG, as he calls himself) with a video showing his Top 10 Weirdest/Creepiest Video Game Characters. Since then, he's made a number of iconic videos including his continuing series The G-Files, videos that highlight dark or creepy things in games like Minecraft, weird Japanese arcade games and The Legend of Zelda (including investigation of the Creepypasta "Ben Drowned" tall tale). He also has a series on his channel called To Kill an Avatar, which features videos about untimely or suspiciously exploitative deaths of characters in Pokemon, Zelda and Mario Party. He also is an avid creator of Top [insert number] lists.
His second channel PBGGameplay is a Let's Play channel where he's played games like Super Mario 64, Monster Hunter, Far Cry 3 (featuring his famed freakout over sharks), and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (where he randomly witnesses the mysterious Headless Horseman after hours of searching).
He's adopted a video style in the same vein as his friend JonTron and also features his pet, a ferret named Pixel. His video for Cursed Mountain features a cameo from JonTron and his video for Weird Arcade Games #2 features appearances from Jirard "The Completionist" Khalil and Greg "The Mediocre-ist" Wilmot.
Featured video: The G-Files: Weird Arcade Games #2
Picking a single video from PBG's production list is tough, but if I had to pick one, it would have to be his return to the world of Japanese arcade games that reinforce the nation's very high weirdness quotient. To save the world from destruction (as reported by the Greg Wilmot-voiced alien), PBG must play a bunch of crazy arcade games from Japan like Parodius and its sexy sequel, Sexy Parodius. He articulates the freakiness of the games he plays "to the tea", making you actually want to play them. Angel pigs, milk that shoots cows and, of course, the "sexy bunny girl in a one piece on a rocket that shoots carrots." And a freakin' weird-as-all-sexy final boss.
After a couple of video game related channels, I'll add some spice to this one by talking about an animation channel. Yaaay! Jaltoid is the collaboration between Dalton Joyce and Emi Kuc, two up-and-coming flash animators who have made Jaltoid a rising hit among the animation community. They debuted on Youtube in 2012 with the six-second-long Happy Birthday Clark video, but since then have expanded their portfolio with some longer, but amazingly funny animations.
Their first smash hit was PewDiePie Commenters, a video parodying Let's Player PewDiePie, or more specifically his Bro army of frequently inept, impulsive and near insane fans. Future animations poked fun at internet culture like Responding To Trolls (which made fun of users who say they don't respond to trolls by...responding to trolls) and Most Beautiful Teen (a video parodying the Facebook popularity contest of the same name).
They have a number of recurring characters like Richard Dickson, The Hardcore Brony and Harold (the creeper). One of their most recognizable characters is Raj "supercodplayer1995" Kapur (voiced by Dalton), a gamer of Middle Eastern descent who constantly shouts about how he's "Number 1" and how he's "better than PewDiePie." supercodplayer1995 also had his own Let's Play channel, before Jaltoid combined videos featuring his commentary into their secondary channel, the Let's Play oriented JaltoidGames.
Their animation is very expressive with bizarre animations and random references to gamesand shows like Sonic the Hedgehog, Spongebob Squarepants and Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt. They also do all voices in their animations themselves (with the exception ofthe luchador in Most Beautiful Teen, which was voiced by their friend Luke "lukeuhcola" Ferguson. They also update their Tumblr frequently and don't like using DeviantArt. And before you ask, yes, they are dating and living together.
Featured video: Girl Gamers
After poking fun at the attention-demanding sort of female gamer in their video Girl Gamer, Jaltoid followed up their hit with Girl Gamers, a video where another female gamer (one who's much less interested in flaunting her female gender for attention) is hit on by Harold, the creepy gamer from the first animation. The "bloo sweatshirt chick", despite her desire to simply play the game, gets into an argument from the returning girl gamer from the first cartoon, with the male gamers looking on in perverted awe. Their writing is stellar here and the duo's voice acting talents are at an all-time high, with Emi arguing with herself as the two girl gamers and Dalton playing every male character (including a clear reference to NeoGeo fan Keith Apicary). Whether you're a girl gamer, a "girl gamer", or just a guy, this animation will leave you laughing.
Take care, everyone!