Quick Look Alternatives

Hey duders,

Is there any content on the internet similar to Quick Looks? Whatever the future of GB might be, I don't think there will be sufficient QLs for me (but that's been the case for the last year or two anyway).

Here's what I personally really love about them:

- It's like a friend showing you the new game they just bought.

- More of a first impressions thing than an actual review, generally released right before or after the game's release date.

- Long enough to provide a good look at a game.

- Consistent and regular content, with a mix of obvious big name games and cool/weird stuff.

Obviously the personalities on the video are very important too, but I doubt I'll find game-playing internet people that I like as much as the original GB crew. I've watched some of Dan's post-GB content, but he's too goofy solo for me. It's too bad, because his brand of wackiness is great when he has a straight man or two to irritate and/or baffle.

Thanks for any recommendations. Maybe the internet is filled with content like this and I'm simply unaware, but I haven't sought out a new game coverage source since Arrow Pointing Down.

I have no suggestions, unfortunately. Just posting in case someone mentions something good.

last i knew GI still did they're test chamber ../new gameplay today stuff that was always pretty similar. i honestly dropped off watching alot of gi content after dan n jason came here it just wasn't the same when ppl started leaving n all. these days cept for a handful i bearly know who the gi staff's taste are but its probably a good place to look still honestly.

other than that the only other ppl i follow that do a first look of things are aavak ( welsh guy who is great with story telling type things..very worth looking into his stuff imo)

lady shelab for the more 'chill' farm-esqe type things

Raptor for city builder/survial games .raptor is a bit dull and kinda selly sounding at times but great to fall asleep on at times and stuff does still look good imo at times to make it worth looking if something catches your eye.

Personally i find it hard to watch solo ppl since its just missing that bouncing off ppl thing but i'm sure theres plenty more that are decent/good out there. those 3 are the exceptions i've found tho that are ok solo, aavak edits some of his longer series at times but not in a bad way and its mostly just after community feedback has said they like X better in a game by game case.

I agree with OP.

And I don't like Quick Look Solos. A QL has at least two people on it or it's not a QL. It's as OP said, it's like a friend showing me a new game while casually talking about the game and life itself with the other person on the QL being a stand-in for myself and the questions I might have.

And I don't like Quick Looks with guests either - barring close friends-of-the-site guests like Bakalar, Danny, Samantha and so on.

I'm already thinking, maybe the answer is not to play new games any more except for the first party big guns / AAAA games -> about older games that I haven't played yet, I can at least still inform myself through older QLs I might not have seen or not remember well.

I also have nothing other than YouTube searching the game in question and seeing which video seems to be the most informative. And the only group that comes to mind in regard to Quick Look's entertainment value is Super Best Friends Play, so... yeah.

While I am disappointed in a lot of the wild speculation and finger pointing I haven't seen regarding goings-on around here, it does feel like the games industry has won its psyop against respectable journalism. The dystopian future in which all games coverage is hypebeast twitch streamers is getting closer by the day.

On paper it feels like Twitch with Dan, Abby etc should scratch the same itch but watching someone having a conversation with their chat is profoundly boring

The closet thing I can think of is Game Informer's New Gameplay Today videos, which are usually just ten minutes of edited footage of a pre-release game, or an hour and a half live stream of a recently released game. Those are also pretty infrequent though, and usually just cover the bigger, more mainstream games.

I haven't found much.

The closest is SplatterCatGaming who is one of the only youtubers I've found who regularly covers new indie games. His videos are a bit like QLs. (Like this one for Despot's Game.) He talks through the game and explains it to the audience like a QL, and there's no chat so you're not missing half the conversation. However, he does it solo so there's no good banter or perspective of someone unfamiliar with the game. He does a bit too much showman voice and his jokes often fall flat for me -- things a good partner could improve. I think he's usually played a bit of the game ahead of time, but not as much prep as a QL: I don't think I've ever seen him load a save.

SplatterCat also has twitch, but I haven't watched that and assume it suffers from the typical focus on chat.

@brian_:

sounds like the 30ish min test chamber video format is definitely a thing of the past , i hadn't noticed since i'd been watching QLs instead so thats pretty sad :/ .. i don't prefer the streamed replays either tho honestly so what ya gonna do :/ . i tried watching tack play some demonsouls when the remake came out and it was just sad how chat acted in those that i wanted no part of it anymore vs say when he and tim played bloodborne when that was new.

@styx971: I think the last of their video content I actually watched was the Martian Gothic Super Replay, but I still check their website every day for news headlines. I haven't seen any Test Chambers posted in awhile. I think at some point they just went through and reworked a lot of their video content into different shows.

I'm sorry, but this is a terrible take. I've been a fan of Giant Bomb since it began, but let's not kid ourselves. Video Game journalism was never what this site was about, save for Patrick's contributions while he was here. The core appeal of Giant Bomb has always been personality driven entertainment in a very let's play like format. If you want to argue that they have consistently been the best at that over the past decade plus, I'd agree, but to pretend changes at Giant Bomb spell the end of "respectable video game journalism" is quite frankly absurd.

It's also pretty close minded to write off any non Giant Bomb video game coverage as "hypebeast twitch streamers." There are some damn talented and insightful folks doing super in-depth video essays about games on youtube, not everything is Pewdiepie and Ninja. I've honestly spent more time watching youtube video essays in the past few years than I have Giant Bomb. Giant Bomb has simply never been the place to find super meaningful critique of games outside of some podcast discussion, and even that is always more off the cuff and conversational in nature.

I'd recommend checking out Game Maker's Toolkit, Joseph Anderson, KingK, NakeyJakey, Noah Caldwell-Gervais, NewFramePlus, among many great gaming related essay channels if you lament the supposed loss of "respectable journalism"

@brian_: thats litterally about the same time i stopped watching their video stuff, ever once in a blue moon i'll click on something and i too go there for my daily game news but yeah same here , test chamber got reworked into the 'new gameplay today' stuff according to a post reiner had made in the overblood group at one point. i didn't plan to fall off their stuff so much as GB kinda slowly replaced it its sad in a way but now its definately a totally different feel with all the new hires they've had that are there and gone since then ..alot of ppl other OB members like/ talk about were ppl i just never watched stuff for so that kinda pushed me away a bit. too . i'm hoping that doesn't happen here but only time will tell , i definately stopped watching as much west coast stuff on here when ben became part of the site , his humor and tastes just didn't line up with mine in most cases so i'm sure i missed alot of good stuff cause of it .

I would have said Let's Game it Out, but only back when it was a two man show and only lightly edited. Now it's mainlining open world Vinny without commenting on anything in the actual gameplay. But apparently it's 100 times more popular now so yay YT algorithm.

But my interests are a lot more niche. I miss the days of Flight Crew and Dave (or Austin) trying to cram a meaningful session of Crusader Kings into a TNT slot or QL.

@ll_exile_ll: Sorry, I guess my brief post may not have done my opinion justice. I am big on most of those youtubers for sure (Noah is my personal favorite of the bunch), and maybe my perspective on things is off, but the fact that a lot of these people are independent shows that the industry itself is not supporting the content like it used to. The "real gamers" like us are always going to be there for it, but what larger company is chasing content like that nowaday?

Also, Noah does not male quick looks. I love those long videos but quick looks they are not.