Let's Play: Mirror's Edge

[Mirai Gen]

Welcome to Let's Play Mirror's Edge! Let's get started, shall we?

[Regulus Tera]

OH OH, NAME HER IRONING BOARD-Ah, it's not that kind of Let's Play.

Gonna be a short one. Isn't the game like six hours long? Not that I'm complaining. It would be nice to see "Let's Play"s finish more often.

[Meister]

Um, Mirror's Edge?

Actually, this would lend itself very well to a video LP. Just maybe not so much to screenshots...

[DFM]

I'm guessing this one of those "surprise!" things where he's got some ace up his sleeve and is going to totally hit us with something unique and original after the tutorial lulls us into a false sense of security.

[Nikose Tyris]

You should make this a video LP like Meister said.

And yes you can host it where you think you can host it, and I'll even set up the stupid video player that Fenris has on his part if you want.

[The Kneumatic Pnight]

And yes you can host it where you think you can host it, and I'll even set up the stupid video player that Fenris has on his part if you want.
My first instinct is that there are a bunch of free video hosting sites around so I don't know why he'd need anything else, except that, as I recall, Mirror's Edge is a game up towards the high quality in visual effects. I don't know what video player thing Fenris has, but there's a DivX Web Player out there that (and I'm not super well versed so I might be wrong) isn't really hard to set up and would be really good for a higher quality Mirror's Edge video. There used to be a free host, Studio(Some number I forget) that had it but went belly-up after a couple months.

However, the problem with video capture is that it costs money for anything good. The setup I developed has CamStudio, and while that is totally awesome and free (frawesome?) for my 16-bit game, it's really low frame rate and would choke and die on Mirror's Edge.

Camtasia has a 30-day free trial and I'm sure that's enough time to videocap Mirror's Edge, so you may want to look into that, but I think its frame rate is also on the lower side.

I hear good things about Fraps if you like the idea of paying $37 for a usable version, though.

Other than that, I don't know.

[Meister]

Actually I heard a fair number of video hosters don't like Let's Play videos and one or two will delete them outright. I'm not really following all the news there, though. It's also possible they just do that because the vast majority of LP's are on somethingawful, and when half the somethingawful forum watches a video, I imagine bandwidth use will go right through the roof.

archive.org hosts a few Let's Play videos, though. Maybe that's another option.

Or, y'know, Mirai does a screenshot LP.

[The Kneumatic Pnight]

That's Vimeo: they want to delete anything that isn't art video enough. However, their moderation is as haphazard and if you pray hard enough to the patron deity of art school rejects (and also, your video looks fancy enough) there's a chance it'll get through. I wouldn't suggest it, but in all honesty, Mirror's Edge has no character sprite and has fancy visual effects. It could probably sit there forever and none of them notice.

Also, the let's play archive guy has made it official that he will only provide for Something Awful Let's Plays.

Still, everyone uses Viddler and I use Viddler and Viddler would work.

Surprisingly, GameVee was specifically for this type of thing. It's dead now for some reason, I stopped paying attention.

Edit: Still, the DivX Web Player is probably the best online video player thing for Mirror's Edge considering what I know about its look, and there's no site that uses it around anymore, but Nikose might and that would just be all kinds of good.

[Damaged]

Hmm, I've been mentally debating whether to play Mirror's Edge. A "Let's Play" is only tempting me even more, so far. I just hope this game keeps an interesting storyline.

[PyrosNine]

There's wegame (http://www.wegame.com/)it's kinda like fraps....

And it's free. And it comes with it's own video displaying site.

Anyway, this better be good because I halted my LP because my mother had a stroke (I think) and I can't even think of something funny right now. That, and the prologue was looking at 6 posts before the actual game began and the funny fun lp stuff began.

Though I am now considering just putting it all on a webpage, then starting the let's play on the forums to continue on...yes...yesss!!

Mirai Gen, I love you and want to have your babies.

By the way, what are you playing this on? Xbox? Ps3? PC? Very many different options for recording. I even bought this Easy cap recorder that can record from standard audio video cables and it does a good job, low filesizes, especially awesome for video game recording which I've solely used it for.

If you're doing it on computer, you have a better gaming rig than I can ever have. In that case, you might simply want to get a laptop with recording ability, get the proper cables, and play it natively on pc while recording the video on the laptop.

Though if you're dead set on pictures, you're doing good so far, but take note that you should probably take only really, really good pics. Like, one of those massive jumps, or kicking the gun out of a guard's hands, or making sure that you're not showing us a pic like what you did before, especially if it's the game's bread and butter.

[Mirai Gen]

Honestly I just wanted to try this out. The 'choices' that you guys make are going to be similar to IWBTG but I'm throwing in my own narrative since its first person.

Though if people just aren't interested in picture LP I could change plans.


Though if you're dead set on pictures, you're doing good so far, but take note that you should probably take only really, really good pics.
I used the Fraps picture-taking system for snapping shots every ten seconds, then none of them were good so I changed it to 3 seconds, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to make it every one second. ME plays very very fast.

Doing so on the next chapter.

[Ryong]

You could try Youtube? How long is the game? Really around six hours?

[Mirai Gen]

Depends on how much you die and restart. I've gotten pretty good as I've played through it a few times, so it couldn't be much more than three.

[The Kneumatic Pnight]

Don't try Youtube, I swear to god.

I know, Mirai, you're probably just going with pictures and I'm not going to make any kind of thing out of that because anything done well is well-done, but in line with my purpose here of providing general advice for video LPs I cannot stress enough don't try Youtube.

I swear to god.

[Fifthfiend]

Do youtube. Do youtube because it hurts KP.

[The Wizard Who Did It]

Also, the let's play archive guy has made it official that he will only provide for Something Awful Let's Plays.
Really... that's rather tragic. It's inherently rejecting quality pieces like the "Vampire: Bloodlines" LP.
Though if people just aren't interested in picture LP I could change plans.
It's more of a thing where "our vision of how this works makes VLPs the primary choice." Then again, using pictures for IWTBTG is possibly the worst method available, which is precisely the reason that it was done, and it did just fine!

[Regulus Tera]

Don't try Youtube, I swear to god.

I know, Mirai, you're probably just going with pictures and I'm not going to make any kind of thing out of that because anything done well is well-done, but in line with my purpose here of providing general advice for video LPs I cannot stress enough don't try Youtube.

I swear to god.

What's so bad about Youtube? I for one would prefer it that way, since you can choose between three different levels of quality and my laptop is kind of screwy at the moment.

[Mirai Gen]

Can someone help me out with how Video LPs work?

[Regulus Tera]

I'm not exactly an expert on the matter but it would be kind of like this. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlbF-BUxnKM&fmt=18)

[Mirai Gen]

Actually someone give me a good recording system for voice over and video and audio for PC games and I'll totally do a Hard Mode play of ME.

[DFM]

Oh, wait, Mirai you're actually just doing a Let's Play of Mirror's edge?

I would seriously either do the video thing or pick another game entirely because:

1. Mirror's Edge is fun to play, sort of fun to watch a good person play, and not at all fun to look at pictures of.

2. The story, what there is of one, is not entertaining or engaging or well written and making it so would mean you'd have to almost start over from scratch and you might as well just start writing a similarly themed novel or short story.

3. In the same vein, almost all the characters are flat or entirely one dimmensional. Making them interesting and unique would require enough work that it'd be more worthwhile starting your own characters from scratch.

A written Let's Play of Mirror's Edge is going to be:

-Pictures of someone running

That's basically it, and unless you're really dedicated to re-shaping/expanding the characters and story or have some kind of ace hidden up your sleeve I would seriously consider another game. Or a video let's play, but I never liked them personally so you're on your own with that.

[Mirai Gen]

I JUST WANT TO BE LIKE YOU DFM

[DFM]

START BY PICKING A BETTER GAME

[Mirai Gen]

:(

Kay let's do a video then.

[Meister]

A written Let's Play of Mirror's Edge is going to be:

-Pictures of rooftops
-Pictures of corridors
http://forum.nuklearpower.com/picture.php?albumid=11&pictureid=24

[The Kneumatic Pnight]

What's so bad about Youtube? I for one would prefer it that way, since you can choose between three different levels of quality and my laptop is kind of screwy at the moment.

It's an issue of multiple things. The worst part was that the video quality wouldn't do Mirror's Edge justice, but that can be solved with high def if I recall, but then the 11 minute time limit causes all kinds of editing and chopping problems and in the end it's pretty much universally better to just have a complete video with a good ending point and slap it up on viddler. Or, if you like the russian roulette option, vimeo which loads better and is good quality.

There's nothing stopping him from making backup videos on youtube for people who have connection difficulties, but I believe Viddler has an option to let you download and watch anyway, which solves all kinds of things. But youtube as a primary is just more work for fewer results than not using Youtube.

Then again, using pictures for IWTBTG is possibly the worst method available, which is precisely the reason that it was done, and it did just fine!

The thing about that LP was that it wasn't a serious LP. It was an unwalkthrough dedicated to not showing you how to get through the game because I Wanna be the Guy hates you and so do Arhra and I.

And also, I Wanna be the Guy isn't so much a platformer as a giant, trap-filled deconstruction of platformers so what better way to showcase this than a giant, lie-filled deconstruction of platformer LPs? Made in MSPaint no less.

Can someone help me out with how Video LPs work?

Basically, there are two types of video LPs: audio commentary or subtitles. Different people prefer different things, but if your voice is terrible don't do audio commentary.

First, you record video (obviously) with some kind of video capture software like CamStudio, or full-version Fraps. In theory, there's some way to get a normal one to record both stereo mix and a microphone, but I've never been able to make it happen.

So if not that, then you'll need an audio recorder and a microphone if you want to do a voiceover LP. Then you'll want some way to mux in the second audio stream.

Conversely, you'll just want a way to input subtitles and I think a lot of normal video editing/encoding software can handle that.

Then you'll want video compression/encoding to keep your video sizes from being mind-meltingly massive, but sometimes that's taken care of by other programs.

Here's a starting point for things. (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3022910) It actually knows more about this than I do except for where it's out of date.

On CamStudio I have spent the last week picking frame rate and audio compression issues out of my teeth because of it so don't use it on Mirror's Edge don't use it on Mirror's Edge don't use it on Mirror's Edge. Unless the game is magically less graphics intensive than I thought.

Other than that, look into Pyros's doohicky I guess or risk plonking down 40 bucks or pick a different game maybe. I don't know.

At best I can guide people away from big obvious problems but "Don't step into the grand canyon" doesn't qualify me as a field guide.

[Mirai Gen]

Going to do a commentary. Will start over tonight. I have full Fraps.

And honestly even I didn't know how the screenshot LP was going to go, was just an experiment. Although
That's basically it, and unless you're really dedicated to re-shaping/expanding the characters and story
was on my mind.