Why Watch Video Games When You Can Play Them Yourself?

     Jimmy Kimmel has been under some scrutiny recently. It all began when on his show he made a few jokes about Let's Play videos on YouTube. His comments haven't been kind about it. He stated that he doesn't get why they are popular and why people watch it. He also has said if why watch someone play when you can play it yourself.

     "Watching another person play video games is like going to a restaurant and have someone eat your food for you. If you like 'em, play them."

      The response from the gaming community has not been nice. Gamers have taken to YouTube, Twitter and other forms of social media they could and posted some nasty remark. Some have gone far as to give him threats and even wishing him to get cancer. Whether Kimmel knows it or not after all of the vocal response to his comments towards the gaming community of YouTube and Twitch, there is more to Let's Plays and Twitch streams than just watching other people play.
       People do watch Let's plays as a means to test out the game. They want to see if it is fun or good enough to buy for themselves. It works almost as better than reading a review online or in a magazine. You see the not only the game in action, but you see someone's reaction to playing the game.
      Aside from watching it as a decision to buy the game or not, and most importantly, Kimmel isn't realizing is that Let's Plays are a form of entertainment. People are not mainly watching just to see someone play a game. People watch it as a means of entertainment. It's more about who's playing the game. People love watching other people react playing games as it can be sometimes comical. Watching YouTubers like Pewdiepie and Markiplier react to what's happening in the game is indeed funny. It's more about the person's personality than the gameplay itself. That is the reason why these people have millions of views and subscriptions.
    This isn't an attack to what Kimmel said. This is more of an explanation as to why people watch Let's Plays. Of course it's normal how Kimmel, and others, react to Let's Plays. They don't get it and it's perfectly fine that they don't. It's not for everybody. Of course you would not get it and ask why would people watch Pewdiepie making weird noises playing Minecraft and Markiplier making funny faces everytime he plays Five Nights at Freddy's. The answer would be that people enjoy it and it's more than just watching someone play a game. However they can at least inform themselves and try to understand why it's popular. At least that's what he tried to do when after the outrage he invited YouTube celebrities Markiplier and MissesMae on his show and actually allowed himself to get educated. Whether he changed his views on Let's Plays is up to him.

Five Nights at Freddy's 3: Does it Suck?

Five Nights at Freddy's 3 was released on Stream last week. After weeks and weeks from playing the last game, the third installment of the famous Five Nights series is finally here. The Five Nights series has swept the internet by storm for the past year. We've spent countless hours online not only playing the game but watching YouTubers play, and freak out by the jumpscares. Considering on how big Five Nights at Freddy's 1 and 2 were, 3 has huge shoes to fill. Especially considering that there hasn't been that much of a break period between each games, with all three games being released in over a year which is not only crazy, but the series does risk getting old and stale. Has it? Let find out.

Story

Five Nights at Freddy's 3 sets us 30 years in the future since the events of The first game. Freddy Fazbear's pizza restaurant has become an urban legend. So what do you do when you want to make money off of an urban legend other than make two really horrible slasher films about them? You make an attraction based off of an urban legend. That's right Freddy Fazbear's is now an amusement park and you're the star. You play an fake security cop watching over the attraction trying to survive the nights and you'll also be actually working to "keep it authentic" or the people in charge are REALLY cheap... The story is a big shock as some Freddy Theorists had hypothesized that the third installment would had taken place with the original restaurant. If you're new to the games and lore, there was an original Freddy Fazbears that was bought and the restaurant became a franchise a la Chuck E. Cheese. There were four restaurants in the series total. The original one, and unknown one that was referenced, the one from Five Nights at Freddy's 2, and the one from the original game. It is interesting that instead of doing the obvious, the creator, Scott Cawthon, decide to give us all a twist and go in this direction.

Gameplay
The gameplay of Five Nights at Freddy's 3 has been revamped a bit. You are up against one animatronic, Springtrap. You have a new maintenance panel. It mostly works like the ones from the previous games. You don't have battery life like the other games so you have to reboot everything to make sure things are working for you. You still deal with the same camera functions to monitor everything in the building. They do go out so they need to be rebooted so you can know where everything is. The ventilation mechanic is to help calm things down as when it is down, you zone in and out and this gives Springtrap a better opportunity to reach you and he moves more frequently. You have audio devices in order to distract Springtrap as it works like the door switch and the Freddy mask from the previous games, being the only thing to protect you from getting killed.  The other animatronics from the previous games appear as hallucinations that try to hinder you. They mostly appear when you look at the cameras. They can't kill you, but Springtrap can. Minigames between nights are back. They are just as fun as the ones from the previous game. The minigames are important in order to get the different endings in the game. The maintenance panel mechanic was confusing at first. Some game mechanics didn't work. The ventilation mechanic didn't make sense gameplay-wise and storywise. It has no purpose other than to freak you out even more, which the hallucination animatronics kinda already serve that purpose.

Visuals
Visuals look sleeker than the previous games. Instead of everything just looking like images getting closer and closer, they have more movement. There are some scenes that when Springtrap is near your office, he slinks towards across the office window to the doorway. The jumpscares are more fluid. Cawthon did a good job with the visuals.

Final Verdict
So, does it suck? Yes. It is obvious that Cawthon had a lot to live up to with the hype and success with the other games. Sadly he didn't do it. The first game was good and simple. The second one with all the changes to the gameplay was amazing as it took everything with the first one and went big. The third one fell flat as he seemed to lose the focus of what made the series great in order to focus on story and trying to make things more twisted and scary, which he didn't do as well. I love the idea of the phantom animatronics, but they get boring and less scary in a short amount of time. Springtrap loses his scare appeal as well. Again, I understand that Cawthon tried to piggyback off of the fasicnation of the series' lore, but when you try to do that instead of focusing on how to improve the gameplay, the game gets less fun to play. Hopefully this will be the series' swan song. Five Night's at Freddy's 3 gets a 2 out of 5.