It has been nearly five years since Daniel Hardcastle started making
videos online. And to pay homage to that milestone, I would like to count down
my top 10 videos. For five years, he has been entertaining people all over the
world with his highly edited videos as well as the ones where he sits down and
has a thorough discussion about the games he his playing. Last year, he passed
2 million subscribers, and his channel is continuing to grow each day.
I will only be focusing on the videos he has up on his channel, so
as good as they are, I will not be featuring any of the 13 Ways to Die videos as
they were originally uploaded to the Machinima YouTube Channel.
I will also be linking each featured video directly to the channel
so you can sit back, relax and watch so you, too can see why I chose that
particular video.
Number 10:
Nerd3 Completes – The Simpsons: Hit and Run
The first entry on this list is an entire series that he did
between January and August of 2014. I picked this series because it featured
one of the games that I’m sure all of us has played at some point in our
childhood. Seeing him navigate the streets of downtown Springfield gave that nostalgic
feeling. And of course, brought back all the memories of how difficult it
actually was.
The Simpsons: Hit and Run is one of the very few games that made
you work for an award. It was intense, and, granted, at times, did make the calmest
of people frustrated, but once you’d finally completed a mission or the level,
the impact of that satisfaction was incredible. And I don’t think I need to
talk about the last mission on the final level. We all know how hard that was.
Throughout the series, the harder and harder each level became, Mr
Cubed gradually started to loath every aspect of the game, but he was dammed if
he was going to give up. He was going to see this through right to the bitter
end. But, in the end, the final mission proved too much for his sanity and he
cracked. Throwing the controller down on the ground, the video ended and he
never looked back. That is, until he revisited it once more just to try and
complete it. To this day, the final mission on Level 7 remains undefeated.
Number 9:
Nerd3 Plays… Colin McRae: Dirt 2
This was one of his relatively early videos, and you can tell that
by being able to hear the raw of his computer in the background, adding to the
video’s unique atmosphere that Mr Cubed’s personality creates as he races
across many a terrain, trying to out manoeuvre the A.I. and cross the finish
line in first place.
A lot happens in a short space of time, but his unique structure
makes it easy to watch and consume without having to re-watch out of necessity
instead rather because you want to.
Colin McRae: Dirt 2 is one of my favourite racing games. I didn’t
pick this video because of that statement, but it is nevertheless. The game
itself is a brilliant racing game. Solid, realistic, fast-paced, all the things
that Mr Cubed singlehandedly and hilariously got wrong and ploughed straight
into one of the barriers that ran alongside the track, causing quite
considerable damage to his car. No matter, because he reversed and carried on,
not letting a crash like that get the better of him. This video is, as I said, hilarious.
Number 8:
Nerd3 Plays… Intrusion 2
I know I said his Dirt 2 video was fast-paced, but this game’s
pace is so fast that even Mr Cubed struggles to comprehend it all in time
before he’s sliding down a mountainside, running across rooftops, defeating
various amounts of enemies. The game shown in the video is designed to keep you
on your toes, and Mr Cubed does nothing but continually move from one place to
another.
The video starts off with him telling us that this will be the
first time he’ll play this, meaning we are getting a review based upon a
perspective with fresh eyes. Needless to say, he is completely blown away by
the entire game.
Because he is so impressed with the game, at the end of the video,
he notes that since he recorded this video, he has since played through the
entire game and that the final boss was “Greatest. Final. Boss. EVER”. Later on
down the line, he revisits the game where he challenges himself to defeat the
final boss. It is as epic as he said it was in the first video. Period.
Nerd3 Plays… Farming Simulator 2011
This video was one of my earliest videos I watched of his. Highly
edited, fun throughout is all that I can say about this video. In this video,
Mr Cubed is tasked to run a farm. The two problems are: He knows nothing about
farming and neither does the game.
Again, he starts off the video not having touched the game at all.
All he’s done is loaded up the game’s title screen and hit record. Immediately,
upon learning that game wasn’t much help with creating a functional farm, he
starts to do his own thing. And by own thing, I mean does whatever he wants to
do, including: Messing with the physics, the cars, and driving every available
vehicle he can which all somehow get stuck somewhere.
It’s obvious that the people who made the game actually wanted to
make a working game, but unfortunately, it wasn’t what it could have been. The
game’s subsequent editions have proved to be more or less the same, especially
with the physics, of which Mr Cubed have played to see if there are any
improvements. I’ll let you see for yourself if he thinks there have been.
Number 6:
Nerd3 Plays… OMSI – The Bus Simulator
Nerd3 has played many simulators over his five years,
and most of them haven’t been the greatest, but now and again, a couple manage to
slip into his good pile. OMSI is a bus simulator, and Mr Cubed spends forty minutes
playing it, of which it’s apparent he likes it. A lot. He notes that the game
has incredible detail, especially with the sound effects, and the game is
pretty simple to pick up, after you have mounted the curb several times and
annoyed your passengers, that is.
The video does have a slight problem with it, but one that doesn’t
actually take anything away from the video itself. The menus weren’t picked up
by the recording software somehow, so they didn’t appear in the game. That
means, whenever he went to look at a menu, he appeared to be talking about
nothing. In a way, that does add to the video’s personality a lot as he was
still able to get a brilliant Let’s Play nevertheless. And it is also a
testament to the game’s goodness that it even without the menus, it still
looked like a good game to play.
When its sequel came out, he played that as well. I’ll let you see
what his verdict on that is.
Number 5:
100,000 Subscriber Special! Nerd3‘s PARENTS Play…
The clue’s in the title. To celebrate hitting the incredible milestone
that is 100,000 subscribers, he brings in his parents to play a game. His dad
plays Spore, which is a game where you can create your own alien and help it
evolve as it goes through the many ages until reaching the Space Race. This
video sees his dad building a spaceship, which Mr Cubed will later use in his
Completes series of the game. His dad was an instant hit with the audience, who
requested him to appear once more, and so he did, and was once again an instant
hit with the fans. His dad’s appearances became so popular, Mr Cubed brought
him in for an entire series of videos known as ‘Nerd3 Father and
Son-Days’. And his popularity continued to increase until he created the
spin-off channel known as Dad3.
Mr Cubed’s mum played the game, Bully, which is a game where you
play as a mischievous teenager who wants to show the others whose boss. She
decided to cause some havoc, which led her to be getting caught by one of the
pupils who reported her to the principal’s office who instructed her to cut the
grass as a punishment. Instead of cutting the grass, she kept on running people
over.
It was a perfect way to celebrate a massive milestone. Now, he has
over 2 million subscribers. He has come a long way since he first uploaded this
video. Here’s to the many more 100,000 subscribers.
Nerd3 Plays… Just Cause 2 UNCUT
Mr Cubed has repeatedly stated that Just Cause 2 is his all-time
favourite game, and you can clearly hear his love for the game in this video.
It’s also his birthday. So what better way to celebrate your birthday than to
play your all-time favourite game? The UNCUT part of the title is stating that
because it is his video, he’s not going to bother editing it. There’s no
structure to it, it’s just him playing the game for pure enjoyment and for our
entertainment purposes.
Just Cause 2 does what it says on the back of the box. You get to
cause chaos just because. It’s a massive sandbox which allows you to do anything
you want. The entire world is all yours. You can fly boats and drive planes on
the road. You can take over bases or tease them with your weaponry. As he
casually plays the game, he lets his imagination run wild. He simply has fun
throughout.
Because Just Cause 2 is his all-time favourite game, he does come
back to it a lot afterwards. And ever since its sequel Just Cause 3 came out,
he has been attempting many challenges, which you already know the outcome the
moment he describes them to you, but you just have to watch just in case he
actually completes. You never know.
You’ll know.
Number 3:
Nerd3 Plays… Red Faction: Guerrilla
You could describe Red Faction: Guerrilla as Just Cause 2’s unofficial
doppelganger, as it too allows you to do pretty much whatever you want, causing
chaos wherever you go. Armed with a hammer as your primary weapon, you can smash
your way through every mission, every building, and then some. But if you do
get bored of your hammer – which I can’t see happening – you do have a series
of other weapons as well that you can use to increase the level of destruction.
Mr Cubed does exactly what I’ve just described. He causes a tonne
load of chaos. Forty minutes of him doing nothing but having fun. And because
he’s having fun, we’re laughing until we’ve fallen off our chairs. Again, it’s
one of his earlier videos, and is one that is currently sitting in my
Favourites Playlist on YouTube.
As well as this play through, he returned to the game to play
through the storyline from beginning to end as part of his completes series. Twenty
episodes of nothing but chaos is enough to whet your appetite for a while, I
think.
Number 2:
Nerd3 Plays… aerofly FS – Flight Simulator
If you’re a fan of Nerd3 then you would have heard about
this video. He has a lot of famous moments during his five years, but none of
them have come close to beating the shear unexpectedness and hilarity of his
wings flying off his glider and him sucking in about a gallon of air, causing
him to cough continuously as his plane plummets to the ground. That moment
started off all innocently, as he discovered that by pulling up after a decent
dive, his wings would flap under pressure. So, naturally, he wanted to see how
much he could make the wings flap.
The video as a whole, is entertaining to watch so you want to skip
to that moment each time you click on it. Once you know that it’s coming, the unexpectedness
does go away admittedly, but it never stops being funny.
The game itself is a solid flight simulator as it does have good
physics and the graphics are done well.
Nerd3 Plays… London 2012: The Official Video Game of the Olympic
Games
The first video of his I ever watched was this 49 minute rant
about how terrible the game is. His anger fuels this video’s enjoyment, and his
rant-filled jokes are side-splitting. If you are in a bad mood, you won’t be in
that bad mood by the end of this video. Sorry, I’ve distracted myself watching
the video whilst trying to write about it. Just go and watch it.
Thanks for reading
Antony Hudson
(TonyHadNouns)
My book, Sector 22: Zoey, is now available on Amazon, eBay, and SkyCat Publications' website:
Amazon:
eBay:
SkyCat Publications:
Ask me anything at:
ahudsonpresents@live.co.uk
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