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Welcome to Twitch & Shout, your weekly spotlight on a Twitch broadcaster we want to showcase for you. Whether they feature mind-bending puzzles, heroic RPGs, or delve into the retro, we’re going to try and find a caster with the game and experience for you!
To start us off, we’re turning to western Canada for a comedy troupe that has turned to Twitch casting for their latest brand of genius. I have a long history with the LRR name, starting back in 2006 when I began watching their videos, and I’m more than happy to put my stamp of approval on just about anything they’re putting out.
The Caster(s)
LoadingReadyRun has been an internet sketch comedy group currently entering their eleventh year making hilarious videos on the internet. What started out as a few videos for giggles turned into a global sensation touching a multitude of industries, topics, and media outlets, all with a fine touchy of geeky sub-culture.
Starting with their main sketch show LoadingReadyRun, and developing new shows over the years such as CheckPoint (gaming news), Feed Dump (wacky global news), and Unskippable (making fun of those ridiculous cut scenes so you don’t have to). They have since evolved the LoadingReadyRun name into the Bionic Trousers production house which has worked with Penny Arcade on their hit Internet Comic reality show Strip Search, as well as the folks at Cards Against Humanity for their show Tabletop Death Match.
LoadingReadyLive was created as part of the gang’s 2013 kickstarter to fund their tenth and final season of the “LoadingReadyRun” sketch comedy show, keeping all other projects open. One of the achieved stretch goals was to create a Twitch stream that would take place during the year of 2014, which would let the team play video games with their fans from time to time, as they were sometimes known to do (and frequently known to do with Magic: The Gathering).
The Stream
So what’s the deal with this stream? What makes them special? Well what the LoadingReadyRun group did blew just about everyone’s expectations. Rather than implement a weekly stream, six programs were created, each with a different caster and featuring the video game type of their choice. Enjoy those obscure JRPGs? Tune into Kathleen Saves the World. Prefer to watch hardcore strategy games played on the hardest difficulty?
I love the amount of variety on this channel, and the flavors of the day feel nice and refreshing, as you get a small taste of something different, and don’t need to sit through the same game day after day. Unfortunately, this also means the casters will go through the game slower than your normal caster, so if you love watching Cameron, but don’t enjoy Dark Souls II, it may be a month or so before you tune in for his slot again.
This issue is solved rather easily as most members will involve some level of participation with the people in chat, asking what may be played next or how much they enjoy the game in question, and the sense of involvement is great. Since its inception, five new regular shows have been added to the mix, bringing a new level of variety to the already diverse stream.
Highlights
My favorite moments are the Watch & Play segments, a rare stream that takes place on Friday in place of “Let’s NOPE”. In this segment, Graham will take a number of infamously (or obscure) horrible video games. These could be games that are riddled with glitches, unbearably ugly and awkward, or just horrendously developed, and forces them upon Alex. Alex is never informed what games he’ll be playing that night, or allowed to play them previously. Alex’s true reactions to the physics breaking down are brilliant, and I always come away from the stream with bursting sides!
The Raid
If you’re looking for a Twitch channel but not sure what kind of game you’d enjoy watching, or want a little bit of everything in your experience, you should head over to twitch.tv/LoadingReadyRun and get that variety value!