Okay Geek Farm
Spike & Barley Play - Maybe better than playing an actual game
Brandon DavenportMore people should be watching Spike and Barley — So I decided to write a little editorial about why these guys are awesome, and what I think the future holds for the duo. If you enjoy watching funny people play games as much as gaming itself, prepare for a fresh experience — These videos have strong language
One of the most fun things to do is watch your friends play video games. We’ve all done it, and we’ll keep doing it because we get a chance to experience the game in a completely new way. You also get to sit back and laugh your ass off when Mr. Struts scares the crap out of your friends. This is why “Spike & Barley Play” is one of the best things ever created, and it’s gaining in popularity very quickly.
WARNING: THIS VIDEO HAS STRONG, YET FUNNY LANGUAGE
Who are Spike & Barley?
Spike (Spike Wess) and Barley (Andrew Cochrane) are a duo of witty, short tempered and hilarious gamers that play awesome titles, live for everyone to watch. It’s amazingly good fun listening to the duo’s commentary, and watching the game itself is fun as well. I swear to god, some of the crap they say is just hilarious, mostly because I’ve never heard it before. It’s 100% inside jokes, and once you’re in, it’s a metric crap-ton of awesomeness.
As for Spike and Barley themselves, they’re not too different than some awesome drinking buddies who like to play awesome viddya games. Their balls have dropped and they know what the hell is up when they’re at the controller. They constantly argue, pull pranks and get under each other’s skin, usually resulting in a barrel of LOLZ. Also they occasionally have friends join in on the fun who are all equally interesting.
WARNING: THIS VIDEO HAS STRONG, YET FANTASTIC LANGUAGE
Two dudes play a videogame live, nothing new right?
Very, very wrong. Spike & Barley Play is much different than many other live videogame playthroughs we’ve seen before for a few really good reasons. First of all, they’re not annoying little kids who whine about dying or something unexpected and scary happening. They also play a wide variety of great (and horrible) games, which is refreshing, considering Youtube has become littered with Call of Duty and Halo “montages” or multiplayer matches which aren’t really fun to watch someone play. They usually stick to Co-op based games, so as the viewer it’s a much less cluttered experience. It’s more like TV show, and less of a hurricane with people screaming on their headsets.
Something else cool is Spike & Barley have really formed a cult following of people who watch their videos and the livestream constantly and have managed to create a whole library of hilarious memes. Of course you know it’s hard to understand a certain “meme” without ever having experienced it — like if I told you about Keyboard Cat and you had never heard anything about it, you’d think I was crazy — same goes for Spike & Barley. You just have to watch one of their videos to understand…
WARNING: THIS VIDEO HAS STRONG, BUT MAJESTIC LANGUAGE
These aren’t crappy videos
Their videos are also of the utmost quality, most of them uploaded in full, glorious HD. The audio is superb as well, something that’s much rarer among the current crop of Let’s Plays out there. You can easily tell just by watching that the duo really cares about the end results of their product, not to mention the eyes and ears of their fans. Spike and Barley uphold a pretty rigorous schedule for uploading their videos, usually parts of a series in ten minute chunks. This means that not only is the fan base fed regularly, but also that it’s that much easier to go back and find your favorite moments for watching again. If they were uploaded as one long video, sifting through three hours of footage for that one 30 second clip could quickly prove to be a pain in the ass.
Spike and Barley are going places
I can easily tell by the amount of effort they put into their videos and the engagement in their forums, Spike and Barley are going to be treading higher ground in the very near future. I really enjoy watching the videos, and unlike other “livestream gaming stuff”, I keep coming back to see more. Spike and Barley Play is an easy series to get attached to and I highly reccomend you check em’ out.
Youtube Channel - S&B Forums - About Spike & Barley
Special thanks to Jimbo on the Spike and Barley forums for corrections regarding this article.
