DarksydePhil/Analysis

There are many reasons why DarksydePhil is one of the most disliked Let's Players on the internet, but the main reason is because he breaks every unwritten rule in the LP play book. Whether it is his lack of gameplay skill, crass and tasteless humour that even Seth MacFarlane would cringe at, or dodging all fault every time he screws up, many people tend to look at Phil as a prime example of how not to make a good Let's Play.

Phil's history of bad LP's is so extensive that this playlist of 449 "This Is How You DON'T Play" videos has spawned from him.

Important Notes:
 * 1) Merely being offensive in its subject matter is not sufficient. Hard as it is to imagine at times, Phil does have a fanbase, no matter how small a niche it is. It has to fail to appeal even to that niche to qualify as this.
 * 2) Phil's Let's Plays aren't horrible just because someone riffed it in a TIHYDP video. There needs to be independent evidence to list it. (Though once it is listed, they can provide the detailed review(s) or, in special cases, the sole link.)
 * 3) Do not include any details of Phil's personal life; only keep the following entries confined to his Let's Plays since those are the main bulk of his content. You can briefly mention his personality, so long as it is an actual detriment to his content.
 * 4) If you come across a particularly bad LP of Phil's, explain why it is horrible in a civilised manner. This isn't Encyclopedia Dramatica, after all.
 * 5) If one of his LPs is good, say so. Don't pretend that it's horrible.
 * 6) This page is about the LPs, not the player. Remember the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment.

Bad DSP Let's Plays

 * His playthrough of Catherine is incredibly tedious to watch. Given the nature of the game itself, it comes as no surprise that Phil would spent the first few parts of the game making crude sex jokes every chance he got. As far as the gameplay goes, the fun begins as early as the first stage; he fumbles his way through each puzzle, needlessly over-complicates his situations by missing obvious solutions up the tower, spends so much time stuck on a single puzzle at various points, and doesn't bother talking to the sheep on the landings between each stage to learn any of the more advanced techniques. As expected, Phil blames the developers for every mistake he makes, and constantly bitches about the game's difficulty to the point where he eventually lowers the difficulty to Easy (something he rarely does, by the way). In the end, Phil only finishes a single playthrough of the game and gets the Full Chaos ending, and doesn't attempt any other endings. You can see the highlights for yourself here, and here.
 * In 2015, Phil played Crash Bandicoot for the first time, and oh boy was it a travesty! First, he dies to the very first enemy he's faced with. Second, most of his deaths are the result of poor timing on his part. His commentary here is particularly awful, constantly saying "OOGA-BOOGA" each time he picked up an Aku-Aku mask, and "bouncy bouncy" when jumping on a spring crate, in addition to just being completely obnoxious as he played (something that he had gotten on other people for doing). There are moments were he would trot out his usual "beginner's trap" excuse, which is often the result of a poorly timed jump, or just not paying attention to what's going on. It gets particularly bad towards the end of the game with "The Lab", where he spends ages trying to beat the level, and doing such a poor job of it, accumulating over 50 deaths and 5 Game Overs in this one level alone. Throughout the whole playthrough, Phil manages to only collect a single gem out of 26. The total death count is 325 deaths, and 16 Game Overs. Just to give you an idea of how bad this was, there are six TIHYDP compilation videos.
 * He replayed the game 2 year later through the N.Sane Trilogy, and he somehow did even worse here; still having a poor grasp on how the game works, blaming the developers for every single error he makes, constant whining about "bullshit" level design, not bothering to learn the level layouts and platform timings, etc. The only positive that can be taken away from it is that he actually beat the previously cut level "Stormy Ascent", and got the 2 keys for the secret levels, which he also completed. Other than that though, he repeats the same mistakes he made the first time around, and racked up even more deaths, reaching as high as 427 deaths and 18 Game Overs.
 * His playthrough of the second game in the series, Crash Bandicoot 2, is not only just as bad as the first, but it also demonstrates Phil's inability to do anything for himself. A few deaths into the game, Phil out of nowhere decides to do a 100% run of the game, which would be fine if he didn't have the stream chat to tell him how to play the damn thing. Kid you not, his chat tells him everything he needs to know; how to get the gems, how to get the coloured gems, secret levels, and even the 10 extra life trick. He never tries anything for himself in this playthrough. He also blames his failures on lag, glitches, platform timings, and everything he can think of every single time. The real kick in the crotch though, was after he finished "Totally Bear", one of the secret levels, his cut the stream off and stated he would only continue if he got more money from his Patreon supporters. The second half wasn't any better, as he still ran into Nitro boxes, enemies, stage hazards, bottomless pits, all while still blaming the game for each cock-up. He manages to hit 508 deaths by the time he fully completes the game. You can check out Part 1 of the TIHYDP here, and Part 2 here, courtesy of Freddy Fazfuck.
 * Having already played the first two games in the series, and considering it is known for being easier than its predecessors, one would think Phil would do well with Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (again via the N.Sane Trilogy), right? Well...no. Once again, he relies on the stream chat to help him with almost every secret level, area, and hidden gem the game offers. Phil is so unobservant in fact, that the stream chat even had to tell him that he needed to break time crates open in the Time Trials! He once again fumbles over simple platform jumps, runs into enemies, holes, and hazards, and cursing out the developers for the mistake he was making. He even starts talking out of his ass about wireless controllers dropping inputs, when he just has really poor reflexes. Like the previous title, Phil does a 100% run of the game despite never playing the game before until now. His biggest struggles were with the Pura and Motorbike stages, the latter of which prompted many restarts (51 to be exact). While his death count "only" reaches 494 this time, add the restarts to it, and it rises to 545 screw-ups.
 * Watching him play Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled is nothing short of torture. It embodies some of his worst gameplay and commentary in a long time. For starters, he almost never makes proper use of the Boost mechanic, and complains about his opponents using weapons against him, when he can do the same to them. He spends most of his race time driving into walls, weapons places by opponents, running off the track, into stage hazards, and getting demolished by the AI, all the while complaining about the difficulty and comparing the game to Mario Kart on the SNES. At no point does he really try to improve his driving skill, and even has the gall to insult the fans of the original title by assuming they're wearing nostalgia goggles. Check out the TIHYDP here if you think you stomach his barrage of Mario Kart comparisons and complaints about the difficulty; they  will  get on your nerves after a short while.
 * His Grand Theft Auto playthroughs are mostly this:
 * His Grand Theft Auto: Vice City playthrough starts off promising, then it quickly descends into being terrible. "Highlights" include starting missions unprepared, lacking ammo for most of the second main island missions, and lacking sufficient weaponry. He gets wasted nearly 100 times, most of which are due to his own unpreparedness. Of course, he blames the game for every mistake that he makes. A perfect example of him trying to rush through the game is the "Sir, Yes, Sir!" mission, where he has to steal a Rhino tank from heavily armed army members. Several of his attempts end poorly because he never realizes the convoy can be destroyed by a rocket launcher. He often tries to take the enemy out in the open instead of covering, leaving himself open to gunfire. During his attempts at the "G-spotlight" mission, he starts bashing the developers for inane reasons. You can watch the TIHYDP here.
 * Having come off from his playthrough of Vice City, he somehow does even worse in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It nicely demonstrates that Phil never learned anything from his Vice City playthrough! He misses important details, such as a baseball bat needed for a mission, setting an ally on fire with a flamethrower, and crashes his planes during a late game mission. He complains about driving in a game which was built for driving, going as far as saying "it's Grand Theft Auto, not Grand Drive Auto!". Instead of buying safe houses to lessen travel time between missions, he usually ignores them altogether. He even blames the traffic on some missions, even though he was driving on the wrong side of the lane. One detail Phil misses is during the Outrider mission, where assumes Mike Toreno was driving a van, when he used a rocket launcher to destroy the van, killing Toreno in the process. He also complains about the game's radio stations, stating that people have bad taste in music if they like reggae music. Here is the TIHYDP, if you can survive it.
 * Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, which was his last original playthrough of the franchise, barring replays, still ends up being terrible. It shows his navigation skills are still not very good. He routinely gets stuck when driving on side roads, falls into the water, and manages to blow up his own cars. You would think by now, he has the basic mechanics of Grand Theft Auto remembered after a hiatus, but nope. This is best exemplified during the "Love on the Rocks" mission, where he has a sub-machine gun and not once does he use it. Another highlight is him mistaking a side job mission for an actual storyline for several minutes, until he realizes this mistake. He also complains about the game's radio stations and the game's frame rate. He rarely reloads his saves after getting busted or wasted, making his money issue later on an issue. Watch here for the usual TIHYDP.
 * Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories shows that once again, his own inability to adapt to the game's mechanics gets the worst of him. He complains about tough missions, particularly "Tune in, Turn On, Bug Out," widely considered the hardest mission in the game. It takes him 50 minutes to finally complete that mission. He, much like the previous entries of GTA games, blames the game for mistakes that he makes. To complicate the playthrough, he never reloads his saves after getting wasted or busted, making these missions more problematic for him. You would think that he would know the knowledge of being in business school that $8,000 revenue is better than $5,000 revenue, but in the game's Empire mode, he loses money because of his short-sighted moves that he makes. He even buys a minigun for a late-game mission in close combat with a car nearby him, which works as well as you would expect. Here is the TIHYDP of Vice City Stories.
 * Although he did quite bad in his playthrough of Grand Theft Auto V, his replay on the PlayStation 4, which was done in First Person Perspective, somehow ended up even worse. You already know it's off to a great start when he targets Michael de Santa and kills him instead of the security guard. He does even worse in most of his missions, and cannot handle driving missions. Once again, he doesn't pay attention to on-screen tutorials or during mission briefings, leading to some mission failures. As usual, he complains about how Grand Theft Auto V's "awful" soundtrack is and how the older games had better music, even though he disliked most of the games' radio stations. He never completes this playthrough due to the game locking up on the 51st part of the video series and the game cannot be played again. Once again, you can watch the usual TIHYDP here.


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