DarksydePhil/Analysis

	This page needs some cleaning up to be presentable. The page needs general editing to be brought up to All The Tropes' standard of commenting on the works instead of on the person - see Rule 1 of the Terms of Service.

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, or conduct yourself when streaming.

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, or at the very least name some good elements if you are able to.
6. This page is about the LPs, not the player. Remember the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment.

General Problems

• The main issue with Phil's playthroughs/livestreams is that they are completely unedited. This wouldn't be a huge deal if Phil was at least decent at the games he plays, but since his gaming skills are well below average, viewers are treated long segments of the playthrough where he is either struggling to progress through the game, or repeating the same section of the game, usually for many minutes at a time (up to an hour in some cases).
• Since Phil tends to leave all of his gaffs in with no editing, his commentary tends to be as he puts it: "Off the Cuff". Improvised commentary is not uncommon, and coming from the mouth of someone talented, it can work to the creator's benefit. In Phil's case however, his commentary is often quite stale, adding nothing to the experience simply live calling what happens on screen (these days, you'd be lucky to get even that). Other times, he curses out game developers, other players online, and even his fans. Combine the lacklustre commentary with cringe- worthy humour 80% of the time and his "Never My Fault" attitude to playing games, these can make Phil's content difficult to watch; if they're not frustrating because of his attitude, they can be very boring and can lead to viewers disengaging outright. That said, the rage-tastic moments can be unintentionally funny to some with the right mindset.
• Phil has demonstrated a firm stubbornness when it comes to gameplay approach, such as repeating questionable tactics, not bothering to learn the mechanics, and insisting on playing almost every game he touches on Normal difficulty. Even when he is struggling to pass a certain section of the game, he almost always refuses to change the difficulty, and as a result, makes the game more of a chore for himself than he really needs to. As a result, this can rub off on his audience, since doesn't look like he enjoys what he's doing, and if the creator doesn't enjoy it, how can the viewer? His reliance on using the same failed tactics over and over can get tiresome after the first few attempts,adding further credence to his stubborn approach to games.

Notably Bad DSP Let's Plays

• His Black Mesa playthrough, as seen here, has Phil at his worst in terms of gameplay. Not only does he ignore the tutorial, he also struggles to do a crouch jump for most of the playthrough. He asks what it is early on, and ends up fumbling on his attempts to perform the crouch jump due to his lack of knowledge on the game itself. Among his gameplay mistakes include his habit of rushing through enemy-filled areas that predictably go as well as you would imagine. Then he gets to a segment where he needs to crouch jump onto pipes, and he spends nearly twenty minutes trying in vain to jump onto the pipes. The cherry on top is when he eventually learned how to do the crouch jump; when someone on Twitter informed him of it, he assumed it was a glitch ("bugged jumping mechanic" as he puts it)! He throws the barrel needed to make the jump onto the ground below and repeatedly misses the jump he needs to make. He dies multiple times and blames the game and the creators of Black Mesa for his own mistakes.
• His playthrough of Catherine is the physical embodiment of "Failed a Spot Check". Right off the bat, the playthrough was in trouble when Phil forgot how to edge hang within seconds of being introduced to the mechanic. He frequently misses simple solutions to each tower (even if said solution was obvious to the end user, i.e the people watching him), needlessly making things over-complicated for himself, and spends a lot of time going nowhere because of his lack of observational skills, not helped by his mindset that there is only one set path to climb. Combining a game that really tests the player's situational awareness, problem solving, and critical thinking with Phil's refusal to learn the mechanics thoroughly, then we have a recipe for disaster. Though he does talk to the sheep on the landings between stages, most of the advice they give (which is extremely useful) Phil just blows off with a dismissive "I already knew that!" (Especially the "Imazuma" technique, which becomes useful in tight spaces). All the while, he constantly blames the game for his errors, be it the controls, difficulty, or anything else he can think of, instead of evaluating where he went wrong. None of this, by the way, covers the myriad of cringe-worthy sex jokes and innuendos he spews towards either Catherine or Erica. He even got so pissed off with the game that he lowered the difficulty to Easy, which he should have played on in the first place. All in all, Phil only got one ending the game offered (the True Cheater ending), and made no attempt to unlock the remaining seven. 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. He even had the nerve to claim the game was harder than NES Ninja Gaiden and the Souls/borne games. Just to give you an idea of how bad this was, there are six TIHYDP compilation videos of this one playthrough. (If he's this bad at old school platformers like this, imagine him playing the PS1 Tomb Raider games!)
  • He replayed the game 2 years 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 (despite experiencing them before in a more primitive form), not bothering to learn/adapt to the level layouts and platform timings, etc. Part of that could be him having to adapt to the new physics engine used for the game, but that would be wishful thinking given Phil's inability to adapt to game mechanics in general. The only positive that can be taken away from it is that he actually beat the previously cut level "Stormy Ascent" (though he stupidly did that almost immediately), 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. To show how inept he is, Phil late on in the game complains about what he calls "negative-edge inputs", which sounds like something a child would come up with. While negative inputs do exist in other games, one would only get that from a chargeable action, not from a regular jumping action, showing how ridiculous Phil's excuses are becoming.
  • 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 (or Power Sliding for that matter), 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 placed 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. He even trots out his usual "beginner's trap" excuse on Dingo Canyon after going behind the waterfall, despite common sense dictating that that area is out of bounds. 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 Dark Souls and Demon's Souls playthroughs are essentially the same playthroughs: He has trouble adapting to the games due to his lack of patience. He tries rushing through the first game with predictable results. He then rage quit from the first game, in late 2011, and came back a couple years later, this time with his Twitch chat handholding him the whole way. He even played Dark Souls 2 and 3, and he didn't improve there either.
  • In 2017, he did a "Redemption Run" of Dark Souls, and it's apparent that he did not improve at all. The "Redemption Run" rules were simple: No overpowered weapons, no help, no excuses. To nobody's surprise, he breaks all of these rules, blames FromSoftware and looks at the Stream Chat well over 1500 times! Overall, he somehow does worse overall in his Redemption Run! Originally, it was a poll that people could vote on what game they wanted to see Phil play: Scarface, Bloodborne: The Old Hunters, or Jak 3. The poll was meaningless, because Phil accused the trolls with tampering with the poll to make him play Scarface for reasons that only make sense to him. The poll is disregarded, and he chose to do Dark Souls Redemption Run. What doesn't help is that the Dark Souls series has become somewhat of a Creator's Pet to Phil.
• Phil's playing of Dead Rising HD was excruciatingly painful. Not only because of his utter disdain of the first game, but particularly for those who are fans of the series. His inability to handle several boss fights, understanding how the game works, and dying repeatedly due to mistakes that he makes. Keep in mind he disliked the original Dead Rising and rage quit, and he bought the HD version a decade later, which begs the question on what an HD remaster would win him over. One particular boss fight he struggles on is the second fight against Carlito in the mall. Instead of fighting with a gun, he tries to take down Carlito, who's armed with a sniper rifle - with a wooden plank, mirroring the opposite from his Metal Gear Solid 3 fight with the End. When his stream chat was pointing out where to find a gun to help him, he shuns them, saying it's cheating. Keep in mind he had no problems cheating in the end of Grand Theft Auto games, and he does end up cheating several times in this very playthrough! He neglects to level up during the beginning, which results in a much difficult beginning. He incorrectly tries to compare this game to GTA and Dark Souls, which this game is far from. A TIHYDP of this game can be seen here.
• His Devil May Cry 1 playthrough shows Phil's inability to understand, or adapt to game mechanics. He plays the game like a third-person shooter: instead of using melee weapons to deal more damage to his foes, he uses the shotgun instead. The player is supposed to use melee to start combos, and use guns as a filler to extend combos. When his stream chat told him about this, he listened and did it for about a minute before going back to the shotgun. He complains about the game's puzzles, particularly jumping puzzles. Phil complains about a gap that requires a floating ability and tries to make the jump in vain until he noticed he had that ability. Moreover, he played Devil May Cry 3 and 4 with no noticeable improvements between them. Watch the TIHYDP on 1.
• Driver: San Francisco proves that Phil's driving skills in games are suspect at best. He crashes right into cars and walls, drives directly into medians, fails objectives and has poor awareness of the road. Every time he fails, he blames the game or complains about it being "bullshit." What firmly seals this playthrough as a bad one was during a race at the mid-late portion of the game, he spends nearly a half-hour on the race, failing multiple times and complains about the car fishtailing. Had he been more aware of the traffic and the rules of the road, this playthrough wouldn't have been notorious! You can watch how this playthrough went here.
• Even playing children's games bring the worst in Phil, such as DuckTales Remastered. It manages to be one of Phil's most infuriating playthroughs that he's ever done. While it doesn't seem to be bad at first, besides his singing and missing basic jumps, singing "here we go now" to the point of it being a Verbal Tic, it quickly gets worse when his PlayStation 3 froze up after completing the Transylvania level. Keep in mind that he left his PS3 on for two whole days when playing The Last of Us. After he lost all that progress, the next half of the Amazon level is nonstop swearing from Phil. The general consensus seems to be that he faked his rage in an attempt to get more views. While it does freeze up a few more times, he somehow manages to finish the playthrough. Watch here to see the "highlights."
• The Evil Within continues to show just how little effort Phil is willing to make to immerse himself to a horror game, making lame jokes during tense moments, always feeling the need to say something to fill the empty noise from the game itself. As far as gameplay is concerned, Phil's aim with firearms is atrocious, he takes a bum-rush approach with most of the enemies (this includes smashing glass near enemies too), and he rarely does stealth properly. His ability to retain information also sucks, as he forgets what a syringe does only seconds after he picks one up! One particular moment of stupidity is in Chapter 8, where he tries to open a gate with two enemies nearby; and no, he doesn't bother trying to get rid of them first. Situational awareness is another one of Phil weaknesses on display, as he doesn't crouch near bombs despite the warnings (though this only happens near the beginning), running straight into wire traps, he once missed a key statue that was in plain sight, forgetting about the giant blade that took his foe's head off in Chapter 10, and he didn't notice the fire he walked into after killing the Sadist in Chapter 3. Check out the TIHYDP for the best bits here.
• His playthrough of Far Cry 4 is filled to the brim with funny moments, but it also shows that Phil has not gotten any better at stealth since Metal Gear Solid. First off, he botches the stealth tutorial at the start of the game, mostly because he doesn't pay attention to the directions (throwing a rock in plain view of an enemy). There's his general incompetence like firing wildly into a room full of explosives (twice, mind you), pissing off the wildlife by shooting them with firearms up close (like the "flaming rhinoceros"), and not realising that beams of light in the icy waters were air pockets until his stream chat told him. As for his understanding of stealth, he keeps firing arrows right in front of enemies, often doing so right as the mook is alerted, and he is repeatedly bewildered as to how the camp gets alerted when he kills an enemy (because again, he lets one spot him just before he kills him), and not paying attention to other enemies that may or may not be nearby. Even in first person view, Phil also demonstrates poor driving skills, rolling jeeps down the mountains, not learning how the gyro-copter controls, and even slamming face first into a rock face while using the wing-suit. As per the norm for Phil, he blames Ubisoft for all of his mistakes, though his rant about losing his rhino skins does sound funny since it sounds like he expects Ubisoft to slip him a new skin to compensate for the 2 he lost, though that's more because Phil wasn't saving as frequently as he should have been. Check out the TIHYDP video by Cole Phelps, right here.
• 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 road. 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. With that all said, he did manage to clear the mission "Wrong Side of the Tracks" on his first try (it isn't difficult if you know what you're doing). 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 worse. 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 from 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. At the end, he has to enter a code to open a safe, but he out of nowhere enters the correct combination after several failed attempts, and attempted to pass it off like it was random (poorly mind you, he either looked it up, or got it from his stream chat, since you don't just randomly get the right answer to a 4 digit pass code by guessing). 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.
• Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy shows Phil's inability to follow directions, constant complaints about the lack of checkpoints and him not paying attention to the game. He starts off the playthrough on the wrong note with having trouble finding Scout Flies needed to progress in the first area of the game. He continuously collides into Dark Eco boxes, even after Daxter warned him about it. He struggles on the platforming segments because of poor timing with his jumps. One boss fight he has a lot of trouble on is Klaww, and that's because of his impatience. He tries rushing through his boss fight and falls into the lava several times. He even goes as far as complaining about lava being instant death, even though there have been a lot of platformers that he's played where it's an instant death hazard. His habit of talking over the NPCs costs him valuable information that is useful, such as special moves that are needed to beat the game. Had he utilized the spin kick more often, he wouldn't have had as bad of a time with platforming than he did. He bashes Naughty Dog throughout the second half of the playthrough and complains about their "shortcomings." The worst part was in the Spider Caves where he rants for minutes on end about the people who criticise him, calling them "elitist", making assumptions, and telling them they should "shut the fuck up!" Watch here for the usual TIHYDP.
  • If you thought Phil's Jak and Daxter playthrough was bad, he manages to do significantly worse in his Jak II playthrough. You could tell it was not going to go well when he manages to struggle doing the double jump mechanic in the introduction level. More than anything else, 90% of the playthrough was spent complaining about the checkpoint placement, not only showing just how much of a scrub he is, but also how much he has been spoilt by modern games. His complaints about the lack of checkpoints quickly get tiring, particularly when he tries trading damage with the enemies, and often he ends up dying as a result. Each and every time he does die, he blames the game and Naughty Dog for his mistakes. He also uses inappropriate weapons for enemies and boss fights, rushes through hordes of enemies, and wonders why he dies at times. Him bashing the Jak II fans is eerily similar to how he treated the Spider-Man (2000) fans. He goes as far as blaming just about everything except himself when he dies due to him making mistakes. Special notice must be made during the Erol race, where he spends 38 minutes (!!) on one racing segment (equal to 3 videos, 2 of which had no business being uploaded). He restarted after even one mistake was made. During the time Phil races Erol, he trashes the fans of the game in a sophomoric and immature manner. Here's part 1 of the TIHYDP. We're also treated to director's commentary in Part 2 from the creator, chaffxgrenade, who declared this particular playthrough the worst he had ever seen from Phil.
  • While it wasn't as bad as Jak II, Phil has a lot of problems with Jak 3. The first part of the playthrough has him fumbling and messing around with the game's audio options, not realizing the game doesn't have any surround sound. He also hasn't learned from his mistakes in the first two Jak games. He repeatedly fails minigames and puzzles due to his own carelessness and trying to rush through the puzzles (and for that matter, the game itself). This is even taking in consideration that Jak 3 is the easiest game in the trilogy due to its Sequel Difficulty Drop, Phil somehow ends up making a lot of mistakes on his part and not learning from his previous mistakes. You can watch here for a synopsis of his playthrough.
• Phil's Kingdom Hearts (2002) playthrough earned a significant amount of criticism from the fanbase. For starters, he wastes a lot of time in the opening area trying to do fetch quests. His habit of talking over the cutscenes making unfunny jokes about anything causes him to be confused about the story. He struggles on several boss fights and doesn't try to change up his battle strategy, often going for the keyblade instead of using different spells. There are moments where he claims his game is glitched and tries to chalk it up on "lag." His battle strategies are also quite questionable - he tries to One particular infamous moment occurred during the game's final world where his then-girlfriend Leanna egged on the Stream chat by trolling the chat. Who does Phil side with? His girlfriend instead of his fans, even though she provoked them in the first place! Watch here for SebastopolQueen's TIHYDP (part 1; reuploaded by The_0utsyder due to the former's channel closing down) for the mistakes that Phil makes during the playthrough.
• After his Kingdom Hearts playthrough, he played Kingdom Hearts II and it's no surprise that Phil ended up doing worse. Crucial mistakes include going to Beast's Castle before the Land of Dragons, failing puzzles that aren't difficult in the first place, and for somehow forgetting the storyline in the first game. Instead of trying to do the puzzles properly, he instead rushes through them instead of taking the time to study how they work. He continues his habit of talking over cutscenes and makes inappropriate jokes during them, missing out on the story in the process. If you think he'd improve the mistakes he made with his gameplay, unfortunately he doesn't improve. One telling sign this was going to not be a good playthrough was when he struggled against the Warmup Boss. He also attempts to take on side content despite being underleveled, had Donald's AI use Thunder on a boss that absorbs Thunder, leaves auto-limit on the boss fight against Commander Sark and the MCP, and tries to attack during Roxas' desperation attack. Watch here for SebastopolQueen's TIHYDP (again, reuploaded by The_0utsyder).
• Much like his Grand Theft Auto playthroughs, Phil's Mafia II from 2016 shows no improvement. He still crashes into traffic while driving, fails missions repeatedly and dies a lot. You could tell the playthrough was going to be a painful one from the beginning when he misses the enemy he needs to kill. As expected, he ends up blaming the game for his mistakes. His lack of understanding how gunplay works in this game gets him killed, such as trying to use a shotgun against enemies with automatic rifles. He also pays no attention to the game's storyline and is confused during the game, such as the game taking place during the 1940s. He also doesn't notice that crashing into other cars and obstacles while driving deals more damage to him. In spite of this, Phil did end up trying the DLC Joe's Adventure, which he ended up quitting due to the DLC's difficulty spike. See if you can endure his playthrough here.
• Several months after he played Mafia II, Phil did end up playing Mafia III, and he somehow does even worse! While he did enjoy the prologue of the game, he does end up turning the praise into scorn quite quickly. Much like the above entry, he repeats the same mistakes that he made, such as crashing into other cars and obstacles repeatedly while driving. He ignores the stealth segments the game has, which goes as well as you would expect it would. He also tries to go headfirst into gunfights against foes who are much better armed than he is, and he dies almost immediately afterward. Phil's lack of awareness during missions ends up becoming his worst enemy. He does, however, get a good laugh at the game glitches towards the end of the playthrough. You can see how he fared with the usual here.
• His playthrough of Pokémon Moon is another painful one. Phil likes to give his Pokémon some really crude/juvenile names, like calling his Pikipek "Little Pecker". But as far as gameplay goes, he clear has learned very little from his previous Pokémon playthrough, and doesn't bother adjusting to the game's new battle mechanics, including the new Z-Moves, as he would use them at the worst possible moments. He still doesn't understand type matchups, and refuses to train his Pokémon properly, leaving them underleveled in the later stages (often up to 10 levels lower than his opposition). As for his commentary, it is everything you'd come to expect from Phil at this point; terrible accents, lame puns, blaming the game for his mistakes, and poorly "voice acting" as the characters in the game. However, none of this compares to the end of one of his streams for this game, when he checks the stream numbers; shocked to have less than 400 viewers, Phil then took his frustrations out on his viewers, even going so far as to accuse them of being lazy and making excuses not to come out to the stream as if they are obligated to do so. After Rich from ReviewTechUSA called him for it, Phil made a half-hearted apology and claimed his words were "taken out of context", like anyone does when they're criticised.
• How do you mess up a playthrough of Portal? Well, Phil somehow manages to do it, and it isn't even his first time he played it! He rants to his fans about his graphics capabilities by claiming all of them are maxed out...despite not all of them are maxed out and his mouse is highlighting a box that says medium instead of high. He struggles with aiming the portals and jumping, often leading to him either missing or falling into the toxic water. He even gets stuck on some parts of the game before his Stream chat bails him out of the game's hardest puzzles. He also has a habit of getting killed and falling into the grimy water due to his carelessness. Then when the credits song plays, he claps over it and sings "epic music" repeatedly. You can see how poorly he did by watching the usual TIHYDP here.
• His playthrough of the first Ratchet & Clank demonstrates how Phil can't be bothered to play the game as the developers intended. An inversion of his Devil May Cry LP, he spends most of the playthrough trying to smack his foes with the wrench instead of using the game's arsenal of weapons. Even when he does use the guns, he uses unsuitable weapons on certain enemies (like using the Walloper on Puffoids, or the Glove of Doom against tanks), and wastes his ammo frequently resulting in him constantly spending his bolts needlessly. In a moment of pure idiocy, he spends 30,000 bolts on a Health upgrade instead of the Tesla Claw, one of the better weapons in the game (even with the Persuader giving a huge discount). Not to mention he bitches constantly about enemies being "cheap", not having any ammo, and redoing long stretches of gameplay, all due to his own incompetence. In another moment of complete idiocy, he uses the Gadgetron PDA to restock ammo despite only standing a few feet away from a vendor, causing him to go into the final boss woefully unequipped! Oh, and just to highlight his lack of professionalism, he orders a pizza mid-game and stops the recording to claim it... If you can bear his ineptitude and constant checkpoint complaints, here's the TIHYDP for it.
  • Phil then played Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando in 2014 and he fares even worse. He neglects to upgrade his weapons, and he's surprised that they didn't work, he never purchases the Minirocket Tube (a rocket launcher), which is surprisingly effective against enemies, and his weapon choice is often baffling, such as using the Heavy Lancer on an enemy in the latter portion of the game. He fails challenges and the Electrolizer/Infiltrator minigames because of his impatience and not bothering to understand how they work, and once again, he rushes through packs of enemies with predictable results. Phil often uses the wrench instead of his weapons, which prevents them from gaining experience and leaving them weak later on. He sings when trying to find Raritanium, which easily gets grating after a while (he literally sings "Raritanium" over and over). To properly understand how lazy Phil is, he took down a Thugs-4-Less helicopter...using the Heavy Lancer, and first person view, not caring that he was taking damage all the while! There is one part of the LP that becomes desynched, which he leaves in until the end of the video. He also claims certain items are useless when they're not, such as the Box Breaker. You know the strafing mechanic that was introduced in this game? Besides the introduction stage, he never uses it again. Watch here for the TIHYDP.
• When it comes to Resident Evil games, a lot of the playthroughs by Phil end up not being very good ones:
  • Take his Resident Evil 2 (1998) playthrough, for example. You know how well this playthrough is going when he uses the knife, a joke weapon, on zombies. Phil wastes powerful weapons on even the simplest of enemies, dies because of his carelessness and overuses First Aid Sprays. There's also his disdain for Ada Wong, in which he cheered her supposed death. He, at one point, resets the game when he "wastes" ammo on an enemy, claiming it did no damage to him. It actually did deal damage to him and he didn't realize it. He holds onto items that don't serve much use out of their intended purposes, such as ink ribbons out of save rooms and wonders why he has inventory problems. He continues his overused sexual jokes on Claire Redfield. The video goes out several times, primarily during Claire's scenario and he never bothers to fix it. Not only does he overdo the singing, he turns the alarm into a highly annoying song that quickly wears its welcome out. He bashes Capcom during the credits by "singing" about their failures.
  • Resident Evil 3: Nemesis shows no improvement whatsoever from Phil. He fumbles on puzzles the whole playthrough, gets frustrated whenever Nemesis hits him or appears, and doesn't know how to overcome adversity. One of the most shining examples of how bad this playthrough is that he uses all 15 ink ribbons before getting to the Clock Tower! Throughout that level, it is nothing but him complaining about there being no ink ribbons, and it goes on for several minutes. He brought this all on himself because he constantly saved the game every 5-10 minutes. As far as gameplay mistakes go, he often heals himself when he takes minor wounds instead of waiting until Critical. During two separate occasions, he also shoots explosive barrels that are meant to kill enemies that he ends up killing himself with.
  • If you thought those two playthroughs were terrible, he actually managed to fare much worse in Resident Evil Code: Veronica! Not only does he manage to call Steve Burnside "Chris" repeatedly, he should know better that Chris Redfield and Steve are two completely different characters. On the subject of Steve, he makes fun of dramatic scenes involving him, such as his father's death and his own death scene. Just like in Resident Evil 2, he reloads when he thinks he's "stuck" instead of trying to figure out the solution. The crowning achievement of this playthrough is Phil completely disarming Chris Redfield and giving Claire weapons before the fight with Alexia and he blames his own Stream Chat for that mistake. He misuses the "beginner's trap" excuse, when it was plain as day that disarming Chris was a bad idea.
  • While his first playthrough was bad, Phil's second playthrough of Resident Evil 5 manages to eclipse that in futility. While Sheva is a polarizing character in the Resident Evil fandom, he treats her like garbage the entire playthrough. For example, he lets her die during a quick-time event and laughs at her dying! He also considers her useless during boss fights and other parts of the game, when she is supposed to help out on gathering ammo and resources for the player. He doesn't pay attention to the dialogue, mismanages his own inventory and misses on-screen details. He also blames his deaths on the game mechanics and not his poor self-awareness! This wouldn't have been an issue the first time around, but this is his second playthrough of the game, where he should know the game a lot better.
• His livestream of the popular Sonic Adventure 2 will make even the most diehard fans want to kill themselves. As if the "playthrough of Sonic Adventure 1 wasn't bad enough, this somehow ends up even worse. It takes him over 5 and a half minutes to beat "City Escape" (including a wonderful bit where he ignores the Goal Ring for a good 25 seconds), takes abnormally long to find the Emerald pieces in Knuckles' stages, constantly running off the edge of platforms,and doesn't comprehend how to shooting stages work; for the uninformed, you get your score up by targeting multiple enemies at shooting them all at once. What does Phil do? He mashes the shoot button over and over, which results in a barrage of the annoying beeping noise made when targeting. It also takes him a while to discover that needs the Light Speed Dash to dash along a trail of rings in Metal Harbour, along with numerous moments of time wasting by reading tip messages. His commentary is the worst it has been for a long time, which mostly consists of him sarcastically repeating "This is FUN!" countless times, unnecessary overreacting, attacking the fans of the game, and generally just trying everything he can to piss of the fanbase (at least it comes across that way). While the game is rather flawed, what really drives the point home that he's just being a massive douche is when he said that the game isn't as good as Sonic the Hedgehog 2006, which is no doubt a massive Berserk Button for some.
• For some reason, sports games in general are the bane of Phil's existence. Listed below are some of the most painful sports game playthroughs that he has done, sorted alphabetically:
  • Phil's playthrough of FIFA 12 turned out to be really bad. His inability to take the time to read the menus, understand the controls and instructions are "highlights" during this playthrough. His knowledge of football/soccer is almost nonexistent besides knowing the top teams. His Critical Research Failure leads to him getting confused over the rules and not understanding how to set up trick plays. Controller slams are prevalent because of his impatience during loading menus. Then when he starts the regular season with FC Barcelona as his custom player, he is replacing Lionel Messi, easily one of the best players in the game. During penalty kicks, he gives up every goal due to him not bothering to practice them. Watch here to see a compilation of his playthrough of FIFA 12.
  • Phil's time with Madden NFL '12 is something one has to witness to see how bad it is; the playthrough is laced with constant swearing, childish use of the word "gay", insults hurled towards EA, and a barrage of controller slams. Moments of idiocy include him acting like the New York Jets winning the Super Bowl is some grand achievement (despite them winning it in 1969 against the heavily favored Baltimore Colts), and believing Madden 12 to mean "twelfth game in the series". Though he understandably get irritated by the game's lengthy load times, his poor grasp on the gameplay and constant whining become a real headache. However, things really start to sour after a bug causes his game to freeze, forcing him to reset the console. Controller slams become more frequent, insults turn into threats of violence, and to demonstrate how much of a sore loser Phil is, he spends nearly an hour playing the Washington Redskins by restarting the match every time they get the upper hand. The problems with this playthrough go hand in hand with his playthrough of another sports game by EA Sports, FIFA 12. That said, a lot of the fury exhibited in this playthrough end up becoming unintentionally funny at certain points. If you can stomach it, or are in the right frame of mind, here's the TIHYDP by Devin Diablo Griffin.
  • Despite Phil is a huge WWE fan, you would think that would carry over to the video games. A good example of a painful playthrough is WWE 2K15, marred by some awful decisions that he made during the playthrough. His commentary is quite terrible, often making offensive comments towards different wrestlers. Career mode is where it gets really bad - he often blames the game for his own mistakes that he makes. He also doesn't try to understand how the game works and instead tries to cheese the game, which didn't work most of the time. You can try to watch this TIHYDP by BigShowRoolz to see how bad it really is.
• We all know how Phil is when it comes to good games, but when it comes to bad games, he is no better. Like his brief playthrough of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5, for example: the game itself is already notorious for its poor graphics, outdated design, empty levels, and shallow gameplay loop, but Phil still finds a way to screw it up. While the playthrough is more amusing than horrible, there are still things to comment on. For starters, he does a poor job of linking his tricks together, leaving his scores very low, resulting in him struggling to do the bare minimum for the few stages he did, meaning he had a difficult time progressing through the game comfortably. Not to mention that most of his bails were due to improper landings, and trying too hard to squeeze in tricks he couldn't perform. His usual DSP complaints are on display here, as to be expected at this point. That said, some of his bails were due to shoddy programming on the developer's part, including one funny glitch that sent him flying, and he did have some valid complaints about the glitches and controls. On the plus side though, some of his reactions to the sloppy ragdoll physics when he bails are actually quite funny.
  • Worth noting is that Phil only did the first two stages, and a small portion of the third before he quit playing. This was when he realised the game had recycled missions, sloppy controls, and limited appeal. For him though, that's probably a blessing in disguise for him considering the later stages are even worse than what he already played. To be fair to Phil though (yes, really), some of his complaints are valid, like the start mission prompts not working properly. You can see for yourself right here. That said, his Hateful Truth review of this game is based off of only around 2-3 hours of playing the game and not finishing it, which is something he criticised professional critics for doing.
• Phil's ineptitude with action games knows no limits in his playthrough of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. First of all, Phil's aim is dreadful; he constantly misses shots regardless of what gun he uses, fails vehicle sections numerous times, never uses cover properly, doesn't evade sniper fire, cocks up on platforming sections, and believes that cover makes him invulnerable to explosions for some reason. He racks up 147 deaths by the time he completes the game. Oh, did we forget to mention the crude sex jokes he makes whenever Elena is on screen? As always, he blames the game, the developers, or both for every mistake he makes.
  • His playthroughs of the other Uncharted games are no better; as he is constantly making the same mistakes he made in the first game, with the added bonus of having the game bail him out on puzzles instead of being observant and trying to figure them out himself. Plus, his attitude hasn't improved either.
• Phil has been known to ignore guides and on-screen instructions before when playing games. This is very noticeable in his The Witcher 2 playthrough, where he ignores the entire tutorial and wonders why he dies a lot. He slams the keyboard, ignores NPCs' advice, and even runs headfirst into fire from a breathing dragon. He calls it bullshit, when in fact, he was at fault for ignoring the game in the first place. He also dies during boss fights and blames the game, CD Projekt Red and others for his own mistakes. During one of the boss fights, he slams his keyboard when it's "broken" in an attempt to get it to working again. His understanding of the game's combat system is suspect at best when he gets jumped by multiple enemies and wonders why he died. He ended up disabling comments on the playthrough due to the backlash he received. Watch here for the usual TIHYDP.

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