Top 5 DayZ Playthroughs - Let's Play Countdown

Channel: Normal Difficulty

Tell me, have you ever been chased to the end of the earth and back by a crazy person? Because if you haven't, then watching Matt of Normal Difficulty flee for his life is an... educational experience.

It started simply enough: Matt was just running about in a livestream of “DayZ”, minding his own business, when out of the blue a player named Partypomcer began shouting like he'd been set on fire and making some strange threats. Then the threats turned into an outright chase, with Matt begging for help while this bizarre, murderous man refused to stop coming at him .

It all seemed like a fluke, a one-time incident that couldn't possibly repeat itself... and yet, what we have here is a string of chance encounters that escalated so fast. Partypomcer is hilarious, plain and simple; he never gives up trying to kill Matt, and he even gets a bit more devious in luring Matt into traps . But he's also just off-kilter enough to make some truly terrible decisions, like coming back to the scene of his death only to get hit by a jeep .

This isn't an elaborate series, or a particularly long one, but it definitely shows how morbidly funny the world of “DayZ” can be.

Channel: TheSyndicateProject

Kidnap, torture, human indecency – I think we can agree those things on their own are absolutely horrible things. But when it happens to other people in a video game and it's played for laughs, I feel like it's safe to chuckle and enjoy the results.

If you're like us and you appreciate pitch black comedy, then this is the playthrough for you. The player here, Alfie, gets himself into quite the spot of trouble. Another player ties him up and then starts doing weird things to him, like stripping him naked. And shooting him in the dick... twice .

But it doesn't stop there, folks. Alfie does manage to escape, and naturally runs into the nearby forest like a bat out of hell. What follows is a tense cat-and-mouse chase, with Alfie seeking cover as the other player keeps hunting after him. I held a kind of faint hope that Alfie would be saved – but I laughed as that hope was squashed, right around the time his legs break .

Without going too much into it, there's a cameo appearance by Mr. Moon that's funny for how ill-timed it turns out to be . Poor Alfie... he just couldn't catch a break.

Channel: Jam Jar

And here I thought human beings had the best parts of themselves brought out in the apocalypse. Nope, turns out that with under the right circumstances, we can be convinced to do just about anything. Damn.

Anyway, right from the first episode, there's a certain creepiness hanging in the air. That may have something to do with Jam Jar – whose name in the video is quite literally Not Important – conducting an experiment: Can other players be manipulated into becoming murderous cannibals?

This is by no means a light-hearted video, aside from some Who's On First style name confusion . Not Important tracks down player after player, talks them into coming back to his “camp”, and then commands them to kill a prisoner for meat. No cutaways, no fancy editing gimmicks, just unsettling conversations building to violence – kind like a Tarantino film.

And yet, it's hard not to be fascinated by the cycle at play here. Two of the three players Not Important brings back willingly go along with becoming cannibals. They don't offer up much in the way of resistance, and they themselves become prisoners to be killed. So it was refreshing to have the last player break the cycle; it made for a perfectly abrupt ending .

Channel: Mr. Moon

From what I've seen, a lot of players like to dive into “DayZ” and toy with the game's mechanics or mess with other players. But actually going as far as role-playing a complex sociopath? Now that's new to me – or at least, it was before I saw our #5 entry…

“Flesh of my Flesh” kicks off with a grizzly scene where Moon and his friends have captured a cannibal, tied him up, and promptly kill him . It's brutal stuff, but I have to imagine the phrase “punishment fits the crime” crossed their minds at some point.

Then the video really gets going. Mr. Moon and company have a lot of fun playing all kinds of roles as the situation demands – sometimes they're just likeable survivors looking for a home, and sometimes they're ruthless killers on the prowl. There's a scene where Moon attempts to lure a realtor named Jenny into a shed that would feel right at home in a horror film... right before Moon gets shot in the crotch .

I should mention that the editing is quite superb here. The video's events never feel slow or overly indulgent, particularly when the action gets going and bodies start dropping. And that ending – if it doesn't give you chills, I don't know what will.