advice sought: watching instead of playing certain older games to get to their better sequels

My personnal opinion about the frachises i know the best and have played all the episodes :

• Bioshock are awesome games, worth to play. All the 3 of them.
• Witcher 1 aged badly, gameplay and controls are very bad. If you can, search for the story of the first game anywhere and begin with the second game, very good.
• Far Cry are clone games in diverse locations, there is no connection between the games (some easter eggs at best), just do the last opus.

Well, I can immediately say that if you consider anything older than 10 years to be not good enough, then you probably wouldn't like Far Cry 1 (has absolutely nothing in common with the newer ones; while it's an... ok shooter, it's also kind of a huge mess) and possibly 2 (just... so... boring...). The success of Far Cry 3 is where the modern formula for the franchise really started.

I'd say that the Assassin's Creed games before 3 are actually better than the newer ones (Black Flag seems to be the exception from what I've heard) but I am totally biased there (haven't played the newer ones and some of the mechanics they've added over time make them look like entirely different games than the old ones- the leveling systems in particular look like just an excuse to make them grindy and sell microtransactions).

Bioshock 1, 2 and Infinite are all equally awesome and you'd be missing out if you skip any of them. ;P

Haven't played any Witcher or Fallout and, from the Elder Scrolls, only played Skyrim , so I can't give an opinion on those. ^_^'

I've only played Far Cry and Elder Scrolls so I'll give you my thoughts on those.

• Far Cry
  I think you're safe to skip FC1 and FC2. I would recommend playing FC3. It's too much fun to skip, and too good to just watch. FC4 is good but not great. FC5 is awesome, I would highly recommend playing that one also. Have not tried FC6 yet.

• Elder Scrolls
  Skyrim is obviously the big one, so you can't really go wrong there. Oblivion and Morrowind were great games in their own right, but they haven't necessarily aged all that well, and if you're not that into older games, I think you're better off skipping them. Skyrim is ten years old (Skyrim is ten years old! Wow) but it can be modded to look and play like a much newer game.

For the Bioshock series I see no reason for watching playthroughs. If you want to get into Bioshock Infinite, the first two barely connect.
On the other hand the original Bioshock and Bioshock 2 are awesome games. If you play one, play both anyway. 😁

The Witcher games are all three really different. One has really aged with hub/act based play. Two is a very updated version of that concept and 3 is open world. So either watch 1 + 2 and play 3 or just watch 1 and play 2 + 3.

In the Fallout series each game is pretty much self-contained and most (all? can't remember atm) play in different locations/times after the war. It just deepens your knowledge of the greater world they are in.
Fallout 1 + 2 (and tactics) are isometric RPGs, since 3 they are FPS-RPGs. And of the newer bunch New Vegas has the best story, Fallout 4 the best gunplay.

For playing any Far Cry game there is no need to know anything about the previous ones because as far as I can remember...none of them connect in any meaningful way (if at all).
I don't know which games you eye of the series but I'd say at least play Far Cry 3, because that's the first that follows the open world formula most Ubisoft game after that follow and has the most memorable villain/story.

Elder scrolls is the same as the above series. Same universe, different time/location. Though Oblivion hasn't aged that bad and has many similarities to Skyrim. Everything before hasn't aged that well/is really different in gameplay.

For Assassins Creed the games are connected by their modern day part of the story (which is only about 5-10% of each game i'd say, and probably mostly not the reason you play the game for...).
On top of that AC1, 2, Brotherhood and Revelations are connected, AC3, AC4 and Rogue are connected and the newest ones Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla are connected.
Oh and since Origins the AC games are more big-open-world RPG(-grinds?) than assassination games^^

No ideas about youtubers/streamers to recommend.

I suggest you not to skip Bioshock 1 and 2, they're both fairly short, a little above 10 hours each. And they're both better than Infinite in almost all aspects, story, gameplay and atmosphere. The only aspect that Infinite does better are probably the action set pieces.

For the Elder Scrolls I'd consider Morrowind the best in the series with Daggerfall a close second.

I'm currently playing the Unity port of Daggerfall myself. Here's my little guide how to install Daggerfall Unity.

SorcererDave has playthroughs of Daggerfall and Morrowind
Adventure Art did a playthrough of Daggerfall with a non-magical character

For all things Elder Scroll and Bethesda:
Zaric Zhakaron

For in-depth analysis
indigo gaming
PatricianTV

I will say: totally yes. and absolutely not! :D :D I mean, it depends on the particular franchise. I try really hard to play series of games in order -- not only for the stories but also to feel the evolving mechanics... but I totally get the "time-is-precious" idea, especially when I look at my huge backlog. :D

So, for the ones you mention, my personal opinion would be:

• Bioshock: play all of them! They are modern enough, and some of main beats of Bioshock lose their punches if you are just watching anyway (well, unless the streamer is really good, I guess?).
• The Witcher: I loved all of them, and some facts from #1 and #2 do influence the 3rd... Also, since some characters repeat, it is nice to have the extra background on them. That said, #3 is independent enough that can easily be enjoyed by itself. So, if you are hurting for time, maybe some sort of "short story recap" of the first two would be enough, and then jump into 3, that has to be experienced.
• Fallout: I only played 1, 2 and 3. All good games, but no need at all to play the first 2 to enjoy the 3rd. And I guess watching someone play Fallout 3 would be boring -- the game is good for its environments and sense of exploration, not for the story itself, I think. So go straight to the one you want to play, I guess?
• FarCry: played only 1 and 2. Again, good games, but no story connection whatsoever between them; my guess is that they are completely skippable to advance in the series, no need even for a video. Someone more knowledgeable might correct me?
• Elder Scrolls: played only Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion. All good, but once again they are independent enough that I see no need to watch a video for any of them, and the videos would probably be boring (exploration >> story). Even short story recaps might be unnecessary. Skyrim people, is this right?
• Assassin's Creed: ok, I got nothing on those -- I have not even started this series. :D :D

Cheers!

You could always just play them out of order and skip the ones that don't look like you would enjoy playing, it's not like you need to go in the release order to enjoy the experience.
Maybe not the best example but for the past few years I've been slowly making my way through the Tomb Raider franchise, and I've been playing them in whatever order I've felt like, it hasn't had much of an impact in my enjoyment.

I played Witcher one long, long time ago, but I lost those saves. So when I bought Witcher 3 some years ago, I decided to do a quick playthrough again before going into W2 and W3.

I am yet to make it into Vizima.

My advice I give to myself as well:
Play the game in the series that you like the most and treat the earlier instalments as prequels. You can come back to them if you'll like the franchise or watch them if you'll want to follow the story but the gameplay aged.

Thanks for your thoughts and insights, everyone.

To clear up one thing, it's not a distain for older games on my part, it's just that sometimes, as some have said about The Witcher 1, a franchise's first outing has some bad or poorly-executed ideas. Sequals are often have better ideas or improved execution.

It seems clear that the early Bioshock games are not to be missed!

It can work for other games, but definitely play Bioshock.

If you are interested in the Fallout universe just play F1, F2 and Vegas. Those three are the only ones relevant and coherent as the world and lore goes. Tactics is a non-canon spin-off and F3, F4 and F76 are terrible Bethesda abominations with stupidity and "coolness" everywhere. Bethesda games are just their typical, hollow, pseudo RPG sandboxes, flavored with some Fallout world elements. You should play F1&F2 yourself, maybe New Vegas too if you can stand the awful Gamebryo game engine, the rest you can watch on YouTube but I think that watching my cat sleeping is more meaningful ;-)

I would prefer to play them, but if you want to watch, I like let's plays from ChristopherOdd. There are probably tons of people that have done let's plays of most of these games though.
Bioshock
The Witcher

i'd say any racing game (like nfs, dirt, or similar), if you're looking for lore entries, i think elder scrolls, dark souls, off the top of my head, are the safe choices, I'll add more if something comes to my mind

My personal opinions:

-All Bioshock games are fine. The story isn't very interesting but the atmosphere is very good.

-For me all three Witcher games blended into one in my mind and they were all equally good.

-Fallout 2 > Fallout 3

-Far Cry > Far Cry 2, dunno about the rest. Neither of them was very good.

-Elder Scrolls. I've only played Oblivion but I think a lot of people like Morrowind equally.

-I've only played Assassin's Creed 1 and it had an interesting atmosphere and some of the story, but it was repetitive. Not sure if that ever changes in this franchise.