The real guy, the best guy.
Sips, real name Chris Lovasz, is a Canadian-British Let's Player and a member of the Yogscast. At some point before he made gaming videos for them, Sips worked as the Yogscast's web designer.
During his rise to popularity on YouTube, he collaborated with Sjin, Lewis Brindley, Turpster and Hat Films on vanilla and modded Minecraft series. After around three years of mostly regular Minecraft videos, he moved to playing other games that interested him and eventually stopped doing Minecraft on his own channel while still collaborating on Minecraft with other Yogs until the end of the last Yogscast "main channel" Minecraft series Whale Lords. At the end of 2017, Sips moved mostly to Twitch streaming and stopped uploading videos to his YogscastSips Youtube channel
, though he does upload his Twitch streams to a separate Sips - Live! channel. As of December 2018, Sips has 305,000 followers on Twitch.
He's known for his casual style with lots of improvisational humor. His Minecraft co-op series are largely filled with aimless or laid-back conversations with the other Yogs and not a lot of progress. He also plays banter-filled rounds of Garry's Mod minigames with Hat Films and Turps, such as Prop Hunt, Trouble in Terrorist Town and Murder. Even in his solo series, he frequently has humorous one-sided conversations laced with sarcasm and profanity towards the characters (and in some cases, inanimate objects) in the games he plays. His content is generally aimed at a teenage to early adult audience.
He has done a bit of voice work for web animation shows. He voiced the blue spaceman in Spacemen and the blue ninja, "the Burrito Bushido", in Ninjas.
Sips can be found streaming on his Twitch channel; the recordings of these streams get uploaded to his Sips Live channel on Youtube. His videos from when he was still active on Youtube can be found on his YogscastSips channel here.
Sips provides examples of these tropes:
- Achievements in Ignorance: Since Sips tends to go in blind for games such as Skyrim and Fallout, he quite often manages to miss or fail quests due to mistakes. Every once in a while, however, his rashness and playing as the Idiot Hero pays off. In Fallout, his stupidity pays off when Harry the Super Mutant mistakes him for a ghoul and leaves him be, letting him finish the water chip quest in rapid time. He later tries to find Morpheus and ends up killing him entirely by accident, which isn't a bad thing.
- all lowercase letters: all of his tweets and every comment on his subreddit are always lowercase.
- Bad "Bad Acting": His Incoming Ham in the BlueXephos channel's Jaffa Factory series. Weirdly, Sips' normal voice almost never changes, including later on in this series, but here, he acts like a really furious boss.
- Bad Boss:
- He clearly has a lot of fun with this trope in the Jaffa Factory series, given how it is Played for Laughs and taken up to eleven. He fires Sjin just because Lewis Brindley is nearby, and when the latter is settling in with the former's job, he is told how workers have a Christmas Party once a century with no holidays; this is in turn followed by the revelation that they work for limited pay and for 20 hour days; this is all just before he is given five minutes to collect 30,000 bits of dirt.
- Much later, in his Skyrim series, he ordered Uthgerd The Unbroken to shackle herself to a dungeon wall.
Uthgerd: Nope. Not possible. - Big "NO!": In this episode of Happy Wheels. Switches quickly from Big "YES!" to this, then back again.
- Big "YES!": In this episode of Happy Wheels. Switches quickly from this to Big "NO!", then back again.
- Butt-Monkey: Not much goes right for him in games. Mostly Played for Laughs but sometimes played seriously.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: The phrase "rip your dick off" (describing the audience reaction to the player doing something stupid) originated in a series with Sips and Hat Films. Nowadays, Sips says it the most, but other members of the Yogscast use it when appropriate.
- Catchphrase:
- "You magnificent/beautiful bastard," or describing something as "fantastic".
- "It's gotta be said." / "It's gotta be known."
- Something being "not the best" when it isn't.
- Talking about things happening "in a major way."
- "Big Money, Big Women, Big Fun".
- "Anybody? No? Just me? Maybe my dad?"
- "Aw Shiiiiiiiiit."
- "I'll do it!"
- In fact, he has so many of these that his subreddit have devoted a wiki project to listing every. Single. One. See here.
- The Chew Toy: Sips himself tends to get a bit of flak, but Strippin has become one for Garry's Mod, both due to the actions of the others and also due to the game screwing him over (giving him the gun once- at which point he shot the wrong person, never being the murderer and spawning with the killer right next to him).
- Cloud Cuckoolander:
- Some of his rambling divergences can be seen as this, particularly when playing alone or with Sjin.
- He specifically refers to these kind of conversations as Lego Talk; when two people are concentrating on something (like building a Lego set) but still want to talk to each other despite dividing their attention, this is what happens.
- Color-Coded Elements: His YouTube page's colour scheme used to be brown, after his dirt factory in his Tekkit series.
- Comically Small Bribe: In the Yogscast Civilization V series, Sips attempts to make Lewis Brindley betray his long-time ally Sjin for... One crab.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Played for Laughs in the Jaffa Factory series series following the firing of Sjin from his company. The subversion comes when he disapproves of industrial sabotage as Lewis Brindley just admits to having stolen resources from his old company, Honeydew Inc. Double Subverted when he then says, immediately afterwards no less, that he favours it if it benefits him.
- Cowboy BeBop at His Computer:
- Invoked. Most of he and Sjin's knowledge on pop culture sounds like they pulled it straight out of their own asses. Though it's most likely on purpose given their status as trolls.
- The "Chet Williams" videos are deliberately full of blatantly false "facts".
- Crossover: Area 11 did the instrumental and backing vocals for "Big Girl".
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: At gaming in general. The best example would be when he's playing "Race for the Wool" on Sjin, Lewis Brindley and Duncan Jones' team and he proves a pretty effective archer after Sjin is eventually ran down.
- Dead All Along: In episode 58 of the vanilla Minecraft series, it's revealed that Sips died a few episodes ago in lava, and his ghost has just been hanging around with Sjin.
- Deadpan Snarker: It helps that his voice almost never changes.
- Dissonant Serenity: His voice never changes. Ever. Sometimes Played for Laughs.
- Double Entendre: Plenty. Usually contributes to the
Ho Yay/Faux Yay. - Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: His Minecraft skin, which has unhealthy-looking grey skin. It's a skin condition! Vitamin deficiency. Downplayed slightly with his skin as of the time of writing - he has a lot more color in his face.
- Egopolis: Sipsco Games, Sipsco Dirt Factory, Sips City, Sipsville, San Fransipsco, the Mississipsi River... the list goes on and on,friends.
- Evil Knockoff: _Zips, an evil clone of Sips who sells poor-quality gravel, calls Sjin "Suh-jin," and lives by the motto, "No money, no women, no fun."
- Gag Penis: The Space Penis.
- Genre Savvy:
- Sips is good at Garry's Mod, particularly in Murder and Prop Hunt.
- There's a particular scene in one of his Skyrim Let's Play episodes where just after recovering the Staff of Magnus Sips guesses that he'll run into some guy around the next corner.
Sips: "We don't want anyone all the sudden turn up and be like Ho ho ho travelers! Thanks for getting the Staff of Magnus for me, I'll be taking that"cue Estorno showing upSips: "Oh shit! I called it!" - Good Cop/Bad Cop: Sjin as the good cop, and Sips as the bad cop. Except for when Sjin breaks character and starts swearing at Udders. They switch roles later.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: At the very least, he and Sjin are this. He also has this sort of dynamic with Lewis.
- Hidden Depths: Sips is actually a vegetarian and has been for over eight years. This was partly due to concern about what the hell he was eating, and also due to cruelty in the industry which disgusted him.
- Idiot Hero: Sips tends to portray himself as more stupid than he actually is, at least in Minecraft. During his Fallout playthrough, he also sets his intelligence stat low and subsequently "Mike Tyson" is only capable of talking gibberish for most of the playthrough, eventually forcing him to get hooked on Mentats; this causes more problems when his intelligence takes a hit, and he ends up just taking an intelligence upgrade out of frustration.
- Implausible Deniability: This happens a fair amount in Gmod, when someone will deny being the bad guy despite having murdered someone in plain sight.
- Improbable Hairstyle: The case of big pigtails.
- I Love the Dead: In the Chet Williams review of Minecraft, Chet's only complaint is that there are "no fuckable zombies".
- Lemony Narrator: Very often.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: He describes his Skyrim character as a "lizard wizard prostitute," and her name is Princess Leia.
- Oh, Crap!: He freaks out quite notably whenever Ross is the murderer and takes him by surprise, because of Ross's downright terrifying behaviour.
- Orphaned Series:
- According to this comment, the reason his other series like Towns, Monkey Island, and Orcs Must Die! 2 haven't been updated is because he lost his hard drive and all of his saved games.
- All of his Minecraft series post-2013. That includes three series with Sjin (Dirt Factory, Sipso Space Program, and Cheat Police), and a series with Lewis and Turps (Dirt Quest).
- His Far Cry 4 playthrough was orphaned due to his hard drive problems. Sips just lost interest in playing after that.
- He got very close to the end of Fall Out 1 but abruptly stopped, something fans are still upset about.
- Final Fantasy IV received the same treatment.
- According to this
- Perp Sweating: In Sips and Sjin's Minecraft Let's Play, Sjin and Sips build an interrogation room for this purpose. With an um, stripper pole.
- Power Trio: During Dirtquest, he forms one with Turps and Lewis, with the trio all working on a dirt factory.
- Put on a Bus:
- Fernando by the beginning of Sips' second Towns series.
- Sips himself in the Sipsco Space Program series when he was replaced by a poorly made clone named _Zips, while Sips was trapped on Mars. Sips was eventually rescued from Mars and began a series with Turpster and Lewis Brindley, with his rescue from Mars depicted in the JaffaQuest series.
- Running Gag:
- Before he fixed it, Sips' "toaster mic".
- The extremely awkward string of "bye"s at the end of Minecraft videos.
- Sips making fun of Juliana's weight in his Towns playthrough. Even after she dies.
- References to his "mom" or "dad".
- In his Tekkit videos:
Sips: "...Uranium."Sjin: "Whose Ranium?"Sips: "My Ranium"Sjin: "What are you doing in Tehran?"- Sjin making a Harry Potter reference and Sips having no idea what he's talking about.
- Closeup shots of Uthgerd with creepy music in his Skyrim series.
- Also in his Skyrim series, putting buckets on people's heads after killing them to Make It Look Like an Accident.
- Sips doesn't livestream, he pre-records the gameplay and streams it with a voiceover.
- Scandalgate: Sipsgate, of course. For those not in the know, Lewis and Simon dialled up Sips, at the time just the website designer, and repeatedly woke him up. He had given the duo his number for what was supposed to be emergencies only and understandably wasn't happy at the time; he eventually forgave them and got his own back by trolling Lewis during a livestream.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Sips, completely cornered in a game of Worms Reloaded, just gives up and has his last worm jump into the water.Sips: You know what? Fuck you guys. Fuck this game. Fuck you. *jumps*
- Shout-Out:
- You do not want to wake up the dragon, Quackers.
- His Gmod series contains frequent shoutouts to Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings and many other famous franchises.
- Self-Deprecating Humor: "another episode of "hole diggers" has been released and i am unfortunately in it. it goes without saying that i am very sorry for ruining it". "I'm sorry for ruining [X]" has now become a minor meme whenever somebody guest stars unexpectedly in someone else's series.
- Stylistic Suck: His Chet Williams videos don't take themselves seriously at all and are deliberately low-quality. This serves to make them even funnier.
- Surreal Humor:
- Any commentator who can go into detail about the Beaver Mafia bombing their house probably deserves a mention.
- Whenever he and Sjin talk about movies and start throwing in random actors and plotlines.
- His descriptions of his Game Dev Tycoon creations are made of this. For example, there's Planet Uppercut, a Science Fiction Real-Time Strategy where the combatants invented space flight but not weapons and thus their entire armies fight by uppercutting each other.
- Technician Versus Performer: Compared to Sjin or Lewis Brindley, both of whom are the technician since they focus more on the work side of things, Sips is the performer, focusing less on progress and more on entertainment. This becomes especially apparent when he arrives at Craggy Island in Hole Diggers and makes Simon Lane of all people look productive.
- Tempting Fate: In his playthrough of Hotline Miami Wrong Number, he makes a promise to avoid cursing. The very first line of the game turns out to have an f-bomb that he reads out.
- Troll:
- His Anno 2070 antics, where he wasted his team's money just to pave an island. And then he drew a troll face on it.
- He interrupts a livestream several times for no good reason other than checking how loud his mic is.
- In The Walls Minecraft map, he and Sjin decide to not do any real preparation for battle and create a big "EAT SHIT" sign in their area instead.
- His Anno 2070 antics, where he wasted his team's money just to pave an island.
- Verbal Tic: Go to any video, count the number of times he says "fantastic".
- Vitriolic Best Buds:
- The Sirs of Hat Films and Sips love each other's humour and have a lot of fun together, but can be very profane in their Garry's Mod Prop Hunt, Trouble in Terrorist Town and Murder matches. This also applies when Lewis Brindley, Turpster and Strippin join them.
- He and Sjin really do get on well in real life, but in their videos they constantly bicker and abuse each other, with Sips dishing out most of it. They are still almost inseparable.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: His child, Poopfeast 420 note .
- Wrong Genre Savvy: He initially assumed Don't Shit Your Pants was a horror game. Justified since the game jokingly claims to be one, and Sips had just heard about it.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: Initially put an underscore in his Minecraft name since someone else had taken the name Sips. Now he keeps it just because.
