StaceyPowers

Especially regarding Anthem, there is a lot of discussion right now surrounding buggy game releases, and developers essentially releasing products before they can properly be called “finished.” As a gamer, how much does this annoy you? Are the complaints about games like Anthem fully warranted? I know a lot of folks love the game, but I mostly just keep hearing the other side.

Do you own any game-related prints, models, or other artworks which you have on display? If so, what are they?

I’m on my first Bioshock 1 playthrough right now, and I traded out the Incinerate ability before I melted some ice blocking a doorway to a funeral home. Is there any way to get rid of this ice except Incinerate? I have read you can use the fire from the nearby crematorium to light a corpse or a bottle of alcohol on fire and lob it at the ice, but this doesn’t seem to work. It’s like the fire isn’t really coded to be “real.”

I often hear gamers talk about "challenging" moral choices in video games where you have to pick between doing a "right" thing and doing something which will give you abilities to help you out in the game. The thing is, I never seem to find these choices hard, but maybe that's just because I fail to suspend my disbelief, and I know the game mechanics will let me win anyway. A good example would be Dragon Age: Origins, where there are multiple morally dubious opportunities to enhance your army for the final battle, but I don't get the impression it really makes a big difference outside the narrative in one's head. Anyone have thoughts on this?

What games have you played which have had startling enough encounters that you’ve literally jumped in your seat? I’ve had that happen a few times already while playing Bioshock 1. It’s so bloody dark in there, and the enemies spawn so fluidly and continuously that I’m frequently surprised by them (especially when I turn around in a room I just cleared and am literally about an inch away from an attacker).

Dragon Age!

I wanted to make the question about personality rather than skills, as for most of us, the answer would be "I couldn't" if we talked about skills. If you had the gameplay skills, would you have the stamina/focus/determination to take on the career? My understanding of it is that it is quite a grueling profession, and it has a very high burnout rate. That's actually exactly the kind of work I like, lol. But I wouldn't have the stamina required.

We talk a lot on here about classic games from our childhoods which we get nostalgic about and miss playing. But what about classic games you didn’t find out about until later, and never had a chance to try? Are there any old games you wish you could play for the first time, but don’t have the old hardware to make them run? For PC games, one should hypothetically be able to get around compatibility issues by running a virtual machine, but my laptop can’t really pull that off.

If I thought I had a real shot at making boatloads of cash, I could imagine playing at tournaments, but only for a very short span of time (i.e. less than a year). It looks like a lifestyle which makes a lot of other demanding jobs sound comparably easy. Would you game for a living if you had the skills?

Has anybody here on VGR ever played a game at the competitive professional level? What was the experience like?

If you play games where there are breaks in the action, do you spend much time sitting around (or walking around) and just staring at the scenery, listening to the atmospheric sounds of the environment, and imagining you are really there? I suspect I spend way more time doing this than the average gamer (considering how many more hours I seem to take to finish games than the “average” for those games), but I wonder if other people do it too. I do this because I just can’t bring myself to rush past what amounts to beautiful artwork—but also because taking some time to smell the roses makes the experience feel more real and “lived in” to me.

Do you like building as a feature in Fortnite? Or do you wish it would go away?

Girl gamer, checking in :) I don't know what the actual stats are. I've never felt outnumbered, but that might have something to do with the specific games I grew up playing. In any case, please feel welcome here. It's a friendly and inclusive forum.

Has anyone noticed a tendency for puzzles in video games which do not revolve around puzzles to be really poorly explained in terms of in-game instructions? Like take those Fallout hack puzzles. I got the basic idea reading the in-game instructions, but it was completely lost on me that it wasn’t just showing me the characters I had right, but the characters I had right in their correct placements. It’s been so long I can’t say for sure if the directions were at fault, but I remember I had to look online to figure out why I wasn’t succeeding. I’m playing Bioshock 1 for the first time right now, and those hack puzzles included really sparse instructions too. I couldn’t for the life of me understand them until I looked online and found out that the little square in the lower left was a “storage” area for the shape I clicked on last. Is figuring out the basic rules of puzzles supposed to be part of their appeal in games, or are the directions just really badly written? I’d understand in a puzzle game, but when they’re just little mini-games in a shooter or RPG, it seems ridiculous to expect me to puzzle out what the puzzle actually is when all I want is to get through a door and get back to shooting.

What games did you regret the most, both in terms of money spent, and also the hours you might have poured into them?

Everywhere I go, I see people talking about whether BioWare is seeing its final days or not. I’m somewhat aware of the context of the discussions, but I don’t’ know the details as well as I could. Does anyone here have any light to shed, or any opinions as to BioWare’s likely future?

Does anyone here play co-op games or game modes? I have to admit I have almost no experience with them. I feel like they could be fun in theory, but I can’t help thinking I’d find them kind of anxiety-inducing (i.e. “I have to perform well, or I’ll let down my partner!”).

I have no idea. My theory of mind skills aren't strong enough to hazard a guess. I'm pretty good at understanding thoughts and assumptions of people in a professional setting (i.e. customers shopping for a product), but less good at the subtle nuances of how people in personal relationships view me.

If there were a video game you could play again as if it were the first time, with everything being new and surprising again, which game would you pick?

I’ve never played a visual novel before, and don’t even entirely know what the genre is. Does anyone here play visual novels, and if so, which do you recommend on any system?

Who else is excited about The Outer Worlds? I’m probably looking forward to that more than a future Fallout or Elder Scrolls game. I loved Obsidian’s work on NV, and I can’t wait to see what they do with creating a new world to explore.

What makes someone a good team player in an FPS game? I think it’s more a list of things they don’t do than things they do (i.e. don’t steal everyone’s kills, don’t run around ignoring the objective, don’t pass by without reviving if in a support role, etc.)

What are your strategies for finding your way through dungeons? At a junction, I usually attempt to identify the pathway which looks most likely to terminate in a dead-end, and follow it through to that end before backtracking to the junction. If I can’t make a determination, I usually just go left. I also tend to hug the left wall as I make my way around a large room with a lot of branching rooms or corridors. This helps me 1-not miss any loot, 2-not lose track of where I’ve been and where I haven’t. What are your techniques?

If somebody asks you which control does what while playing a game you also play, are you able to tell them the answer? Or do you rely almost entirely on muscle memory to operate the controls? Whenever anyone is playing a game and asks me what key to press to pull up a menu, jump, etc., most of the time I can’t for the life of me give them an answer—even though I could perform those actions easily with the controller in my hand.

For those who are interested in topics like philosophy, metaphysics, and so forth, what video games have you found most fascinating? I was blown away by Bioshock Infinite in pretty much every regard, but the topics which it touched upon like free choice, free will, personal responsibility, and so forth really struck a chord with me. I'm also pretty much obsessed with the multiverse, so there was that too.