[Ban the user above you]

On 7/4/2018 at 3:44 PM, DC said:

Just type Banned and give your reason for banning the user above you.

So an example reply would be "Banned for having an amazing signature" or "Banned for banning me" and so on.

So let this begin. Who is going to ban me? 🙂

Banned: DC

Reason: So I can take over the forum. Muahahaha.

[Which Shooter Games Have the Most “Boom” Value?]

Thanks for the recommendation! I haven't played Spec Ops: The Line, so now I've got something to check out. 

[Is There a Trick to Object Placement In Skyrim?]

So this is an ancient issue, but I’ve never found a reliable answer on it, and I’m still searching.

For some dumb reason, all objects in Skyrim have a tendency to flip over when you’re moving them so that they are “butter-side-down” (except apple pie, for whatever reason).

I’ve heard people say “use corners” to turn the objects the right direction, but I’ve only found this to be slightly useful (maybe I’m doing it wrong?). I saw a video once too where a guy used his sword to knock an object into the right orientation, but I can’t make that work at all.

Anyone got any good tricks to share?

On a related note, any advice for placing objects in Fallout 3 or New Vegas is more than welcome as well.

[Why Are There So Few Women in TLOU?]

Obviously there are women in TLOU—there’s Ellie and Tess and quite a few others. There are plenty of female clickers too. But whenever we’re fighting human enemies, they seem to be exclusively men (I can’t remember if there are exceptions to that, but on the whole, they are almost all men).

Any theories as to why this might be? I played through about half the game before I even noticed, but once I did, I realized how disproportionate it was. Anyone have any guesses as to where all the women are?

 

[How Do the Infected Not Starve to Death in the Last of Us?]

8 hours ago, Ben said:

I mean... they're dead, are they not? Do they even need to eat?

I'm not sure that's actually the case. I mean, insects infected by real-life Cordyceps aren't actually dead while they're still walking around, are they? If they are, that's even more bizarre than I realized. Now I'm curious whether they eat while infected too.

[Ask Stacey]

On 7/4/2018 at 2:27 PM, DC said:

What's your all time favorite video game?

For story, immersion and character development, The Last of Us.

To relax, Quake III Arena.

What about you?

[How Do the Infected Not Starve to Death in the Last of Us?]

Okay, so I admit I could just be missing something obvious here, but I can’t figure out how the Infected manage to survive as long as they do in the Last of Us.

In fact, on my first play-through, I just assumed that all of the Infected I saw had only been in that state for a week or so, and that those that didn’t get shot probably starved to death (or died of thirst) not long later.

But since then, I’ve seen lots of references saying that the Infected take months to progress through the stages to reach the Bloater stage.

That’s all good and well, except how do they survive that long? What are they eating? Did we ever actually see them eating in the game (if we did, I can’t recall)? It seems like they can eat, being as they have mouths—but it can’t be easy for a blind Clicker to locate food, unless it only hunts down and consumes live prey. Or is there some kind of photosynthesis at work?

I’m not asserting this is a plot hole, because I don’t think it is—but it is unintuitive, and it makes me realize there’s a lot we don’t understand fully about the Infected life cycle. Anyone have thoughts or theories to share? Do you think we might learn more about the life cycle or even see new stages in the next game?

 

[Could the Cordyceps Infection in TLOU Be Self-Limiting?]

There are a lot of arguments for or against Joel’s decision at the end of The Last of Us, but is a vaccine for Cordyceps is even necessary?

I’ve thought about this a lot, and it seems to me that like any parasite, Cordyceps infects a host because it requires a host for survival. If there are no hosts available, Cordyceps should eventually die out.

The Infected themselves will all perish eventually, whether from lack of resources or old age. So in theory, it seems to me that if certain populations were able to quarantine themselves effectively, they could “wait out” the infection, which might be self-limiting.

I can think of three major problems:

1-Infected animals.

2-Dead bodies.

3-It’s hard to stop the spread of an airborne pathogen.

Aside from those Infected monkeys, we don’t have any evidence that animals actually succumb to this strain of Cordyceps (although, how cool would it be if this shows up in the sequel?). In fact, I’m pretty sure the Infected monkeys are only carriers—they don’t actually turn aggressive, progressing into Clickers or such.

So it seems unlikely at this point for animals to spread the infection. The next problem is the dead bodies. The tail end of the Cordyceps life cycle seems to be the collapse of the Infected victim in some dark corner somewhere. The corpse then becomes a spore factory.

That means the dead remain a threat, at least for a while. But even this cannot continue indefinitely. If the spores do not find new hosts, eventually, the body should decay beyond usefulness, and no longer sustain the spore factory.

The third issue seems like the most problematic to me. I have no idea how far the spores could potentially travel on the wind. Considering however that Joel and the others remove their masks pretty quickly when they are out of an immediate threat zone, I’m guessing it may not be a major issue either.

Now, I’m not saying that the infection being self-limiting necessarily justifies Joel’s actions (though I think there are other valid defenses for what he did). Nor am I saying that at least a couple of generations wouldn’t suffer horrifically. But it would mean that he didn’t destroy humanity’s last hope. Plus, vaccines do sometimes backfire. Imagine if Cordyceps managed to mutate and became even more virulent.

I’d love to hear everyone else’s thoughts on the Cordyceps lifecycle and whether the infection could die out on its own with careful quarantining.

[Ask Stacey]

Hey everyone! 

If you keep up with our news posts, you probably know I write for VGR 🙂

Feel free to ask me anything!

Stacey

[Which Shooter Games Have the Most “Boom” Value?]

I remember chatting on a COD forum at one point and someone said something that stuck with me. She was complaining that the latest game (I can’t remember which at this point) didn’t have the same “boom value” as previous games, and I knew exactly what she was talking about.

This has been a complaint I’ve had about shooter games in general over the years. Sleek graphics, well-balanced play, beautiful maps—all of these are important. But oftentimes, there’s something missing in the general “feel” of the game—the way it handles and plays. It’s too fluid, too clean. It’s like firing a gun with no kick.

In fact, I still think one of the shooter games with the best “boom” value is Quake III Arena from way back in 1999. I still easily prefer it over a lot of more modern shooters. Even with its clunky graphics and overall simplicity, playing it just feels awesome, and that’s something I’ve heard a lot of fans mention. It just has more energy and exuberance.

Contrast that with another classic shooter, Unreal Tournament 2004. Don’t get me wrong—it’s a fantastic game. Graphically, it is miles beyond Q3A, and it was a cutting edge title in its time. But it’s got zero in the way of “boom” value. Playing it, you feel more removed from the action. With a game like Q3A, you are right in the middle of it all.

What FPS games do you feel have the most “boom” value, whether new or old? Which have the least? How important a factor is it to you?

 

[What Classic Video Games Most Need a Reboot?]

If you recognize my avatar, you can guess that I’m still playing games from the 1990s. In fact, while we’ve obviously had some amazing titles come out over recent years, there are some old game which I think are still unbeaten in their way.

We need some of those old games to come back! We’ve seen some reboots in the past which didn’t work (Sonic, ahem), and some which blew our minds (Doom 3), but we’re still waiting on others (how long is Unreal Tournament going to be stranded in pre-alpha? It feels like I’ve been waiting forever).

What classic games do you most want to see a reboot of?

[How did you find us?]

I work here :)