StaceyPowers

What open world game do you feel has the most enjoyable/balanced blend of features and elements?

What are some surreal video games?

What game’s concepts of good and evil match your own most closely?

I noticed an option to turn off/automate all choices in a game last night, and thought it weird. What is the appeal of such an option?

When you play a game with choices, do you try to align fully good or evil based on the game’s moral system, or do you make choices that feel right to you?

You know those paragon/renegade choices in cutscenes where you have to push L1/R1 in a hurry? Do you love them or hate them? I find them frustrating, but I do have to admit they mirror what it is like to have to make a split-second, high-pressure, confusing moral decision without time for full conscious thought.

The whole time I was at the Lesuss Monastery in Mass Effect 3, I kept flashing back to BioShock 2. Then I realized the Banshees sound like the Big Sisters, and there are some deco influences in the architecture. Anyone else notice the parallels?

You put perfectly into words something I always struggle to explain!

I can see why you would find that irksome.

Same here! I love driving, especially by myself. But I can't stand the train or bus. I support public transit as a thing, but I just don't like doing it.

That is awesome! I was 15. Where were you when I was in high school? It was so lonely.

I can relate. Aside from one weekend trip and another where I had to go move stuff from storage and another where I was moving cross-country, I haven't been on a "vacation" since before I graduated high school.

At what age did you discover goth?

Find out what he's like now and decide if I like him back, I guess.

Wow, that's terrible. My effective tax rate seems to be somewhere between 25-30%, I make a reasonable amount of money, and I still struggle to get by in the US. I can't imagine how you pay the bills.

Interesting you list the last one, considering I actually think tactical combat in games like TLOU could be classified as a kind of melding of puzzle and fighting.

The context by which each person here defines "heroic" was what I was looking for. Subjective definitions, not a global one.

What is it like there in the present?

I have noticed many gamers are very adverse to not having choices in video games. I can imagine scenarios where that might irk me, but on the whole, I often don’t care. Times I don’t mind not having choices: -When playing a specific character and it is their story and decision, not mine (i.e. TLOU, BioShock Infinite). -When choices are removed to make a point/demonstrate our limitations (i.e. in Spec Ops: The Line). -When we wouldn't realistically be able to do or stop something for lack of information/etc. (i.e. DA 2). Are there situations where you also don’t mind not having choices/control?

Where are you from?

Do you have an all-time favorite gaming memory? I think mine was a moment while playing BioShock Infinite that I realized that Columbia was similar to “place” I’d glimpsed inside my head when younger and wanted to write a story about, but never figured out much about. In that moment, it felt like Columbia was that place, and someone else had written it instead.

I often wish I could play games “for the first time” repeatedly. It is hard to recapture the magic on a repeat playthrough. So far, aside from taking long breaks between playthroughs, I have not really found any good techniques. Has anyone else?

What ingredients go into good puzzle design?

What video game adversary or threat would you be most horrified to have to face IRL?

Do you ever experience moments in games where everything—music, ambient noise, visuals, maybe events—are just perfect, generating an ideal moment, even though it is a coincidence? I.e. in open world games, this happens to me sometimes.