[Thoughts on Alan Wake?]

Alan Wake was not bad, but it was a hollow shadow compared to what it was originally supposed to be until  Microsoft had paid off Remedy, to do an XBOX exclusive game instead of a PC game pushing boundaries. It was scaled back in scope and technology as well. It was originally planned as an open world game, where the whole town is freely explorable (evidence of which was found in  the game files by modders) Also the dynamic physics based weather system was completely scrapped in order for the game to run on the limited hardware of the xbox.

[Would you own...?]

I have a PC and A PS4 Pro, but the PS4 hasn't been turned on since I finished The Last of Us 2 in June. It might not even work anymore, who knows?

If there were any games of worth on XBOX I'd probably have one of those too. And I'll probably buy  a PS5 once there are a few worthwhile games out on it.

[What is your most played game?]

The most I have a count for is XCOM2: 1109hrs

Transport Tycoon: been playing it since 1995, and still do sometimes. So it must be a lot of time, but nobody knows how much exactly. I blame this game for failing many exams.

 

[Features you miss in new games that were in older ones]

What features you miss that recent games usually don't include, but used to be commonplace in the past?

1. I definitely miss scorekeeping and high scores. When every enemy type and or action had an assigned score value, and depending on how many you defeated you'd get a score at the end of each level.  I think the last game I've seen doing anything even remotely similar was Splinter Cell Blacklist.

2. I also miss regular manual on demand save games. Instead of this checkpoint based junk we have nowadays. But when you could save at any location and time in a game as long as you were not engaged in action.

3. Fancy installers. Nowadays when you play a game you just use some dull client to download them, even on consoles the installation of games is only a mundane progress bar. Older games used to have these interactive  installers that already started you down the lore of the game building your immersion just as the game was being installed.

[Do you still have gaming magazines?]

I have every issue of a domestic gaming magazine called PC Guru between 1995/1 and 2002/12, that's when regular high speed (by 2002 standards) internet access had made them completely irrelevant. It also had an spinoff magazine called CD Guru which came with a CD full of shareware software and game demos, which was neat before the time of the internet. It was a by-monthly but I still couldn't afford to buy every issue only 2-4 a year tops.

They are both still in one of my closets but I haven't touched them for about 15 years since we moved to our current home.

I was never subbed to either of them, my father usually bought  PC Guru without me even asking. He'd also go through them occasionally. He was a gamer too, but only ever played FPS games. But within that specific genre he played much more games than me.

[Best childhood gaming memories?]

We used to play Stunts with the kid from our neghbor, and we would take turns at it. While one of us played the other commentated on it like it was a real TV broadcast.

 I also remember fondly playing through Doom and Doom 2 with the same kid, taking turns each time we died.

And my other fond memory is playing Toca Race Driver with my school classmates, in 3 or 4 way splitscreen, but we didn't race, we used to have this unique competition where the goal was to break the others rear window, and whoever had their rear windshield intact last was the winner.

Also when my parents have bought a second computer so they could use it because I basically made the former family PC my private one, my freinds would come over and we'd play all kinds of player over LAN. Anyone here remembers, coaxial network? Before the time of UTP, yeah we  used that.

[Nintendo Forced Cancellation of Near-Finished Goldeneye 007 Remake]

Of course it is nintendo. And they say EA is the worst company, well I think and have been thinking since forever that it is nintendo, followed closely by capcom and bandai/namco.

[How do you feel about enemies sneaking up on you from behind?]

You should always check your six. If you can be snuck up on it's entirely your own fault.

[Stupid mistakes you’ve made in games that cost you big?]

There are a thousand and one ways you can make mistakes that will cost you big in Quantic Dream games, too many to even list. You can get characters killed maimed, scarred both emiotinally or physicially in a thousand different ways.  You can even turn them into immoral killers.

[Games that do third person right?]

Ghost Recon Wildlands and Breakpoint. is third person but switches to first person view when you aim down the sights.

I also prefer TPS games where the camera is not locked to where your character is going, as in you can look in a different direction than where you are going, to scan the environment and it feels more realistic. In real life you aren't fixated ahead of you either you can look around freely while walking forward.

[Video game decision points where there are no good choices]

Splinter Cell: Double Agent

 

It was an absolute unfinished bugfest of a game when it came out, so you know releasing unfinished games is nothing new, but I digress. There was one really hard choice in that game that stuck with me. You basically have to either let a bomb go off killing innocents, or frame a friend who have saved you previously, who in turn gets killed if you choose that.  What would you chose? 

[What's the Best Modern Urban City Scenery In Game]

I think the best is by far Cyberpunk 2077

[Video game decision points where there are no good choices]

Mass Effect 3's ending doesn't have a good choice because it's simply badly written and goes against everything that came before.

The only way I can reconcile ME3's ending is by the indoctrination theory. As in if you choose Control that means Shepard has been indoctrinated like the IM and the reapers win. If you choose synthesis you give up your humanity and become like the geth, sorry, I'd rather be dead than that so that is the worst ending for me. The only option remains is destroy, if you choose that, that means you defied the reaper's attempts at indoctrination.  That's how I look at it.

[What is the most you would pay for a video game?]

i actually started a poll on this recently.

[Mass Effect 2: How to regain Miranda’s loyalty?]

I assume you have taken Jack's side in the confrontation, am I right? If that's the case no, the only way to regain her loyalty is to have enough paragon / renegade points to fix it. Maybe play some DLC content to get more points assuming you have the DLCs.

[What breaks immersion most for you in games?]

Other players....But seriously I barely even notice the difference between TPS and FPS nowadays.

1. What is bound to break my immersion is bullet sponge enemies and unrealistic physics.

2. Interactive hud/map elements, like objectives and waypoint markers, or damage numbers flying off of enemies or health bars hovering above them.

3. When puzzles or obstacles are designed in such a way in games that they are impossible to defeat without trial and error.
But for immersion you must assume your character only has one life, so puzzles that cannot be figured out otherwise make no sense.

[Enemies constantly respawning: good or bad?]

I absolutely hate it. At least a few days should pass in games before enemies respawn at any given location in an open world game. And non-open world games like bioshock shouldn't have respawning enemies at all.

[Games that don’t tell you what to think in terms of good vs. evil]

The Last of Us, both the first game, and the second part. It just shows a string of events where everyone can be justified to a point, and the game never tries to tell you who is right or wrong.

[Video game moments that surprised you the most?]

Well obviously here be spoilers.

System Shock II

When it is revealed that Polito is dead and it was Shodan all along talking to you. It was such a brilliant reveal putting a lot of previous small utterances in context. Like before the reveal on the hydrophonics level, "Polito" complains why are you so slow, and I was thinking bitch please. But knowing later that it was Shodan it made 100% sense, as Shodan despises humans.

Heavy Rain

I really didn't expect that the origami killer was Shelby.

The Last of Us

Joel's daughter dying was very out of the blue for me, especially so soon.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert

Kane's appearance in it, it's unfortunate that they never followed up on this and turned the series into a comedy for Red Alert 2.

[Unpopular series installments you love]

Dragon Age 2 is my favorite Dragon Age too.

And I loved COD Infinite Warfare.

Ghost Recon Wildlands was not very popular with old school fans of Ghost Recon, yet it is one of my favorite games from recent times.

I also love Deus Ex: Invisible War and Deus Ex Mankind Divided, two from games from the same franchise that are often looked down on.

And Mass Effect Andromeda as well.

[Games without clear objectives/goals]

The game I've been playing for the longest time, Transport Tycoon Deluxe, has no real end goal or objective, you just build and grow your transport infrastructure indefinitely. And when you get bored with it you start a new game.

[Do you use the social media share options?]

I don't. Even if I want to share something. I'll do it the old fashioned way. I just take a bunch of screenshots during playing and select the best after then upload them manually after curating and optimizing them.

[What do you think about Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven?]

It is one of the top 10 games ever made. Maybe even top 5.

And it had a huge modding community.

[Which is the best PC game of all time?]

The Best game is DeusEx, nothing else even comes close to dethroning it.

[CD PROJEKT RED internal system hacked]

Glad they are not paying. Also I'd like to find out who are their "contacts in game journalism" and have them burned forever so they never get a job anywhere but an amazon warehouse.