StaceyPowers

Lest we forget, Omicron spike wasn't that long ago. I would not be surprised if that also has caused production problems.

What is an example of a time a video game developer cut corners and thought you wouldn’t notice? For instance, in BioShock games, I noticed they reuse the city skylines of Rapture and Columbia, i.e. if you look out of the window to your left, and then the window to your right, you will see repetition in the scenery. I don’t understand how they could not think the gamer would discover this.

At what points in a game do you make a manual save? What motivates you to do it? I find most of the time when I save a game manually, it is because everything is working okay and not bugging at that moment in time, so I am making a save because I am concerned about losing progress if something bugs shortly thereafter. I also will manually save after finishing anything challenging and time-consuming. Sometimes I will save too if there is beautiful scenery/weather, as I did not know how to make screenshots on PS3.

When you run into a bug in a video game, are there certain standard protocols you will try to fix it, because you have noticed they often work? For instance, if I run into a bug in a video game, I will often attempt to load a different area and/or a different game screen, as forcing the bugged zone to reload sometimes fixes it.

What are some remasters that were not just disappointing, but actually worse than the original games?

What are some games where every time you play them, you notice new details—even if you thought you were thorough on prior playthroughs?

What are some games with impressive little background details you could easily miss? In the Outer Worlds, I saw Nyoka trying to teach Parvati how to shoot a gun, explaining it was just a machine. In Parvati’s room later, I noticed she’d hung a poster with an engineering diagram of a gun.

What are some games that did incredibly subtle foreshadowing? For example, in Dragon Age: Origins, in the party banter at some point one of the characters indicates that Morrigan is planning something (which she is). But I would never have caught that on my first playthrough.

There has been rumor (?) lately about PS3 emulation on PS5 via PS Plus. I would love to be able to play PS3 games on PS5, but I don’t see myself wanting to pay for a subscription for it. I’d rather just buy another PS3 if mine dies. Thoughts?

I might play Elder Scrolls Online soon. Does anyone have any useful tips and advice to offer a newbie?

What are some video games that were based on films that were actually really amazing?

What game franchises have you quit? What would make you come back?

Do you deliberately handicap your character (i.e. by choosing harder skills) or make in-game decisions with harsh consequences to make games harder?

A couple times over the past month, I had to redo sections of open world games because of bugs. In both cases, I found that what took me a week the first time took me 1-2 days the second because I fast travelled. It’s crazy how much time I now realize I spend just walking around game worlds!

What is the most dramatic thing you have done to protect your console? This question applies mostly to people with kids and pets. I dove between my cat and my PS5 and let her vomit on me to spare my console.

I am guessing most of us do not complete every single quest in every game we play, especially open world games. If you do ignore quests, what causes you to skip them or abandon them? Usually for me it is having to do unethical things in-game, but sometimes I skip fetch quests because they bore me.

As a completionist, I can sympathize. I collected everything I could for a long time before switching to collecting only certain minimal items to preserve my sanity =D

If you push the wrong button in a game, do you go back to fix your mistake? For instance, I accidentally killed someone in a game last night. But I chose not to fix it, The mistake felt genuine, even though it was stupid.

If you can persuade/intimidate/lie your way out of a fight in a game, do you? In what scenarios?

Have you played any games that were hard for you to beat on a replay, even if you didn’t raise the difficulty?

What games have the most interesting items? Like as presented in the menus. I love the items in The Outer Worlds; they have funny descriptions.

Have there been times in games that even though you killed a hostile NPC, you still felt like a murderer? I feel this way any time the NPC is cute (i.e. a mudcrab in Skyrim).

I like decorating my houses in video games. I was surprised to find that in some ways though, I’ve had even more fun watching The Outer Worlds decorate my ship for me. There’s no creativity involved on my end obviously, but I am often delighted by the unexpected details and surprises. I always look forward to coming back to the ship to see what has been added or changed. Which do you think is more fun—decorating your in-game home or the game doing it for you?

Did a video game you played ever change the way you saw something in another franchise of any sort—especially one you followed for a long time? For example, after playing Mass Effect, the Reapers made me consider the Borg in Star Trek in a new light. It made me visualize a different direction they could go, which actually ended up happening recently in the franchise.