StaceyPowers

Yes, all the time. You carry and seve the "bestest" weapons for whatever and you end up finishing the game with a pea shooter. I think this just goes back to bad game design. Like the typhoon in deusex human revolution. You find maybe 3 shoots for it through the entire game.

Spoilers are very good but I usually don't overdo it. Let me explain - all I want to know is how the game plays, if there are a lot bugs and have an idea of how enjoyable it is. I don't really watch story spoilers because I want to enjoy it. However, I'll take a short summary as in if it's trash or not.

So I'm basically venting my frustration here because I have nobody to really talk to about it in real life.  I always say that I don't really have any friends, but I actually do have one, but one who I can only tolerate in small doses.  The thing is, she has major anxiety problems (a thing she can't be faulted for), and I guess this carries over into the video game playing experience.  The thing is, I've dealt with people of this sort before, who get SO angry when bad things happen (i.e. they die a lot) in a video game and instead of acknowledging that maybe they just need more practice, they start complaining that the game is badly designed, is bad, unfair, too hard, or some other variation/combination of these things.  Or even instead of acknowledging anything at all, just remaining calm and not getting very visibly and audibly frustrated in my presence.  It really makes me extremely uncomfortable, and takes all the fun out of playing a game together for me.  I mean, the whole point of a game is to have fun, but with this kind of person, when they get like that, no matter how much you tell them to calm down and just relax and don't worry about how well you're performing, they just can't do it; they must continually yell at the game and complain about why its unfair and how "this shouldn't be this way" or "that shouldn't be that way" and inevitably, "I can't play this game anymore."  *sigh*
She's a huge Zelda fan, and she was having one of her fits while we were playing this other game, when she started talking about how this reminded her of the problem she had with Zelda a Link to the Past; that its way too hard because enemies knock you like halfway across the screen when they hit you and you fall and die (her words, not mine).  I tried to say that its only seems very difficult because she's not used to that style of game, (because she really isn't.  She grew up on Gamecube and stuff after that, and has very little experience playing 2D games), but she -insists- that its a design flaw and a problem with the game, to which I could only try to hide my frustration.  All I could really say was that "there's nothing wrong with the game, you're just not good enough."  Admittedly not the best choice of words, but if I had said, "there's nothing wrong with the game, you just need more practice is all." (which is what I really should have said), it would have basically conveyed the same message.  Anyway, I guess that's the end of my rant.  Sorry for subjecting you all to this.

On the contrary. You can fanboi all day long about New Vegas around me. Even with game-breaking bugs, I adore it. I wouldn't keep playing it over and over while it breaks if I didn't.

I'm on my first playthrough of Oblivion 🙂

The family atmosphere in RDR2. Something that didn’t exist for me growing up.

Because that's what @Reality vs Adventure does. In the most endearing way.

What do you miss most about your favorite game when you aren’t playing it? The characters? The setting? The gameplay? The lore? Another aspect?

God that sounds like a horrible bug. But sometimes it is funny you are just standing there waiting for it to get over and something just comes out and kills you while the npc is talking normally XD

This is the best thing I can think of to do. Maybe developers will take notice. Maybe not. But if we can get this spread around the internet, it can't hurt.
http://chng.it/rGPvhxB82G

In game? Not much as I always had to play alone due to not having any friends to game with. But there was one time that I almost put someone in the hospital. I was talking about a game I liked that he didn't. He took it as a personal attack and picked a fight. He swung at me, I dodged it, grabbed a brick, and smashed it on his head. Why he felt ok picking a fight with a girl over a video game, I'll never know.

I don't have any gaming merch any more, as I find it tacky unless the entire room makes it work. Mine doesn't. Instead, my gaming space is set up as an altar of sorts; skulls (and skull accessories), incense and no small amount of wires sprawled across the place give it an air of a particular Black Sabbath song. I call my gaming space "Computershrine", which I like to draw upon while writing works for my fictional setting of Techropolis.

I'd say vault 76 because it was in the worst Fallout game created in history (not that I played it. I have standards you know). 😹

Called the whole team to get in my car, there were around 7/8 guys on the car, some in the passengers seat, and some on the roof, then threw a grenade under the car, i expected them to rage because of that but it was hella funny xd

Tragic ending is one thing, but I take issue with endings that reveal all your efforts through the entire game as pointless.
I literally can't name any game from recent times that has a completely flawless happy ending. There is always some tragedy involved. And older games I don't remember well enough if they had a truly happy ending or not.

It's true, as the newbie helper which I tend to be in most MMOs, I hang around the lower levels to ensure that higher leveled players don't terrorize them when they're just getting used to the game. I also help them out with quests they're struggling to compete if possible. It's very time-consuming, sometimes those newbies become very dependent on you for EVERYTHING and won't really try to improve their fighting skills and strategies to survive on their own. Some get stronger and start talking all kinds of smack to you when you were the one that basically allowed them to even get that far without being picked on. It's because I do have good tendencies why I even take on this role in the first place...

It's the one feature I'd rather have in a game than have to be spending time looking for my follower. Some games have a spell of sorts to teleport your follower to you and in a magic based game, that'd be very lore-friendly. I think in other games they should incorporate in a very immersion friendly so it doesn't ruin the experience.

Have you thought about cuteness in the horror games? In that case the little nightmares and the limbo are two good games. 
I think cuteness here is subjective in that case. 
 

All the freaking time. OK, maybe not all the time, but more often than most people. And I'm not ashamed for it, to me this is a testament to well written characters. If my subconscious can't tell that they are fictional.
The first time I remember this happening was with Mona Sax, from Max Payne 2.

I know she was also in the first game, but wasn't as developed as a character there.
Then there was Anna Grimsdottir from the Splinter Cell series.

I know, minor character, but still something about the way she was teasing Sam. I didn't like her makeover in Conviction though.
Next Madison Paige from Heavy Rain

This one is a weird one. Because I was actually dating a girl at the time who had the same interests as Madison (motorcycles and photography), and even looked a bit like her.
And, then there was Miranda Lawson from Mass Effect 2 / 3

I know she is not the most popular LI In the series, but to me her romance story was the most fulfilling in the game. And her character goes through the most development over the series, the rest doesn't really change.
And finally after a long hiatus it happened again, with Abby from The Last of Us 2

That's why the end of the game literally crushed me.

There are laws against scalping, but it mostly depends on the "when and where" you're doing it. You can't stand outside a sport stadium and sell scalp tickets. That can get you a night in jail and a fine. You can't stand outside an electronics or gaming store and sell PS5's all the same. But if you buy several and go to websites like CL to sell them, then there's nothing that can be done about that.
It's a kind of "pick and choose" when it's to be called legal and illegal.

I find it hard to believe that they can afford to spend ~£450 on a brand new video games console to resell and not make said ~£450 go far if they need it. I get it, 'supply and demand' and 'asset flipping' are all valid strategies of making more money in the system we live in, and I slow clappingly applaud them on the dubious honour of their bots winning the race to resell a popular item.
I say hard to believe and not 'impossible' because there probably are one or two people who desperately need not just £450, but more than that going forward, and wouldn't do this if they could swallow their pride and do better. I'm sure one or two had resorted to selling furniture to no avail, relying on food banks, changing their phone's data plans or Hell, selling their current ones for an older model that can still support the internet for their job and to scalp. But not the hundreds or however many are doing this.

@StaceyPowers mentioned a topic on racism in games, but I can't think of a game that targets racism specifically, let alone tackling it. But I think the movie Crash would be a good drama game where you have to make decisions, and most being related to prejudice and racism. In the movie there are multiple characters whose lives come crashing together that evolves around racism and prejudice. 

It's because I'm not a fan (yet, I hope) that I'm reading his work. I've had this Commemorative Edition of Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft, unread for so many years (about 11 now) that I'm giving it another chance. I'd finished Call of Cthulu (2018) a few days back, so impressed was I that I wanted to see how it was compared to the book. I had intended to read the eponymous story but was so glued to the game that I couldn't make time for the original work.
So that, and quite possibly Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth if you've the stomach for a slightly older FPS. And if you're into the tabletop I've heard many good and frightful things about the Call of Cthulu RPG by Chaosium Inc., as well as Achtung! Cthulu. What I'd give for Cthulu Invictus, the Ancient Roman Cthulu RPG book.... Ahem. The Dark Conspiracy tabletop RPG would also support Lovecraftian stuff well I think, being Near-Future and containing supernatural phenomenon and the like.
We Happy Few sort of has Lovecraftian vibes to it, but is more steeped in an Orwellian, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers and Doctor Who: The Happiness Patrol/Jubilee influence than Cthulu as such.

Like many aspects of video game design, traps are only as good as FARTing. Which is to say, Finding and Removing Traps.
I'm currently playing We Happy Few, which has a few problems:
Scarcity. Encounters with tripwires are far and few between. This means that when they come up they feel like they're a cheap way of taking a liberal chunk of the player's health away. Now some of these are hidden by darkness and the player can be blamed for not having a torch, which, err, sees too little use to be considered than going in somewhere new fumbling in the dark. "Disarmament". Disarming traps in We Happy Few almost always means either jumping over them (to surprising effectiveness), or sprinting through them thus activating them (an exploded bomb is technically disarmed) and either taking damage or.... not. Disarmament. If you're unfortunate enough to have any content left over by the time you get the Multitool required to disarm traps properly, then you'll have to hold down the X button to do so like when you've got several lockers to use the lockpick on, or a few planks of wood boarding up an entrance to be broken with your jimmy bar. It's another pain for the player to deal with it on top of the misery of (what will probably be) an extra 40 hours of that. Because of the nature of We Happy Few (a first person "immersive sim", or to use a less masturbatory name for the genre, a "0451" game) the player has the advantage of seeing traps for themselves. Compare this to something like Baldur's Gate, an isometric Computer Roleplaying Game (CRPG) based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition (AD&D 2E) ruleset. In Baldur's Gate, the most capable member of the party should be FARTing at all times outside of combat, which will run a scan once every six seconds to find any traps within the vicinity. The more points they have in the skills that aid in their detection of traps, the more easily they will come up and can be attempted to be disarmed. Successful disarmament means it doesn't blow everyone to kingdom come; unsuccessful disarmament at best means the situation doesn't change, and at worst it means it's time to reload your last save because who wants to carry the remains and loot of your party member to the nearest temple? Not my Lv. 4 Dragon Disciple Sorcerer.
It's important to note that in D&D traps are essentially written as "you find it or you don't / you disarm it or you don't", and it takes great enginuity on the Game Master's (GM) part to make them better than that. Otherwise every single room in every single dungeon is going to begin with the Rogue saying "I look for traps", which is canonical (read: tiresome) a phrase as "I have Darkvision".
So, how do we build a better man trap?
Consistency. Ironically this is something of a trap itself, like a bomb that only arms itself upon going beyond a speed limit. Going below that speed limit means only one thing: kaboom. When a trap is introduced to a game, it must then either feature heavily (exclusively or almost exclusively) in that level, or traps have to appear every so many hours/dungeons. Think of it as the Start-to-Crate review system: forgetting you have traps and then add them later on to fill space shows a lack of imagination. Senses. How does one FART? Do we see a tripwire? Does our character make a sniffing sound? Do we hear a ticking noise that's gradually speeding up? How we find a trap is just as important as the trap's effect itself. The Dance of Death. It's important that players are equipped with the means to deal with traps the moment they encounter them, unless it's made clear before such lethalities that backtracking to get to goodies seen earlier is expected. Backtracking is a fundamental part of surviving We Happy Few, so the Multitool fits in to the mediocre interfacing that is one of the game's defining characteristics. However, it comes so late in the game that backtracking at that point is miserable. Don't make your backtracking miserable - give the player the tools early on enough that they can easily retrace their steps, but not so early that they feel they're just being yanked around for the Hell of it. The Dance of Death (Again). Supposing you're not making a game with backtracking though. Disarming traps shouldn't be the only way to make it past something, especially if disarmament is a minigame. The minigame, like everything else in the game, should be fun. Not everyone else likes minigames like I do though, so it's important that if the player can't do it there's an alternative way that uses their character skills rather than player logic skills. Something like a crawlspace they need to uncover, or enemies they have to plough through. They should have to do something to progress, if indeed the trap is preventing progress. Consequence. One problem with traps is they're just annoying. Health can be healed, and keeping me in place for several real time minutes because I continuously fail my dexterity saving throw (every CRPG with a web spell ever) causes irreversable damage to my opinion of the game going forward. You can go with stat losses and semi-permanent damage that can only be healed by something like an Injury Kit or a Surgery skill, but again that's a problem that goes away. What isn't as easily healed is pride. The trap might be harmless to the player, but not the safe they're trying to crack, which destroys the contents inside of it. Their perfect stealth run can be ruined by the crushing of glass beneath their feet, alerting the nearby enemies. An explosion doesn't have to harm the player, but an explosion usually means danger to all inside the dungeon, does it not? Reward. Like what I'd said about dungeons in another post of yours, traps don't come from nowhere. They are built with purpose. Whether to catch food or trespassers, or simply for the sadistic pleasure of watching someone weep as their precious goodies end up being melted away in jar of acid, they are borne of someone's enginuity, time and resources. People typically don't trap something unless there's value, or they've had something of value taken from them. How many people buy security cameras after they've been burgled, for instance? I'd be surprised if there were that many, because they think it won't happen to them until it does. In order to be burgled though there has to be the idea there's something worth burgling. Think of it from the point of view of the trap maker, however (un)skilled they may be - what would make them defend their property to such a possibly lethal extent? When you put yourself in their shoes, you can end up making the player's reward as good for them as it is for you as a designer. So there's my long-winded thoughts as ever. I should be reading Lovecraft, but I couldn't resist talking about another topic I do so enjoy. For further reading I recommend The Angry GM's "Traps Suck" article, which focusses on tabletop RPG traps but nonetheless begins with how Super Mario World help him appreciate - and deteste - traps, good and bad.

I have it on Switch. For those of us who, like Senua, are schizophrenic, it's an emotional rollercoaster.

Tell Me Why and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice are the two that come straight to mind for me. Maybe it's because I know exactly what the characters are facing and what they have gone through that makes those two stick out in my mind.