Withywarlock

While I do enjoy what HBO does with their big budget productions (Band of Brothers and The Pacific were incredible), I'm more concerned about the idea of "as many as eight seasons" than their budget. It's going to be a gargantuan undertaking to spread the two games over half that many seasons, and even with original ideas thrown in (when they're already producing The Walking Dead) it's still going to turn out to be a slog. HBO's net worth is $10bn, so I don't think they will spend as much money as Kenney claims they will. I'd say he's massively overvaluing both the TLoU brand, his creative ability and HBO's marketing but as the show doesn't exist yet, I've no room to talk right now. Here's hoping it isn't a waste.

I'm afraid it's a bit too late for that, he's already got his name to at least one video game!

It was something I hadn't realised until Jim Sterling had pointed it out: eyes. However hyper-realistic games end up looking, and fair play to graphic designers who are able to achieve it, characters - particularly females, I've noticed - are consistently doe-eyed. Perhaps it's done on purpose, that the uncanny valley effect gets unnerving and things have to change before release. It could just well be my imagination. It's all in the eye of the beholder, as they say.

The Stand, by Stephen King. The general gist is a superflu virus named 'Captain Trips' wipes out about 99.4% of humanity, and the story focusses on two factions vying for survival. One is led by Mother Abigail with the 'good' faction, and another is led by Randal Flagg, who is a recurring character in King's universe as a sort of Satan archetype. The only problem with this is Tom Clancy's The Division hasn't left much wiggle room for this kind of setting. I suppose one could maybe turn King's town of Castle Rock into something of a world akin to Deadly Premonition, but how one ties in Needful Things with Uncle Otto's Truck, i've no idea. It would take an extremely talented development studio to not turn the references and events into masturbation.

As an autistic person I can appreciate what this child was going through, having said things that nearly got me sent to court because of my social ineptitude (the party involved mercifully didn't press charges). The punishment was being invited to my headmaster's office, my mum being there and having to explain my actions, which was enough to scare me into being a lot more careful into how I talk to - or rather write about - people, especially those I don't know as well as I think I do. But then I'm in my own humble corner of the autism spectrum, and was lucky enough to have a social circle which supported me after my fall from grace. What works for me might not work for someone else, and might not for this child either. Their reaction to being told that what they're saying is unsettling and wrong may well differ to mine. I can't blame the parents, because to do so would be blaming my own for my social incompetence, when really it was all on me processing things in a way that was socially unacceptable and not thinking before I acted on the lessons I had been taught about scripting and echolalia by my folks. I still think taking this beyond a sit down and talking to is too harsh. Quote the article, "the mom explained how her son is completely unaware of his felony case." Imagine if this child had to go to a young offenders' institute or prison, would the world be a better place if they were there? Would they leave such an institute a better person? I don't believe either has an optimistic answer.

Oh I'm long past feeling awkward about it. It was fifteen years ago after all! xD

Hard for me to say. I can't even argue "better the devil you know than the devil you don't" because it seems a lot of these companies have skeletons in their closets. Were it not for any potential language barriers, maybe Owlcat Studios, the guys behind Pathfinder: Kingmaker and the upcoming Wrath of the Righteous. The role I'd really like is either being part of a worldbuilding team or their voice actors, so then it's a matter of what property I'd like to be involved in, rather than the studio.

I pay the Entry Subscription for Final Fantasy XIV, which is about £7.69 as opposed to the £9.99(?) which allows you to play more than a single character, and the veteran rewards is a good loyalty scheme to take the sting out of it. I might also be paying for D&D Beyond for the unlimited character slots and being able to share resources with my other players, but it means choosing digital over print, which I don't particularly want to do. With how World of Warcraft's been doing lately I'm a lot more conscious of what I'm getting for my subscription and if I'm comfortable with it ticking over for another month.

Echoing what the two posters above me say, it's sadly not a real game. The first giveaway was that it's a gaming monitor, which typically has such things to illustrate (usually very poorly) how the features work. The second was the 144Km/h in the bottom right corner, 144 just so happening to be the refresh rate of the monitor. And thirdly, I'm familiar with this marketing from Ye Olden Dayes when graphics card boxes had similar art. Tacky as it looks today, it did wonders in drawing the eye.

Conversation trains in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion were a wild ride. The link says it all. Many a quality parody and meme came out of it.

As said in my post, that wasn't an option, unless you count not playing the game as an option. It's fine if you believe that, but I'd rather the developers didn't after I'd paid ~£40/$60 to be told that.

I have to say, I wasn't overly impressed given I'd seen the Angry Video Game Nerd's (AVGN) review, which is obviously exaggerated for comedic effect. But having seen IGN's review of the new one, I have to say I quite like the look of it. The music is as catchy as ever, so I might have to pick it up given it's on Steam, just not for the £24.99 they're currently asking for.

It depends on what kind of obstruction it is. I'm not a fan of Silent Hill by any means but I love the fog of that game, for technical and thematic reasons, and I like it in driving games or just about any game it features. What I don't like is darkness. In Final Fantasy XIV, one of the main locales named Gridania is an absolute pain to navigate in the dark because it's a dense forest with root bridges that are hard enough to find at the best of times. There's so many dips and drops that make navigation difficult without the issues of enemies as is. Because the in-game time is different to real time, darkness in Gridania means tabbing out to watch Narcos, or teleporting somewhere else. I can however cope with darkness to an extent. In Dark Souls' Tomb of Giants the aggro range of the gigantic skeletons and other things that go bump in the night is dramatically reduced in the dark, and in order to see you need either Pyromancy spells or a magical skull lantern that lights up the place and draws enemies to you. The only hint you get in the dark is their beaming eyes, provided they're facing you. And in Dark Souls II, there's torches you have to buy and light, encouraging you to clear out enemies in the dark or have a weapon in one hand and a torch in the other. I don't recall well enough if Dark Souls III had any such mechanics.

I said it's always cheating, but the more important question is if it matters or not. That's up to the individual and others it affects. In an online PvE game say, I don't care if my cheesing ruins the developers' vision for a boss fight. It does bother me though if it ruins other players' enjoyment of the fight. Many examples of this can be found in World of Warcraft, where players in dungeons think they're saving time by using environmental exploits, but when someone who can't do it (oftentimes me) pulls a load of mobs, it just wastes everyone's time and resources.

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Now I know what the story is, it's clicked with me and I'm rather enjoying my 14 day free return to the game. It's hard to recommend because it starts out at snails' pace, but it's good fun. I might well renew my subscription for it.

I didn't do too bad there. The only one I got wrong was Rafe Adler of Uncharted, who I never would've guessed. There were only three I had to guess, with the Dark Souls king being the one that had me racking my brain. I almost chose Vendrick, but knew that couldn't have been right because he looks nothing like that.

I'm from England so I'm used to the nanny state and excessive surveillance, so I'm rather bias toward this (although, as others have said, I still regret having to defend the Chinese government). While I don't think this is the right approach, they are at least doing something to curb the deaths that come from video game addiction (one such example being in Taiwan). Deep vein thrombosis and other such issues that come from being sat playing games is no joke. I think this is only treating a symptom, and using a sledgehammer to do so. Why are people playing games for that long? What is being done to curb it in terms of education or regulation?

I mostly get my news from here, but I'm more for reading the headlines. While I do like when people link YongYea's videos, who does a good roundup, I like to go to PC Gamer for the articles. GameIndustry Biz is my absolute favourite for news from people within the industry, especially for regular interviews on what job roles entail and the more in-depth side of development.

I had an absolute ballache getting Mad Max to run. If I knew it was that easy, I would've done that instead! That made me laugh, thanks Patrik!

I played the Dr. Mario released on smartphones, but I fail to remember how similar it is to the original. Seems like a good "reverse Tetris," but not I don't think I could cope with the reduced time for placing blocks, or rather, antibiotics.

Probably anything from the Doom (2019) soundtrack. I don't particularly like music that heavy, so that's why I only suffered that game by listening to the soundtrack of the 1993 game. That said I did like the soundtrack from Nightmare Creatures on Playstation 1, that's about as heavy as I like video game metal.

I don't like it as much as I do Puyo-Puyo, or rather its Western re-releases (Kirby's Avalanche and Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine), but I can appreciate why others enjoy it.

I have two guesses, but the only one I can think of at the moment is "Don't Open the Doors." My other guess, Little Big Adventure, isn't quite as close to your suggestion. I hope either of those helped.

I'd like the stats for damage and whatnot be accurately measured. Like in this image and this image from the first Mass Effect, for instance (I'm not picking on Mass Effect; nearly all video games are incompetent at displaying helpful item info.) What do any of those stats mean, and how do the stats on the first image (damage protection, shields, and tech/biotics protection) negate the effects of the second (damage and armour piercing rounds)? Does it mean "336 minus 68 equals 268 damage to Shepard's health," which can probably only go as high as 999? That can't be right because Shepard would be dead in 5 shots, and that doesn't happen on Normal difficulty. Games where there's no numerical values don't help either. I'd ask if it's too much to ask for a comprehensible stat system, but I know it does because Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic exists.

Playing the objective, and generally getting things done. I've learnt from years of being my now worst enemy, once having been that player who would stay back and just play Deathmatch instead of capturing flags and points and such. I am however guilty of using Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)'s Ground War mode for sniping battles, given it's built so incredibly well for it. I'll also add that I can think outside the box. In Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War especially I find myself trying to flank opponents, get melee kills and the odd execution to make my team's advance easier. I've done this in other games, but no more than in the recent CoD games.