What video game track makes you feel nostalgic?
I’m sure that there is an endless numbers of these, but here are the ones that I could think of the top of my head.
- Still alive, Portal
- Hell March, Command & Conquer: Red Alert
- Snake Eater, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
- Battlefield theme, any BF version.
A friend actually recorded a Still Alive cover a few years back <3
Above all of those, there is one song in my mind, it’s not in any official way linked to the game, but Hammerfall, Heeding the Call takes me back to Guild Wars without fail. Because of one video made by an ally guild years ago…
What are some fun games to play while talking on Skype?
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes literally forces you to communicate to get anything done. Only one of you need to own this game, since only the one who is defusing the bomb. Other players download the bomb defusal guide from the games website (for free) and they can even print it out if they want. This game includes VR-mode, but that is not in any way required.
BattleBlock Theater is a fast-paced puzzle platformer that you cannot help but to love. This game runs on almost any machine and Co-op is amazing. You might start working together, but you know, only one can be at the top of the scoreboard and the opportunities to troll your friends in hilarious ways are endless in this game.
Gang Beasts is a silly melee fighting game, that you couldn’t play with a serious face even if you tried.
*I’m not responsible for any friendships possibly destroyed by playing any of these games.
What offline/LAN game did you enjoy on the PC that you will never forget?
There are so many single-player games that I’m going to limit my list to multiplayer games.
- Commandos (series), played through all of them with a friend 5–10 times.
- Age of Empires (series) and Empire Earth (series). I’m combining these, because they are very similar.
- Detroit, old tycoon style DOS game.
- Command & Conquer (series), mainly Red Alert 2.
- Counter-Strike (series), played for year on LAN, didn’t ever really get in to online for this one.
What was a game you really enjoyed that’s considered really bad by most gamers?
No Man’s Sky
I do understand why it’s not for everyone and why people are mad about the false promises made before the release that were borderline scams.
Unlike what seems everyone else, I did my research before buying it. I watched hours of PS4 streams during the week before PC release. I bought it as soon as it released and I liked it from the very beginning.
I did have some problems with it, but things like narrow FOV and low framerate cap were easy to fix with modified ini-file. Also, I have a high-end gaming PC that can handle the performance issues without too many problems.
But the thing is, that I’m 100+ hours in the game and I still like it. I even think it’s better now, that the Foundation update is out.
Can you list 5 video games people would judge you for playing, and why?
- No Man’s Sky, 100+ hours in it, started on the PC release day.
- The Division, grinding the “nonexistent” end-game content.
- Watch_Dogs, people love to hate the game, because of the “graphical downgrade” between E3 trailer and the game’s release.
- Clicker Heroes, for wasting my time on absolutely useless “game”.
- Guild Wars, if they knew how much time I actually spent in it. ..maybe not gamers, but non-gamers for sure.
While I understand that people might judge me for playing these games, it has never diminished my enjoyment of them. People have the right to their opinions, but it doesn’t mean I can’t ignore them.
What video game do you regret ever playing and why?
Over the years I have played everything from awesome to awful. I have spent too much cash and too much time on some of them.
Because I have played all the games I have, I now have a very good idea, not only of the games I like or dislike but also why. This makes it a lot easier to figure out very quickly if I’m going to enjoy playing the game, before buying it.
I have regretted paying as much as I did for some of them, but to this day I haven’t regretted playing any one of them.
When upgrading my monitor for my gaming rig, which is more important: resolution or refresh rate?
Monitors resolution, refresh rate and response time all affect gaming. Most gaming monitors have under 2 ms response times. (less is better)
Higher the resolution, more it requires from your computer to provide high framerate and also the game you are playing will affect the framerate you are actually getting. So keep that in mind too.
I wouldn’t recommend going under full HD, 1080p. On the other end, unless you have a lot of extra cash, I wouldn’t recommend a 4k monitor for gaming yet. Most games would struggle to get even 60 fps, on any machine today. For the refresh rate, I would recommend 60 – 144 Hz. Going over 144 Hz isn’t cost-effective (yet).
So now we are left with four options. Here they are.
- 1080p 60Hz, minimum I would recommend
- 1080p 144Hz. Better for games that require faster reaction times, like online FPS games.
- 1440p 60Hz. If it’s important to you that games look more stunning and play mostly single player or aren’t very competitive on fast phased multiplayer games.
- 1440p 144Hz Best of both worlds. However, for example Mass Effect: Andromeda on ultra-settings, will require Nvidia GTX 1080 level or better GPU, for full benefits.
*I personally would recommend G-sync (NVIDIA GPU) or FreeSync (AMD GPU), but that a cost issue, as is everything else.
*There are also ultrawide monitors that I did not include on this post.
*Some games may be locked to 30 or 60 fps maximum, by the developers.
If you could only have 5 video games to play for the rest of your life, what would they be?
I have seen endless numbers of the question that requires me to choose 1 game and I have not been interested to even answer them. So, good job on that part, you got me to answer 😉
This depends highly on whether the online features and community for these games remain on todays (or peak) level. To counter that I have 2 lists.
If online stays as-is:
- Civilization 5
- GTA 5
- Rocket League
- Guild Wars 2
- Battlefield 4
Offline, but working:
- Civilization 5
- GTA 5
- Cities: Skylines
- ARK: Survival Evolved
- DiRT Rally
What video games have a mini-game inside of their loading screen?
There’s a good reason why we haven’t seen more minigames in loading screens…
In 1995 Namco Bandai (then Namco Ltd) filed for a patent which gave them ownership of the idea of a loading screen minigames. The patent was valid for 20 years and only expired couple of years ago. In that time developers got so used to not having that option, that to this day we haven’t seen that many games implementing the feature.
*Yes, technically developers could have paid Namco Bandai for the right to make them, but very few did.
To answer your question, here’s the ones I know
Bayonetta has hit combo training mode. Assassins Creed (honestly I don’t remember which one) lets you run around “virtual, unloaded world”. Tekken 5 (Namco title) had some low-tech space-sim.
Not really games, but Fallout 4 and Skyrim(?) had interactive models on the loading screens.
The new similar thing devs are fighting against, is the multiplayer queue wait times, so I think it’s fitting to mention, that in Dota 2 you can play The Shopkeeper’s Quiz and in Rocket League you can play any practice mode while waiting.
How should I help a console gamer adjust to a PC?
My friend is going to get rainbow six siege for PC when he builds his PC. He has played console since he was born, how do I get him to not reject being killed easily and not having any experience with mouse and keyboard (he owns a MacBook)
Don’t underestimate him. Specially if has played R6 on a console. Especially in R6 the map knowledge and knowing tactics gets you a long way.
Having same mouse sensitivity in all the games will help him learn to aim. Not in numbers, but match how much he has to physically move the mouse to do 360 rotation in-game.
Using controller on PC is fine, even recommended for some games, not for shooters thought. Unlike consoles, most PC games do no not have aim-assist for controller, even if same games console version does.
Why are video games typically released on Tuesdays? Wouldn’t Fridays be more logical?
This actually has a long history behind it, starting from the late 80’s early 90’s, before that games were released throughout the week. Also, it’s not that simple, because there are two different stories here, since while in the US games are released on Tuesdays, in UK they are released on Fridays and actually, all Nintendo games were released on Sundays for a long time, so that’s yet another story.
The US Tuesday release day
Many people credit the Tuesday release day as started by the decision of the Sega marketing team and more precisely Sega marketing director Al Nilsen and “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” project manager Madeline Schroeder. They wanted something special for Sonic 2 and decided on (first ever) simultaneous global release of the game. When deciding the release day Nilsen came up with “It should be Tuesday, and we’ll call it Sonic 2sday” and so it was. Sonic 2 released globally on Tuesday November 24th 1992.
As far as I know, that has originated from a book called Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation by Blake J. Harris
In the meanwhile, there was also turmoil in the entertainment industry. Publishers were starting to notice that they were losing first week sales on games released later on the week, only because stores were slow to fill their shelves. Carried by the success of the Sonic 2 released Tuesday started to sound like a good option, since it meant that the stores didn’t have to pay extra for their employees to fill the shelves on Sunday to ready up for Monday, but there was still a lot room to get the shelves filled before the first weekend. That became an industry standard that then carried over also to music and movies.
Over time publishers became more and more reliant on sales figures. Today, one of the biggest causes why media is still being released on Tuesdays, is that the SoundScan sales data. They measure the number of weekly sales starting on Tuesday through to the following Monday, because that is the industry standard. So, now, releasing on any other day, means that you will lose at least one day of sales, from the first week.
Another reason is, that every game releasing will have bugs, some minor and some major. Now developers and publishers have couple days to hotfix the game or servers, right after release, without paying for weekend extra.
Sonic 2sday never became a thing
The UK Friday release day
I UK the change started earlier, in the ’80s and from a different origin. It was the big stores like the Dixons group, that got frustrated with the chaotic supply line and set the new rules. There is a far more in-depth article about UK by Robert Purchese at Why are we stuck with games being released on a Friday?
The Nintendo Sunday release day
As far as I have been able to gather, the Nintendos decision is based in Japanese culture more than anything. In Japan, Monday is first day of the week and that may, for example, mean that they view first week of sales differently. However, 2013(ish) they moved to Friday releases.
