Tag: reddit

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Internet communities help beginners build computers

This article is part of a collaboration with iQ by Intel. The PC modding community turns building computers into a social art form that people of all technical skillsets can enjoy. Constructing a computer from spare parts sounds intimidating, but it’s not just for hardcore geeks anymore. PC modding, the term used for customizing or “modifying” a computer, is going mainstream, and the online PC modding communities are happy to share the craft with newcomers. “I truly believe anyone ages eight and up could learn to build a computer with no problems due to the abundance of information available on the subject online…
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Will the upcoming Life is Strange be the coming-of-age story millennials deserve?

Teen girls continue to rule gaming like never before, the latest entry coming in the form of the soon-to-be-released episodic adventure called Life is Strange. Created by Dontnod, the same team behind the promising yet ultimately conflicted Remember Me, this new game tackles coming-of-age in the millennial era. High school senior Max struggles to cope with all your usual teen girl problems: best friends who change, falling asleep in photography class, learning how to harness your time travel powers. Well, okay, some elements of Max’s coming-of-age tale may lean toward the atypical. But her power to rewind time, unlike so many other…
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In the sci-fi mystery game Cloud Chamber, your co-op partner is the entire internet

Found footage style storytelling like Blair Witch Project compels horror movie audiences for obvious reasons. Unlike regular film experiences, found footage supposedly has no author. With no one telling the story, the audience almost begins to feel as though they themselves are the ones responsible for authoring and solving the ghoulish mystery. This is part of the reason why most found footage horror films leave lore and details pretty vague, inviting us to think up our own. So we scour the footage like detectives, eyes pealed for any anomalies or missed hints, brains buzzing with potential answers. Cloud Chamber takes…
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It sounds like Oculus wants to make Matrix plugs and holodecks a reality

Oculus—those far-seeing, Facebook-owned virtual reality devs—are peering even further into the future, to the time when we will all have Matrix jacks in our skulls and everyone owns a holodeck—the virtual reality cave from the Star Trek universe, not the Russian jelly mold. In a recent Reddit AMA with some top dogs at Oculus Rift, Luckey said that the will continue to innovate with multiple products aside from just the Rift headset “until we get to Matrix plugs into the body and those a long ways off.”  At first I thought he was being hyperbolic, and maybe he was. But…
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Naughty Dog to flip coin to decide whether or not to make a Last of Us sequel

On Reddit, the narrative designer of The Last of Us has said there’s a “50/50” chance of a sequel being made, which continues a proud tradition of ambiguity on the issue. At one point, a sequel was deemed a remote possibility, with no chance of the lead characters of the story returning. He told the PlayStation blog: As far as the journey Joel and Ellie goes on it ends with this game. We were very conscious that we didn’t want to leave this story dangling. If we never do a sequel we’re okay with it, because we told the story…
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Crashing helicopters? Infinite enemies? Do games rely on too many tropes?

Like any other movement or medium, games are defined by the norms. Tune in to a country music radio station (we’re not suggesting this at all, by the way) and you’re guaranteed to hear a steel guitar, vocals that sound more like yodeling, and at least four songs about America. Turn on the tube and you will generally find the same reality show about noodling or some poor schmucks competing for a job. While I can see the novelty in watching a balding, shirtless boob pull a thirty pound catfish out of an underwater hole with his bare hands, games…