Q&A Session #6 -- ANSWERS June 2017 Turbo Edition

 TURBO EDITION

If this is your first Q&A, please know they are not usually like this. Questions are usually limited to 3 per person, and have much longer answers. Check out the previous ones before this for what they're usually like. The next one will be a return to that.

Whitelight

Were there any videos you hated making?

I've hated the audio editing part every time. Playing the games a few times – No Man's Sky, eventually Darkest Dungeon. Putting the video together got exhausting with the longer two hour+ videos but I didn't hate it.

Midir, Sinh or Kalameet? 

Sinh > Midir > Kalameet. My opinion has warmed a bit on Midir now. But it's close.

Do you hate Sony (the playstation bit of sony)? If so can you express your hate/emotions for them in a single sentence? 

Nope. Sony hasn't done anything big enough for me to hate them. Do you hate Sony? Haha.

What's the most hardcore thing you've ever done, bro? 

Nothing. I'm boring as fuck in this category. I'd love to skydive. Oddly I don't think I'd bungee jump though.

Did you like Father Gascoigne's bossfight? 

On a personal level yes. I enjoyed it a lot. On a game design level I think he's way too hard and probably killed the game for too many players.

Favorite thing about Hollow knight? I know you might not have finished it yet. 

How big and non-linear it is. It just keeps going in whatever direction you choose. A close second would be the boss fights.

Played Hotline Miami? 

No and it doesn't interest me for some reason.

Played GTA 5? 

GTA is one of the big series I've never played. Looks good though!

Played Starbound? 

Yes and I didn't like it.

Played Terraria? 

Yes and I didn't like it!

Played DOOM? The Shiny one? 

Yep. I want to get back to it. I enjoyed what I played.

Played Warframe?

Nope.

Played any Assassin's Creeds? 

The first one, then two, then Brotherhood. I played a bit of the pirate one but my PC couldn't run it at the time. Looked like the best one so far though. I think they're okay games. I liked the first one the most when the idea was fresh.

Played any Far Cries? 

1 and 3. I liked some of the storytelling tricks in 3. The first one is probably my favorite because it was so cool when it released. Big game. Very pretty at the time.

You like Roguelikes? You should play Dead Cells BTW. 

Roguelikes are great in theory. Many don't pull it off well though. Dead Cells looks interesting.

Played Prototype 1 or 2? 

Nope, sorry.

What's the dragon in your book called?

Currently unnamed. I haven't finalized the common theme for the names of dragons in my world just yet. I should probably do that for when someone asks next.

Andrew K

What part of the UK were you initially from?

South Wales.

When did you lose your accent? Did you lose it organically, or did you make a conscious effort to fit in? 

My accent is very impressionable. Probably from moving so early in life. If I went back to the UK my accent would be back within a month or two. Same for when I came back to Canada. Wasn't a conscious decision. It just happens.

Very briefly, where do you see the channel in five years time? 

No idea, sorry. If things keep going the way they are, hopefully I'll be at around 200 videos and nearing a million subscribers. Five years is a long time.

What's the best game you've never played? 

God Hand, according to Discord. Bayonetta, according to Turbo Button. Or Tropical Freeze. GTA4 according to metacritic.

What's the worst game you've ever spent over a hundred hours on? 

Fallout 3.

What was the best era of WoW? 

Lich King or Mists of Pandaria. Vanilla had its own charms too though.

What's the best game or mod made in the Source engine? 

Oh I have no idea sorry. I don't follow engines that much. Probably Portal for me.

A game has four difficulty levels, from easiest to hardest. Which do you pick for a first playthrough? 

If it's for the channel, normal. If it's for myself, the one below the hardest setting if I can increase it in-game if that's not enough. The hardest setting is usually unbalanced to the point of frustration.

What is your wife's favourite videogame, either to play or to watch you play? 

Bloodborne for watching. Tetris Attack for playing. She doesn't play many games but she's eerily good at Tetris Attack. She's been playing it since she was a kid.

Who is your favourite author out of Orwell, Bradbury, Huxley and Burgess? 

I am a bad author and have only read two of these. I'm going with Bradbury narrowly over Orwell.

What was your game of the year 2004? 

World of Warcraft. My server was pretty stable.

When you played The Witcher 2 way back when, did you pick Iorveth or Roche? 

Roche, but I stopped playing right after that.

What was the most fun character you ever played in Fallout: New Vegas? 

Neutral Good sniper. I don't roleplay much. The story was the big draw for me there, no matter what character I was.

Guess in one sentence what the next core Bethesda Game will be, given that they have said that it won't be Elder Scrolls and it probably won't be another Fallout.

They only know how to make open world games. I don't see them making a different fantasy or post-apocalyptic setting. Nor do I see them doing lovecraft or a wild west thing. So something more spacey seems more plausible, but I would be less surprised with a Skyrim/Fallout spinoff that "doesn't count" as a main entry to them, just to cash-in on the brand even more. Not one sentence. I don't play by your rules.

Raydon M

Favourite spread/topping for toast?

Just straight butter, or strawberry jam. Not both though!

Favourite number? 

11.

Place in the world you would love to visit if you could? (Don't have to justify your answer) 

Most of Europe. Egypt. South Korea. Japan just for kicks. The far north looks beautiful too.

Reccomend a book to me! (Anything, I need more books to read haha)

Someone recommended The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut to me recently and I loved that, so I'll pass it along. 

Favourite element? (Earth, wind, fire, water etc etc)

They're all good really but I'd go with fire. It's the most otherworldly of them all. Closest to magic.

David S

Have you read Sapiens: a brief history of humankind?

I haven't sorry. Do you recommend it?

Ty H

Have you seen Bill Wurtz' videos, and if so, do you enjoy them?

I think I saw his one on Japan and that was really good. I should watch some more.

Do you like the Halo games? 

Only the first one. I rushed through two so I could play three at release. Three was okay but not a great time. I think the multiplayer was the big draw for the first game and that was on PC. Shooters on consoles aren't fun for me.

What is your favorite book? 

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Equal parts clever and funny. If you read it, just trust that everything will eventually make sense. My favorite author is John Irving. His best is The World According to Garp, according to me.

Would you rather play No Man's Sky for 10 more hours or be stuck in a room full of spiders and nothing else for 24 hours? 

No Man's Sky. I don't like spiders. 24 hours of staying awake with nothing to do would be torture to me as well, even without the spiders. So after I've killed them all I'd still be fucked.

Favorite movie? 

Fight Club. I know it's got an edgelord reputation now but it was mindblowing to teenage me. Not just the message, but how it was told. I may like other movies a little more now, but Fight Club is the firm favorite I've settled on.

Have you played the Furi DLC? Do you like it? 

I beat the first boss. The second one kicked my ass because I hadn't played for months. I'll get back to it one day. It's good but a bit overpriced compared to the base game. DLC should be better value for money imo, but that's another topic.

Anguel B

I'm curious if you've ever had any interest in strategy games. It's sort of a dead genre these days that used to be pretty dominant in the PC market, wondering if you have any thoughts on that.

I played Total Annihilation and Starcraft 2 to death. This is a complicated question to answer for a rapid-fire Q&A. I'll just say that I think there's very little creativity in the latest RTS games. Other genres do individual pieces of that whole package far better, so my guess is people have drifted away.

Is there some kind of thematic subject matter or gameplay genre you think is woefully under served in the current game market?

Adult games—both in terms of sexuality and just serious themes. Very few games are willing to show sexual expression. Even fewer want to speak about important topics in a serious way. Like above, the reasons are complicated. In terms of gameplay, I can't think of any that are woefully missing. Maybe 3D platformers but they're getting some new games right now!

Gareth F

Do you enjoy the Half Life series, and how important do you think they are to modern games.

Half-Life gets a lot of credit for being a cinematic shooter that incorporated story and gameplay. I don't necessarily agree with that but it was two years old before I first played it. The sequel gets credit for its physics engine. I think they're influential but so much of this is so deeply ingrained that it's hard to trace it back. They're good games, but not flawless.

Favourite boss arena in Bloodborne? 

It's between Ludwig, Orphan, and Ebrietas. I can't decide

And following that, least favourite?

Cleric Beast. The bridge gets in the way too often and can block your view of the fight. Micolash is second worst because the arena arguably is the fight, and it's boring.

How important do you think a boss arena is to a boss? Would you consider it part of the fight as a whole? As mentioned in your Bloodborne videos, the changed arena for Rom in the Chalice Dungeons brings a new layer to the fight. 

Very important, and it's definitely a consideration. A bit too complex to go into for a rapid-fire Q&A, however.

As a fan of Bloodborne but also someone who hasn't played the other Souls games, would you reccomend buying Dark Souls 3 with the DLC? Gael looks like Orphan of Kos kinda and I really love that fight. 

Dark Souls 3 is the most Bloodborne of the Souls games, so you'll likely enjoy it. It's a tad slower and has a bit less depth than Bloodborne in your character's options, but it makes up for that in enemy variety and some great bosses. The DLC is some of the best content.

And finally, do you listen to Rap? If so, who do you listen to! Thanks Jo, love the content.

Not much rap. I'm white so as legally mandated, I like Eminem. Kanye West has some great songs. I've slowly begun checking out Kendrick Lamar recently. And that Nobody Speak song was one of my favorites of last year. So I'm a moderate fan of rap, I guess.

Brenden H

What was the inspiration behind your books, and what keeps you going with writing?

Money at first. The first book I self-published was a short story I wrote when I was a teenager. It sold like crazy so I wrote more, which also sold. Quite quickly after that it was more about fun stories. I embraced genre fiction and wanted to bring more character-driven books to fantasy and science fiction. Writing can be like putting together a puzzle for me. I get a story idea and I need to make it fit somehow. Maybe not a good answer but I'm meant to keep these short, and it's a bit intangible to begin with.

Sean M

Have you ever played a full-on RPG that satisfied you?

I'm confused by "full-on". Something like Final Fantasy? Then yes, plenty of times. I like the stories in some of those games a lot. The characters a bit more. The gameplay not so much. Same for Baldur's Gate and games like it. The combat adds a little context to everything, but it's not something I can say I enjoy.

Played any modern boardgames? Favorites? 

None yet sorry, although I'm hoping that changes soon. Can you recommend some?

What well-known books would you compare your books to?

Oh fuck I have no idea. That's a really tough question. I've studied John Irving more than anyone else but there's no way I'm comparable to him. Same for Vonnegut, Heller, and Palahniuk. Robin Hobb is the only fantasy I truly enjoy so probably a lot from her too.

Have you played Spelunky?

Yep. It's okay. Not my favorite of that type of game but I played it a bunch. I think it's a bit too quick with killing you and can quickly become unfair, but I haven't studied it enough to say that for sure so don't quote me.

Alex O

You previously mentioned that Onyxia was your first and most memorable raid kill in WoW but what is your favourite Raid instance?

Ulduar. Followed by Throne of Thunder. Ulduar was great at everything. Best way of activating hard modes too. ToT was just one great boss after the other, with only a few dips.

Top 3 raid bosses in WoW (Yogg, LK & Garrosh for me personally) 

I'd have to look through them all and really think about it. Off the top of my head: heroic Lei Shen, heroic Durumu, and Mimiron or heroic Siegecrafter Blackfuse.

Have you ever tried any other MMO outside of WoW? 

Oh a ton of them. None of them were ever as good. I think I played Eve the most out of any of them but even then, it wasn't the same. Ultima Online took a lot of my time before WoW.

Favourite alcoholic drink? 

I don't drink anymore, but when I did was straight vodka.

What's a book you think everyone should read (you can shill your own books here if you want) 

Everyone should read Hamlet, and then watch it performed afterwards. So they can experience how influential Shakespeare was, but also understand that schools ruined him for generations by making you read it instead of watch it.

Have you ever played a game you wish you hadn't? 

I answered "plenty" and then realized it's not true, so I deleted it and started this answer instead. Even bad games have been able to teach me something. Trying to understand why you dislike something is important. So I don't think there's any game that qualifies.

What is your opinion of the Outrageous Freddo Frog price hike

What?

Smoked or Unsmoked bacon? 

I think smoked. But bacon here is terrible. I miss British bacon so much. I can't find it anywhere in Toronto. IF ANYONE READING THIS KNOWS, YOU FUCKING TELL ME IN THE COMMENTS I'M NOT FUCKING AROUND.

What's a game you want to cover but think you never will?

World of Warcraft, coincidentally enough since you asked questions about it. I think it would be way too big of a project to do—even bigger than The Witcher Series, or even all of the Final Fantasy games.

Did you ever have an edgy online username when you were younger?

Haha, yes! But I can't tell you it because some of those accounts are still active, I bet.

Do you believe in ghosts? 

No. I used to before I found out I was narcoleptic. Then all the weird things I used to see at night made a lot of sense.

Favourite TV show 

Of all time? Six Feet Under. The Wire would probably beat it but I didn't finish it—something came up so now I want to restart. Favorite current show is Rick and Morty.

Favourite Film 

Someone asked this above. So it's still Fight Club. Gladiator, Cloud Atlas, and Fury Road are high up there too.

Favourite question of this q&a so far?

The one about favorite topping on toast. It's such an innocent question. I liked it.

Alex T

Chris Wagar has critiqued the idea of "experience reviewers" vs gameplay reviewers. Do you have a particular opinion on reviewing a game for its experience vs gameplay? Where would you say you fall as a reviewer?

Hey Alex, I think maybe you read the wrong Q&A introduction. These are some heavy questions that deserve some longer answers. I'll give some quick ones like this Q&A is meant to have, but you may want to ask some of these again. Or maybe you just wanted quick answers. That's fine too.

I'm mostly out of the "experience" camp, although I can enjoy that too. I prefer to look at stories and gameplay. I think the experience is important but it's so subjective that it's rarely worthwhile to pin down. I will try more to do so going forward but it won't be a focus. I think some people go way too ham on this and should consider gameplay more directly, but that's difficult to do.

It's no secret that Nintendo is way behind the times when it comes to putting copyright infringement claims on YouTube posts that use clips from their games. If Joseph Anderson was the head of Nintendo, what would he do with their YouTube policy?

Adopt the same standards as virtually every other game company on Youtube. It's that easy, Nintendo. Enjoy your free advertising.

Opinions on JRPGs vs WRPGs? 

JRPGs tend to have more polish and style, but are full of really weird story bits that come across as translation errors, even though they're more likely cultural differences. I prefer WRPGs overall, but I think some real good could come from the two of them mixing together.

My wife and I just celebrated our one year anniversary at Disney World. Where did you and your wife celebrate your first anniversary? 

We just went out for dinner. We've never gone on a trip. Maybe one day we'll be able to. Sounds lame but we've never been able to afford it.

Before your children are old enough to leave the house, what one thing do you want to make sure they experience? 

Lots of things, really. The big one coming to mind now is some sort of service industry job, if only for a little while, so they gain some perspective. Not just for what they want to do themselves, but also so they treat workers like that as people when they're older. But that might happen naturally by raising them well—which hopefully we do.

If you could re-do one video, what would it be and why? Again, great work!

Any video before Rise of the Tomb Raider. The audio has clipping in them and that bothers me when I go back. Specifically though? The Dark Souls 2 ones. I like those games a lot and I think I could have done a better job with them, if only just some audio improvements.

Jeremiah H

Have you read the Ashfall series by Mike Mullin?

I haven't, sorry. Should I? What's it about?

Have you played either of the PS2 Castlevania games? (curse of darkness and lament of innocence) They're my favorite in the series. 

Again, I haven't sorry. Shit answers, I'm afraid.

What did you do for work before YouTube? That's all I got for now 

I've had a few jobs over the years. I was a writer for a while, as you probably know, before Amazon changed. I still am a writer but youtube comes first. The two biggest jobs apart from that were working in a warehouse that shipped out boat parts—I did everything there. Sales, some tech work, packing boxes to ship out, and receiving orders and unloading them. I also worked at a doctor's office for a while which was my worst job. Terrible boss. Terrible office. Great work experience for me though.

Nasigil

You mentioned in your newest video about the difficulty of the Witcher project because of its scale. Have you considered the possibility of skipping the Witcher books and go straight to games or even skipping the first 1 or 2 games and go straight to Witcher 3? I am asking this because for someone that's new to the series to review the whole Witcher games&books series, it's indeed a monumentally huge project, and while respectable, it might very likely be not cost-efficient. Each games in the series are very loosely connected to make them more friendly to new comers, and the games' plot are very independent to the books. So I think it's viable to just play the games and review them seperately(1 hr video for TW1, 1 hr video for TW2, 2 hr Video for TW3), or even just play and review TW3, if you find out that the whole games&books series is indeed too huge for one single project for you now. Big fan of your work, best of wishes for everything. 

I considered it but I don't think it's the right approach for me. A lot of people are still pissed to this day that I didn't play Fallout 1 and 2 before going to Fallout 4, even though I think New Vegas is close enough to give me a good idea of the difference in Bethesda's approach. Not perfect, but enough. I can also split the videos for each game but I still need to play them together so I can make comparisons and the like. I could maybe play them separately and make separate videos, and then make a final video with those comparisons, but I'd still need to play them without any breaks for other games because I need to remember all the details. And I think the videos would be weaker that way. It's a good idea though.

Melissa H

What game have you played the most? (Not necessarily in terms of hours, but amount of times you've replayed it)

In terms of hours played it is easily World of Warcraft. For replaying, probably Chrono Trigger. I've gone through that game a ton of times over the years. Or Dungeon Keeper. There's a few like that, that I used to replay once a year. Now I'm too busy to go back.

What game are you most likely to recommend right now? 

Prey and Hollow Knight. Prey has gotten a shitty reception. I'm not saying it's a wonderful flawless game or anything, but a game of this quality usually does much better so it deserves equal treatment. You still need to enjoy stuff like Bioshock though. Hollow Knight, on the otherhand, is wonderful! And cheap enough that if you've never played a Metroidvania, it's still worth trying because it's low risk. Very good game.

What game series is your favorite? That's all the short ones I can think of right now. Thanks for all of your hard work! Your videos got me interested enough to sign up for two classes on video game analysis at my university.

Thanks! For a while my favorite series was Final Fantasy. Now it's probably Souls—let's not ignore that obvious answer. Aside from that, it's probably Mario? I'm surprised by this but I can't think of a more fitting answer. I haven't missed a 3D entry and I like them all.

Riccardo B

What consoles have you owned?

Atari ST, NES, SNES, Playstation, N64, Playstation 2, Gamecube, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Playstation 4, Wii U, and Switch. Those two are the most recent. I got a Wii U when they ended production. For handhelds: Sega Game Gear, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, original DS, and 3DS XL.

How many computers? 

I think six. First one when I was 15 or so. Then another in Canada when we moved here and couldn't bring the computer. I've built a few since then. The quickest time between them was with this new one to render videos faster.

Favourite drink! 

Coca Cola™ ! I love water too. I drink a ton of water.

Favourite tea!

Orange Pekoe. I don't like any other type of tea.

Favourite type of cuisine! 

A mix of British and American, I think. I love barbeque but, living in an apartment, that doesn't happen. Canadian cuisine is such a mix of everything so it's hard to nail down. Poutine is great. So is proper fish and chips. Meat pies.

Favourite videogame genre!

Used to be RPGs. Now it's action games. I'm starting to view games with a focus on story as their own separate thing, even if they do have gameplay.

Favourite OST! 

Chrono Trigger. Although my favorite video game track is on the Chrono Cross OST, Trigger wins overall. Shoutouts to the Furi OST, and a lot of the Souls and Metal Gear Solid music too.

Favourite son! (Just kidding) 

The first one! The new one is still small and boring. He's getting better though, showing some personality.

When's mahvel Ok i'll stop since I'm running out of ideas.

lol

Dominik

Did you ever play any esport games like Dota, CSGO or Starcraft? What are your favourites if so?

I played a bunch of Starcraft 2 and League of Legends. Never at a high level though. I think the highest I got in Starcraft 2 was diamond, and I barely played ranked in League. I don't have strong opinions on them. They can be fun to watch. I can't comment on the other big esports titles because I haven't played them. Well, I did a little DotA2. I didn't like it, but I didn't give it enough of a chance to really judge it.

Johannes D

Would you publish your books as audio books (with you reading them)?

Audio books at all? Yes, probably. It gets requested a bunch. With me reading them? I don't think so. I don't know if I could do a good job and, even if I did, we're talking hundreds of hours of recording for all of them. And then so many hours of audio editing afterward. I hate doing that for videos so I don't know if I could put myself through it for the books. If the physical books sell then I'll look into it. I have no idea how popular they're going to be.

And that's the end of the first Super Special Turbo Edition. The next Q&A will be a return to the regular version, and should be up tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed a lighter version of this feature. Let's hope it's a while before I get behind on it again.