Here's what the PC Gamer community is excited about this week

(Image credit: id Software)

This week in the PC Gamer forums, we're discussing which videogame monsters we think we could defeat in a real-life fight, if buying Mount & Blade 2 Bannerlord is a good idea while it's still in Steam Early Access, plus plenty of talk about building customs PCs and buying pre-built ones.

The PC Gamer forums are filled with a bunch of super-nice people looking to chat with other PC gamers about our collective hobby. There's always lots of threads bouncing around to discuss about new games, old games, best and worst games, and plenty of tech talk about PC building. You should join! It's honestly, genuinely, a really nice place to hang out.

Here's what's been happening on the PC Gamer forums this week.

Should you buy Bannerlord in Early Access?

Bannerlord custom banner maker — (Image credit: Taleworlds)

Our community manager JSimenhoff posted a poll about whether it's a good idea to buy Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord while it's still in Steam Early Access.

It's a good question—I doubt anyone out there hasn't felt a bit burned after buying an Early Access game at some point, since you can never really tell how development is going to go or how long it'll last. Most voting on the poll suggest waiting to see how it turns out, and one vote said go ahead and buy it now.

"It seems like it's a snazzier version of the previous Mount & Blade games, said Pifanjr. "Which means it's probably a good game, but I would still just wait until it's on sale, both so you don't pay full price and so the developers have had some time to fix any major bugs."

OsaX Nymloth feels the same, but is tempted to buy it anyway. "And yet Bannerlord seems so good, lots of my online friends already play it and praise it. I am so torn."

Mazer says go for it: "The prior game is also excellent and regularly goes on sale for just a few bucks, I'm sure they'll be mechanically similar enough to tell you if Bannerlord is worth your money."

Here's the thread.

PC building and buying

One of the best pastimes in PC gaming is planning your next build. Coming up with a budget, putting together a list of potential parts, and then shopping it around to see what other PC builders think of your custom creation.

Tigro is mulling over a new build and shared the plan with the forums, and getting lots of helpful feedback. Here's the thread if you have any suggestions or opinions yourself!

LRenzinator is also looking for a new PC—though due to time constraints is considering a pre-built rather putting a PC together piece by piece. Again, our forums are leaping in to help. Here's the thread.

Which videogame enemy could you beat in a fight?

I know you've all killed countless zombies, robots, terrorists, demons, dinosaurs, giant spiders, armor-plated bears, and dragons in games.

But, like, in real life, one-on-one, fair fight, winner take all—what videogame enemy do you reckon you could actually defeat? Could you really take down a zombie? What about a fast zombie? Could you defeat a goblin or an orc? Would an Imp from Doom utterly wreck you or do you think you can strafe as well in real life as you do in a game?

That's our weekend question, and we'll be posting answers from both the PC Gamer staff and forums members. Personally, I doubt I could defeat much of anything from a game. Maybe I'd give a mudcrab a good fight, but it would probably still be close.

Here's the thread.

Folding proteins to fight Covid-19

So blown away by the @PCGamer community's @foldingathome efforts:Together citizen scientists volunteer to run simulations on their idle PC's to help beat COVID-19, and we're ranked 383 of 249558 teams! 💛Join us! https://t.co/AkxPUqbo1P#Gamers #Community #foldingathome pic.twitter.com/2wwgB8xNNBApril 10, 2020

Folding@home is a project from Stanford University, where people can donate spare processing power from their PCs to compute complex calculations. These simulations are used to help scientists better understand diseases and work to find treatments and cures.

The PC Gamer Forums have formed a team to pitch in, and as of today they are absolutely thrashing those proteins. As Stevie points out above, among nearly 250,000 different teams participating, we're in the top 400! Great work, everyone!

Here's the thread.

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.