Tag Archives: Skyrim

Games of 2012 in review

Posted on by
Reply

An article on Metacritic lamenting that the game releases in 2012 did not do very well for video games is generating some degree on controversy, partly because it is Metacritic, whose scores of games from big publishers always seems to be higher than they deserved, and also partly because some feel that indie games were not well represented.

More importantly, it is controversial because it is true, at least in this author’s opinion.

2012 had a lot of big titles, but what happened?

By no means was there a lack of titles for 2012. On the contrary, 2012 saw a large number of huge titles being released, but the majority of them either missed the mark, or hype surrounding it died soon after its release, along with the players actually playing it. Mass Effect 3′s ending disappointed. The long anticipated Diablo 3 proved fun for about 2, maybe 3, weekends, and then everyone got bored of the grind. Likewise for Guild Wars 2, which despite a successful launch and overloaded servers in the initial week, had most people reached level cap soon enough and then disappeared. Max Payne 3 departed too much from its previous installments in the franchise, and became Just Another Shooter™. Warfighter bombed, and sunk the entire Medal of Honor franchise along with it. Hitman Absolution, to quote PCMag’s review, is ‘bland and uninteresting’, despite having a trailer that offended quite a number of people.

The real losers? Subscription based MMOs.

The most expensive game produced (not just counting MMOs), Star Wars: The Old Republic, went free-to-play in slightly under a year after its launch. This was then followed a month later by The Secret World, a game only a few months old, dropping the subscription model and going with only the box cost. While I’m not ready to herald that that the free-to-play model will be the future of MMOs, and I still have my doubts about such a model being sustainable AND still producing quality games, the MMO bubble that has been growing ever since every company tried to jump on the bandwagon after World of Warcraft’s success had finally burst. WoW and EVE still have their stable populations, but the barrage of titles coming out in rapid succession year after year has halted. In fact, I can’t think of any title off hand from a Western publisher that’s coming up in 2013. A quick look up just reminded me of The Elder Scrolls Online, but the reason I didn’t think of it in the first place is that I have doubts about the game being able to capture the spirit of The Elder Scrolls series in an MMO setting.

So, what was good?

Some might argue that the best game for 2012 technically isn’t a 2012 game at all. Persona 4: The Golden, an improved port of an older game for the PS2, has been the largest time sink for me. I’ve clocked 89 hours on my saved game thus far, and I’m still not done with my first playthrough, and with plenty of ideas for the next. I don’t think I’ve sunk that many hours into a handheld game since Pokémon. For a single player game, I think it’s probably around the 3rd with the most number of hours clocked, behind Morrowind and Skyrim.

Dishonored was also a great title, which I covered in a previous article. I’m led to believe that Borderlands 2 and XCOM were also excellent titles, which I couldn’t quite get into. You apparently had to be a fan of the 1994 XCOM to appreciate the current title, which I wasn’t, having never played it then.

Sleeping Dogs is apparently a sleeper hit, but I can’t give my opinion on it yet since I’ve yet to play the copy I picked up during Steam Winter Sales. That is what I suspect I’ll be doing over the next few days.

Back to Morrowind

Posted on by
Reply

Now that I’ve sent Alduin back to wherever dragons go to die, it’s time to revisit an old love.

Morrowind.

When I last played Morrowind, I was in secondary school. I was one of the few people that had a graphics card which supported programmable pixel shaders, and was immediately blown away by the water in Morrowind. I’ve never seen such realistic water textures before, not even in John Carmack’s games. I was hooked. Morrowind became the first non-MMORPG game that I played full day to the exclusivity of all other games for a period of months. (Confession: I didn’t even know what an MMO was then.)

Right after I finished up most of Skyrim (45/50 completion if you go by the achievement metric), I installed Morrowind and set about creating a new character. Soon, Calreth, a level 1 Breton Nightblade, born under the sign of the Shadow, was wandering the streets of Seyda Neen.

If you thought Skyrim was huge, prepare to have your socks blown off. Putting Skyrim and Morrrowind side-by-side, Skyrim feels more of a theme-park than open-world game. Forget all you’ve experienced in RPGs in the last 5 years, this is ye olde RPG with no safety rails. There’s no compass with places of interest marked on them, nor big exclamation marks on the heads of NPCs vying for your attention. Even the map is initially shrouded in a fog of war. You pay attention to quest dialogues, because that’s all the hints you’re going to get. If an NPC tells you he lost his ring in the marshlands south of the city, reachable if you exit, take two lefts, follow the river south until you get a wooden bridge, and then go right, you had better remember that. There is a quest journal in diary form, and even that doesn’t show you immediately which quests you are on and how many stages there are. Perhaps the biggest indicator that you’re not playing a 2010 game anymore is the combat system. Regenerative health and mana system are for boys. Real men don’t need frigging auto-regen.

Welcome to the desert of the real.

Did I just make Morrowind sound really negative? That depends. None of what I pointed out is inherently bad. It’s a conscious design decision to encourage the player to explore the immense game world. The non-regenerative health system means that you have to plan for fights, at least initially before your character is über geared. You feel the rush of adrenalin in fights, or the panic as you look at your lowly health and dwindling potions count. The enchanting and spell creation system is also a lot more comprehensive that in Oblivion or Skyrim (where there’s no spell creation at all). The UI is done right. You get a grid for inventory, instead of a list, as it should always should have been. Buffs are shown on screen, identifiable by their icons as in traditional RPGs and modern MMOs, instead of a list within another list.

If I caught your excitement, but you’re still hesitant about playing a game that might resemble a giant pixel monster by today’s standard (it really isn’t), you’re just in luck. 2.0 of the Morrowind overhaul project was just released today, and it makes the game look a lot better. However, if you have it in you, I highly encourage you to play vanilla Morrowind to get a true experience of the game as it was originally designed.

Trialing a dragon for war crimes

Posted on by
Reply

Despite digesting a hearty amount of Skyrim news daily, I’ve still somehow managed to not know all the spoilers, and this particular discovery surprised me.

Paarthurnax is a war criminal.

Paarthurnax was apparently Alduin right hand man during Alduin’s last hunger episode where he ate up a whole bunch of Nords.

I did know beforehand that I’d eventually have to kill Paarthurnax, but I wasn’t aware of the circumstances that revolved around it. I had supposed there’d be some complexity involved, but its revelation felt sudden and rushed. The scenario almost seemed too casual and a little comical.

Me: I need help in luring a dragon and trapping it.

Esbern: Okay, let me check our archives. Ah! Here's the shout you need.

Me: Thanks, I'll catch you later.

Esbern: No problem, don't forget to close the door on your way out. Oh! And by the way, your buddy, the one you've spent lots of time with lately, the one who is trying to help you save the world, Paarthurnax was his name yeah? He has not been too honest with you. He really is a big bad guy that used to do lots of bad things. Don't mind killing him, yeah? Cheers!

Me: Uhm...

Okay, I’ll admit I paraphrased a little there, but that’s about the essence of what happened. The information is just handed over in one conversation axiomatically, and that’s it. It’s not very good storytelling.

That’s not all there is to take away from the event though. There’s still something else, a question that some of us think little about because there’s no easy answer to it.

What is statute of limitation on war crimes?

While I don’t know precisely when Alduin’s previous coming was, it can safe to assume from conversations with Paarthurnax that at least a couple of hundreds of years has passed since. Furthermore, since dragons have not been sighted since Alduin’s disappearance, Paarthurnax was not involved in acts of terrorism during that period. Simply, what Paarthurnax did, it happened a long time ago, and judging from the player’s encounters with him, he’s probably reformed.

How far back do we look when judging a person? Do people change, or are they permanently banded criminals? To this day, ex-prison guards who were unfortunate enough to serve under the Nazi regime 60 years ago are still being hunted down for their actions in the past. Are they the same person as they were 60 years ago? Or have they changed since?

I don’t have answers for these questions, but it’s certainly something to think about.

Thank the shadows

Posted on by
Reply

If I had to believe in a god(des), (s)he would be it.

Ain’t it amazing how on some days, the stars align and everything falls wonderfully into place? I thank thee, Mistress of Shadows.

That thought occurred to me as I was staring at my pasta, fusilli with alfredo sauce if you must know. I didn’t have any excess nor shortage of either pasta and sauce, and I managed to use whatever leftovers I had. Not at easy task for an amateur like me. Usually this is what happens instead.

Leftovers

Image sourced from “Why I don’t cook at home” at http://theoatmeal.com.

Or that I have sauce leftover that I’ll have to dip random objects into in order not to waste, or plain pasta to chew as tidbits while I watch a movie.

Today, even the last pasta had just the right coating of creaminess with a small chunk of mushroom.

To an outsider, this is incident would be woefully minor, and hell, you’re probably laughing at me right now. But to me, it was a day gone right.

Now, if you’d excuse me, I’m needed by the people of Skyrim.

Shadows guide you, my dear reader.

Gear woes in RPGs: You need everything

Posted on by
Reply

Carry all the things

As you gravitate towards end game, the amount of essential items to carry increases astronomically. I’m not talking about the bazallion unstackable vendor trash from every mob. I’m talking about gear you need to bring along to ensure an optimal experience for a dungeon run or raid.

Any semi-experienced player will tell you that having the right gear for right encounter will make the fight easier, or at least more manageable. Fire breathing dragon? You better have a resist set for that. Sith lord that casts lightning bolts? Better have another set of shock resist gear. Ice elementals? Frost resist or GTFO. Magikarp? Water resist gear on now! A troll with high melee resists? Time to switch to mage gear and blast away, or alternatively, add it to my ignore list.

Do you see the problem now?

This problem is less exacerbated in an MMO such as Rift in comparison to an open world single player RPG like Skyrim. In MMOs, I usually have a set goal, or at least a vague idea of what I want to set about accomplishing in the next hour. I know I’ll need death and water resist gear if I’m going to raid Hammerknell for the night. I know the mechanics and what to expect and prepare accordingly. This is less true in Skyrim. I wander around aimlessly. I stumble into dungeons with cultist mage groups and dragons swoop down on me. The result? I carry an entire wardrobe with me.

Many rings (and necklaces) to rule them all!

I find myself doing the gear shuffle between or even during fights and it feels rather silly. Surely, there must be a better way to go about this?

To Whiterun

Posted on by
Reply

I arrived in Whiterun, exhausted and penniless. The suit of armor, if you can call it that, given to me by the blacksmith in Riverwood for my travels barely held together. The result of a ferocious attack by a pack of wolves.

Passing by the marketplace, I overheard something about ‘Companions’ and ‘gold for able bodied fighters’. I needed the money, I needed a place rest. This is no time to be picky. I asked a nearby grocer for directions, and soon found myself at the doors of Jorrvaskr.

The recruiter, a brawny looking Nord, sneered at my meek body, weak from days of travel. Well, mostly running from wolves, but there’s no need to volunteer that information. He doesn’t think I’m capable. I disagreed. We decided to take it outside.

At this point, I was full with hunger and invigorate with tiredness. I was fueled by my own desperation. He seemed taken a back and staggered as I slammed the hilt of my sword against his shield over and over. He conceded.

We went back indoors and I was led downstairs into a large communal hall where members of the Companion could lodge in-between jobs.I slept.

Break From Reality

Posted on by
Reply
Backstabbing someone in Skyrim

Take this!

I ran. It as now or never. The basilisk like wings swooped low, knocking the guard down. Screams lit up around me. Knees close to my chest, I sprinted across the gravel road. My back and cheek burned as I ran. It was only when I stopped to catch my breathe that the reality of the situation dawned on me.

I had escape the executioner’s axe, only to be almost incinerated by the fiery heat that is a dragon’s breathe.

The people present seem to be split into two groups. Guards were trying to round up scared families. A few whom I recognized being on the caravan seemed to have form a group of their own.

I could choose to either follow the Imperial or the group of prisoners. Looking at the sorry state of their gear though, I felt my chance with the Imperial was better. Besides, as I lifted a sword up from the charred remains of a body, I could always slit his throat if he wasn’t to my liking.

Now that the exams are over for me, Skyrim is on full swing. I’ve decided to start all over again with a fresh new character so that I can experience the game in long play sessions, rather than an hour here and there. I find long sessions more immersive and I tend to not remember much after a short session. Also, now that I’ve a better knowledge of game mechanics, I can distribute my skill points more effectively. Meet Calreth reborned.

The new and improved Calreth

/unequip Study Hat
/equip Gaming Hat