Gaming Tradition

I don't know how other people feel on this topic but I am quite saddened by the new generation of RPGs. I'm a huge traditional RPG fan who still finds enjoyment in playing/replaying older RPGs on the original Playstation. Stuff like, Legend of Dragoon, Legend of Legaia, Final Fantasy 7-9 (10 I suppose as well), "Tales" games (Symphonia and the like). The question I find myself asking is where on earth have those kinds of games gone? Have we just transitioned out of the structure that all those games revolved around?

It's not that people wouldn't play them, I mean we've been seeing large amounts of people expressing interest in a FFVII remake and that's a game we've already experienced as a gaming community. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way but I find that we've shortchanged the story in favor of "better" gameplay. We've effectively reduced our idea of an "epic" game to things like Mass Effect or Dragon Age, games that only require around 30 hours to thoroughly complete. Don't get me wrong, I love Mass Effect but it's a completely different type of RPG and we're getting the third installment of the franchise shortly but honestly, I'm somewhat certain that I put more time into a single Final Fantasy game than both ME1 and 2. That saddens me greatly, especially since we haven't seen a good Final Fantasy game since 9/10 (My Opinion). I feel like we're losing touch with a genre of games that put out some of the most influential titles of their times.

The gaming industry is very preoccupied with innovation and I often find myself enjoying their new and fancy additions to their games but I'd trade every nuance in the book in exchange for a story that really floored me. I'm not attracted to games by all their bells and whistles or their super awesome gameplay (sometimes), I just want a lengthy game that doesn't try to be anything but itself. The Elder Scrolls games are a great example of an "epic" that continued to evolve over the years and is now widely regarded as one of, if not the best, game of 2011. Why have no other games come through in such a big way? Nobody wants turn based combat anymore, I kinda get that but at the same time it was a model that worked for people for a very long time and honestly, it wasn't a big part of the game, the story was the main focus.

I suppose if I were to summarize this I would say that my wish would be for a game to come out that, while it may not have the best gameplay, has a phenomenal story and allowed me to really dig into it for much longer than most current generation games allow. I've logged over 100 hours into several games, Skyrim being the newest addition to that list. Things like Legaia, Dragoon, FFVII, Persona 3/4. They all have their flaws but there was something that kept me coming back.

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Darksiders II

Holy crap. I cannot wait for this game to come out and am replaying the original just to get back into the universe that Darksiders takes place in. I had the opportunity to meet a lot of the guys who worked on the original Darksiders as well as the sequel, they are a great bunch of guys who really want to push the limits of what you can expect out of a gaming experience. In truth, Darksiders was a mashup of elements from various other games woven into a post apocalyptic world filled with secrets and a very free combat system. You find aspects of Zelda strewn throughout the game, they are tried and true concepts that helped build one of the most well loved franchises in gaming history and are brought to a new stage with Darksiders. From what I've seen so far with Darksiders II, Vigil is taking their idea and building upon it in a way that will hopefully define the Darksiders series like never before.

The first thing that caught my eye was the combat. Comparing it to the original Darksiders is like night and day. The combat is fluid, fast paced, intense, responsive, and much more than I'll be able to do justice here. I did love the original Darksiders' combat simply because it worked well for what they were trying to do but honestly whats really winning me over here is that they didn't cop out on the work like so many sequels seem to. The game is evolving. Vigil is able to do so much more than ever before with their idea and I think that is just fantastic. When you put a game like Darksiders with a studio like Vigil the sky is the limit. Maybe I'm biased because Vigil is the only studio I've had the opportunity to personally see but I'm glad these are the guys working on Darksiders, it has fantastic potential as an RPG and it would be a shame to see it amount to anything less than amazing.

Next is the movement. War is a big dude, no question there. His movements were a bit slow and heavy which had adverse effects throughout the game. Death is significantly smaller and more agile than War is and, just from the tiny bits of gameplay that have been shown thus far, the new movement mechanics reflect this agility. Quickly chaining skills together, rolling out of the way of oncoming attacks, and dashing around your enemies seem to be easy for Death. Just these two simple aspects of the game make a world of difference when it comes down to making a successful game. So in my book, that's two steps in the right direction for Darksiders II

Can't wait to see more on this game, so excited!

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Batman: Arkham City

Alright so I finished Arkham City the other day and the ending kind of took me by surprise, which then generated a need for me to talk about why this ending works for me. WARNING: SPOILERS APPROACHING!

Arkham City was a fantastic game and you don't need me to tell you that, there are plenty of sites and magazines ranting and raving about how amazing it is. I agree with them completely, I enjoyed the crap out of the game. Its not just limited to the game though, I loved the s tory that was told through the diverse cast of heroes and villains. Batman as a whole has always been grounded in the importance of life and the preservation of it in a severely broken world. Arkham City was no exception to this theme but it also served as the final story (I think?) in this specific Batman universe. The transition from the Asylum to the City was significant because it also represented the spreading chaos that simply could not be contained in such a small area anymore.

The cast of villains you encounter are all extremely brutal and the plot is filled with death and destruction despite Batman's efforts to prevent it (mostly by hoping that several broken bones is enough of a deterrent for most people). In the wake of this brutality lies death and oh boy is death a recurring theme throughout the story here. You'll see almost the entire cast from the Asylum make appearances here or at least get mentioned with the exception of Scarecrow (Killer Croc food) which is strange to me considering we go from a little death in Asylum to a whole bunch in City.

Kicking off the death train is Rah's Al Ghul or however his name is spelled with his whole life and death mean jack shit to me kind of attitude. This character is a major villain in the Batman universe and essentially is trying to annihilate everything from the world, starting with Arkham City. As it turns out he is behind the entire operation to wipe out every prisoner in the city and he even kills Strange and then himself as a result of his failure, thinking he can be revived in the Lazarus pit like usual, then Batman kicks Clayface into the pit and wrecks it....ha. So, Rha's ends up dead, potentially for good.

Next up is Talia, Rha's daughter and Batman's lover. Talia typically takes care of her father but after he tries to kill her she ends up kind of siding with Batman and even saves him from Joker by offering him immortality in exchange for Batman's life. Despite Batman's efforts to save her she still ends up getting shot by Joker and dying.

Hugo Strange is another villain that meets his well deserved demise in Arkham city at the hands of his ally, Rha's. He spent the entire game seeking wholesale murder and he ended up dead before he could realize that ambition.

Lastly we have the most important death. Joker. Throughout the game Joker engages Batman in a game of mutual destruction or benefit which culminates in a final showdown resulting in the death of Joker. Batman has a bit of a crisis when he sees Joker dying in front of him while he holds the cure to what is killing him. During this period of thought Joker takes the opportunity to stab Batman in the shoulder with a knife, making him drop the cure on the floor. Batman expresses his regret and tells Joker that even though he shouldn't he still would have saved him. The game concludes with Batman carrying the Joker's corpse out of Arkham City and walking off, conflicted. In the end, evil didn't need any help eliminating itself.

So why does this ending work? Well for me at least, I find that most Batman stories are constantly doing this dance with death leading up to a climactic end but it is fairly uncommon to see death on such a large scale. However, seeing death that much allows you to contrast it to the value of life expressed in most Batman series. Bruce Wayne's entire motivation to become what he is was fueled by death and in turn, the value of human life. Arkham Asylum/City was no exception to this, it is death that spurs Batman onward in order to protect life and while most of the time the bad guys just end up in full body casts for a while, they remain alive. Why did Arkham City kill off a good portion of the villains? It was symbolic of this series' end. Just like any story you are free to interpret it however you'd like but Arkham Asylum/City boasted some of the most depth in multiple areas such as character design, story-line, plot, and even the world's they crafted were incredibly complex and intricate. Upon seeing the undoing of the various villains I found myself feeling bad for them, victims of their own machinations.

Thanks for reading, there will be a more gameplay centered post later on!

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Limbo

Well I tried to write a post about Limbo a few days ago when my browser decided it would be a dick and crashed as I was about to post it up. So now I get to re-do the entire post...joy. Essentially I was super late to the Limbo scene and most of what could be talked about has already been discussed on various threads located elsewhere. However, Limbo is an incredibly interpretive game and can be taken in many different ways depending on how you look at the facts the game presents to you. This is my take on it.

Just a little disclaimer here, Limbo is an incredibly ambiguous game and gives you very few solid facts to work with. There is no dialogue or plot necessarily and the entire game takes place in a world that makes no sense and is left up to the player to interpret. That ambiguity is potentially one of the reasons that Limbo is such a great game, players tend to like being able to draw their own conclusions even though it can be frustrating at times. Anyway, onto the interpretation!

The description we are provided with in regards to the game is just a simple sentence. "Uncertain of his sister's fate, a boy enters Limbo". So we start the game off with the basic plot, we're looking for this kid's sister in this crazy world filled with darkness, monsters, and even a few other people. Now I'd like to point out here that this world is exceedingly cruel and filled with death and punishment, you can see the results in the scattered corpses and decay all around the world. Despite this world being so cruel this little boy pushes straight through it in pursuit of his ultimate goal, how badly must he want to find his sister? I think that they boy's motive is sort of unique and he is obviously not trying to check on her in a traditional sense since he has to traverse this odd world to do it. I think that, based on some of the conclusions at the end of the game, the boy is dead and he cannot pass on until he knows what happened to his sister.

About 3/4 of the way through the game you encounter the boy's sister sitting under a tree-house picking flowers but just before you reach her you get one of those lovely bugs biting into your head and are forced to go the other direction for a while. After ridding yourself of the pest you return to where your sister was and she is no longer there. In her place are only more obstacles. This is a key point in the game in my opinion simply because it demonstrates that the world is clearly not a solid world or even a real one. The boy clearly idealizes the finding of his sister and as soon as he is about to grasp that goal it is moved away from him. I think his time in Limbo is symbolic of a journey back to reality and it ends with the completion of the boy's goal. I'm not entirely sure if his sister is dead as well but I'll get to that in a moment.

The ending. As you finish the final puzzle you are flung through a barrier of sorts. People have interpreted this to symbolize the event that cause his death (car accident, falling out of a window, etc). I, however, interpret it a tad bit differently. I think this was the barrier between the living world and the world of the dead. The game description we are given almost implies that at least one of the characters (the boy and his sister) is dead but I find myself drifting more towards the idea that the boy had died and wanted to know what happened to his sister. To support this conclusion I would call attention to the fact that upon passing through that "barrier" you can move backwards and there is no remnant of the area you had just passed through, only more forest. Also, upon approaching the boy's sister she looks up as if to communicate that she felt something, but she does not turn around.

After the credits we see that the previously intact tree-house is now in disrepair and there are flies above two spots on the ground, implying they are both dead. I found this to sort of represent the passage of time. Perhaps the girl was putting flowers over the boy's grave under the tree-house? Maybe she was buried there later, as indicated by the flies over the two spots? Or I could be wrong and they were both dead from the start, as symbolized by their shadowy figures. It's kinda great that we can't actually know.

Hope you enjoyed reading! If you've played the game please comment with any thoughts!

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Skyrim! Pickpocketing! Yay!

So I finally got Skyrim to stop doing that super fun thing where the first menu box just keeps looping itself over and over and am able to play Skyrim again...not that there is a whole lot left for me to do on it right now. There was still one last thing I wanted to do to have some fun and finish up a few of those Daedric quests as well as other random quests. That last thing was maxing out pickpocketing and then stealing everyone's shirts.

It is quite hilarious to walk up to guards in places like Solitude where they are busy hitting practice dummies with their swords or bows and then nick their weapons and armor so they just sort of stand there and go...."I feel like I had clothes on a moment ago...oh well". Needless to say, the entirety of Solitude is now naked. Of course since I didn't want to lug all that useless crap around with me it is scattered all over the ground throughout the city. It's also fun to completely strip unsuspecting enemies of their gear and then make my presence known to them and watch as they attempt to punch me to death in confusion. Oh Skyrim, will you ever cease to entertain me?

On a slightly more serious note: Pickpocketing rocks for anyone who likes leveling quickly and having nice things. I lifted an Elven bow off an npc when I was like level 4 or something, Stole the Skyforge weapons from the various Companion members and got myself about a thousand arrows which helps a lot when all I'm using on this new character is a bow. I'll probably do the thieves guild again on this character and keep the Skeleton Key to solidify my role as an unstoppable thieving bastard.

I'll also be finishing the final few Daedric artifact quests to complete my list, getting 100% of the artifact masks, and writing about the main story line/completing all the shouts. Posts on all of those will be made available as I finish them.

Daedric Artifacts remaining:

Hermaeus Mora: Oghma Infinium - Book

Sanguine: Sanguine Rose - Staff

Hircine: Savior's Hide/Hircine's Ring - Ring

Malacath: Volundrung - Warhammer

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Lineage 2 Rebooted: Goddess of Destruction

Me and a couple friends decided to leave Aion to give Lineage 2 (L2) a shot since they turned it into a free to play and overhauled a lot of features to try and make it a competitor with other newer MMOs. However, L2 is not a new game by any means and this update doesn't change that as much as I had hoped. That being said, I know I had pretty high expectations for the update and since I have yet to reach the level cap (far from it) I can't exactly pass judgment on it but from what I've seen so far it's essentially the same game with just a few tweaks and added content. I'll talk about what I liked and what I thought they really needed to improve and didn't.

Starting with the negative!

Things I think needed improving that got completely/partially ignored:

1. The User Interface (UI)

2. I WANT TO JUMP.

3. Combat is still very much point, click, win, at this point (As I get more skills this will lessen)

4. Movement remains clunky and obstacles cannot be jumped over

5.Graphics are still "meh" but that's not a big deal to me

The User Interface: To me, having a shoddy UI is inexcusable for any game calling itself a current generation game or in L2's case, a game that can compete with current gen games. A good UI is not hard to accomplish by any means, games like Aion and WoW have fantastic UIs that are player friendly and don't require you to dig around through tons of boxes that are either unnecessary or just painfully difficult to access. This was probably the one thing I would have loved L2 to fix since it has a rather cluttered mess of a UI that might have been okay five years ago but that doesn't exactly fly. Now, you might say I'm too picky about this and people have no problem with it and I would tell you to eat a shoe if you've played L2 previously. You get used to it, no question about that, but when trying to appeal to a non-nostalgia market a good UI is critical and makes everything smoother for everyone playing. Maybe I've just played Aion for too long and it killed other MMOs for me :(

2. There is a reason most MMOs have a jump button. I mean when I am traipsing along through L2's absolutely MASSIVE world it gets a tad bit annoying when my character encounters a tiny rock and is like "WHAT IS THIS WALL I HAVE RUN INTO!?". Then I have to admit that the tiny rock is too much of an obstacle for my poor feet and walk around it shamefully. There is also this funny thing where some mobs will spawn ontop of rock formations, and they have bows...it then becomes a game of "find the spot" while you run around the rock looking for a way up onto it whilst being shot with arrows. You're still allowed to fall off things though, they couldn't take that away from me but you just sort of trip your way down hills and such. I want to vault myself off cliffs.

3. Fear my cursor. L2 still has its old combat system which was disappointing but I can't say I honestly expected them to rework their entire combat system since you could essentially label it Lineage 3 and people wouldn't find that to be outlandish. However it is still a point of annoyance for me since I like dynamic combat (they promised this by the by but we shall see if endgame delivers) and I especially like dynamic PvP and somehow I feel like I'm going to get blown straight to hell by mages and such since I can't move properly, which brings me to....

4. WHY DON'T MY FEET WORK?! After watching PvP videos of various L2 servers (Private and Retail) I still think they have made their PvP entirely dependent on planting your feet and getting into an immobile slugfest which I hold in the same regard as a rock em' sock em' robot battle. When I can't kite around my opponent and add that dimension of control it just encourages gear based PvP which I do not like (I put a bucket over my robot's head, you lose!).

5. Graphics. This is 50/50 for me because I actually kind of like how L2 looks but honestly when you make such a massive update I expect the graphics of this ancient game to be absolutely overhauled completely, totally, any other word that means something similar. Hell Aion even underwent a graphics upgrade about a year after it was launched (I like this a lot even though it is cosmetic it shows that the game is trying to stay current). That being said, I like the graphics they are definitely nostalgic from when I used to play avidly.

What I liked:

1. The world

2. The leveling curve

3. The gear curve

4. The player base

5. Quests are worth doing!

The world of L2. It is the single most massive world I have ever encountered in a game. If I walked from top to bottom it would take me hours. There is just so much terrain in this game and no loading screens to break the continuity which is just great. Despite every major town and grinding/quest area being packed full of people I was still able to find my own little personal leveling area simply due to the fact that the world they have made is big enough for everyone to do their own thing in. Since the update most of the main towns from before are now ransacked and lay in ruins and a lot of the previous leveling spots people used are far different than they were before the patch (I found this out the hard way).

Leveling! L2 was infamous for its debilitating leveling curve that either devoured your soul or made you quit the game. This has changed. Drastically. Essentially the first 20 levels take almost no time at all thanks to the new opening quest line and the rest of them are significantly lowered in terms of required exp which reduces the previously insane grind down to a pleasant playing experience.

I'm so shiny! The gear curve is better simply because they provide it for you. Since this patch was supposed to make L2 accessible to multiple playerbases and also involved a lot of people starting fresh on brand new servers they decided to implement a "Path of awakening" system that rewards you at various points along your leveling experience with weapons and armor suitable for your level. Some would complain that this makes things too easy and there is no doubt that it does make things incredibly easy compared to before but a lot of the playerbase consists of returning players who have experienced the grind for levels and gear before and don't exactly want to re-do that entire experience. It boils down to what will get them players and what will make them want to stay. The gear you receive is also limited though (The highest rank gear lasts 90 days) and they don't give you end game gear so this essentially levels the playing field on the way up to cap.

SO MANY PEOPLE *trampled*. I think it is absolutely hilarious that Aion can barely populate 2 servers and L2 had to open up a 4th server because all the others were running at capacity. You can be playing the best MMO ever but if you don't have a solid playerbase then you will undoubtedly fail, hard. Conversely, if you take an older game and give it an overwhelmingly huge amount of players you'll see a reinvigorated game. I firmly believe that the players make the game fun, MMOs are built around having that community, that competition.

Excuse me, I have to go save some maidens. Questing used to be a piece of crap before this patch. L2 was almost entirely a grind with very little quests since they few they did have were terrifyingly useless and time consuming. Now, we have quests that are simple and level you up quick, which is nice but the ease is offset by the sheer number of people trying to farm a limited number of mobs. I still found it easier to grind my way through the levels but once I get to a point where the quest areas are a bit less densely populated I'll return to questing.

Last thing I swear! It is incredibly important to remember that L2 is a free game now. How many free games sport all these things with such few flaws? L2 is a fantastic game and I love it to death, I am immensely happy to see life breathed back into it after such a long period of only having one server of bots/old players. Such a long post...kudos if you read it all.

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Gamers: Devour the game or Experience it?

So I was just reading a couple articles where there were conflicting opinions that resulted in some hurt feelings and odd name calling coupled with lengthy justifications regarding their own personal gaming styles. It is inevitable that we will encounter people who simply view the same game under a totally different lens than we do and it might generate this kind of friction, sure, but we can't go and rag on people for playing games in a way the fits with their approach to games.

I find myself wondering how gamers would classify themselves when it comes what angle you approach games at. Do you find yourself seeking to devour whatever game you take on? Is your goal in playing to simply conquer everything in your path, surmount every mountain the game presents to you? Is accomplishing everything more important to you than experiencing what the developers wanted you to experience? I feel like when you enter into a game studio that is committed to their craft you'll find yourself in the middle of a lot of people who are putting their blood, sweat, and tears into tailoring together a story. Sure you'll have projects you aren't exactly psyched to be working on but when you're creating an entire world from scratch that you know people will be expected to interact with you're a part of a very long-term art project. So what happens? Certain games don't exactly fit with crowds outside of their dedicated player base. If someone plays RPGs their entire life and then they are forced to go play an FPS chances are they won't enjoy it as much.

So this is sort of where this jumbled rant will hopefully become clear, my main question here is: Is there a way to play a game wrong? My personal answer to this is no, no you cannot play a game wrong it is simply impossible. You can do things wrong whilst playing the game but you are given a degree of sovereignty over part (or all of) the world you're experiencing. While playing Halo I can say screw this alien fighting crap I want to run away into the mountains and be the most awesome hermit ever. You can do that. Chances are you'll get bored pretty fast or fall and die and not have fun but you're allowed to do that.

Personally I would classify myself under the "Devourer" category since my main goal in whatever game I'm playing is to conquer anything worthwhile. I also try to find ways to break games to a certain degree. If I'm told no, I say why not and try to find a way around it. Example: Aion, there are skills you can use that lock your character into place, you aren't supposed to be able to move around at all while using these skills for various reasons. I defied that rule and found a way to avoid this mechanic without actually exiting the rules of the game itself (no cheats involved). That being said I still do enjoy a good story and am a hardcore RPG fan for that reason alone, I love watching events unfold and understanding my role within a world much larger than my character. I also happen to enjoy getting that fancy little 100% completion on certain games. I apologize to my abused Tales of Symphonia discs, Persona 3/4 discs, Legend of Dragoon/Legaia/Legaia 2 discs. They deserved better.

So I'll conclude this post with a question, what kind of gamer do you consider yourself? Feel free to make up your own categories that describe your habits, comment if you'd like or just think about it, whatever works for you.

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Opening Thoughts on Batman: Arkham City

After getting a disgustingly amazing deal on Arkham city and Skyward Sword on black Friday (got them both new for 70 bucks somehow along with some wii cords) I played around with both of them a bit and decided that I would work my way through Arkham city first. This post will basically be my opening thoughts on the game and things that stuck out to me.

The first thing I want to say is that I freaking love the design of the Arkham City world. It is visually amazing and quite large...and covered in Riddler signs. It has been quite a while since I've played Arkham Asylum but if I remember correctly it is a relatively open world and there is definitely a feel of freedom but it is nothing compared to having an entire city to roam around at your leisure (there might be consequences for my slacking later, who knows). So there is a cool city to explore and tool around in when you want to avoid the main missions but whats the point? Well they added a ton, and I mean a ton of various groups of inmates all over the city for you to practice your combat skills or just grind through levels on. Another thing that the city offers is a plethora of side quests that become available to you either randomly or get reported to you after completing certain missions as well as a chance to meet some of the other supervillains in the Batman universe, which brings me to my next point.

Arkham City contains essentially every villain ever and you're able to interact with some of them on a non-threatening level (Such as Bane) as well as hunt various killers down (Such as Riddler, Deadshot, Zsassz). Each villain will have particular quests you can do the hunt them down or help them out. Zsassz has you chase his calls around the city in a timed race-type missions and Bane asks you to help destroy the remaining Titan containers which are typically well guarded.

The Combat: The combat in Arkham City is great, it uses the same type of mechanics as the first game except it allows you even more freedom and I'm sure there is even more that I haven't discovered yet since I'm not very far into the game (Trying to find Freeze right now).

What I didn't like: I found myself having a bit more trouble ambushing guards as easily as Arkham Asylum, this might be due to a lack of perks or something but even the basic takedowns seem a bit spotty to me. Perhaps I just haven't gotten the hang of it quite yet but it is becoming increasingly difficult to deal with armed opponents and since I am playing on hard mode from the start it essentially means death if I am detected by two or more armed opponents.

Summary: I love the city, the combat, the movement, the gadgets, the characters, and all the side missions. I'll just need to give my silent takedowns some extra practice.

Thanks for reading, more to come after I've completed the game!

Edit: I'm alright with the takedowns now...the game has become more fun :D

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Daedric Quests: Mephala - Ebony Blade - ????

Alright so basically I wanted to do a short post on this very odd weapon called the "Ebony Blade". It basically looks like a larger version of the Blade's sword and is classified as a greatsword, it also has a leech health enchantment on it. So that all sounds normal whats weird about that? Well upon receiving the blade you're instructed by Mephala to return the blade to its former glory by slaughtering your followers. Sinister. I had no problem doing this so I went by all the people who liked me and starting killing them off one by one and the blade powered up from 19 base to about 23 base. Not a huge improvement. However, in addition to the slight base attack power going up you also get a rather large bump in the amount of health that the blade leeches from your opponents. I read that the max drain for the blade is 30 points so that makes it about 54 total damage per hit if you have it maxed out.

Now to add a bit more weirdness to this thing I can't seem to upgrade it (It won't even show up on the grindstone) and it doesn't get a bonus from the "Barbarian" perk (Boosts damage with two handed weapons). That was a tad bit frustrating since if you could upgrade the damage on this via perks or smithing (or both /godmode) you'd end up with a massively powerful weapon with a heavy leech enchantment. Disappointing. So, right now we have a weapon classified as a "weapon", "greatsword", "unpredictable life sucking rape-stick", and yet it doesn't get a boost from anything that says it boosts those things (I wish there was a perk to upgrade rape-stick damage). I also noticed that over time the sword will power back down to its original 19 base but I am not positive if the leech enchantment weakens as well and since you have a limited amount of followers to murder this means you'll have to keep making friends to feed your blade.

Solution to this problem: Marriage

Getting married will allow you to have a prime target for your cursed blade to feed on. Murdering your spouse will cause the sword to jump up to it's max power and you'll hear Mephala say something like "Excellent work..." notifying you that you've powered the blade up.

Last thing about this weird ass weapon: It seems to have a vastly superior attack speed in comparison to its other greatsword counterparts and appears to have a speed closer to that of a regular sword rather than a two-handed weapon. I'll need to experiment more with this weapon to make sure I learned everything but that is essentially it for now.

How do I get this damned weapon?

Simple quest. Talk to the inn keeper in Whiterun about rumors until she tell you that the Jarl's child is sick. After you begin the quest talk to the Jarl either in Whiterun or in the basement of Solitude's Blue Palace (It's where he goes if you oust him from his throne in Whiterun during the Stormcloak campaign). After asking him about his son you're sent to talk to him in Dragon Reach and the weird kid directs you to Mephala's door and she basically tells you to go back to the kid and find a way to unlock the seal on the door. After talking to the kid again he directs you to either the Jarl or his court mage. You can steal the key from either one of them but if you're like me and have a bounty of 20k+ in every region you can just murder the mage and take the key from him that way. After unlocking the door you get your cursed blade to do whatever you want with. Enjoy!

Feel free to comment on any other aspect of the blade I don't know about yet. I'll update this if I find anything else out about it!

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Whats coming up? (Some stuff I wanna say)

Right now I'm playing through Batman: Arkham City as well as Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and finishing up various side stuff on Skyrim. So the next few posts can be expected to be on any of those three things depending on what I want to talk about (Probably Batman first but who knows).

I'm also working on putting together an Aion PvP video from my massive backlog of fraps so that is eating up a ton of my time I'll be posting that on here when it is complete as well as my Youtube channel Fest1277.

Twitter: So I guess I decided to start tweeting again today and you can follow me at http://twitter.com/#!/TeamInfestation I guess. I'll post updates about the blog as well as random crap!

Comments: Anyone who reads this please feel free to comment even if it is just to let me know you stopped by. I am totally open to suggestions about what people would like to hear about as well as questions concerning games I have posted up on here, I love hearing from people and being able to help out in any game related problems.

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Skyrim Daedric Quests: Sheogorath & Boethia

Just a short little update on two more of the Daedric item quests that I finished yesterday. Enjoy!

Sheogorath - Wabbajack - Staff

So, Wabbajack. Want to cause random explosions? Want to turn people into harmless chickens/bunnies/cakes? Want to occasionally turn people into Dremora? <-- Bad luck on this one. The Wabbajack does all that and more. It's description is "causes an unpredictable effect" and boy does that not even come close to doing it justice. The first time I used this on an enemy he turned into a chicken and just wandered around for a while before poofing back into his previous state. Unfortunately just because they look like chickens doesn't mean they'll just die (that would be a bit ridiculous) and when you hit them they will revert back to their original form, or you can Wabbajack them again and see what else they turn into. The best one I've gotten so far was an explosion that took down about 80% of a dwarven centurion in one hit and then on the next hit, killed and turned him into a sweet cake. Mmmmmmmmm.

Where do I get my chicken morphing staff of cakes?

In solitude outside of the Jarl's palace (The Blue Palace) you'll see a homeless guy ranting and raving about how his master left him. Indulging the clearly disturbed hobo in conversation leads you to begin a quest called "The mind of madness". You're asked to find this guy's master who apparently went into the abandoned wing of the blue palace, you'll need a key which you can ask one of the servants in the palace to give you (They are marked). Oh, and the hobo gives you a hip bone too, he says you'll need it, sounds like good advice to me. Upon entering the abandoned section of the mansion you're quickly teleported into another dimension where you see Sheogorath and Pelagius the Mad having a meal in a very Alice-In-Wonderland type setting. After interrupting their meal Sheogorath agrees to return to reality if you can use Wabbajack to heal some of Pelagius' madness. You're sent to several areas with incredibly strange puzzles which really aren't very difficult and are quite entertaining so I'll leave out the full description here, the only thing you'll need to really know is just to be creative.

Once you finish these tasks Sheogorath returns you to the house and allows you to keep Wabbajack to do with what you will. It is actually quite an effective weapon that only has one negative effect that I've seen (Being the dremora transformation) so enjoy your new toy!

Boethia - Ebony Armor - Armor (It's better than it sounds)

Alright, this was pretty cool and mildly surprising since the armor is classified as "heavy" and is enchanted with an effect you'd expect on "light" armor. Whenever you go into "sneak mode" as I'll refer to it here, you're covered in shadows and you move silently. It literally shrouds your character in darkness, its pretty cool to look at. I did this quest on my level 30 warrior so I'm not 100% sure if the reward is the same for each character but I assume it is.

How do I get my shadowy ebony armor?

Somewhere along the line you'll be attacked by a priest of Boethia or something (its totally random) and he'll be carrying a book called "Boethia's Proving" which will instruct you to go to the shrine, which is located just outside of Windhelm. Upon reaching the summit of the mountain that the shrine is on you'll be confronted by a priestess of Boethia who will instruct you to bring someone who trusts you to the altar of sacrifice and then, well, sacrifice him to appease Boethia. At this point you'll just need to go pick up a follower that you've befriended and lead him to the altar, once you reach the sacrificial pillar you need to give your follower an order (interact with him and say "I need you to do something") and have him move to the pillar. He will be magically bound up and all you need to do is stab him/her dead. After he is dead Boethia will contact you and after a short conversation she instructs the entire encampment of people (There are around 10 maybe) to have a battle royale to determine who is fit to carry out her mission. After taking a dump on all of them (they are pretty easy) you're instructed to go to a cave and kill Boethia's current champion and retrieve his armor. After waltzing through the camp of bandits and beating the champion to death you'll have your new shadowy armor along with an entire set of ebony gear with the exception of the helmet. This is a great quest to do if you need an ebony set and aren't pursuing smithing or don't want to spend the money on crafting it yourself.

If I find any other Daedric Quests I'll post them up! Thanks for reading!

Ninja Edit: Wabbajack just blew someone up into a pile of money. <3

Ninja Ninja Edit: The Boethia assailant seems to show up when you hit level 30

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Skyrim: Daedric Quests

Alright, so this isn't exactly a campaign but there are individual quests that can be grouped under the umbrella of "Daedric Weapon Quests". These are some of the best weapons you can get in the game with the coolest looks and unique enchantments. There is at least one for each type of player (Warrior, Thief, Mage). I'll go through all the ones I know about so far and add to this post as I finish up a few. There is one weapon/item per daedric lord.

Mehrunes Dagon: Mehrune's Razor - Dagger

This is a fantastic dagger that looks pretty damn cool as well. It boasts one of the highest attack powers in the game second only to the daedric dagger (smithed) and the blade of woe (DB Quest reward). The only reason it doesn't have as much attack power as the aforementioned daggers is that it cannot be upgraded to "legendary" rank via smithing. So its got pretty good attack power, looks cool, but what else can it do? It has a small chance to instantly kill anything you hit. Yep. That includes "bosses" and of course, dragons. It is quite hilarious to walk up to a dragon and poke it once with a dagger and just have it flop down. This enchantment makes Mehrune's razor a valuable asset for an Thief players.

How do I get this?

Remember the letter you get early in the game? The one asking you to come check out the new museum in Dawnstar? Don't ignore this like I did on my first character. Once you get there and talk to the curator running this Mythic Dawn museum he asks you to find pieces of the dagger scattered in various parts of Skyrim. Once you find all the pieces you and the curator head to the Mehrunes Dagon shrine and call on him to assemble it. He has you murder the curator in exchange for restoring the dagger. After you kill him you get the dagger do as you will BUT WAIT! Mehrunes is an asshole and summons two dremora to assault you. After dispatching them you're free to enter his temple and kill two more dremora and loot nice things out of a few chests.

Important note about this quest: Daedra hearts a rarity in this game and are used to craft some of the best (and coolest) weapons and armor so if you're intending to smith stuff this is a good chance to pick up four daedra hearts.

Meridia: Dawnbreaker - Sword

Dawnbreaker is a sword made for killing the undead. It has good base stats and is a good sword for anyone going dual swords or sword n board. When I say it's good at killing undead I mean that with a decently high chance upon killing an undead it causes an explosion that damages and causes all undead to flee. So, if you'd like a zombie exploding sword that I can only assume is made from beating the sun to death and forging a sword from its molten remains, then this is your sword.

How do I get my zombie exploding sword?

If you head to the temple of Marra (location coming soon) you're greeted by a disembodied voice in your head telling you that you need to go and find Marra's beacon that has been stolen and defiled by a necromancer. So you go kill some baddies in a dungeon to find this jewel or "beacon" and Marra asks you to guide her light through her defiled temple in order to restore her power and retrieve dawnbreaker. Once you complete the simple puzzles you're rewarded with the dawnbreaker, a nice addition to any armory, even for mages since you could burn draugr down with spells and switch to the dawnbreaker for the final blow to cause an explosion for any others.

Azura: Azura's Star: Soulgem

This is probably one of the more useful items in the game since you'll probably have several weapons that need to be recharged quite often (especially if you have the blade of woe, ugh its like they used the worst soulgem on that thing x.x) but essentially you go to the shrine of Azura (Just south of Winterhold on a mountain near the dragon's sanctuary thing/word wall) and a priestess of Azura confronts you saying you were fated to come here and return Azura's star to him/her (It's referred to as a prince but appears to be a female figure). The star itself is a soul gem that doesn't break after you use it, which means you can store a soul in it, use said soul to enchant/recharge something and then still have the gem afterwards. In order to do this quest you're forced to find the necromancer who stole it in order to put his own soul into it and ultimately transfer himself to a new host and gain immortality. After you defeat his underlings and retrieve the star you take it to his friend and he puts your soul in there in order to destroy his old colleague. This is also a good opportunity to kill several dremora and gain daedra hearts (This quest + Mehrunes' Razor quest = enough hearts for a full set of armor and a weapon or two). The fight itself is not very hard, just a few dremora and a powerful-ish mage. After the fight ends you're presented with a choice, return the star to azura and receive the purified star which only holds natural souls (nonhuman) or allow the mage to finish his dead buddy's work and turn the star into a vessel for human souls (like a black soul gem). I personally went with the dark star since it can only contain grand souls and I wouldn't yell a bunny to death and have it fill the star with a petty soul.

Namira: Namira's Ring - Ring

When you arrive in Markarth and head into the Jarl's palace you see a conversation between a nord and priest involving an intruder of sorts violating the hall of the dead. After a little persuasion the priest lets you handle it. Upon entering the crypt you meet a woman who claims you're a closet cannibal and verbally abuses you into helping her clear out Namira's shrine of all draugr (apparently they aren't yummy enough for cannibals to eat). So after doing this you're asked to bring the priest to the shrine of Namira. If you choose to continue this quest, be warned, its pretty disturbing. After leading the priest to the shrine you murder him and eat him, Namira rewards you with her ring (+50 stamina and the ability to gain boosted regenerative properties by feeding on your enemies). I found this quest to be quite jarring and subsequently murdered the congregation of cannibals which had no repurcussions other than making me feel better.

Molag Bal (Baal? Bol?) : Molag Bal's Mace - Mace

This is one of the easier daedric weapons to find/get just because the quest literally jumps right in your face if you walk a few steps into Markarth. The mace itself isn't a half bad weapon for anyone using a warrior setup, it has one or two good enchantments (I'll post the stats once I'm back home) and has pretty good base stats.

How do I get mine?

Well like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, if you walk into Markarth just past the inn you'll see a priest standing outside one of the houses who stops and asks you questions regarding the house. He then asks you if you'll come investigate the house with him which begins the house of horrors quest. Once inside you make your way into the basement and then your priestly buddy determines that it isn't a regular daedra like he thought it was and makes a run for the door. The front door is of course, locked, and you hear a voice inside your head telling you to murder the priest. Listen to the voice or don't, the end result is the same. After a few seconds of waiting the priest says "No, no! I don't want to die here!" and attacks you. After killing him the voice invites you down into the basement and into the shrine of Molag Bal where you see a mace and a pool of blood. Then he traps you in a cage and forces you to go find a priest of Boethia for him to torture. Upon rescuing the priest you goad him into coming back to the shrine with you where Molag Bal traps him in the same cage you were in and instructs you to beat him to death or until he submits. After a couple good thwacks with the mace the priest dies and is subsequently resurrected for you to beat to death all over again. Once the priest finally submits you kill him for good and receive Molag Bal's mace as payment. Enjoy your new sadistic toy.

Mask (Can't remember the lord's name)

This item is a heavy class helmet that gives you better prices on things and looks a bit strange. It's got a decent armor rating but the dragon priest masks are better for the most part but it's a funny quest so I'd recommend doing it for a good laugh.

How do I get my weirdo mask?

Upon entering Falkreath (not that you would ever go there for anything but a quest) you're approached by a guard asking if you saw a dog on the road. After telling the guard you were too busy yelling at bunnies and foxes to notice any dogs he directs you to the town's blacksmith who is the one actually looking for the dog. The blacksmith informs you that he just wants a good companion and thought that this stray dog would be a good pet. He gives you a steak to go put on the road in order to lure the dog out but as soon as you head to the quest marker the dog approaches you on it's own. So, this dog starts talking to you in a very goofy voice asking you to come kill some dudes in order to get back to his master. After following the invincible daedric dog for a long damn time (I watched him fight a snow troll, a bear, and some bandits.) you go into a cave and kill all the vampires that inhabit the shrine. Once you talk to the daedric lord you realize that he's kinda pissed that you brought back the dog that he exiled (for reasons that become apparent after traveling with the little bastard) and he has you go retrieve a mystical axe (it kinda sucks) and once you return from fetching the axe you're asked to kill the dog. A tempting offer, sure, but I chose to let the daedric lord deal with him and he gives you the mask as payment for your services and then disappears to go bother people now that he has his full power back (The dog is the source of his power). Yay masks!

I believe that this is all but two of the daedric quests, the other ones that may be considered daedric items are the nightingale armor/weapons which you can refer to my thieves guild post to find out about.

I'll update this after I get home! Thanks for reading!

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Skyrim Campaigns: The Companions

The Companions are the "fighters guild" substitute for Skyrim with one huge difference, they're all werewolves. The Companion quest-line begins like you'd expect any fighter-ish missions to start, you go to a ruin and beat up some baddies. Then you get trapped in a room while your partner remains in the room completely alone. Suddenly a swarm of bandit looking people rush out and claim they're going to kill him and they close in on him. Farkas (your partner for this mission) then says something along the lines of "There aren't enough of you" or some other mildly badass quote then he transforms into a giant ass werewolf and slaughters the entire group and casually lets you out of the cage. Upon looking at the fallen enemies they're labeled as "Silver Hand" which I automatically interpreted as a werewolf hunting group. So this mission basically sets the tone for the rest of the campaign and you're sent out to begin wiping out these werewolf hunters.

After you're officially invited into the Companions you're given an option to take part in the blood ritual, which will turn you into a werewolf. I believe you can choose to remain human if you so desire but I wanted to give lycanthropy a fair shot. I'll briefly go over the benefits and drawbacks of being a werewolf.

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Pros:

Transformation once a night

Extremely fast run speed (much faster than a horse)

High resistances to various attacks

Large boost in overall attack power

Cool finishers

Ability to heal and extend your transformation by feeding on fallen enemies

Cons:

Must kill and feed on one person a day in order to retain the maximum benefits (I never suffered the consequences of not doing this but I have read that you weaken the longer you don't feed)

It is a major crime if you're seen transforming

Weak to silver weapons (Typically only a problem when dealing with the silver hand)

Impossible to get "Rested" and "Well Rested" bonuses from sleeping

Can't use items or spells

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So after a few missions as a werewolf where you're sent to hunt down various groups of silver hand members, the harbinger of the group (unofficial leader/elder) wants you to go on a mission for him. This mission's purpose is to cure the entire group of the "beast blood" that runs through their veins so you're sent after the witches that gave it to the companions many years ago. So you go into a cave and cut off some hargreave heads to bring back to the harbinger as he had asked. When you return =*SPOILER ALERT*= the silver hand has raided the Companions' base in Whiterun and left the harbinger dead. Following this event you're sent to eliminate the leader of the silver hand in an act of vengeance. Once this is complete, the Companions reassemble the ancient axe used by the original founder Ysgramor and you enter into another ruin in order to attempt to purify the soul of your fallen leader. Once you fight your way to the end you place one of the witch's heads into the fire and summon out the wolf spirit of the harbinger. Its not a hard fight at all and then you purify the harbingers soul and all is well.

After the main story is over the extra missions involve curing the other members of the Companions of their lycanthropy and doing various hunting missions, including dragon hunts. You're also given the option of curing yourself as well (which I did) which is nice so you don't have to be stuck as a werewolf forever.

Ending notes: One of the early benefits of being a Companion is the Skyforge steel weapon you're offered upon joining. These are easily some of the best weapons you can get early on and hold their own against various other higher-than-steel class weapons such as dwarven, orcish, elven etc. You also get really cool looking wolf armor, its not terribly great but it is definitely one of the cooler looking armor sets in the game.

Thanks for reading :)! Daedric quests are next!

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Skyrim Campaigns: The Thieves Guild

The Thieves guild was one of the better campaigns in Skyrim, it kinda made the Civil war stuff that I talked about in previous posts feel like garbage. There are basically two stages in the campaign which is nice because it offers a change of pace about half way through the quest-line. The first stage is just the basic thieving and stealth missions which are pretty fun if not just because Skyrim's typical style is to just absolutely eliminate everything in your way, so this offers a chance to play the game as you would a stealth game. You're essentially required to get into well guarded areas and steal or mess with various objectives and then escape without being noticed, if possible anyway. There are also an unlimited amount of side jobs you can do for quick gold (NOTE: These are not very hard to do and can be a great way to make money at a lower level.) there are also a total of like six types of side jobs including things like Burglary jobs, Heist jobs, Shill jobs, Numbers jobs, Sweep jobs, etc. =*SPOILER ALERT*= As you progress through the campaign you're eventually asked to accompany the guild master into a dungeon to help him hunt down a former member who had murdered the previous guild leader. So you trek through a ruin that is mostly the same as all the rest but with more traps than usual and when you finally get to the last room you're immediately shot with an arrow and you get to watch the scene unfold while on the ground. Then the guild master being the absolute dick that he is, walks over to helpless little you and stabs you. That concludes the first portion of this quest line.

You awaken in the woods with the person you were originally hunting for and she explains that the poison she hit you with earlier had slowed your heart rate enough so she could stop the bleeding before you kicked the bucket. Then you're brought in on the conspiracy that was set up by the current guild master in order to obtain something called the Skeleton Key, a mystical lockpick that is described as being able to open any door, including ones in your mind (woah?). Essentially its implied that you can use the pick to open up a person's hidden potential. You'll notice that prior to him stabbing you the guild master would pick through things like the claw puzzle doors, which is silly. So the consequence of this dude possessing this super lockpick is that it curses the thieves guild by limiting their "luck", or basically making really unfortunate things happen during the night (Like a pick breaking on an easy lock or a guard feels the need to go out of it's way to check those dark shadowy corners he usually neglects). So you begin the hunt for the guild master by translating the previous one's notebook in order to determine what happened that led to all this. Of course the previous guy was an absolute tool and wrote his journal in Falmer language. Yeah, those little blind bat people that live underground, their language. After a semi-difficult stealth mission through dwarven ruins in order to find a translation you're informed about something called the Nightingales.

The Nightingales are a group of three of the most skilled thieves who pledge their eternal souls to a mystical being called Noctournal, essentially the goddess of thieves. So you are offered the chance to become one of these Nightingales in order to stop Mercer (tired of typing "guildmaster"). Now before I talk about finishing this campaign I'd just like to point out that gear-wise this campaign is incredibly rewarding. Once you choose to become a Nightingale you're given a full set of armor that is probably the coolest looking set in the entire game and is incredibly beneficial for stealth players. You're also given a Nightingale blade and bow before the campaign ends, both of which are heavily enchanted and very useful in combat (even better if you have max smithing and can upgrade them). So once you have all the pieces in place you have to trek through another dwarven ruin knocking tons of falmer out of the way as you go and eventually you get to mercer and have a climactic clash. After the fight is over you receive the skeleton key. Okay now a bit of advice here, you now have about 90% of the rewards from the thieves guild quest-line and you have access to a lockpick that is unbreakable. You have no obligation to fork over the key right away and if you want to bolster your funds a bit then go on a crime spree or just raise your lockpicking stat to 100. Once you turn it in it is gone forever, so keep that in mind. After returning the key all is well in the thieving world and your final rewards are the aforementioned bow as well as one of three nightingale skills.

These skills are divided into three types:

1. Agent of Strife: This is my personal favorite since it essentially gives you a skill that fires a soul sucking wall of death at an enemy. This skill immediately absorbs 100 health from a target. Now, in Skyrim, at level 40, I have a little over 200 hp. So this skill instantly inflicts massive damage to a target and then heals half of my hp. Very useful.

2. Agent of Subterfuge: Basically this is just a very strong rage spell and allows you to royally piss someone off. Moderately useful.

3. Agent of Stealth: Probably the second best skill out of the three (in my opinion) it allows you to become completely invisible while in stealth for 120 seconds a day. Perfect for prolonged stealth missions and allows you to keep the Nightingale stuff on without taking any loss in terms of sneaking effectiveness over the Dark Brotherhood gear. Very useful.

The best part: You aren't locked into the skill once you choose one, you're allowed to switch it up once a day. So if you need to switch skills to suit your needs you're allowed to do so.

Last comments: This campaign was decently long and a whole lot of fun. It was about the same as the Dark Brotherhood in terms of length, rewards, and entertainment. Both the DB and TG campaigns give full gear sets and great weapons. I highly recommend this quest-line to anyone playing a thief!

Super long post, thanks for reading. Skyrim week is coming to a close and I'll be talking about the Companions and the main story line sometime in the next few days. Maybe the mages college if I ever get around to finishing my mage.

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Skyrim Campaigns: Civil War (Stormcloaks)

This will be a very short post since the differences between the two sides of this questline are extremely few and far between. Neither civil war rewards you very well at all and the fort sieges get pretty repetitive. The only thing I really liked about the Stormcloak side was the siege on Solitude. It is a larger city and proved to be more visually enticing than Windhelm. Outside of that they essentially just copy the quest-line from the Imperial side and change up the settings a bit. One thing I failed to mention about the civil war campaigns in general was the fact that the scars of the war are displayed in the various cities you siege, namely Whiterun. You can see broken portions of barricades and destroyed scenery, the signs of battle are preserved for the rest of the game which sort of gives you a feeling of influence over how the world develops and allows you to craft it.

Not a long post, not a long campaign. Can't say I enjoyed the civil war stuff very much, it was all kind of a bummer. I feel like they could have fleshed it out a bit more and made the city sieges way more epic.

Thieves Guild Campaign tomorrow! This one was a lot of fun.

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Skyrim Campaigns: Civil War, Imperial side

So I chose to do the Imperial side of this campaign mostly because I like the look of their armor more than the Stormcloak's and I had high hopes that I would be receiving some sort of awesome looking armor set with super cool bonuses and stuff. I was wrong. You receive jack shit for doing this quest line outside of a sort of decent sword and a basic armor set which is nice if you do this right out of the gate and have no smithing skill or the ability to run dungeons to get gear (it really is not hard to get better armor/weapons than this quest line gives you). That is one of the only disappointing parts thankfully and the rest of the campaign is quite fun. Your main missions typically consist of siege style missions where you have to exhaust the enemy troops before they overwhelm you, which is pretty fun, especially for anyone running a warrior class setup since you essentially hack through opponent after opponent with relative ease (if you've got a decent gear situation that is). This also provides you with a great way to level up some skills since one fort siege mission could allow you to tear through about 5 dungeons worth of enemies in quick succession.

Story: The civil war campaign is a pretty straightforward story, you go to each Imperial outpost around Skyrim and systematically push your way through the various regions by taking over key forts and eliminating Stormcloak forces. Eventually you push up to Windhelm and actually siege the city and take on Ulfric himself. Not terribly difficult to do (at least on adept difficulty) but its a visually enticing scene, Windhelm burning and ravaged.

Overall this campaign was not as fun as the DB questline but I am severely biased since my playstyle of choice is the thief setup and this one definitely seemed like it was more of a warrior-type campaign. I thought the siege style missions were pretty nice and a good change of pace from your typical dungeon. I'll be doing the Stormcloak side of this questline probably later today and will post on it once I have completed it.

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Skyrim Campaigns: The Dark Brotherhood

So, I decided that trying to "review" or even talk about Skyrim as a whole just would either turn out to be a small book or be too short to do it justice. So to resolve this little problem I'll just talk about the various campaigns you can do to supplement your experience with Skyrim (does anyone just do the main story..?). I'll start with the only one I have completed 100% which is the Dark Brotherhood or the "Assassin's guild" for those who may not know what it's called.

You can start this campaign chain by heading to Windhelm and finding a boy in his house praying over his mother's corpse (super grim huh?) for the Dark Brotherhood to come and become a tool of vengeance for this boy. You're sent on a mission to assassinate his abusive caretaker at the orphanage he had previously resided in. After you successfully eliminate this mean, child abusing, old hag of a lady you're kidnapped the next time you go to sleep by a masked woman and taken to a shack with three people with bags on their heads. This next part is a test of your judgement or lack thereof, you're ordered to murder one of the three captives and you're supposed to figure out which one is guilty. --SPOILER ALERT-- Your choice probably doesn't matter but I personally decided to murder all three, which turned out to be a potential response as well.

After you've been accepted in you're introduced to the rest of your "family" and you begin the Dark Brotherhood experience. This is filled with murder, stealth, and fun. From dropping statues onto unsuspecting brides to finding a pirate ship and assassinating its captain the Dark Brotherhood offers an incredibly wide range of assassinations that vary in difficulty and complexity. The story revolves around two things:

1. The night mother vs. the current family: The night mother is brought to Skyrim's sanctuary after the one in Bravil was ransacked, this causes a bit of tension between Skyrim's brotherhood (which is the last one by the way) who has abandoned the "old ways" and the call for a return to the nightmother's guidance and the appointment of a listener.

2. An assassination plot against the emperor, this is revealed quite early on so I don't consider it a spoiler but I won't detail the process in which you do this (it's kinda complex). This is an incredibly fun endeavor as you're constantly being put into the line of fire and forced to escape situations that are near impossible to do without heavy resistance from city guards and the like. The story itself is rife with betrayal and conflict between the dwindling members of the brotherhood and the emperor's elite guard. When it comes to dynamic mission concepts, the Dark Brotherhood campaign delivers.

Side notes: There are some side contracts you can take in order to make some extra gold or in my case, just have a little fun. These are a great way to gain a good foothold financially and are pretty fun but typically on the easy side compared to the main line of assassinations.

Shadowmere. This horse is the best. He makes his epic return from Oblivion for you to ride around on and kick all kinds of ass. He is the best distraction ever since he is completely invincible, he takes hits from giants no problem, no trouble from dragons or hordes of guards either (I tend to misbehave). The best part of his invincibility? Things love to attack him. They just can't keep their hands off this horse and they ignore me, which means they have a hot date with some daggers coming.

In closing I would just like to say that the Dark Brotherhood is quite different in Skyrim than it was in Oblivion but I would say that it's a good change and a hell of a lot of fun.

Civil War campaign : Imperial side next!

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Skyrim

I have the hots for this game. Good lord where did the last three days go...Skyrim is possibly the most immersive game I have ever played. Bethesda did a fantastic job with this game no question about it. Just the way they shaped their world is phenomenal, the story is left up to the player, each playstyle has the ability to function well and the dungeons are d0-able with any kind of weapon setup. There is very little to complain about when you are given such a massive world, hundreds of quests and dungeons, and multiple complex campaigns to experience.

One thing I really loved was the new class design. They let us have even more freedom with this than even Oblivion allowed. In Oblivion you were allowed to create a custom class with 7 things you felt were important, this was nice and all but it was hard to be effective in something that wasn't in your top 7. Skyrim lets you do whatever the hell you want. I love that. My current character is a Khajit with mostly thief-class skills. I love the thief playstyle but I also like to add my own twist to things, so I also decided to work on enchanting and conjuration a bit. The purpose of adding that to my thief character was to enhance my overall effectiveness, I didn't feel alchemy would help me a lot so instead, I delved into sort of a 50/50 enchanting and conjuration setup. With conjuration I focused specifically on getting the bound bow spell which eliminates my need for arrows and frees up space that would otherwise be taken up by a bow. Atronarchs also make fantastic distractions when things get messy.

This is an incredibly brief take on the game and there is just so much more to write. But I'll save that until after I "complete" the game. If anyone is reading this, be sure to comment with your character choices/preferences!

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Rusty Hearts

So I was watching some Aion PvP videos on youtube out of boredom and one of the channels had videos of a game called Rusty Hearts. Now, being the well educated MMO player that I am, I had to check it out and see what this unknown game was. So I go to the site and see that its made by the same people who did Perfect World and their slew of cookie cutter MMOs that I could never understand why anyone bothered with. This was a definite put off. Burying my unease about the developer, I decided to download and give Rusty Hearts a try.

RH (Rusty Hearts) is a side scrolling hack n' slash game that provides you with an option of using four characters, each with their own unique weapons, skills, and overall playstyles. I chose to play as the vampire guy with the sword. Not because I like vampires, I like swords and I did not want to play as the gauntlet guy just because his name is "Tude"...I have standards, I'll take angsty vampire over anyone named Tude. The game plays out with horrible voice acting and a very annoying UI but despite that its decently fun to plow through the dungeons on various difficulties. There isn't much to talk about when it comes to combat...you have a basic combo, an air combo you'll never use, and some skills to work with. The enemies are pretty basic, you got your skeletons...fish people...odd looking bosses.

The thing I liked more than anything else is just the way everything looks. It kinda reminds me of an old school hack n slash in a weird vague kinda way. I really liked the skill animations though, they were quite well done and really gave a good sense of impact.

Outside of all that stuff there isn't too much to talk about...I guess I could mention that the towns absolutely blow.

Anyway, RH is a good F2P game if you're into hack n slashes and have some time to kill. I can't see myself playing it much in the future, just wasn't my thing.

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Ambition

So I've been thinking a lot lately about the concept of ambition as well as my own ambitions for my life, my career, my personal growth, pretty much thinking about ambition as it applies to all aspects of my life. I feel like I'd feel better if I just put it down somewhere that I could look at whenever I feel uncertain or discouraged. So that place will be here since this has become a personal, yet very open, log of my thoughts as they relate to games. So here it goes.

In regards to career ambitions: Honestly, I'm shooting for the stars when it comes to what I ultimately want to do with my life and my passions. I want, at the end of my career, to be able to own and manage my own game studio. More than anything in the world I want to be the guy in charge of making the things that I love, to be a driving force of change and innovation in the gaming industry in my own way, by doing my own thing. Realistically speaking, my dream is not something that is easily achieved and I acknowledge the difficulty of making something like this a reality, game studios die faster than a homeless puppy on a cold winter evening (grim, colorful, depressingly accurate). I honestly don't even know where to start and even what my first step might be to realizing this ambition, the only thing I do know is: Right here, right now, I am going to begin fostering my talents in order to prepare myself for when opportunity comes knocking so I will be as ready as I'll ever be to make my dream a reality.

Personal Ambitions: I struggle a lot with various aspects in my personal life. Plain and simple. Who doesn't struggle here I wonder? I don't think I'd get along with a person like that...I think that awkwardness you feel when you first meet someone is a good thing, I like the uncertainty of not knowing what this person will do, they could be my best friend next month and then my most hated enemy in 20 years. I just don't know. I feel the need to remind myself that its okay to be myself but I still need to put myself out there and seek connections with those around me. I am very naturally an aloof person, always have been, probably always will be (to some degree at least). I find that I am easily accepted by like-minded peers but I seem to have trouble locating those people to a greater degree than I would like. As an introvert I love my alone time but I am hungry for a connection which is decently difficult to foster in the environment I have taken up residence in. I commute to class every day and return home every night after my work is done, which doesn't exactly leave too much room for a social life outside of my well loved gaming buddies whom I interact with via Aion or Ventrillo. Simply put: Its not enough for me. I miss my friends from Boston, the laughs, the fights, the good, the bad, the constant flux of dorm life was very entertaining for me. So right now, the first thing I want to accomplish in my personal life is finding one good friend and fostering that connection here at Cornerstone.

Regarding Personal Growth: I am a person who is constantly changing, I recognize this aspect of myself, I feel like my state of growth will last until the day I die. I never want to stagnate or become predictable. Its incredibly easy to get into a rhythm and just go through the motions of life and stop growing. For me, growth can be described best by the use of one horrible, terrifying word. Failure. When I fail I am so hard on myself and that critical response is eventually reduced to a dull sting whenever I think back on a particular failure. Since I've returned home to Michigan I feel like I have stopped punishing myself for the times I fall short. Instead of punishing myself I find myself laughing when I have some time alone, its these situations where I fall on my face (figuratively speaking) that I find the most valuable. I think learning to laugh at myself and in the face of failure can be one of my greatest assets, I am incredibly tenacious when I want something but I would find myself shying away from situations where I might fail. Sure I may be "safe" from those hard feelings of failure and inadequacy but I am coming to the point where I'd rather fall on my face doing things I love than sitting in a safe little corner pretending I'm happy with the way things are. Just gotta keep getting up and trying again until you get it right. A simple yet infinitely complex ambition to pursue.

In closing I would just like to say that I appreciate the quote my parents keep tossing around and writing all over the house. "Stand in your vision" I think that's a great idea right now.

-Fest

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Thoughts on Crysis 2

So I finally got around to finishing Crysis 2 this past weekend and just wanted to share a couple of my thoughts in regards to how it measured up to the first. The first thing I'll address here is the undertones that I encountered throughout the game. Being a first person shooter typically guarantees a sub-par story and lackluster character design by falling into the pattern of face-less super soldier blows up gratuitous amounts of aliens. This held true for Crysis 2, you play as Alcatraz, just a normal marine who gets flung into this massive conflict between the Ceph and Humanity. The character from the first Crysis, Prophet, finds this random dying marine laying on the ground completely helpless and decides to give him a second chance at life as well as to complete his work and destroy the Ceph.

I thought that despite the main character being voice-less and face-less there was still some shred of purpose that he displayed over the course of the game. Even his name, Alcatraz, was symbolic of his situation in a pretty big way. You're essentially tossed into this super suit by no desire of your own and forced to fight your way through hordes of hardships all by yourself. You're trapped into a fight that wasn't your own, you're alone for the most part, and you can't get out of the suit no matter what happens to you (even when others try to get him out of it by force it doesn't work). You're essentially trapped in a cage fighting other people's battles the entire game, and while the thought of being trapped in a super nano suit that essentially makes you invincible may sound like the coolest prison experience ever, its still communicated in various ways that your will is never your own.

The game as whole was decently fun and the variation between the human opponents and the alien ones kept the levels interesting. I liked the original Crysis more than I liked this one just due to the way it was designed with an open world and a higher degree of freedom rather than what they did with Crysis 2, which took more of a Halo 2/3/Reach approach to things. You're given a moderate amount of freedom in how you'd like to complete your objectives via stealth or just plowing your way through hoards of opponents which is nice but it lacked the feel that the original had (more of a Far Cry feel).

That's all I have to say about Crysis 2. Its hard to make meaningful connections in a game that is centered on blowing jello-aliens up and running around with a super nano-suit.

-Fest

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Thoughts before playing Limbo

As I have decided to embrace the more creative side of my brain for a while I find myself paying a special attention to the various messages conveyed through the games I play. Typically I'd find myself analyzing the more mundane aspects of games that are consistent throughout any game such as the mechanics, what works, what doesn't work, what caught my interest, whats new about this game, etc. Meaning almost lost its foothold in my brain as I play through game after game...sometimes its just hard to find meaning in most mainstream games. So I challenged myself to search for meaning in each and every genre of game (Yes, even FPS).

I figured Limbo would be a good place to start doing this since I haven't played anything other than the demo and it struck me as a game that is just wrought with meaning. Even the art style just drips with emotion and plays a key role in setting the tone for the game and defining the universe that Limbo takes place in.

More later, class now. Just some thoughts.

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Aion over the years

Aion is something I have been involved in from the very beginning of its life and I just wanted to take a chance to look back and evaluate how the game has progressed over the two years it has been out. Originally Aion was supposed to be this groundbreaking MMO that would bring a lot of new stuff to the table for gamers everywhere and provide a solid alternative to WoW's deathgrip on the MMO market. Sadly I don't feel Aion delivered in the way people were hoping it would. Aion had a lot of good ideas that were executed rather poorly, the main thing being the grind. While each small part of Aion was good in its own respect it was hampered by a lack of content making leveling a new character extremely time consuming and frustrating. This was the reason I had to unsub for several months, it was too much of a time sink to balance with college and still get my money's worth. There were also numerous other issues with the game's pvp structure which was just messed up completely. Air combat was dominated mostly by the ranged classes and the ground pvp dominated by the melee classes, namely the assassin with its unbreakable stun lock combo'd and its already fast and heavy attacks, it left most opponents unable to even use a single skill before they were utterly destroyed. Rift based pvp also suffered a frustrating fate with the sheer number of twinks (people who would purposely gear up at a lower level and not progress in order to keep killing lower level players) they would sing all sorts of songs to justify doing this but in reality it was just a psychological cushion so they wouldn't get shredded by other players. Twinking made the already difficult leveling process almost impossible with every major leveling area being camped almost 24/7 by people who would convince themselves that what they were doing was PvP and not griefing.

So, I was a little frustrated with Aion when I left but once the summer hit I resubbed and got my first character to level 50...then 1.9 came out and changed the dynamics of pvp entirely. As I previously mentioned, the Assassin class was insanely difficult to beat if one got the drop on you and locked you up with multiple stuns. So in 1.9 NCsoft decided it was time to take a dump on them...by adding a skill for every class called Remove Shock. This skill completely changed the dynamics and strategies employed in pvp since it allowed players to escape from a single stun and gain a buff that made them resistant to said stuns for 8 seconds. Needless to say...this threw a wrench into the gameplay that the Assassin revolved around and it was no small nerf, this butchered the class almost entirely. Not trying to say I have a better idea on how to balance things but within 8 seconds of not being able to stun people most assassins would be dead before they had a chance to do much. This gave rise to a new standard of pvp...Gladiator and Sorceror dominance. With the ability to evade stunlocks these two classes became immensely difficult to kill for anyone outside of other ranged or caster classes and even now, a year or more later, they are still top tier for pvp. The way "balancing" has worked for pvp is essentially creating one powerhouse after another and leaving certain classes in the dust (Assassins and Chanters mainly).

Where has Aion gone since 1.9? There have been three more updates that were noteworthy, 2.0, 2.5, and 2.6. 2.0 introduced the ground abyss, a pvp area with new forts to siege and very little flight pvp outside of one or two areas. This was a great addition to the game for people who did not like to rift excessively or fight in the air due to the dominance of the ranged classes. 2.5 took things a step further and added new skills for each class which changed pvp even more, but for the better this time. 2.6 was a very recent update which was mostly a pve centered update so I won't talk too much about it since this is being written from the perspective of a pvping Assassin but it added more ways to gear yourself up as well as level.

Has Aion gotten better over time? You bet! It has been a bumpy road for sure and I was pretty negative while writing this but I love Aion its a great game and it has been made much more accessable to the more casual player and many changes have been made for both pve and pvp alike. Every class has a shot in pvp at this point in time and it has created a very fun, fast paced pvp environment that is in constant flux.

Where is Aion going from here? Well 2.7 is the next big step with the addition of a pvp arena for both solo and small group pvp. Aion had taken some flak due to it being centered on group pvp rather than solo but now even us solo pvpers have a place to call home. Its an exciting update that is adding more pvp gear and more pvp in general. Next is 3.0, this is the biggest projected update for Aion and people have been drooling over it since the vision trailer was released so long ago depicting epic sieges on home cities, houses, new classes, new weapons, new game mechanics, etc. From my perspective Aion can only keep getting better! Thanks for reading!

-Fest

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Bodycount Review

Well I don't have too much to say about this FPS aside from well, its different...? Bodycount didn't really click with me and I typically enjoy hectic first person shooters and from the scores it received from multiple other reviewers I don't think it really "clicked" with many people at all. I'll still evaluate the good and bad as objectively as I can while offering some insight of my own.

The Good: Fast paced, lots of enemies, ability to shred through most terrain, somewhat imaginative transitions between levels/enemy types.

The Bad: Clunky controls, poor aiming system, almost non-existent story (somewhat typical of shooters in general), limited array of weapons to choose from.

I really hate bashing games in general just because I know someone put a lot of time and effort into making it and I really do love all kinds of games but my honest opinion of Bodycount is not a very good one. I couldn't really bring myself to play the whole game through, partially due to not wanting to and partly due to college life being busy. But from what I did play of Bodycount I found the controls to be quite unresponsive...to clarify what I mean by that, I love to get headshots and move with precision in my playing of shooters and Bodycount encourages a more "spray bullets at all dem dudes" kind of style which really doesn't revolve around tactical positioning and aiming but rather running and gunning. Bodycount's main advertised quality was its destructible terrain and the idea that there is "nowhere to hide" but typically in any given environment you'll be able to find at least something to take cover behind, such as a cement wall or steel pipe (bullets did not seem to work at all on these more solid obstacles). However when you try to take cover within houses or other various areas you are vulnerable to attack from outside enemies or enemies within the same building but in a different adjacent room. I didn't find this aspect of the game to be particularly appealing or really do anything specific for the gameplay other than make it so you take extra stray bullets every so often.

As the game progresses you receive random upgrades as you complete levels which you can activate on the fly as the special gauge refills over time. A few examples are adrenaline which makes you impervious to bullets for some reason, and explosive rounds which increase your damage against all targets. Theses upgrades are given to you unceremoniously, you don't have to find them or buy them or really do anything at all. The weapon system works in the same way as you receive a new one or two after each level. This takes a bit of the fun out of games like this as it makes it so you don't have to work for any of the upgrades they are just dolled out to you like cheap candy from a questionable van.

I didn't find time to give the multiplayer a try but I felt that the game's mechanics wouldn't support a very entertaining experience in a competitive environment like that. That just about wraps up what my experience was with Bodycount, I remain unimpressed and a little agitated.

Next week I'll be talking about either Dead Island, Disgaea 4, White Knight Chronicles 2, or one of the other games on my gamefly queue.

Thanks for reading

-Fest

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Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Alright here we go, I've been pumped for the new installment of the Deus Ex series and I was not disappointed in any way.

Although I had no previous interaction with the older Deus Ex games, I still enjoyed the crap out of this new one (I also downloaded the other two on Steam :D). Its a completely solid stealth action game outfitted with various FPS elements as well as a well made stealth system. Coolest thing for me was the sheer number of ways you could 1. Build your character and 2. Complete each mission/the entire game. I'll go into detail later but here's the rundown on Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

When the game starts you are put into the role of Adam, hes a tough talking, very confident, head of security for the biotech corporation, Sarif Industries. You're quickly introduced to the main characters who are interesting in their own respects but you really don't need to worry about them just yet because...you get attacked by augmented (term for humans who have had part/parts of themselves augmented with cybernetic technology) terrorists who pretty much beat the tar out of you and everyone around you. They also shoot you in the head. You may think..."Well I didn't think games started with the main character's brains all over a wall" well you're not living in a time where getting shot in the head means you get to become a badass cyborg. So they rebuilt you in a sort of robo-cop way and you get cool built in sunglasses and lots of other robot stuff that you get to abuse people with for the entirety of the game.

So. To sum this up so far, highly trained ex-cop turned super robot has his entire network of friends and loved ones slaughtered and is then turned loose in the unfortunate city of Detroit. You're essentially robot batman now and you're given various quests related to the main story as well as bunches of cool side-quests. I loved the side-quests, they were typically quite lengthy and provided me with a good way to obtain ammo(very important), practice various things, and level myself up without having to proceed to the harder plot related quests. These side-quests also rewarded you with money as well as weapon upgrades which are both a useful commodity. The game rewards you for doing various things in any mission which yield bonus exp and extra cash. One example is the "Ghost" reward which is given if you complete any mission without being detected even once. Another nice thing about how the game works in regards to the missions is that there are multiple completion paths which doesn't lock you into just sneaking or hacking your way in without being detected. There is also the method I found myself using a lot which involved getting annoyed with the talking/sneaking/hacking route and going and shooting everyone in the face and disappearing back into the shadows or a vent till the heat cooled off...then systematically ganking everyone else. All the options you're given does two things, 1. It opens the game up to a larger playerbase, since it can either play like a stealth game, an action game, or a mix of both depending on what you want and 2. Huge amount of replay value since the various paths are vastly different and will provide you with a completely new experience. Despite the options you're given you can tell the game wants you to do certain things, namely, hacking.

Even if the game wants you to hack stuff you can pretend you can't program a VCR and still advance through the game just fine since all the plot relevant stuff will be hack-able with the basic level of hacking. I would strongly advise using hacking to its full potential as it is quite rewarding financially as well as a good source of experience.

Alright so just an overview of a couple things now. First of all I should probably say something negative here so there is something other than praise being sung here. The story was a bit weak for me, their plot devices were kinda cliche and I won't spoil anything but when you find out how they classify the bad guys it was a facepalm moment for me but I guess it could work for some people. Even so, the game itself is fantastic and the plot is only the scaffolding that guides you while you experience the game as you choose. Next is the weapons. You have access to all the basic weapons you'd expect to see in a game like this, pistols, rifles, shotguns and all the like. You also find heavy weapons like rocket launchers, heavy rifles, and sniper rifles occasionally, however, the inventory system is the attache case kind. Basically this means you'll be using your big weapons in one situation then tossing them out because how much of your case do you think a full sized, shoulder-mounted rocket launcher takes up? Yeah, its like almost 50% of the un-expanded case. It does get mildly annoying when you need to ditch certain weapons to make sure you have ammo for the ones you use more often. There are also a lot of cool high-tech weapons you get access to later on, I won't say exactly what they are except for the laser rifle just because its so damn cool. If you upgrade your smart vision you can see people through walls, if you have the laser rifle, you can shoot through walls...catch where I'm going with this?

Overall the game was a huge hit with me, I love it to death and I highly recommend it for fans as well as non-fans of the series just due to the nature of the game being undeniably fun. The amount of variation that this game brings to the table is scarcely seen anywhere else and its a huge selling point for a game in this genre. I could rant for much longer but I'm already way past what I thought the length of this review would be! Thanks for reading, I highly recommend picking this game up as soon as possible!

-Fest

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