Dishonored Full Review

When a player hears the word "freedom" tossed around lightheartedly describing a game it may give them reason to pause. How much freedom can we expect in a video game?

Games themselves are simply a set of rules and scenarios presented to a player in the hope that they will take and apply those rules in the intended ways. Dishonored, however, sought to break the mold of its predecessors and allow the player a high degree of freedom to move through the game in a way they see fit.
So what is Dishonored? If you were to categorize it then you'd label it a stealth action title. But it's more than that, Dishonored took the standard stealth game formula and ran with it, giving birth to an incredibly intricate mission based stealth sandbox.

The gameplay is a fluid mix of physical weaponry and supernatural abilities, a combo reminiscent of Bioshock’s combat systems. Players can upgrade their physical arsenal in significant ways using currency and can augment their supernatural abilities by finding hidden items called Runes. This customization can be pursued to the player’s liking; allowing Corvo, the protagonist, to become anything from a walking supernatural armory to a shadowy assassin armed with nothing more than a blade. The choice is entirely the player’s and Dishonored doesn’t demand that any of these abilities be used to complete the game.

The plot the other hand, draws from many tried and true themes and plot points with heavy emphasis on betrayal and consequence. Much of Dishonored’s themes, however, are communicated through a visual medium, as you take control of the silent protagonist, Corvo, and guide him through the ruined remains of the once great city of Dunwall, now reduced to a shell of its former self by a brutal plague akin to the Black Death.

Corvo’s story is, in part, left up to the player. It can be a story of vengeance and death, as Corvo becomes part of the chaos he seeks to destroy to exact his revenge on those who took both family and dignity from him. Or it can be a story of retribution and redemption as there are non-lethal ways to complete every mission.

No matter what choices you make you will end up in the same geographical locations but they will be vastly different in content depending on how the player has shaped the story. This is measured throughout the game by determining the level of “chaos” the player has caused in completing Corvo’s assignments. Should the player choose a more chaotic path, it will be reflected in both the mission content and the environment itself as the city reels in the wake of Corvo’s vengeance.


Dishonored is arguably one of the most prominent stealth action titles to hit the market in recent years and promises a solid, albeit short experience. It is a must have for any fans of the stealth genre and has fully earned my approval

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Dishonored: First Look

When it comes to video games one might find that they see every single new release hyped up in a manner that is a bit more than acceptable, leading to some pretty bitter disappointments. Dishonored however, seems to be living up to the hype.

Dishonored is a stealth action game developed by Arkane Studios in cooperation with Bethesda Softworks. Arkane studios set out to redefine the concept of freedom in the stealth action genre and Dishonored seems to do just that, boasting an impressive amount of ways for players to accomplish the missions laid out in front of them. Along with this freedom to shape the story, Dishonored also equips the player with a multitude of supernatural abilities including things like short range teleporting, time distortion, and even corporeal possession.

Dishonored has fought for and won my attention in the past year through the use of tantalizing trailers and promises of unparalleled freedom. However, being the ever cautious person I am I didn’t want to overexcite myself and get disappointed by a sub-par finished project.  So, I decided to make playing the exclusive demo of Dishonored at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), a large gaming convention held in Seattle, WA, my top priority.

After several hours of enviously watching my peers get their chances with the game, it was finally my turn. I grasped the controller in my hands and dove into the scenario that had been laid in front of me. As I began to experiment with the controls I took a moment to survey my surroundings. This demo took place in a ruined portion of cityscape with collapsed stonework and disheveled residents wandering to and from my projected point of entry.

As I continued with the demo I shifted through my extensive physical and magical arsenal testing out various powers and weapons as I went, finding what suited me best. This process led me to a realization that made me quite happy, I actually didn’t need to fight any of the enemies in front of me to succeed in the mission I was given. Using a combination of time distortion and teleporting I managed to sneak my way into the primary mission location without inflicting a single casualty along the way.

Graphically, Dishonored is fantastically impressive with its steam punk style dystopian world. It sets a gloomy tone to the story as the main character, Corvo, sets out to clear his name of a crime he did not commit. Corvo is assisted by an enigmatic man known only as “The Outsider” who imparts upon him a seal and the ability to utilize supernatural abilities.

Dishonored brings a lot to the table for both stealth and action fans alike. With the freedom to choose how you’d like to go through the game, players will be able to have a personalized experience, different from their peers. Dishonored is a game that shouldn't be missed! It launches on October 9^th.

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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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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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