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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