Topic: WRUP - What are you playing?

[Jimmy]

I think this one will be interesting for some. Prepare yourself for a trip to memory lane if you were a kid in the early eighties

VIDEO GAME ADS

BTW for Roger check the main page they have a section of old comic book publicities and covers

[Achim]

I don't even get the reasoning! Will people who don't want to wait by a console version instead...? I doubt it; at least that that would be relevant numbers.

Although, from what I have seen the past few years the PC versions were almost always later than the consoles. It's a great game, so jus bne patient...

[Achim]

I'm so pissed off. The PC release has been delayed until the 11th November. Bloody sods have some perverse idea this will cut down on piracy. Oh yeah, that's the way. Assume all your customers are on the rob. Grrr! 

Oh, oh...

You will not be happy about this: Batman: Arkham City PC receives mini delay
In short: Novemeber 25 is the new date for Europe (except for france and Benelux, where it will be 11/24).

Now, what I find rather curious is, that the Mac version is already out (saw it in the mac App Store two days ago).

[Sharpy]

Currently I keep switchin between Battlefield 3 and Gears Of War 3 (Both 360) at the moment. Really want to get MW3 as soon as I can , as I usually love the COD games ....... but battlefield seemed to catch my interest abit more

[Najemikon]

I'm so pissed off. The PC release has been delayed until the 11th November. Bloody sods have some perverse idea this will cut down on piracy. Oh yeah, that's the way. Assume all your customers are on the rob. Grrr! 

Oh, oh...

You will not be happy about this: Batman: Arkham City PC receives mini delay
In short: Novemeber 25 is the new date for Europe (except for france and Benelux, where it will be 11/24).

Now, what I find rather curious is, that the Mac version is already out (saw it in the mac App Store two days ago).

Argh! What are they playing at?  Still, I can find some consolation in the fact I'll be getting it for a bargain, if not making a slight profit effectively. I still have that bundle pre-ordered, but I just had a new graphics card and got a code for Arkham City included! I'll be able to sell one of the games for a very reasonable price to some lucky punter, I reckon...

[RossRoy]

I read about it .. got excited about it and preordered .. Read some more about it .. Got concerned and cancelled the preorder .. Read some more .. Preordered it again .. Then cancelled .. Then reordered .. then pick it up this morning! ... after deciding to NOT get it! .. (yeah, it can get pretty complicated for me to choose which games to buy ..) .. in any case, I'm about to start playing:



Here's hoping I like it better than Morrowind and Oblivion before it .. though from what I keep reading, they seem to have fixed most of my gripes! We'll see ..

[RossRoy]

Oh Bethesda .. what are we going to do with you:
http://www.vg247.com/2011/11/11/bethesda-suggests-360-users-hold-off-on-installing-skyrim-until-a-patch-is-released/

For those who are wondering: Only Bethesda could make a game that actually runs better from the DVD than a hard drive ..

---

If you have the chance, look up the title song for Skyrim .. it's awesome!


Love the touches of previous theme in the background!

[Sharpy]

oohhh Skyrim Good choice   , this game looks great! these sorta games keep ya busy wiv the amount of hours u hav to put it, absolutely massive game. I wouldnt mind pickin this up at some point

[Achim]

I read about it .. got excited about it and preordered .. Read some more about it .. Got concerned and cancelled the preorder .. Read some more .. Preordered it again .. Then cancelled .. Then reordered .. then pick it up this morning! ... after deciding to NOT get it! .. (yeah, it can get pretty complicated for me to choose which games to buy ..) .. in any case, I'm about to start playing:

This surprises me. I would have thought this is right up our alley. What were the things making you cancel the order(s)? I mean, you like Fantasy settings and you like RPGs and this s like the top series in that section of he shelf...

[RossRoy]

Well, RPG are pretty much defined by 2 things for me: the story, and the combat.

Let's tackle the easiest one: Combat. In previous Elder Scrolls titles, I never felt in "control" during combat, it became too much of a button masher for my taste. There's also the fact I don't feel the FPS view is all that great for melee combat. A typical battle for me in Oblivion became: lunge in and hit once or twice, run backwards to avoid counterattack, then lunge back in for a few hits, rinse, lather, repeat. Oh sure, I could sneak around and fire arrows from the shadows, but aiming is a bitch and unforgiving on Oblivion. No compensation at all for the clumsy controller aim (yeah yeah I know "play on PC!" )

Then there's the Story. I never felt engaged in either Morrowind or Oblivion (never played Daggerfall or Arena before). You are thrown into a world, basically free to wander wherever you like. But the thing is, the world was empty. I loved wandering around in Fallout because it felt you were in danger pretty much everywhere and you didn't really know what would be around the corner. in Oblivion, except for a highwayman here and there or a wolf attack, it was pretty easy to figure out where there would be action: where ever there is a dungeon. But it felt like you'd have to walk and walk and walk incessantly just to get to a tiny tidbit of interesting content .. and that's if you were luck to actually get out of there alive and you didn't wander into a much higher level dungeon than you. I don't know, Fallout felt better balanced, more engaging. I think you were simply too free for Oblivion.

One other thing I never really liked about Oblivion/Morrowind was all the choices. Too many races, too many star signs, skills, major and minor skills, bonus for leveling up "at the right time" etc etc etc. So many variables to keep track of in order to get a decent character. Maybe I'm putting too much emphasis on it, but it always felt more like a chore to actually level a character than just playing. Granted, it makes sense to have the skills get better as you use them, as opposed to never using stealth because your character can't even stealth a sleeping beggar, and yet upon level pump all your points into stealth and then you are a stealth god without ever having used it .. but at the same time, i feel it made the whole process a bit too complex .. or maybe I just read too much about "character optimization in oblivion"

Anyways, most of those seem to be addressed in Skyrim. There's still too many races, but they don't seem to affect your character's ability all that much. There's no selecting of Major/Minor skills, you just get better at whatever you use most. Leveling up is much simplified in that you level up when any combination of skills has grown by X number, then you get to choose to increase health, stamina or magicka and choose a perk (à la Fallout I guess.. haven't actually leveled yet!).

Also, I haven't played all this long so far (about an hour), but the whole epilogue prologue is really awesome! Already much more fun than it was in either Oblivion and especially Morrowind. And then the trek to the first city, you have a companion with you, sort of guiding you, showing you stuff, setting up the story, etc.

(click to show/hide)

Wondering how cool the epilogue prologue is? How about a freaking Dragon attacking the village just as you're about to get your head chopped off?  

[Najemikon]

I guess you mean prologue, otherwise this game must be easy for you to get to the end and the epilogue in an hour! 

[RossRoy]

I guess you mean prologue, otherwise this game must be easy for you to get to the end and the epilogue in an hour! 

Hahaha! Oops! I do!

[Achim]

Thanks for the detailed explanation, I agree entirely. Although, I had fun with the melee in Fallout New Vegas, it can get a bit tedious.

BTW, since the hero of Skyrim is "dragonborn", here two videos about that (some strong language):

[RossRoy]

Funny you would post videos about the hero of Skyrim being dragonborn because I just found that out yesterday! I completed my first dungeon .. it felt endless! or maybe I was just sneaking around too much

Anyways, there's a point where I got to a, for lack of a better explanation, "wall of words" (weird symbols really) and I could hear chanting. I tensed up and started looking around frantically expecting an attack, until I realised it was actually the wall that was chanting! And as a I got closer, a series a symbol started glowing and it said I had now learn my first "Word of Power" or something. Supposedly, I now need the soul of a dragon to activate it ... the SOUL of a DRAGON! Where the hell am I gonna get that??

Or more importantly .. how the hell am I gonna kill a dragon with my puny Steel Sword??

[Najemikon]

Ah, shit, you guys are going to have to shut the hell up. I don't want to have to buy this game and it's fast becoming inevitable!