"Ah, my old love."

I got the mini-gun in Serious Sam 3 last night.  It's Sam's trademark weapon, and that line, "Ah, my old love.", is the same line he utters when he gets the gun in the first game.  I smiled at that.

I'm obviously not at home, currently, so I'll refrain from talking about the game anymore since I don't have access to my screenshots.  There's a certain new kind of enemy new to this game that I want to mention, but I'd like the picture to go with it.

So instead, let's discuss how things are faring in 11/22/63.  I did more reading than I did gaming last night anyway.

When last I left our intrepid hero, he had just returned back from the past.  Before he committed himself to actually going back and stopping Oswald from killing the president, he wanted to change something smaller and observe the "butterfly effect" of his actions by returning to 2011.  In the back of my mind, I wondered how this was going to work.  The portal always takes you back to the same instant in the past, and every time is a reset.  That means, if you go through the portal a second time and then immediately turn around and return to the present, you'll erase everything you changed during your first trip.  That meant Jake was going to have to save Harry Dunning's family twice.  I wondered how King was going to pull that off without boring the reader.  (Why would we want to read the same thing twice?)

I assumed he would either make the second time a lot quicker, or he'd make it different so as to keep it interesting.  He ended up doing both.

In any case, Jake observed the impact his changes made.  One thing shocked me, and it did so simply because it shouldn't have.  I should have seen it coming a mile away.  Jake saved Harry from being crippled by his father (and saved his mother and all but one of his siblings, too).  His goal was to see if Harry would still be a janitor at the school where he teaches in 2011.  After all, if the guy was no longer a cripple nor slow from having his skull caved in, he probably wouldn't be a janitor, right?

Turns out Harry dies in Vietnam instead.

So instead of saving him from the life of being crippled, he basically takes at least 40 years off his life.  Oops.

Jake's pissed at first, of course, damning the whole thing, the portal, and even the guy who showed it to him.  But after calming down, he realizes something:  If he does it again, and also stays to stop Oswald from killing Kennedy (which is his ultimate goal in the first place), there probably won't BE a Vietnam War.

King fits this together so very nicely.  It's master storytelling at work.

The one other thing that I found fascinating was the idea that the past doesn't want to be changed.  It's obdurate, as King puts it.  As Jake gets ready to stop Frank Dunning from murdering his family, several things try to stop him.  Actually, that's not right.  Several things -happen-.  It's time itself that's trying to stop him.  He wakes up with a blinding migraine.  (He's never had a migraine in all his life.)  The banister for the stairs snaps, sending him nearly tumbling down them head first.  A hole appears in the pocket of his new slacks, nearly causing him to lose his keys.  The battery cable in his car comes unfastened.  Two of his spark plugs corrode.  His spare tire is flat.  It's directly suggested that all of these things are the past's way of resisting change.  It's trying to stop Jake from meddling, and I find that fascinating.

It's also suggested that eventually you can "break through", and it all stops.  When Jake does "break through", his headache subsides almost immediately and he's able to change we he came to change.  It's also stated that the amount of resistance time itself will give is directly proportional to how big the change is.  Stopping Frank Dunning probably affected a -lot- of people.  He ended up not murdering his family, so all of them would live and affect the lives of who knows how many?  That's a pretty substantial change, and look at how big of a fight the past put up.

Imagine how many lives will be altered by stopping Oswald.  It utterly boggles the mind.  I cannot imagine what kind of resistance Jake is going to encounter trying to do this, and I can't wait to find out.  

Seriously.

I have a very strong urge to yell really loudly right now.  Serious Sam has that effect on me.

Let's take a step back.  Ten years, to be exact, because that's when the first Serious Sam game was released.  (Don't get me started on how fecking ridiculous that fact is.)  The year, 2001.  The world was simpler then.  Fuck, the world was a -lot- simpler!  The game came out in March.  That means 9/11 hadn't even happened yet.  Talk about an innocent time.

ANYWAY, a little game called Serious Sam came out, and it filled a void.  That void was left by Duke Nukem, who had been missing in action for quite a long time EVEN THEN.  There was always something different about Sam, though.  The sexism and crude humor that sort of turns me off when it comes to Duke wasn't there.  And it was refreshing.

The point of Serious Sam was to basically throw a metric fuck ton of enemies at you all at once, and give you multitudes of weapons to deal with the problem.  Simple.  Fun.  Hours of entertainment.  No complexity.  No thinking.  Just fun.  It was a lovely detour on a road of games that were becoming increasingly more realistic.  Even then.

That was then.  This is now.  Fast forward to present day.  Serious Sam 3 has been released, and a lot of people are inclined to ask:  Is this franchise still relevant?  Things have changed a lot in a decade.  Is there still a place for Sam?  After all, Duke is back.  Right?

Well, I'm here to tell you that Sam has just kicked Duke's ass clear across the galaxy.  Croteam have irrevocably captured the spirit of the first game, and brought up into the present day.  All the fun I remember having then, I'm having all over again, and it is fantastic.  Having been neck deep in Skyrim for the past 18 days, this game is -exactly- what I needed.  No worries.  No bothers.  Just murder everything in sight and crack jokes while you're doing it.  Yes, please.

Crom, where to begin?  Let's start with the tone of the game.  Playing Serious Sam is very akin to watching a James Bond movie.  You know 007 is going to win.  You know the super villain is going to lose.  So as you're watching one of those movies, you're just sitting back, relaxing, and enjoying the show.  That is -exactly- how you play Serious Sam.  In any other game, that would -kill- any intention anyone had in actually playing it.  If there was no dire threat of defeat in Skyrim, would you really want to play it as much?  Probably not.  No one knew how Skyrim was going to end.  Everyone knows how Serious Sam is going to end.  AND THAT'S OKAY.  Because how it ends isn't the -point-.  It's playing through it.  This game is designed to take you by the hand, sit you down, and say to you, "Now, just lay back.  Relax.  I'm going to take care of everything for the next couple of hours."

That is exactly why I play the game.  I can listen to Sam crack jokes and not worry what's going to happen around the next corner.  (I know what's going to happen -- there's going to be lots of enemies, and I'm going to kill them all.)

So, things Sam does better than Duke?  I thought you'd never ask:

• Sense of humor.  It's not sexist or crude.  It's not tasteless.  It is -definitely- corny, but that's okay!  I find myself laughing every time Sam says something, no matter how bad the joke is.  His superior yells into the speaker, "Do you -have- to blow everything up?"  And he dryly replies, "As a matter of fact, yes, I do."  It's an old joke.  It's a bad joke.  Is it even a joke?  I dunno, but I laugh at it because of the way he says it.  It's masculine and laced with testosterone but it's not over the line.  (Duke was over the line.)
• Weapons.  You can carry ALL the weapons!  I'm currently carrying a pistol, a shotgun, a bigger shotgun, an assault rife, a rocket launcher, a better rocket launcher, and dynamite.  And a sledgehammer.  And a wristband weapon.  AND I CAN RIP OUT EYEBALLS, HEARTS, AND TONGUES WITH MY BARE HANDS.
• Setting.  It's in Egypt.  At the pyramids and ancient ruins.  THIS ALWAYS WINS.
• Enemies.  You hear a loud "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"  It's a Kamikaze -- a human with no head and a bomb in each hand that runs at you intending to blow you both up.  Do not ask how it's yelling when it has no head.  That's part of the charm.  Sam yells, "Ah, shut up!" after killing it.   Twenty more then run towards him.  "Uh-oh."  It's brilliant.  

So basically, Sam is better in every way imaginable.  Shock horror.

I'm typing a mile a minute here.  I'm just so damned happy that Croteam made this game.  I just saw a newspost about them.  Apparently the game is selling very well on Steam, and they took a jab at the bigger developers.  They said, "Well, with quality games like Skyrim and our own Serious Sam 3 coming out, gamers will gladly pay for awesome."  YES I WILL PAY FOR AWESOME.  This was a direct jab at developers like Ubisoft who whine -constantly- and declare that the PC gaming platform has a 95% piracy ratio.  And Croteam's response to their whining was "Gamers will pay for awesome." I fucking love it.

Also -- I'm just putting this out there now:  If Jesse from OMFG doesn't do a playthrough of this game, it will be a CRIME AGAINST NATURE.  The entire time I'm playing, I can imagine parts that he would find utterly hilarious.  I can hear his laugh as I'm laughing.  This game is practically made for him.  I've already send OMFG a message stating as much.  You're welcome.

And holy spaceballs that's a lot of text I just wrote!  How about some footage in the form of screenshots then?  I should warn you -- Sam's horrible sense of humor has rubbed off on me.  The captions on these will be horrible jokes!



Dark, moldy hallway.  What could possibly go...WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!



Hi!  You're ugly!  Y'know what you could use?  Holes.  Allow me to fix that for you!



Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-BOOM!



Yes, I did all that.  With a shotgun.



Torro?  Torro?  Ole?  Aw fuck it.  BLAM!



"Ah, shit."



When I saw this, the first thing that came to my mind was, "When a very religious mother has a son, she probably tells him that a woman's vagina looks something like this, so that he'll be too terrified to have sex with a girl and maintain his "purity".

The second thing that came to my mind was the desire to kill it.  And so I did.  With a rocket.



I don't always aim, but when I do, an automatic turret steals my kill.



Not gonna lie -- Sam looks cool.



Oh look, a harpy.  Nothing could possibly go...



...SWEET ZOMBIE JESUS!



Think of all the bird poop...



All joking aside, Egypt looks fantastic.



I guarantee you, if this thing would have come alive as I walked up to it, I would have shat myself.



This picture does this room no justice whatsoever.  Look at the FLOOR.  It reflects -everything-.  Even Sam's image as I walk across it.  I could see his reflection as I looked down.



"Ah, finally.  Some sci-fi mumbo-jumbo."



Diablo's cousin?

I'm six levels/four hours into the game.  All of that except 20 minutes was done tonight.  MY WRIST IS GOING TO FALL OFF BUT I DON'T CARE.  

Why you stuck up, half witted, scruffy looking, nerf-herder!

Sorry.  I saw that line in reply to someone whining about TOR being bad on the PCG forums, and I just had to repeat it.  What a brilliant reply.

Also, here is a brilliant snippet of song lyric for you as well:

"There's a party inside my head.  And no one is invited."

Anyway, I'm here today to discuss something completely unrelated to the Star Wars beta.  It's a book, actually!  11/22/63.

This is Stephen King's newest title.  I will admit that I don't read as much as I would like -- the amount of free time I have to do so just isn't there with all the other interests that I have.  (I'm looking at you, gaming.)  But I do it when I can.  This primarily means that I'm reading in bed long after I should be sleeping, but I digress.

I recently purchased the new Amazon Kindle Fire, because as the very first entry in this blog will tell you, deep down I am a trendy son of a bitch.  If someone asks me why I purchased such a device, I will undoubtedly tell them it's because I hold a certain amount of disdain for hardcover books.  When I'm trying to read them in bed, their corners seem to enjoy digging into my nipples, or do other equally unappealing things to my body.  The Kindle is a sleek, thin little device that is quite pleasant to hold upright as I lay in bed enjoying a good yarn.

The real reason, though, is that naturally it's new and shiny and I wanted one.

In any case, the Kindle arrived at my door on Wednesday, which was perfect because it gave the two of us a long 4-day weekend to get acquainted.  The first thing I did was purchase 11/22/63, which I had wanted to get as soon as it came out a couple of weeks ago.  (But I didn't, because of the whole I-hate-hardcover-books thing.)  I started reading the book (which seems strange to say now, since I don't actually have a BOOK) that night, and have been whittling away at the chapters each night since.

I have a love-hate relationship with Stephen King.  I love reading his books, and I hate the fact that when I'm reading a book not written by him I find myself missing his distinct style of writing.  I honestly can't explain this.  The man simply writes in exactly the way I like to read words.  That's the best I can do.  There's this certain sardonic sense of humor he has that really appeals to my cynical nature.  When I'm not reading a Stephen King book, I'm wishing that I -was- reading one.  It's both good (because it means that I will probably enjoy any one of his books), and bad (because there are countless other brilliant authors out there that I should be reading).

To go off on a weird tangent here for a moment:  I have a new philosophy in regards to what it takes to make a good story.  You have to make your reader believe that the events happening in your story are the most important things in existence at that point in time.  While I'm reading this book, I know damn well that Roland is out there questing for the Dark Tower so that he can save the universe.  I know that IT is not really dead, and only sleeping, and will awaken again in 28 or so odd years.  I know there are many other things happening in Stephen King's fictional universe, a lot of which are more important than a guy going back in time to save one man's family.  But Stephen King writes his stories in such a way that you forget all of that and you are solely focused on -this- story, because he writes it in such a way that you're so drawn into it, that it becomes the most important thing at that point in time.  That's what makes a good story.

And now I've successfully derailed myself.  What was I talking about?  Oh yes.  So the book is really good.  I'm pretty far into it, and we haven't even started on the whole 11/22/63 thing yet.  The main character is going back and changing something smaller first, because he wants to see what the "butterfly effect" of it is going to be.

So far, my favorite (I use the term loosely) portion of the book was how descriptive he was regarding how this guy used a sledgehammer to murder his oldest son.  I can't honestly say I've ever imagined that a hammer could split someone's head down the middle all the way to their jaw.  Thanks for that, Stephen King!  I'm so glad that after all these years, you're still capable of giving me nightmares.

I hope the rest of this book is as enjoyable as what I've read so far.  I have this fear that I won't find the remainder as interesting, because so far the main character has been spending his time in the past within the town of Derry, Maine.  I love Derry, because there's something wrong with Derry.  "Something wrong.  Something bad." as Stephen King puts it in the book.  Derry has been the setting for other stories -- most notably IT.  The town is evil in and of itself, and going back to Derry has been utterly fascinating for someone like me, who has read the other novels taking place there.  There's this eerie familiarity that creates tension and keeps me enthralled.  I hope when we move on to Dallas to stop Oswald, the book keeps me interested.  We'll see!  

Ok, I think I'm done!

With Skyrim, that is.

There are a couple of things that led me to this conclusion.  I'm sure I'll put in a lot more time, an hour here and there, but I think the evenings consumed by this game are finally at an end.  (Seriously, I was doing nothing but playing this game for every scrap of free time I had.)

That being said, I am prepared to share with you my final thoughts on the game.  While eating a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, no less!

Skyrim is still in the same position on my top games list as it was the last time I announced where it stood -- a solid third, beaten by only Half-Life 2 (at #1) and Fallout 3/New Vegas (at #2).  I'm actually in the mood to explain exactly why that is.

First, here's what Half-Life 2 does better:

Story.  Skyrim has an amazing story, and amazing -side- stories.  It's got more lore and more content than Half-Life 2 by far.  But one of the problems I have with Skyrim's stories is that a lot of the times, you do not see the consequences or benefits of your decisions.  Half-Life 2 may be quite linear by today's standards, but the story -moved-.  You felt a sense of urgency.  That's something Skyrim lacked.  Yeah, you saw dragons around.  Ok.  Buuuut...where was the world ending danger?  You knew it was there only because people say, "If you don't do something, the world will end!"  It's one of the balancing acts that you have to walk when you make an expansive, open-world environment.  It's not really Skyrim's fault.  But I have to make that assessment because of how freaking good  Half-Life's story is.

Characters.  Alyx.  Dr. Breen.  Dr. Kleiner.  Dr. Vance.  Barney.  G-Man.  All of these character have these very unique personalities.  They are their own people.  Skyrim really doesn't have any strong secondary characters like this.  The closest I can think of would be the Jarl of Whiterun, or Delphine.  But still...they don't feel -completely- unique, or fully fleshed-out.  Not like the characters of the HL universe.  I -cried- when Eli died at the end of Episode 2, it was able to evoke that strong of an emotion out of me.  There were no moments like that in Skyrim.

As for Fallout, this was a bit harder to determine.  A lot harder, actually, to the point where I had to really think about it.  It was a photo-finish right up to the end, man!  But in the end, I chose Fallout as my #2 for the following reasons:

Setting.  I will not argue with anyone regarding the beauty of Skyrim.  It is probably one of the most beautiful game worlds I've ever seen.  But Fallout is more -my- kind of setting, and therefore it will win every time.  When John looks at Skyrim and sees a snowy hillside, it cries out to him for exploration.  I'm sure that's true for a lot of people.  But for me, nothing says "Explore me!" like an office building after a nuclear holocaust.  I think one of the main reasons for this is because when I scavenge through that office building, I'm finding remnants of a world that I live in, but somehow different in ways that were unexpected.  Bottlecaps...that are -money-.  Batteries...that power my -weapons-.  Money...that is absolutely useless.  You get the idea.  Exploration in Skyrim is also incredibly enjoyable and rewarding, don't get me wrong about that.  But Fallout's appeals to -me- to a greater degree.  Also, the idea of exploring a world that was once inhabited, and then destroyed, just fascinates the crap out of me.  When I was in school, I loved learning about Pompeii for that very reason.

Combat.  There's not much to say about this.  Skyrim's combat is brilliant, but I will choose guns with the VATS system over anything else, ever.  Besides, you know me -- I'm a gunslinger.  Skyrim doesn't have pistols.  /sadface.

All of that may seem like a hell of a lot of complaining, but in reality it's not. Consider that I'm directly comparing this game to two of what I would consider the greatest games ever.  I'd say it fared quite well, and besides, I'm not done talking yet.

First, allow me to explain the title of this post.  That is, why I feel I'm now (mostly) finished with the game.  The first is that I've done just about all of the -major- story lines.  All that's left are the simple ones -- find a book, kill something, deliver something, etc.  I've done all the really interesting ones.  Next, I'm running into situations where I cannot proceed on some side quests because I've already done other things in the game.  For example, I was sent to retrieve a certain item from a certain cave somewhere out in a certain bit of nowhere.  Well, I was to turn in this item to a certain Jarl in a certain city -- but the Jarl is no longer in his palace, but in a common house.  Which is locked.   I was undaunted, so I sneakily picked the lock and went inside.  Unfortunately, he's not happy with me due to my decisions during the "Reunification of Skyrim" questline, and therefore I cannot turn in the item or complete the quest.  This may not seem like a big deal, but I am a completionist, so this is incredibly frustrating for me.

The final thing was my house in Windhelm.  I thought I took a screenshot of it, but I don't see it in my folder.  In any case, it's not hard to explain.  Basically, I did a quest in Windhelm that involved a serial killer.  He was hiding out in an abandoned house.  When I bought my house there, -that's- the one they gave me.  Complete with blood stains all over the floors, skulls in the closets, and butchered flesh in a hidden room.  I spent nearly 20,000 gold on the house and all the furnishings, and yet I have all this -mess-.  Really?  The part that annoyed me the most was that I probably would have liked that house the most out of all the ones in the game, because it has a cool armory where you can store your cool weapons in display cases.  Such a shame.

Crom, that's enough bitching.  You'd think I hated this game or something.  Hardly.  I had so many good experiences, so many surprises, and so many cool things happen that I can't even begin to explain them all.  And besides -- spoilers!

And now, how about another round of screenshots?  I will use them as a medium to reassure you of how awesome this game is.


Why yes, he is a badass.  Thank you for noticing.


Pretty landscape overload.  Commence head exploding.


You can imagine the dragon saying to me, "Careful with that thing!  You'll poke someone's eye out."


Oh, come on.  It's a game with infinite dragons in it.  You can't be surprised that eventually I ended up riding one!


All together now:  "Ooooh, pretty!"


Rejected captions for this image:
"This way to the Dark Portal!"
"The Witch-King would like a word with you."
"Oh no!  Dementors!"
"Suprenday!"

If you get each one of those references, I'll give you a cookie.  (If you get each one of these references -and- you're John, you get something -else-.)


One word about "Team Jacob" and I will maul your face.


I've killed a lot of dragons, but -every- time I am compelled to stand and watch the death animation and the soul absorption.  It just never gets old, and that's true for a lot of the things in this game.  There's a lot of repetition, sure.  But it's presented so well that you really don't care!

And that's the last of the screenshots that I currently have.  Hey, I might post some more later on, especially if Bethesda delivers with the DLC content.  So don't worry about that!

It's the game that never ends.

I knew going into Skyrim that they designed it to last forever -- quests are randomly generated, dragons are randomly generated, etc.  That still doesn't change the fact, however, that eventually -I- will consider myself finished.  I'd either start to see repetition or I would simply get bored.  It doesn't matter how good something is -- eventually, if you play it long enough, you will get bored.  Just look at World of Warcraft.  There's no denying it's a brilliant game.  But it's also 7 years old and people are getting bored with it.  There's nothing you can do to prevent that.  Even re-branding yourself might not help -- Blizzard tried that with Cataclysm and it didn't really do much.  

I'm sort of waiting for that to happen with Skyrim, and it really hasn't yet.  Part of me wishes it would, because I have a house that needs cleaning, a litter box that needs emptying, Christmas shopping that needs doing, books that need reading, Christmas decorations that need decorating, and a myriad of other things that I should be doing right now.

But I digress -- Skyrim is awesome and I can't put it down.  With that being said, let's browse some screenshots, hm?


Everything that you kill has the potentially to provide a "finishing move" cut-scene.  This includes dragon slaying, of course!


Here's my character, looking as awesome as possible.


This shot looks so impressive.  It would make an excellent wallpaper.


Got trapped in an evil altar by an evil daedric prince of darkness.  Same 'ol, same 'ol.



Oh look, it's the wall from the trailer!  I won't reveal any spoilers here about it, but take a look at the intricate design.  It's amazing!  I loved how the torchlight reflected off all the little niches when the NPCs walked along it.  

Yay kittehs

That is all.

I have a blueberry fritter.

And it is delicious.

On a completely different topic, you may have noticed that while I have made quite a number of posts about Skyrim, I haven't actually written a lot of text about the game.  If you compare it to my posts on say, Deus Ex or Dead Space 2, there is considerably less information.  You may take that to mean that I don't like Skyrim as much as I like these other games.  I'm here to tell you that is incorrect.

I haven't even finished Skyrim yet, and I'm already prepared to tell you that it is my third most favorite game of all time, behind Half-Life and Fallout.  (I don't put sequels on those games, because I feel they are just simply games as a whole and should be treated as such.  But if you want me to be more specific, that includes Half-Life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2, Fallout 3, and New Vegas.  That is as specific as I can get.)

The reason I haven't written a lot about Skyrim is because the game is so -huge- that it's actually quite difficult to do so without being confusing.  I could start spouting some of the cool things, but it probably wouldn't make all that much sense out of context.  (Though, last night I killed a dragon by jumping on its head and stabbing it through the top of its snout.  I don't care what context you put that in -- it's badass.)

So unless I did a daily diary of the game (which I don't have the time nor the patience to do for an -entire- play-through), there's really not much more I can do other than provide some screenshots and a blurb or two of information about them.

I had a similar problem with Fallout, which shouldn't surprise anyone since it's basically the same game in a different setting.  The longest and most detailed post I made about Fallout was the final DLC of New Vegas, The Lonesome Road.  The reason I was able to so easily write about that one is because it was linear.  It's ironic, because PC Gamer gave that DLC a tepid 53% review score because of that very fact.  (I think they said something like, "It's linear and doesn't do much.")

Well they're entitled to their opinion, and they speak the truth -- it was linear.  They're also entitled to suck my granolas, because linear <> bad.  To me, Lonesome Road was a lovely ENDING to an epic game.  I have no problem with being given a huge, expansive open world to explore and do anything I want in, and then when I'm finished with it, walk a linear path to a conclusion.  It was a nice send-off for one of the greatest games ever made.

Also, I made you a meme:

John's Skyrim Stories

Well, Steve's doing it so I'm going to do it too. Since the gods of death and diseases have focused their unbridled fury down upon my throat (aka: I'm ill and have nothing to do other than play Skyrim), I thought I'd share my stories from Skyrim. I'm sure me and Steve will enter some kind of "my stories are better than yours" contest... And I shall win it! Har har.

So, let us commence my Skyrim stories..

I found myself in the middle of a snowstorm and damn, it was pretty. On the right there is not me (I'm not that girly), it's my companion Lydia. I got her after doing a quest to save a town, and she was all "let me help you kill things". I didn't want my style cramped, so I left her at home to do nothing except read books about how to improve one-handed weapons. After being eaten by a bear 15 minutes later, I decided her help would be useful.

You know what this screenshot says to me? Explore me, damnit!

This screenshot doesn't say that to me. To me, this screenshot says "OH MY FUCKING GOD SPIDER KILL IT QUICKLY". The spiders in Skyrim are horrible. Then again, I am a wuss.

Hand bone, connected to the axe bone, connected to your... FACE BONE!

I had a really bad feeling about this.

There are alot of "I may be screwed" moments in this game. Getting out of those moments is ridiculously satisfying.

My thought process for this moment was: "Oh god a spiny dragon of death that one-shots me with its jaws, I'll shoot it with arrows while that guard over there- oh." In case you can't see, that flying corpse had just been lobbed out of the Dragon's mouth.

The people who say this game needs a better-looking sky are idiots.

Finally, I leave you with this. Proof that Skyrim doesn't only have width, it has depth. That makes sense in some kind of hypothetical way. Don't care. Is pretty.

Steve told me that he does't like writing posts about Skyrim, because he just ends up playing it rather than finishing his-

Looking the Part

I can't tell you where I got this stuff.  Spoilers.  

Skyrim Stories - Part 2

As a continuation of yesterday's screenshot-oriented post, I bring you more postcard-worthy pictures of Tamriel.  Enjoy!

This whole thing with the Greybeards reminded me of that scene from near the end of Ghostbusters.

"Are you a god?"
"Uh...no!"
"Then...DIE!"

"Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god...you say YES!"

I'm not sure why I thought of that -- probably due to the whole "voice-from-the-sky" thing.  In any case, I really liked this part, because it gave you the impression that this world is really, really old, and that a lot of people have been waiting and searching for someone like you for their entire lives.  That's a cool idea.


The problem I tend to have is that there are so many places, so many things to do, and so many things to see in this game, that I tend to forget the circumstances of a lot of it.  Take this image, for example.  Looks cool, doesn't it?  I have no idea where I was or what I was doing when I took it, though.


It's even beautiful in the dark.


These caves were filled with all kinds of nasty things.  Spiders, undead, necromancers, mages, Trolls, you name it, it was there.


Those statues on the left and right are in the process of lifting up out of the water as I approached the altar on the other side.  This is where the story for the game really opened up for me.  You were sent to retrieve an item, and it wasn't there.  In its place was a note, leading you to one of the more interesting quests thus far.  

Skyrim Stories - Part 1

What I'm going to do here is provide a screenshot that I've take in-game, and tell a story about it -- give you what was happening, what my character was doing, and such things as that.  There's so much to this game that this is really the most interesting way I can think of to go about discussing it.  So, on to the first one:

So with this one, early on in the game I got hopelessly lost.  This was before I learned clairvoyance, which has been a cromsend ever since.  In any case, to get to the village that I needed to get to, I decided to walk along the coast.  This is one of the places that I happened to come across on my way there.  And in the end, yes, my plan worked and I did make it to the village.  Finally.  Though I'm quite sure I had frostbite.


I also found this on my trip along that horrid, icy coast.  It's a shrine, and it gave me a little buff when I clicked on it.  What's also interesting is that it cured all my diseases as well.  I didn't think very much about that at the time.  But now, I learned that I can eat alchemy ingredients to discover what I can make with them -- and you can get diseased from doing that.  So this is actually quite useful!


Alright, so this is the mage college above Winterhold.  This place both fascinates me and makes me want to smash things like a mage-version of the Hulk.  The quests are incredibly interesting, but some of them are mind-numbingly difficult.  I've put doing them on-hold for the time being until I can actually survive one hit from this bastard I need to kill.


This is me right after I got my first set of mage robes.  I'm still wearing them, which concerns me a little bit, because I figured by now I would have found some replacements -- especially since I've been doing all the mage college quests.  But any case, they look cool and I like them.  I just can't take any damage.


This is my horse.  Look at my horse.  My horse is amazing.  He -hates- spiders.  He'll go out of his way to go kill them.  He's dead now though.  I don't want to talk about it.


This is the Shrine of Azura.  After I lost my first companion to unfortunate circumstances, I picked up another one here.  I don't like her as much.


This is a very pretty shot.  It's Riverwood, I believe.