Anyone who keeps a blog or other such similar medium will always have this urge to make a post on New Year's Eve.  I'm not sure why.  Perhaps it's to validate their existence, or to give themselves a feeling of completion for the year.  In any case, here is mine.

Let me start by hoping that everyone has a good 2013.  It's going to be an interesting year, I think, and it's quite likely that we'll be starting it all off with a brand new financial crisis.  I can't WAIT to take a pay cut!  Woo!

Worthless politics aside, I'd rather focus on staying positive for the new year.  So, um...well, the snow is pretty.  

Christmas 2012

Despite how utterly exhausting the holidays tend to be, there's always a part of you that wishes, despite everything, that every day could be like Christmas.  The presents, the happy family times, and best of all, not having any responsibilities whatsoever since all the preparation is finally, finally done.  But then everyone leaves and you stop and think, "Fucking hell, I just want everything back to normal so I can get on with my life!"  

In any case, I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas, and the best for the year 2013.  Provided below are some pictures from my Christmas Day.



I must say that one of the reasons why I'm glad Christmas is over, is because I can now walk around my house without tripping over gifts.


























There's a tradition with holidays.  There's always a picture of Brandon giving the camera the finger.  Go ahead, look for it.  You'll find it.  Also, the funny thing about Christmas this year is that the very next day (today), it seems that the world was trying to tell us, "Hey, y'know what, just stay inside and don't do ANYTHING."  How do I know this, you ask?  Well...

Why Far Cry 3 is my Game of the Year

A heavy armored pirate steps in front of a wall, placing him out of line-of-sight of his equally heavy armored buddy.  I pop off a silenced shot from my suppressor-equipped sniper rifle, splattering his brains on the wall.  Bonus XP for a headshot goes to me, and his buddy is oblivious to what just happened.  I exhale, smirking deviously.

I'm racing down a dirt road in a jeep, speeding towards a bridge that suddenly pulls up.  It's a drawbridge, and the commandos I'm running from raise it.  I speed up and jump the gap, landing safely  on the other side, only to be accosted by mortars incoming from a nearby truck.  I jump into the back of my jeep and man the turret, riddling the offending truck with bullet holes until it explodes.  I drop back into the driver's seat and continue on my way.

I'm walking through a field of illegal drugs with a flamethrower, lighting every plant up in a brilliant haze of orange fire.  I say to myself, "This is fucking awesome!"  Two seconds later, my character yells, "This is fucking awesome!"  Great minds...

These are just three examples of the memorable moments I've had in this game, and a sampling of why this game beat out the likes of Borderlands 2, Guild Wars 2, Dishonored, Mass Effect 3, Serious Sam 3, The Walking Dead, Diablo 3, Max Payne 3, Sleeping Dogs, Black Mesa, and Mists of Pandaria for my favorite game of 2012.  More reasons to follow.

A lot of good games were released this year, and their slight problems were just as integral to their elimination from the top spot as Far Cry 3's positives.  Borderlands 2 was probably the game that came closest to winning.  Honestly, before Far Cry 3 came out, it -was- winning!  But it lost out due to a few different things.  First and foremost was the quest design.  Why the game wouldn't let you track more than one quest at a time is beyond me, really, especially when the game was clearly designed to give you 3-4 quests in the same area to knock out simultaneously.  Additionally, the graphical style, while still very cool, sort of lost its appeal to me since the release of Borderlands 1.  The cel-shaded style now seems almost bland to me.  This could simply be because of how utterly gorgeous Far Cry 3 looks. In fact, that probably is why, if I'm honest.  But can you BLAME me?  The last thing Borderlands 2 did that knocked off points for me was the addition of quests that cannot be completed without a full group of players.  Fuck you for trying to force me to play with others.

Guild Wars 2 has a lot of good things going for it, especially as an MMO.  But in the end, the story just didn't hold my interest over time.  And if I lose the story, I pretty much lose interest in the game.

Dishonored is a brilliant game that didn't make the top spot simply because I didn't have the patience to finish it yet.  It's a game that, to be played properly, must be taken slow.  At least, that's how -I- feel it should be played.  But sadly, I didn't have the patience to stick with it and finish things up.

I'm sorry to say that Mass Effect 3 lost out because of the ending.  I have a desire to play it again, especially after all the DLC has been released.  But then I think of to what end I'll be playing, and I just kind of go...meh.  Obviously the end of a game is hardly the point of playing it, but when you know how it goes, it does sway your decisions to continue.  Especially when such an end is bad.  This really isn't the game's fault at all, but my own.  I hate mortality.  I hate the fact that I, myself, am going to die.  This gets projected into everything.  So when it comes to my entertainment, I prefer my stories to end before my character's do.  Additionally -- re-grind multi-player to get the best ending?  Um, no.  As I said to Borderlands 2:  Fuck you for trying to force me to play with others.  (Edit:  Through patches and DLC, it looks like it may not be required to grind multi-player to get the best ending.)

Serious Sam 3 is my kind of game, but it's also designed to be a silly game with loads of action.  While Far Cry 3's story is hardly inspired or the work of a great novelist, it's still much stronger than anything in Serious Sam.  SS3 is more of an arcade type of shooter.  While I love those dearly, FC3's style is more appealing to me in the long run.

Now, The Walking Dead is quite the interesting little game.  When it comes to story, it's quite superior to FC3's.  And thank goodness for that, since without the story, there really wouldn't be anything to it at all.  There never was much "gaming" to be had in Telltale's adventure games.  The story of The Walking Dead moved me in ways that games haven't moved me before, and not always in a good way either!  Obviously the ending immediately comes to mind when I think of it.  The amputation scene is next, and there are several other moments I could add to the list.  But when it comes down to it, I need to have a certain amount of GAME in my games.  So while I would recommend The Walking Dead to anyone who considers themselves a gamer, I myself would always choose a game like FC3 over it.

Diablo 3 was fun for a while, but once I went through the story once, I really didn't have any incentive to keep going.  I think I've fallen out of love with ARPG's in recent years.  I mean, I played the HELL out of Torchlight.  On and on and on.  Level after level that were exactly the same only slightly different, and never-ending.  And I liked it!  Not so with D3.  One time through and that was enough for me.  Then Torchlight 2 came out, and I got bored in about 15 minutes.  So I think this particular genre of games has lost its appeal to me, for whatever reason.

Now, Max Payne 3.  Why didn't it win?  It has almost everything going for it that Far Cry 3 does:  Amazing graphics.  Solid gameplay.  Relentless action.  Great story.  Great ending.  What gives?  Well, the one thing it doesn't have is exactly the reason why it failed to win, and that is an open world.  This is a tricky statement to make, because one of my favorite games of all time if Half-Life 2, and that is also NOT open world.  What did Half-Life 2 do that Max Payne 3 did not?  This is a very subtle thing to notice, but once you know it's there it becomes obvious.  When I was playing through MP3, I always felt RUSHED.  Someone was always yelling at me to MOVE MOVE MOVE!  Or I was being timed.  Or I was being chased along "rails" and unable to stop.  Or I was on something moving along at high speed.  You always seem to be pushed forward in that game.  In contrast, with HL2 the game seems to WANT you to explore.  While it doesn't flat-out encourage it, it feels like it's doing just that.  So while HL2 is still on "rails", it feels more open.  More friendly to my type of gameplay.  It's something that Dishonored was also BRILLIANT at doing, and I give it many kudos for that.  So, while I absolutely loved MP3, it loses points for trying to rush me.  With FC3, I get this whole island to explore at my leisure, with the option of delaying the main storyline for as long as I damned well please.  And the exploring is rewarding, with secret temples and hidden relics.  There are points in the game where I felt like fucking Indiana Jones!  I love that kind of stuff.

Let's add another wrinkle to the mix, shall we?  Sleeping Dogs basically has EVERYTHING that Far Cry 3 has.  Amazing graphics.  Solid gameplay.  Relentless action.  Great story.  Great ending.  And, yes, an open world.  So, what gives here?  Why isn't it the winner?  Well, the first strike against it is that the controls handle about as well as a drunk lemur riding a cross-eyed yeti.  When I think about Sleeping Dogs, that is sadly what I remember most, and the reason why I won't play it again.  Secondary to that is my slight problem with the story.  I have a hard time feeling like a hero when I'm working for the bad guys, even if I am undercover.  So unlike FC3, or further to that point, Fallout and Skyrim, I don't feel very heroic and therefore don't have as much investment in the story.  And as we all know about me, less investment in the story equals less investment in the game.

I hesitated putting Black Mesa on the list of releases I've played this year, simply because it's not finished.  But let's be honest here:  It's a free transformation of Half-Life 1 into the Source engine.  Can I really consider that to be a "new release"?  I finally decided that yes, it does.  So where would I put it?  Well, it loses points for being a remake.  And it loses points for changing how jumping works from the original game.  Aside from that, the new visuals are stunning, the music is fantastic, and it will probably become the new definitive version of the game.  It's somewhere around fourth or fifth, I'd say.

Last but certainly not least is Mists of Pandaria.  My time playing MMOs, I have learned, is probably over.  At least, playing them to their fullest capacity, that is.  I still play WoW to this day, though lately all I've been doing is tending my farm.  It didn't win because WoW is old and is simply releasing content until enough people stop playing it, or Blizzard ends it on their own.  Do I still like it?  Absolutely.  Do I still want to play it for hours on end?  Not so much.

The Scorchers

A little over a year ago, id Software released their first new IP in quite a long time.  It was called Rage, and it was a post-apocalyptic shooter utilizing id's new idTech5 graphics engine.  The game received generally mixed to positive reviews when it came out.  One of the main complaints, if I remember correctly, was the technical problems that the game had when it was first released, especially on the PC.  The other most common complaint was that the game seemed like it was trying to be Borderlands and Fallout, and failed to live up to either.  If you recall my posts about Rage back around October 2011, though, you'll remember that I absolutely loved it.  Take that, majority!

Fast forward to this week.  To everyone's surprise, except perhaps the devs at id, new content for Rage was announced after a long period of utter silence.  And that's what I'm going to be talking about today.

I haven't touched Rage since I finished it back near the end of 2011, but I often found myself using it as a benchmark when it came to graphics.  You can say what you want about the game, but the visuals are stunning.  If you do not agree, you either do not have a rig that is capable of handling the engine, or you are blind, or you are an idiot.  I'm not saying you have the like the STYLE.  But there's nothing opinionated when it comes to the QUALITY.

I had a shaky start with the DLC, because I ran into graphical problems that I don't recall having the last time I played the game a year ago.  This is undoubtedly due to id patching the game and nvidia patching its graphics card drivers.  I had two main issues:  Screen tearing and video stuttering.  The screen tearing was easy to fix.  I turned on vertical sync.  The other problem, while barely noticeable, was a bit more difficult to find.  What I ended up having to do was create new folders on my hard drive in order to give the graphical texture cache a place to be written.  (As opposed to allowing it to simply be stored in memory, I suppose.)  When I read the solution, I really didn't give it much merit, but sure enough, it worked.  After I made these two adjustments, I cranked all the graphical settings up to ultra and the game ran perfectly.

As for the DLC itself, it's $4.99 to buy and it adds quite a bit of content for your money.  I'd say that a normal person would be able to finish it all in roughly four hours, so that's a pretty considerable chunk of gameplay when you consider the price.  The story of the DLC focuses on The Scorchers, who are a group of bandits that seem to be building something called the Firestorm.  Throughout the DLC, you're partnered with a half-naked woman named Sarah and are sent on a quest to find out what Firestorm is and ultimately stop the Scorchers' evil plans.  It's simple and straightforward, and melds perfectly into the main game itself.  So much so that I actually had to go online and look up where the hell I needed to go.  I got the quest as soon as I logged into the game, so that wasn't much of a problem, but I had no idea how to get to the first location.  In retrospect, id should add a mini-map to the non-combat city areas, identical to the one that exists when you're out in the wasteland.  Just a minor nitpick there.

Now, there are a few other new things aside from the Scorchers story and their new levels.  The most notable is a new weapon called the Nail Gun.  You get it fairly early on, of course, and at first I wasn't particularly impressed.  It has nails for ammo and fires like a machine gun.  Ho hum.  But then I realized that it had different ammo types, like most of the other weapons in the game.  I found some rebars, and I was thus more impressed with the gun.  And then I found rails.  Oh, the glorious rails.  It's at this point that the gun becomes this super over-powered killing machine that enables you to see through...and SHOOT THROUGH...walls.  As any rail gun worth its mettle will allow you to do.  It's more fun than watching John try to pet Buyo when the cat's in kill mode.

How about some visuals?


This is what I was greeted with upon entering the first new area of the DLC.  Spooky.  They did a really good job with the ambiance this time around -- I don't recall it being this good in the main game.  There are a lot of subtle noises that really add to the immersion.


It wasn't long before i found bad guys, and I thus remembered something else that I freaking love about Rage but had subsequently forgot about:  Wingsticks.


The black bars around this image is due to it being a cutscene, but I wanted to show Sarah's first arrival in all her scantily-clad...erm...glory?  I didn't much care for her as a character, as it was blatantly obvious they put her there simply to be a sex symbol.  And even though she was a great shot and could handle herself in a fight, I still had to save her in the end.  It was terribly stereotypical.


Like I said:  Stunning.


Even after I got the nail gun, my weapon of choice was the pistol with fatboy slugs.  They make heads go pop.


Speaking of the nail gun...


If it makes their heads go pop, chances are I'll use it.  And giggle about it afterwards.


That couch may have seen better days, but it still looks damned good rendered in the idTech5 engine.  Looking at these shots makes me remember just how far we've come, graphics-wise, in the last ten years or so.


I'm pretty sure in this scene, we're torturing a leprechaun.


I.  HATE.  CLOWNS.


I honestly can't say enough about the level design.  It's not genius-level like Dishonored, obviously.  I'm more talking about the artstyle and and flow, here.


It seems that temples are a theme this month.  I'm finding them everywhere, in every game I play.


I refuse to make any "bigger boat" jokes here.


Okay, I'll admit, I thought the trophy room was a new addition with the DLC.  I don't see it anywhere in the description for the DLC nor on the Wiki page.  So, I guess it was in the main game to begin with!  I never saw it.  I'm thinking that perhaps it unlocks after you finish the game.  Given the ending...or the lack of an ending, if we're totally honest here...I'm not surprised I missed it.  I pretty much left the game after it ended, because I was quite irritated with it.

So, final thoughts on the DLC?  It's a good, solid chunk of content that's well worth the price of admission.  In playing through it all in one sitting (basically), it left we wanting to start the main campaign over again from the beginning.  Any game that is capable of doing that -- that is, making you want to play it again immediately despite the fact that it will all be the same -- to me means that it's an excellent game.  I've said it before, and it bears repeating:  It's the type of shooter that I grew up on, and the type of shooter that I most enjoy.  It may have tried to be more than that, and it admittedly didn't do a very good job of it.  But at its core it's a standard shooter, and a very well made one, at that.  

Let's have one of those general, talk about anything posts, shall we?  It's been a little while since I've done a good, old-fashioned ramble.

First of all, let's touch upon MLG (Major League Gaming) for a bit.  I believe it's generally accepted that League of Legends has pretty much surpassed Starcraft 2 as far as popularity and overall influence within the MLG world.  This doesn't really affect me all that much, because I don't play either game at all.  I of course HAVE played both, as I try to play just about every game that I can.  (At least the major releases.)  It does make me feel sort of left out that I don't particularly enjoy either game (for differing reasons), especially when I look at how many people do.  LoL is the most popular video game in the world right now.  It's not often that I don't like a game that a majority of people do.  Even when it comes to Call of Duty games, I'm quite sure that if I were to play the single-player campaigns of each, I would enjoy them.  I just don't, because there are better alternatives out there for me that provide a more lengthy and exploration-oriented experience.

The reasons why I don't play SC2 and LoL are quite different.  With SC2, I simply don't want to learn the game.  It doesn't interest me all that much.  With LoL, the reasons are more complex.  I would like to take the time to learn the game, if I could.  But in trying to do so a year or so ago, it became apparent to me that the community had no intentions of letting me.  Every little mistake I made was responded to with hate, exaggerated insults, and verbal abuse.  The official website of the game itself doesn't nothing to teach you the intricate nuances of the game.  The suggested items will result in getting flamed even further if you use them...even though the game is telling you "Hey, use these!"  Many times during a game, I was told to quit and never return by my team mates.  So that's exactly what I did.

The only thing that I find disappointing is that a game that seems to actually nurture a hateful community has become such a popular game with both players and the E-Sport community.  You can argue this point all you want by pointing out the tribunal and the psychologists that Riot Games hired to try and fix their community.  But honestly, with as long as this game has existed, if they really wanted to curb the poisonous mentality of their players, they would have found a good way of doing it by now.

But, as evidenced by the sheer number of people who play LoL, I'm far, far into the minority here.  Perhaps this is due to my age, where I've reached a point in my life where I find satisfaction elsewhere, and therefore have no need to prove my imaginary dominance over other people on the Internet.  Or, perhaps I've satisfied my competitive nature fully and completely many years ago, in the late 1990's, and therefore have no drive to prove myself any further.

Or perhaps I'm just a grumpy cat.

In any case, LoL is a game that I refuse to play, and it will probably remain that way forever.  I hate the camera controls, anyway.

In other news, The War Z was released on Steam yesterday, and it's causing quite the controversy.  A lot of people are suggesting that the developer rushed the game into an early release in order to beat the stand-alone version of DayZ to the starting line.  From the things I've been reading about the game, that certainly appears to be the case.  Apparently, most of the features listed on the Steam store page aren't implemented yet.  Additionally, hacking is apparently widespread throughout the game.  I say apparently a lot here, because I haven't played the game at all.  But given the comments I've read on the RPS article and the posts on the Steam forums, it seems like The War Z is a very, very bad game at the moment.

Also, yesterday I got into a argument with someone on the Internet.  That was a stupid idea, and I really have no idea why I did it.  I'll use my grumpy cat excuse again.  The topic was Borderlands 2.  PC Gamer had posted an article regarding the third of four DLC packs for the game, this one seemingly set to star Sir Hammerlock.  Someone made a comment stating they wouldn't buy the game until it was finished.  This annoyed me because someone was making a sarcastic remark about a game that I very much enjoyed, and my response was childish.  I stated, "So, by that you mean that you are waiting for a GOTY edition that contains the finished game, plus all of the DLC."  They replied, and they started with the word "No".  I probably wouldn't have continued on if they wouldn't have started with that.  But they did.  And that was insinuating that I was wrong.  I certainly couldn't let that stand.  My reply was short and simple, though.  I simply said, "The game is finished.  You just do not like the concept of DLC."  I left the conversation there, and didn't go back to it.  I didn't WANT to go back to it, because I knew I was going to get flamed.  So regardless of what that nitwit decided to say next, I was staying out of it.  In writing about it here, though, my curiosity got the better of me and I went to check on the thread.  He did reply, of course, and said something about being amazed at how shamefully brainwashed we all are, and some other nonsense that I really didn't take the time to read.  He copy/pasted a lost of stuff, I think, that he probably read somewhere else and simply regurgitated like the mindless sheep he is.  I'm not sure if he really believes any of what he says, or if he's just a troll.  It's hard to tell these days.  But that wasn't what surprised me.  It was the fact that a vast majority of the other posters actually did agree with me.  Even though I wasn't insulting him, I wasn't expecting a positive response, especially when you consider the topic.  Usually when a company wants more money, as in the case of DLC, it doesn't matter what you say.  The company is evil and the consumer is being ripped off, end of story, don't try to say otherwise.  It was sort of nice to see a bit of common sense on the Internet for a change.

On a more positive note, Far Cry 3 is still excellent.  As I expected with such a large, open world game, I'm enjoying the side missions and just the general mucking about that I can do, moreso than the main story of the game.  That main story is just kind of there, and I chip away at it every so often.  The highlight of the game for me, though, is all the exploring I can do.  I did take a few screenshots to share last night, but I forgot to hit the publish button in Steam before I went to bed.  I'll have to share those later.  

Baking 2012!

Alright, so I mentioned the baking, didn't I?  I should have.  It's been going on for 7 days now.  We took last night off due to it being poker night, of course, but every other night we've been baking away.  Let's have a bit of visualization, then.  

This is Mom and John putting icing on the gingerbread and sugar cookies.  John delved into his artistic side and decorated the gingerbread men (the whole three that he managed to do in two hours) with faces and accessories.  They look brilliant.  No one's allowed to eat his.  They are for display purposes only.



My favorite part about this image is that you can see the icing that he got stuck in his hair.



And here are some finished products.  You can tell which ones I did (where I simply sprinkled the chocolate bits onto the cookies)  and the ones John did (where they actually have proper faces).
 


Sugar cookies with white icing and colored sugar.



Before the icing and sugar.  The one gingerbread cookie in the corner was leftover from the main batch.  We'll send him off to a gingerbread orphanage.  (Which we'll then light on fire.)



Here, the two of them are rolling the jam cookie dough into small balls, and placing them on cookie sheets.



Which I would then take and make the depressions into them...



...and add the jam!



We made John mix the nut cup cookie dough with his hands.  That's really the only way to do that dough, because of its texture.  Flour, butter, and cream cheese just doesn't mix very well with any kind of utensils or mixing appliances.



He did it very well!  You can also see some of the finished jam cookies there on the table, too.  They came out brilliantly.

This weekend we'll be making chocolate dipped peanut butter balls, Hershey kisses cookies, nut cups, and a final pan of chocolate chip bars.  And I think that's everything.  

Far Cry 3 has quickly become my favorite game of the year.  I'm getting so much more out of it than I expected, and I'm surprised by how well it has done many things that have been in countless number of games.  For example, I wasn't expecting the game to give me a huge dose of nostalgia, reminding me of old school Lucasarts computer games such as Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine.  I also wasn't expecting to start making comparisons to Tomb Raider and Assassin's Creed.  But I have.

The island is so much bigger than I expected, and I am amazed by how much there really is to explore. Obviously, the environments do not change all the much -- you are on the same island the whole time, after all -- but the island looks so GOOD that you really don't care that it's all a tropical landscape.  Besides, who doesn't want to live in the jungle?  Seriously.

The thing that has surprised me the most are the part of the story dealing with the subtle supernatural elements and the adventuring.  I suppose I was expecting a more traditional action game, where I'd be mostly just fighting the bad guys with whatever arsenal the game provided.  I wasn't expecting jumping puzzles, or spelunking into ancient ruins for priceless artifacts.  It was a very nice surprise, and I have to say it was the point in the game where Far Cry 3 surpassed Borderlands 2 as my Game of the Year choice.

One final thought is that a lot of the times when I'm into a game, I often think about it when I'm not playing it.  That's natural.  And usually, when that happens I tend to think, "I'm really looking forward to playing GAMEX again...oh but I do hate FEATUREX."  In the case of Dishonored, for example, I hated how much waiting around in a dark corner I had to do in order to play the game the way that I wanted.  That's not really a fault of the game, but it just comes with the genre.  For Borderlands 2, I hate how much inventory control I had to do, because I have very, very, very limited storage.  (Unlike in, say, Skyrim where you basically have unlimited places to put things.)

When it comes to Far Cry 3, however, there's not a damn thing I don't miss when I'm not playing the game.

Except the dogs.  Fuck those dogs.  

It's always nice when you go into a new game with a certain expectation, and those expectations are immediately exceeded.  I feel that lately, the game industry has become rather predictable in a lot of ways, and not just in the fact that there are so, so many sequels to existing IPs these days.  With the gaming media becoming so fast paced, it's quite easy to find out just about everything about a game near-instantaneously, due to how rabid the journalists are to be the first with their review.

Far Cry 3 has ended up being a rather unique situation that I probably won't see again for a very long time.  I saw a few advanced reviews of the game, but I really didn't pay much attention to them.  I saw they were very positive, and that prompted me to preorder the game about a week ago.  But aside from that, I didn't know that much about it.  In addition to that, I wasn't particularly a fan of Far Cry 1 or Far Cry 2.  So, going into this game, I really didn't have any expectations, good or bad.  Since I didn't read much into the game itself, I was pretty much just expecting a rather formulaic shooter, perhaps a bit like Crysis 2, which would be fun for a while but perhaps quickly become boring.

I was wrong.

I saw one review quoted as saying that Far Cry 3 was like "Skyrim with guns".  I scoffed at this.  (And also rebuked, "You dumbasses.  Fallout is Skyrim with guns.")  But now having spent a few hours within the game, I do see the point they were trying to make.  With the large open world, relative freedom to do anything you want (even if you feel like simply ignoring the main storyline), the crafting, the loot, the exploration; yes, I do get their point.  It is like Skyrim with guns.  With that being said, I will also say that everything that Far Cry 3 does, Skyrim does better.  FC3 feels like every feature in the game is a computer interface.  It's immersion breaking.  When I craft something in FC3, I just click buttons and then I have the item in my inventory.  I only have to click buttons in Skyrim too, of course. They are both video games, after all.  But with Skyrim, it actually FEELS like my character is CRAFTING that item.  That's not the case in FC3.  It's things like this that make Skyrim superior.

But those comparisons aside, FC3 is an excellent game.  And since I wasn't going into this game expecting anything like Skyrim, I really don't have any complaints to make in that regard.  Actually, the only thing about the game that I don't like is the fact that it uses Uplay, Ubisoft's proprietary digital distribution software.  At least the game is still on Steam, though, unlike EA's Origin exclusive games.  So, I won't complain TOO loudly.  

Balls.