Up until recently I had predominately been a console game player, the low cost of entry and ease of getting games and peripherals made it the slightly more appealing choice for someone with not a lot of cash and an insatiable appetite for games but recently through a stroke of luck and some dedicated saving I was able to afford a decent PC again for the first time in maybe 8 years and it has reintroduced me into the world of mods through steams workshop.
It brings back great memories of total conversion mods for games like Quake and Unreal Tournament or new adventures in RPG favorites like Neverwinter Nights but these days all I seem to find are mods that help you stomp the game into the ground giving you ungodly powers or just minor tweaks to how the game looks like weapon reskins.
To take Skyrim as an example; as with all role playing games I like to actually role play a character for instance in one of my playthroughs I play a paladin style class which mixes heavy armor, a large two handed sword has alteration spells that increase armor and reduce physical damage received, detect dead and basically anything from the restoration tree.
The main problems I run into in the main game is that later armors such as dragon and daedric are too dark looking and dwarven armor doesn’t cut it late game stat wise and that there is no cleric type faction available.
The other type of character I have been playing recently is a thief, there are plenty of quests for me to do but the sleep cycle is completely broken for almost everybody making it annoying to play since I usually dont use the wait function but rather I will go out into the fields nearby and gather alchemy ingredients until nightfall but coming back into town at night only to find my mark awake and sweeping floors forces me to wait and retry which breaks immersion.
So if you can suggest any mods which would help me elevate my experience I would be most grateful.
Im also after Dungeons of Dredmor mods too but since I only got the game it will be a while before I move onto using them, I like to try out the vanilla game first
I did try to come up with a way to distribute the codes with some form of competition but unfortunately i couldn't think of a way to share them and insure they went to someone that had the game and wouldnt end up being sold for profit and this was all i could think to do to stop that, please write below if you redeem them.
Just recently I bought a new PC, nothing fancy just a mid range machine as befitted my financial situation, a friend of mine who lives thousands of miles away would like to build a similar machine so that he can play newer games such as The Witcher 2 or Battlefield 3.
I suggested to him that I record video of my gameplay and post it on YouTube so that he could see the performance a mid range machine would offer him in terms of graphical quality and frames per second, so I recently set about doing this but I’ve been having problems with the video.
Recorded video seems choppy even when gameplay isn’t and when I do get a reasonable video using Fraps or Xfire the YouTube video has tons of artefacts.
I have included an example video below so that you can see what I’m referring too.
I know i'm bad at the game but i really just wanted him to see the combat, I appreciate your input.
I should preface this blog by pointing out that I'm referring to buying a desktop PC in a retail store on the high street as shopping online still provides a wealth of options for the discerning shopper but in my particular circumstance a lack of credit/debit card proved to be a major stumbling block and I had hoped that one of the major retailers would provide me with a decent PC with a good price to power ratio.
My predicament started around a month ago when I decided that enough was enough and that I would get a PC that I could use to not only surf the web but also play games on, my old laptop simply wasn't up to the task and the people at the local library frown upon you trying to install games on their surprisingly powerful PCs.
As I mentioned earlier my bank doesn’t trust me to have a debit card so I was forced to look around for a PC I could buy with real money and here's where the problem lies; retail chains such as Tesco, Currys and even the ironically named PC world only want to sell you a laptop, some do sell desktops or all in one PCs but only a small selection and none included a dedicated graphics card.
Smaller stores in my area no longer even stock PCs or laptops because they simply couldn’t compete with the big players prices and found themselves switching to PC repairs just to stay alive and now the big players themselves have moved away from these machines as the portable devices market has become more dominant.
It took me over a month of searching nearby towns and even the capital of our fine country before I finally bit the bullet and went to someone with a debit card with the offer of cash upfront and a hearty handshake in exchange for their services so that I could finally got a PC, nothing too fancy just a mid level gaming rig but the whole experience has soured me on large retail chains and for the first time I've felt the effects they have on local shopping.
When I last bought a gaming PC it had a Matrox G400 and at the time it turned out to be a pretty poor choice for playing games but at least there was 4-5 shops that were willing to help me and I cant help but wonder if this lack of options and accessibility is hindering new comers or even casual players getting the most from their PC gaming experience because not only is there less shops but the people who had worked in the old PC stores had a lot more stake in the experience you got from them and quite frankly seem a lot more knowledgeable than your local big electronics retailer.
In this new digital age the world as we know has become smaller and smaller, the once humble toaster can now call up Australia find out how the weather is on Bondi beach and print its discovery on the side of your morning toast, your friends in countries all over the world can hang out and play video games together and we can now teleport from one point of the globe to another in the blink of an eye.
Ok, so that last parts not quite true but high speed internet access has made it much easier to feel closer to other nations than it has in the past and with it the world has changed but one entity hasn't came along for the ride and that's the men and women who organise the distribution of video games.
As a European citizen that spends his life on the internet reading and writing about my own hobbies its hard not to notice the disparity between continents when it comes to video game releases. Some of these are relatively minor, a 3 day difference in release date for most major video games is hard heart breaking but there are some rather massive discrepancies
Kirby’s Epic Yarn took a staggering 5 months to be released in Europe, the Playstation 3 was delayed 6 months due to manufacturing difficulties. The list goes on and on, well it doesn’t because I couldn’t think of any pertinent examples but rest assured there are lots.
These delays in games can often be explained in very simple ways, Shipping concerns, publishers unwilling to take the risk on smaller markets, localisation problems and in a way that’s fair but one thing really grinds me the wrong way and that’s digital distribution.
In a world where I could watch someone else’s TV from 300 miles away in real time surely I should be able to download the same content from my console or handhelds online store and while I would hope that would be true, its not.
While Microsoft and Sony have generally been quite good when it comes to releasing the same content worldwide Nintendo continues to disappoint European gamers with lack of content on its online store and each company still have problems when it comes to working out a decent exchange rate, most of the time simply settling for the same figure but with a different currency symbol prefixing the number.
whats a Euro?
To sum it all up with a video game analogy, in the world of video game distribution Japan and North America get to take turns being the easy tutorial levels, while Europe is a mid-game dungeon that may require the use of a guide and not everyone will even bother but it could be worse the Australian level requires several GameShark codes and is set on the moon!
Recently i watched the quick look of the game CSI: Deadly Intent and hearing the bomb crew talk about the series got me interested in the series, now as a person who rarely watches TV the time i save usually goes towards gaming and now that i watched a few episodes im hooked, heres the main problem CSI is on all the time on UK TV, channel 5, Living Tv, five USA i mean the amount of hours of CSI i can watch in one day is immense. Now i have no time for games, what do you guys think of CSI ?whats the best version?
Last week I bought 3 games, Dead Space 2, Darksiders and Marvel VS Capcom 3. The weird thing is each of these games are games that I would typically avoid for one reason or another be it my lack of skill at fighting games ,my nervous disposition that stops me from enjoying a good scare or just plain old disinterest in the case of Darksiders.
Recently though I have become bored playing with shooters and with a few weeks to go until Dragon age I decided to just Bite the bullet and pick up a few games to tide me over and the strange thing is I really love each of these games.
With MVC3 the fighting system works really well with a control pad and seems a lot more accessible at a low level than street fighter ever did, its great when buddies come over, drink a few beers and just go at it.
Darksiders started off slow, if you watch the quick look you’ll see what I mean, the one button combat and weird combat challenges but once you hit the dungeons and get a few items the game really picks up. I love the story, its cliché and totally weird to hear the joker voice from Arkham Asylum again.I Cnt believe I had no interest in this when it came out.
Lastly Dead Space 2, normally I wouldn’t even play games like this, I hate being freaked out but recently on the pod cast I heard Jeff mention that he played it on easy and just played it like a shooter and didn’t worry about running out of ammo or any of that inventory stuff, so I bit the bullet and bought it. I’m about 2-3 hours in (chapter 4) and I love it, sure it makes me nervous but the gameplay and story make up for it.
The best thing was I only payed roughly $21 for it because I actually purchased Dead Space 1 but the foreign lady at the till put the wrong version in my bag.
I’d love to hear if any of you guys ever bought a game you would normally avoid and enjoyed it.
7 Comments
Well done to the guys over at Xbox Headquarters on your most recent update to the Xbox Gamertag system, thank you for removing all that useless information such as Zone , which many of us use to identify other like minded gamers.
Thank you also for keeping the rep in place as like all other users I pride myself in having 5 stars and can now feel safe in the knowledge that at least one person, somewhere has told you that I’m a great person.
I’m also particularly enjoying the new colour scheme, I love how it blends in seamlessly with the rest of the service you have built for me, everyone knows grey and black are the perfect compliment to green white and purple.
Thank you for removing that hideous Tenure from the end of my name, do people really need to know how long I’ve been a member? Probably not but I was glad you where able to make use of that now empty space by filling it with a measure of your own E-peen.
Major Nelsons E-peen is a thing to behold! I would also like to say thank you for inviting me to your rewards program, I am thoroughly enjoying my time spent on that site even though I’m not eligible to earn very many points ,as your customer service team pointed out, as an early adapter to your services I already got my reward, having more time to play with the features.
Speaking of features thank you for adding all the wonderful features to my Xbox such as Twitter, Facebook, Last.FM, Sky player and Zune Marketplace, there is nothing worse than having to use these free services on my PC with their slick interfaces and full functionality, having access to them for just £5.95 a month on my Xbox is much handier and better value, thank god you didn’t try to lumber me with services I might never use like ESPN or Hulu, you always know whats best for us UK users.
Keep up the good work and remember that DLC I got a month earlier than other consoles is much better than Exclusive games.
Here it is 2011 a new year and my first chance to reflect on the releases of last year. I compiled a top ten list , but one thing struck me about it during my deliberation process, by far out of all the developers Platinum Games had by the best and worst of years. They started the year with the great Bayonetta which was an amazing feat of both programming and visual style, the combat with its crazy over the top style and fantastic combo system blended with a world that just looks stunning made this game instantly enjoyable , unfortunately its competition came in the form of Mass Effect 2, Darksiders, No More Heroes 2 and MAG just to name a few and although it sold moderately well it (1.1 million copies according to SEGA) it deserved so much more.
Platinum then rounded out the year in break neck fashion with the superb shooter vanquish which currently holds an aggregate score of 85.1% on Gamerankings, the introduction of the Rocket Sliding to the standard cover based shooter instantly made it stand out from the pack but again the game didn’t sell as it should.
Both of these games have won numerous awards from Best Debut from Giantbomb for Bayonetta to Best Mechanic and Best game No One Played at Gamespot for Vanquish.
Why are people not buying them, advertising? style? some sort of irrational hatred of really fun games?I just don't get it.
I through together two iPhone/iPod touch backgrounds for the game bastion, I'm really excited for it coming in the summer and this was just something to do, feel free to download and use or offer feedback.
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