EdenLancer Stories

Alright, I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and it just doesn’t go away, so I’ll just write it down. Sorry for this statement, but EVERYONE NEEDS TO CALM DOWN!!! Everyone is flipping out because it was going around that TES V wasn’t going to be. This is NOT true, on the Bethesda Blog, they said they were going to make another one because “the last one was enormously popular. So was the one before that. You get the idea. So do we.” Why would they ever stop making a franchise that gives them a gigantic bag of money. It just doesn’t make sense. Oh yeah, Bethesda will not make an MMO for this game, so stop complaining. I hate MMO with a passion…it turns people into lumps of flesh staring at a computer screen for 20 hours, only to get up and do it all over again. It’s like sitting a rock in a chair wand watching it try to swivel…it’s not going anywhere. Anyways, I guess they’re fine if you do it every once in a while. Like if you play for a little bit, do some other work, go outside, or something of the sort, it’s fine. This is rather long, so I bolded titles if you just want to find what you’re looking for.

Anyways, where was I…oh right, Elder Scrolls V. I was bored one night and decided to go onto forums about the Elder Scrolls V and you wouldn’t believe how many forums are about wants in the new game. So I wanted to address a few of the repetitive ones and throw in a bit of my own.

Stiff NPC- Yes, yes…it’s definately a great crisis…geez. I mean yeah it gets a little monotonus and annoying, but it’s fine, it’s not like it’s that big of a deal. Sure they could put in more fluid motion and more animated NPCs, but does anyone know how much work that would take, especially in a game like TES where the world is huge and there are hundreds of NPCs, making each one of them animated and individual would take a large amount of work. I mean yeah I guess I would like to see that because it would be interesting, but I understand if they don’t. Do I think they should stop higher big name actors like Captain Picard? Yes, they end up killing him off in the beginning anyways. I would say get a bunch of nobodys and do the voices from there.

Load Times-Load times, load times, load times…….that’s the biggest thing I see. They can’t help it, unless you want it to be like Morrowind and you stop every 3 minutes for a “Loading Exterior” sign to pop up. There are going to be some load time because the world of TES is very elaborate and graphically nice. I honestly don’t care because yeah it might break game flow a little bit, but if you’re playing on XBox 360, the loading time take a maximum a minutes….like a minute is so hard to wait

Differences- I completely agree with this one. In this they are talking about the overly monotonous caves, ruins, forts. I agree they should all be different. Instead of making them 4 levels tall or 6 different zones, they should just trim it down to 2-3 levels or zones but with more character like Morrowind. I never found a cave that was alike. There was always a different arrangement, nooks and cranies, and random bridges that went nowhere. It doesn’t take too much to make it different. I mean essentially yes, I guess all the caves were different in some way, but they looked the same, they felt the same, therefore there was no fun in it after a while. I understand the low difference in the outside terrain because if you look at the world map, Cyrodill is smack dab in the middle, so the only real differences are on the edges near the other provinces. That’s understandable. But I want more interactive outside terrain. Not necessarily moving rocks or anything, just a little more people outside like in Morrowind. Although, I never want to see a half-naked Nord standing on the side of the road complaining about how he lost his axe or will give me a useless helmet if I slay a witch that paralyzed him for probably good reason…I saw at least 3 of them in Morrowind and I never want to see it again.

Destruction- I’m tired of reading about people wanting to destroy buildings! NO! Why would Bethesda want you to destory a building that they’ve worked so hard to actually make. It just doesn’t make any sense. Yeah, it’s proven that causing enough civic damage to destory a whole economy of itself can have a certain joy effect that should be told to the shrink, but still, after you destroy the buildings, what next? After killing all the merchants and people in the wake of your destruction, what next? Nothing, because after you destory the town, you have no one to sell things too, no more side quests, no more options. No one thinks these through do you? I should have thought about all these comments come from boys too young to actually legally get the game as they sit at the TV with foam rushing out of their mouth from to much testosterone. Remember what time frame all this is set in. Mostly middle ages or little more advanced. They can’t just shart out new people like it was some sort of cloning thing. Plus, making random NPCs come in after you massacred everyone is hard. THat’s a lot more scripting that’s essentially unneccessary.

Superpowers- Okay, when I’m talking about this, I mean people saying they want to throw people through walls and rip their heads off with one grip. This isn’t The Superman Scrolls, you are essentially a nobody in the beginning, no one knows your name, no one cares to, and that will just be stupid honestly. Yeah, okay, would I like to push people of a cliff, smash them INTO a wall, or eventually knock-back an oppenent farther than 1 foot? Yes, of course, but limit this, I don’t want to be the biggest badass, I want to fight in there. I want a challenge that’s fun but also intimidating. Smashing people through walls just goes with the topic above.

Dragons- Yes I love dragons too, but does anyone pay attention? Dragons are sacred to the game. They probably won’t have any dragon-slaying anytime. Would different creatures be cool? Of course, and there will be. Bethesda knows what it’s doing with creatures and exteriors. They already have most of the places planned out in Tamriel I’m sure. They know what creatures go where, what climates each place has, and what each province has to offer. So, I’m sorry to say but there won’t be any dragons, I’m sure. There might be dragon-like creatures. Although I read a comment about fighting Peryite (a dragon deadric prince) which would be pretty cool kind of like Hircine in Bloodmoon.

Super Magic-I’m all for high level spells and destroying all enemies around me in one single shot, but really, lighting trees on fire? Come on now…do you expect to cause a forest fire and just light everything ablaze hoping everything in there will die it it’s wake. What a stupid thought. Why would Bethesda do that? Tree annimations are not easy and making them burn isn’t easy either. Plus, what happens after they burn, they just pop back up? I understand people want a more realistic environment, but you have to think first, eventually you’ll just turn it into a barren wasteland and such, how boring…the one thing you’ve been trying to avoid.

Others-Alright I realize how long this is getting, so I’ll sum up the rest somewhat shortly. Buidling I’m completely for this, I want my own building to build. On the XBox please. I don’t want to have to get a high-powered computer, buy the game for PC, and then download the Construction Set. I would love to build my own castle, but I guess I would just try to build everytihng, lol…like destory all of Bethesda’s hard work and create my own…that would be my architect side coming out of course. Fighting on Horseback- yes this is cool and all, but Bethesda tried it already apparently and figured it would make you like a tank. I guess they could tweak it more, but I don’t really mind, yeah it’ll be cool, but not necessary.Battle System-first of all, I want to say that it is much better than Morrowind, hands down. But I think they can do a little more to make it more fluid instead of robotic. I could care less if NPCs are robotic, but the main character should be as fluid as possible, but then again, wearing 200 pounds of armor tends to make things look and move a little more robotic. Last but not least Weapons/Armor-oh yes, everyone wants more, and I can’t blame them…at least have more artifacts like Morrowind. I don’t want it to be leveled either. If Deadric Armor is suppose to be the highest in the game, I shouldn’t find it in every chest I open. No, I want to look for it, steal it if I have to from some corrupt land lord or plantation owner (*cough, cough* Dren), but I shouldn’t find super armor laying around someone’s house like it was the same value of a rake.

Okay, I realize that this is getting beyond 1500 words, so I’ll stop here. There are many more tweaks like music (although fantastic) could be less repetative in battle, the other music was good though, customization, fast travel (pros/cons), and other things. I don’t have time nor patience to write about everything and just to be sure. I’M NOT PARTICULARLY BASHING ANYONE’S IDEAS. I just want to bring light on why that would be a bad idea. People should know that if you place something on the internet, it’s going to be criticized, sorry. I hope you enjoyed reading.

Okay, hi everyone (everyone as in probably only two or three). Today is my famous Yahtzee Day, not Yahtzee as in the board game kind of thing. No, I’m talking about the great game critic Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw. Since game reviewing is what he does, I figure I mine as well rant on a few games I’ve played. If you’ve played any and like to share your experience, please do. Okay, let’s get started:

Final Fantasy XII – Yes, by today’s standards anything on the last generation consoles are considered classics. This is not classic, it was made 3 years ago, that does not make it a classic, what so ever. Anyways, sorry lost my train of though…oh right, FFXII and it is XII not 12, sorry again. Okay, so this is an JRPG (Japanese Role-Playing Game) where you are playing a girl, I mean guy named Vaan. He honestly annoys me to no end although he’s the main guy I play with because he’s the most balanced. This is more free ranged once you get farther in the story, you can either continue with the story or waste another 50 hours of your life going through all the hunts and quests which I did the latter, mostly out of strong neglect to read a book that I deemed unnecessary, sorry sorry off topic again. Well, this game is fun-ish, it’s fun if you decide to go crazy and try to find all the pretty cool looking weapons which just so happen to be the strongest and either hardest or repetative one to get. Let me explain, in order to get the Tournesol the strongest great sword, you have to find three materials, simple enough right. WRONG! These things either drop from enemies with a frickin’ .5% drop rate which means you’ll spend 20 hours fighting the same thing hoping to God that it’ll drop something and the others require you to search for others to make that one material, and those materials you need to make those couple to make that one are really repetative to get a hold of…no Square Enix, I don’t think so. But get this the Zodiac Spear which is the most powerful weapon in the game requires you to NOT open particular chests all around the world and then you have to chances to get the spear each being in some of the hardest dungeons where you have a 50% chance on it appearing in those to chests, if you don’t get it, you’re SOL because those chests don’t respawn…but the characters are pretty good, the story is confusing the first time through, the gameplay was pretty innovative for a JRPG anyways. All in all I liked it, but not as much as VII, VIII, or IX by far.

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind – hmmm, this is actually a good game in which I got highly addicted to for weeks when in High School. Yes it’s very annoying and you’ll die, you’ll die a lot and if you don’t save before hand, you have to start from the last time you save and usually you don’t think about it until you’re in that situation where you’re hanging from a string of health and have nothing to heal yourself with. By that point you throw the controller down and scream every bad word at the TV, walk out of the room and get a bowl of ice cream. Oh sorry, anways, so the story is fairly dark from dealing with a cult that worships the demon (or Deadra in that game) in which they get into the undies and beat you to death with clubs, if their lucky they get to be mutated by a non-curable disease which you CAN contract. It’s fun tomb raiding and playing with the glitches in the game to get enemies stuck and shooting them from across the hall with a hole quiver of arrows though. But attacking is really annoying since in the beginning, depending on how high your skill is with a certain weapon depends on how often you actually connect with an attack, which means if they have a high skill, are stronger in several ways, and have a health bar that only slivers off when you make a hit, consider yourself owned. But all in all the freedom of doing what you want is pretty cool and the type of armor you get is pretty cool. Sure the characters are ugly and walk like they have a stick lodged up their butt, the battle system is fairly useless, and you die a lot, but it’s oddly hypnotic.

Enchanted Arms: Okay, I just want to point out, this is the only game where I’ve seen one of the main characters flamboyantly gay. No kidding, I’ve never seen a game that had a character that is gay, points right away for being different. But those points are stripped once gameplay and story hits. In theory the story is good, on paper the story is good, but in a game the story is one long repetition. The worst part though is gameplay, horrid, but new at least. you have a 3×4 grid where your character can go to some of those spaces, how they determine which spaces is beyond me though. But you have certain attacks that stretch so far and hit for so many spaces which is annoying when all your strongest attacks are close up and all the enemies seem to know that and attack from the farthest row…wtf? Okay, well each attack takes up EP (I think that’s what it’s called) and once you run out all you can do is move around if you don’t have something to heal it. So in long arduous battles, this can be very troublesome. To top it all off, you have Vitality Points where if you run out of your HP and EP all hit 1…you know how you lose Vitality Points? By doing something you can’t avoid, fighting. Why can’t you avoid them Austen? Because it’s all randomized, that’s why…so training is out if you’re like me and have a life and can’t afford to spend hours running in circles around a heal station to fight enemies that hardly give you any experience…so all you can do is hope that it won’t turn south and an army of six enemies at once (yes at once) come and obliterate your party because your good characters are to tired and lazy to participate in the battle. Ubisoft, this was not your finest hour. The characters are enjoyable though and the story once you get through nagging about the battle system is pretty decent and interesting. But I’ve stopped playing it because the battles were just becoming arbitrary and annoying.

Fable II (including Knothole Glade and See The Future) – Okay, Fable II was a good game, it didn’t play as much of a sequel besides seeing, oh wait, SPOILER warning! Besides seeing Oakvale in the future with it’s undead inhabitants and Theresa all grown up and still blind leading you through your adventure. Well, the battle system is beyond good, it’s easy to pick up, but you can definately tell from masters and noobs. The story is alright, not quite as epic, but it’s pretty good with a nice twist at the end instead of killing a super powered boss that kills you 8 times before you beat him (curse you Sephiroth!). Anyways, the worst part is glitches, there are a few glitches with demon doors and colors on it, but that’s expected with a freedom engine. But the expansion Knothole Glade was okay, not what I expected. It seemed rushed but then again they released it only about 3 months after the original game. It could have been a little more expansive especially for 800 Microsoft Points. See The Future however, was pretty good, that was definately worth 540 Microsoft Points. It was creative and interesting and there’s a colliseum to challenge even some of the better gamers. The job system in Fable II is a little, no a lot, boring and monotonous which I think they could have thought through a little better, but that’s wishful thinking. The marriage system is a little unnecessary except to mark your sexual orientation and get petty presents, but that’s about it. All in all Fable II is a good game and it’ll suck you in if you let it, especially since you can have your own castle, that just frickin rocked.

(Finally) Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion – okay, this is the last one, Oblivion can be immersive with doing some quests. Most of the quests are very good and well thought off, especially the Shivering Isles expansion pack which is by far the most eff’d up and wierd world you’ll ever be in. Anyways, the battle engine is by far much better than Morrowind, and they walk normal (I don’t know why, but their walking in Morrowind really bugged me, seriously, they walked they were riding a ball or something, sorry). Okay, well, the magic system is much better in that you don’t get that annoying little box in the corner saying “You have failed casting the spell” 50 times before you launch an attack. The world geometry is by far beautiful, more so than anything else. But caves, sewers, mines, ruins, and forts all look the same when you’ve looted 20 of them that day. Money is fairly easy to get once you loot everything in the cave you get to sell it and make lots of money, especially in later levels. The skill building can take forever though, my recent guy is on level 47 and just maxed out his security skill. The perks are pretty good for when you reach 25, 50, 75, and 100 in skills, except for maybe athletics where there really is nothing special. The ragdoll effect is by far my favorite though. Lets say you have a bow that does fire damage, well doing a sneak attack and seeing their body in flames launch 30 feet in the air never gets old. Fast Traveling is pretty cool, but I feel it defeats the effects of adventuring, but Morrowind it took forever to get to place to place. Maybe they should have something where they have certain points of transportation like in Morrowind, but maybe a few more where you ride them and have to walk from there…hmmm…Bethesda, is going to steal this from me, I know it…the game industry did it for Final Fantasy VIII, IX, Tactics, X, XII, Morrowind, and more…curses, anyways. Oblivion is fun, but it’s hard to distinguish yourself as a particular thing unless you get the add-ons, but it’s a fun game all in all.

Well that’s it my faithful readers, I hope you enjoyed yourself. To get some hilarious and wonderful reviews you should check out Yahtzee at http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation and watch some of his videos. WARNING!!! He says a lot of bad words and has very suggestive topics, I’d suggest you be at least 18 when viewing it.

Thanks everyone