Gaming – Page 2 – Rao Dao Zao

Blog 869: Command & Conquer

Jan 20, 2023Jan 20, 2023 Rao Dao Zao

I picked up a copy of the Command & Conquer compilation The First Decade mainly because I wanted access to all the good stuff outside of EA’s Origin launcher, where I’d sampled them previously. We only ever had vanilla Tiberian Sun and Red Alert II back in the day, you see, and last time was before I discovered that eBay exists and is actually a fairly reliable place to find games of a… certain age… that are still factory-sealed. The First Decade stops at Generals but, eh, C&C3 and beyond are where things got wobbly anyway.

When I went through the Tiberium franchise last time, I didn’t actually play the original original game, because I figured it would be “too old” even for me! But these days I’m a slightly more adventurous rube, so I decided to go for it.

(Spoiler: it feels very old.)

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Gaming

Blog 866: UT Isn’t Just For Christmas

Dec 28, 2022 Rao Dao Zao

According to my calculations, Santa brought me a copy of Unreal Tournament (GOTYE) at the end of 2002. It was something of a surprise; up until then, there had been a touch of the “no ultra-violence” about my access to games, and yet there we were, with my parents spontaneously introducing me to one of the most violent games available at the time. (It is a strong possibility that they had no idea what they were actually buying.)

I might play UT2004 every December to mark the festive season, but the big day itself belongs to the original and best.

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Gaming

Blog 865: The Titans

Dec 17, 2022 Rao Dao Zao

Okay, so I had a mixed time with Age of Mythology: it was beautiful and full of fun units, but didn’t quite recapture the highs of a good Age of Empires II match. But as is tradition, there was an expansion pack — The Titans. What secrets will leak out of Tartarus this time, and can they transform the game into something truly special?

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Gaming

Blog 863: Age of Mythology

Dec 3, 2022 Rao Dao Zao

Much as I love piping obscure stuff through my Windows XP machine, it’s important to break out a proper big gun every now and again. For whatever reason, despite an abiding love of Age of Empires II, I did not play Age of Mythology at the time (admittedly it’s of an age with Warcraft III, so I was probably… preoccupied). But people have always said it’s good! It’s a hole in my RTS experience!

It is time.

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Gaming

Blog 862: The Decline

Nov 25, 2022 Rao Dao Zao

I had played Skyrim several times before, but never as hard and deeply as I did this time. Part of that was simply the novelty of trying to hoover up all the stuff I’d never seen before — the 74 Creation Club packs, Dawnguard — but I think most is owed to the transformative pacing of Survival Mode.

So please indulge me one last blog about Skyrim before I return to playing… literally anything else. Oh god please, let me play anything else. It’s time to let it go.

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Gaming

Blog 860: Dawnguard

Nov 5, 2022 Rao Dao Zao

I don’t go to an Elder Scrolls game for vampires, nor do I go to them for home ownership; that’s why I didn’t buy Dawnguard or Hearthfire at the time. (Though, given the state of the rental/housing market these days, I can appreciate why others might enjoy murdering blood-sucking parasites and taking their property.) Meanwhile I am a sucker for a Morrowind callback, so of course I got Dragonborn.

But here we are with the Anniversary Edition and all those bits I missed are part of the package. I’ve so far got a lot of enjoyment out of Skyrim‘s Survival Mode, though the rest of the Creation Club content has been a bit of a mixed bag — but how does the other tentpole expansion pack hold up?

(I have been playing for weeks and simply not found anything of consequence that is obviously from Hearthfire, so I’m not sure if that means its integration is amazingly seamless or abysmally pointless.)

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Gaming

Blog 858: Creation Club

Oct 21, 2022 Rao Dao Zao

I actually tend to play my Elder Scrollses completely unmodded, accepting only official expansion packs. I find it’s rare for a modder to perfectly match the fidelity of a base game — not just in terms of art style, but also in terms of balance and structure. While you can get away with a lot in Warcraft III because each map is completely self-contained, the Elder Scrolls modding experience is additive: you put more stuff into the existing open world, and that means it has to fit.

Skyrim‘s Anniversary Edition comes with 74 pieces of so-called Creation Club content, which ranges from bite-sized chunks to full-on dungeons and houses. While Survival Mode is a systemic addition that settles across the whole world like it was always meant to be there, a number of other packs struggle to conform.

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Gaming

Blog 857: Surviving Skyrim (Anniversary Edition)

Oct 14, 2022Oct 14, 2022 Rao Dao Zao

I have so many problems with Skyrim, but there’s still something compelling about it. Maybe the simple act of trudging through an expansive wilderness, replete with ancient ruins to explore, is enough to carry all its weaker elements.

Well, whatever — the legendary game that has been re-released more times than you’ve had hot dinners is at it again, and has finally appeared DRM-free on gog. I have to admit, this is the signal I’ve been waiting for to give it another go; I didn’t get all the expansion packs the first time around (only Dragonborn), and nor have I seen the visual upgrades of the Special Edition or the reams of “Creation Club” micro-packs that came after that.

Here we go again…

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