Tag: RPG elements

Gaming

Blog 585: The Elder Blogs: Perks of Skyrim

Rao Dao Zao

Since I am working on a sci-fi right now, it is only fitting that, in my off times, I immerse myself in the fantasies of others. So the lore doesn’t get too grungy, right? While I’m finally re-reading The Wheel of Time before going to bed (at the current consumption rate, I will be reading the series for approximately two years), I decided I needed a break from the hard graft of game development during the day with a bit of Elder Scrolls action.

I’ve only played Skyrim once before, but I haven’t bought any DLC or added any mods. I just kind of… felt like giving it another go. This triggered a train of thought about “perks”.

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Gaming

Blog 578: Through the Borderlands 2

Rao Dao Zao

The main thing I wanted from Borderlands 2 was more Claptrap.

Borderlands the first was fairly solid but tended to wear a bit thin by the end of a run. Its sequel promised more variety and more madness, and most importantly of all, a bit more fluff for us poor singleplayers who have no friends.

Since I’m too old for Santa to bring me prezzies, I treated myself to Borderlands 2: Game of the Year Edition for crimbo.

Shall we?

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Gaming

Blog 575: Dishonored

Rao Dao Zao

Dreadful spelling aside, Dishonored piqued my interest for supposedly being a bit like Deus Ex and Thief and all that. Seeing as we all know what I think about Deus Ex and I rather enjoy a bit of Thief: Deadly Shadows (never played 1, never completed 2; heresy!), it sat firmly on my radar…

Of course, I didn’t want to jump in too early — so fast forward however long it takes for DLC cycles to run these days, and here I am with a complete Game of the Year Edition.

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Gaming

Blog 565: Daikatana

Rao Dao Zao

I remember reading about Daikatana when I was a young boy. When our first computer was new, when its 500MHz processor was unthinkably powerful, when the Y2K bug loomed large, when games were some strange wild frontier that was probably a bit too violent for me…

Daikatana, they said in all the magazines I had begun to survey, was one of the worst games ever made. I don’t remember finding out quite why; indeed, I didn’t have much of a sense of my own taste back then anyway. (This was before my family gave in to that whole violence thing and got me Unreal Tournament for crimbo.)

So when it came up in a GoG.com sale for $2.39, I thought… Why the hell not?

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Gaming

Blog 557: Through the Borderlands

Rao Dao Zao

Since Torchlight was a stylised hack ‘n’ slash loot-grinder, it reminded me of that other stylised loot-grinder of recent years: Borderlands. I played it once before but my words were rambly and a bit shite, so I won’t bother trying to link-bait you into reading it (savvy users can obviously abuse other functions to find it).

This isn’t “late to the party” because I did actually play Borderlands around when it first came out. This is more like a “revisited”, except instead of being a cheap ass-TV programme where they repeat the entire episode and slam on an extra five minutes, I’ve done everything from scratch. This time there are screenshots, at the very least.

To avoid any confusion, I’m just going to lay my cards on the table before we go any further: I like Claptrap.

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Gaming

Blog 543: Heart of the Blog

Rao Dao Zao

So Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty was a fabulous non-starter, a bit of a “damp squib” as they say in the business. They promised a thirty-mission epic story, and instead we got a slightly-above-standard fifteenish-mission main story with a huge pile of fairly disposable side quests. It’s pretty and plays fairly well, but seems somehow unsatisfying.

Even so, I’ve been suckered into purchasing the expansion pack Heart of the Swarm because I hate to leave a narrative unfinished (no matter how questionable its quality may be). So let’s see where this takes us…

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Gaming

Blog 449: Alpha Protocol

Rao Dao Zao

a.ka. (Mostly) How Mass Effect 2 Should Have Been

It’s blatantly obvious from the outset that this game was heavily influenced by Mass Effect 2. The conversational style, the camerawork… But it is so much stronger in almost every way.

Especially after the terrible flop of The Club, Alpha Protocol veritably glowed. Mouselook worked and I could aim.

Spoilers are avoided — suffice to say, it’s a conspriacy thriller. A very fine one.

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