Oops!

I guess an apology is in order, for not only has work on part two ground to a temporary halt, but I also failed to post my usual well wishes for Christmas and the New Year.  To some extent personal life has taken the usual toll, and certainly wasn't helped by the uninsured driver who crashed into the back of my car while I was stationary.  My oven blew up on Christmas eve, I've not been well, and I attended a couple of job interviews, but I digress... the real reason things have ground to a halt if I'm completely honest with myself is the recent acquisition of Skyrim on the X box.  Quite simply, it's the best game I have ever played.

For those of you unfamiliar with Elder Scroll games, they are fantasy based role playing games that have acquired a reputation for high quality.  Morrowind certainly deserved such a reputation with its vast scale and attention to detail.  Oblivion certainly looked promising with the same mammoth scale and extremely high quality graphics, but the story driven requirement to keep entering portals ended up feeling very repetitive, to the point that despite nearing the end, I felt bored and ceased playing.

Skyrim is far superior. You can venture as far as the eye can see in a landscape that will have you pausing simply to take in the view.  The superior graphics extend to your inventory items, allowing you to zoom in on them and view them from any angle, making them feel much more solid and real, improving game immersion vastly as a result.

Your character can be taken in any direction you wish, with skills improving as you use them.  I've been having fun with a stealthy character that favours two swords and dabbles with fire spells.  They're also a dab hand at creating potions, poisons, and even their own magic items.  It's been great fun, but I'm seriously considering starting again with a pure mage, which is testament to how good the game is.

There are bugs, but the beauty of it as a whole far outweigh the trivual annoyances that can crop up, and let's face it, in a game this big, it's no surprise that the odd quirky little thing will slip the net.

The storyline is great... no.... fantastic if you're into Dragons like me.  A real epic story that delves deep into the lore of the Elder Scrolls.  What's nice is that even the side quests have great attention to detail, often resulting in you wandering far from your intended path where something else gets the better of your curiosity.

Quite simply, it's awesome. 

Skyrim

I made a start on the opening cutscene last night.  It's tough getting the camera to do what you want.  Guess the Director in me will slow things down a little.

Decided to have a break and browse for a while.  I remembered The Elder Scrolls were due to release Skyrim soon, so decided to check out their site which is where I've been the last hour.  I have to say everything looks awesome.  True, I thought that about Oblivion but ended up disheartened by the repetitive combat in the gate zones, but Skyrim looks so much better.  Just take a look at this Dragon Combat in game footage.

All Elder Scroll games have paid high attention to detail, and Skyrim is no exception.  It's worth watching the other videos available to get a sense of how far this goes ( The puzzle and key scene is a particularly good example.).

This looks to be a dangerous game to buy for kids who need to do homework, or even adults come to that... hmmm... perhaps I'll add it to my Christmas list and let fate decide ;)

Awesome!

No, I'm not blowing my own trumpet. I've been taking a rest from building while I await feedback from the Beta Testers, and in the meantime have been playing with my Christmas present... Dragon Age Origins... this is what I refer to as awesome.

It's the latest roleplaying option from Bioware. Simply put it's the best game of this genre I've played for a long time. The graphics are very good despite anything you might have heard to the contrary. Don't believe any screen caps you've seen as proof of poor quality, as many of those I've seen as supposed evidence fail to point out they include a blur effect where the camera is focusing on a different object. Animation too is very good, with individual combat moves catered for, which go as far as capturing expressions on faces during battle. While on the subject of faces, the character creation process allows for maximum customisation of how your character looks, to the point that you can even alter the angle AND expression of your character portrait.

While character classes may seem a little limited to those of you who crave the multitude of classes offered by NWN, I personally find it refreshing. There are 3 base classes, although these can be broken down further so that you specialise in a particular area, so a Mage for example may end up being a healer, or a Rogue become an Assassin.

The storyline is excellent, with an accompanying mythology refreshingly simple yet richly detailed, so you quickly find yourself becoming absorbed in the setting. Character interaction is good too, with plausible responses for the most outlandish player choices, and excellent inter party banter that is some of the best I have seen in any game.

There are a couple of minor downers, but these are easily outweighed by the positives. Item icons are very limited, while their descriptions suffer from the same lack of detail, relying instead on bland descriptions of their properties. Gone are the flowery explanations of powers you may have grown used to in NWN. Having said that, there is plenty of mythology to read up on in the codex, but I would have preferred the items themselves to offer similar descriptions.

I should also briefly mention interiors. Gone are the Tardis like buildings of NWN, now replaced with lovingly created realistic interiors that have a more mature mediaeval feel to them.

Overall the game is excellent, easily deserving a 9 out of 10 even by my standards.

Perhaps annoyingly, I feel that "The Relbonian Chronicles" would perhaps slide more easily into Dragon Age as opposed to NWN, but the toolset is a lot more complex and would no doubt benefit from a creative team as opposed to a solo venture. Maybe there's someone out there who might consider such a venture? I have no idea if any of the NWN resources such as scripts and conversations will import over to Dragon Age as I haven't experimented with the toolset yet (indeed, I'm reluctant to do so until I've finished the game at least once).

That's all the news for now. I hope to go back to polishing the Beta by February.

Happy New Year All!