Just got the Xbox dashboard update, and man it's sweet. Everything is crisp and clean looking. It's all separated into these groups at the top of the screen (Social, Apps, Music, Video, Games etc.) and then underneath is a big square made of little square of all the options and apps.
They've also added a thing called 'Beacons and Activity' under the Xbox popup menu, it let's you see what games your friends have recently played or who's playing what you're playing. It also let's you send a 'Beacon' which notifies facebook friends that you want to play a certain game.
One of the most amazing things I've seen though is under the Apps tab, listed under 'Coming Soon'... YOUTUBE. We'll finally be getting YouTube! Along with ESPN, SyFy and a bunch of other sweet channels.
The new dashboard looks intimidating and foreign at first but I'm sure it just requires some getting-used to, the new Bing search bar tab can also make things a lot easier. So get that update and have fun. Happy Hunting!
So apparently, according to IGN, Major Nelson said the new Xbox Live update is being postponed? I'm still confused as to how it works and was hoping to try it out today. Sounds badass from what I understand anyways. Happy Hunting.
So as you can see the Blog's name has changed. Not only that but it's main focus isn't Skyrim anymore, but I'll still probably be posting a lot of updates on it. Skyrim hype is sadly over and now I'm going to start transforming this into a regular old blog instead of making a totally new one.
So there we have it, patch 1.2 is going live for PC and Xbox today. But there's a flaw, and you might not want to update at all. First of all... The textures have been fixed about half ass. The dynamic snow still looks like crap, and there's still some ugly textures out there. But worst of all... You know all those sweet resistances you had? (Magic, poison, disease, natures, fire, frost etc.) Well I've got a word to describe them all at the moment. NULLIFIED. Yes that's right. ALL of the resistance factors are GONE. That means, if you're a clothed ou, high resistance Mage, you'd much rather fight a warrior now. And dragons? Prepare to be 1-3 shotted by their frost breath Mr. Nord. So until this is fixed in 1.3, I'd just keep playing how it is, and grind down that pretty disc even more.
Patch 1.2 has been released for PS3 and is coming on Wednesday for Xbox360 and PC. If anyone didn't know, and here's a link to the Patch Notes. Mostly just quick fixes and such. I would assume Magic rebalancing and quest fixes will come in 1.2.1 or even 1.3.
The first 60 hours of this game were definitely some of the best in my gaming history. When the screen faded in after saying "Elder Scrolls V:" I saw the beautiful scenery and character models, then the word "SKYRIM" faded in above it all, I practically crapped my pants. This was it. I was playing Skyrim. I'll break this recap down into a few groups and put in my experiences and thoughts just to set the foundation to see how the game actually turned out, a way to separate trolls, obsessive change-hating fanboys, casuals and PC elitists.
SCENERY/WORLD
The game looks amazing. That's what I want to lay down first. As long as you don't install Skyrim 1.1 onto your HDD the game will look great. And Bethesda shows off this amazing world right off the bat, from the warped wood used to make the cart you're riding on, to the huge, mist-cloaked mountains in the distance, Skyrim's world looks great. The great thing about Skyrim is that it's not all one big snowy tundra, actually there's several distinct, and beautiful 'biomes'. My first impression of the landscape was intense, I ran down the sunny, lush, riverside road to the town of Riverwood, obviously built right on the river. The area around it looked pretty much like this
Now just imagine two giant snowcapped mountains towering on either side and a few elves running around. After exploring this area for about 30 minutes I finally decided to trek up to the famous Bleak Falls Barrow and make my way through there. The only big, big things that I have against the scenery would be some of the ugly textures, even when playing off the disc. Mostly the dynamic snow, I understand why it would look bad but I wish it didn't and I'm hoping that's not what it's supposed to look like. It's not all the snow, just some of it, and if you want to know what it looks like, just take a piece of computer paper and put it on a large rock.
DUNGEONS/CITIES
Dungeons and cities both took massive improvements to the face in Skyrim, the first town, Riverwood was quaint, yet lively and I picked up a couple quests as long as some miscellaneous tasks there just by overhearing a topic and asking about it, or talking to people. Everyone seemed friendly enough. Taverns are much more fun this time around, they're nice and cozy and even have appropriate ambient and real time music, which can be requested by talking to the bard. Another thing about taverns are that they're also very useful for finding stuff to do, I asked the bartender about jobs and he gave me a bounty letter that some of the Jarl (like a local king) had his men drop off. I pocketed it for later and climbed the steep mountain to get to the first dungeon: Bleak Falls Barrow. Dungeons are all handcrafted in Skyrim, and there's lots of them. Each one is unique and extremely fun, with varying loot, rooms, challenges, etc. One thing I love is how at the end of every dungeon there's a big rewards chest with pretty good loot making the whole thing worthwhile if the rest somehow wasn't. Bethesda got dungeons right this time, making claustrophobic, outdoorsy types scramble across the map for another ruin to traverse.
NPCS/AI/ANIMATION
Elder Scroll games rely heavily on NPCs and AI, and in Skyrim, they got it right, for the most part anyway. Yes, NPCs are a lot better than in Oblivion but they aren't perfect. I love the diverse dialogue Bethesda put into this game, NPCs will converse with each other and call each other by name, and the conversations actually make sense and responses are relevant and don't feel awkward to listen in on, so no more of this
The character models look so much better than Oblivion and the new animations are a lot less awkward too. Plus, I've met a lot more memorable and likeable characters in my travels, many of which you'll find later on in the game somewhere else, if you meet them in a dungeon or in the wilderness. The only real flaws with the NPCs are the usual, repetitive dialogue, getting stuck, doing stupid and pointless things, etc. Nothing game-breaking or unbearable but mostly just annoying. Even the repetitive dialogue isn't that bad with far better voice acting and more voice actors. All with cool accents of course. A lot of you have probably already heard of the 'basket glitch' and many people think this is a huge flaw in Bethesda's part, but to me it actually is impressive. It shows how realistic they got the AI to be in terms of vision. If they can't see it, they don't know it happened which is a step up from all the psychics in Oblivion. As far as what they hear goes, that's a whole new story. I don't like how I can sheathe and unsheathe my dagger behind a guy's back and have the loud "SHIIIIICCCKKK" echo through the dungeon and he won't even notice. But gods forbid I cast my silent Detect Life spell from across the room and the SEARCH. IS. ON.
QUESTS/RADIANT STORY/THINGS TO DO/SETTING
Skyrim is a grim place, unlike Cyrodiil where even if the outcome of an event was gruesome and dark, it didn't really hit you like it does in Skyrim. There are a lot of things to do, and see now because of Radiant Story, and most of them are disturbing, and most of them also involve the concept "This was going to be fun and nice and happy... BUT THEN DEAAATTHHH!!!". Don't get me wrong, I've seen my fair share of happy endings here but sometimes even quests can be like a depression bomb, but more drawn out. Still, it's not all like that. Quests and events are very entertaining and could keep me going forever. And there's no way you'll run out, and if you run out of quests then you've had to have put a lot of hours in because right now I've got like 20 (Quests! Not Misc. events, actual plotted Quests!) sitting in my journal from just doing random stuff like talking to people, exploring conversations and dungeons etc. And just like with the World, it's not all "Vikings and Barbarians and Warriors rahh!". There's some pretty messed up plot twists and interesting stories going on here.
Pretty much my first 60 hours were outstanding, but not quite flawless. Random glitches, sometimes funky textures are among a few things that offset the glory of the game. I'm not going to really make any final decisions about these trivial things until the game is completely patched and running the way it should. And even then I know there will be some minor f*ck ups. But, in a sentence I'd say Skyrim lived up to the hype (for me anyway) and I'm glad I got it, no regrets!
I'm going to do a series of Skyrim reviews (recaps, whatever you want to call them) that will come up as I pass certain time marks on certain playthroughs. I.e - I'll do a review at 60 hour increments on 2 playthroughs, the first will be my 'casual playthrough' where I'll play the game as the 'average' gamer would, such as: Fast Traveling, not paying much attention to when I sleep/eat skipping through repetitive conversation, etc. My second playthrough will be a hardcore RP Dead is Dead playthrough which I'll post on my other, abandoned blog. So as for now, I'll get my 60 hour playthrough recap up in a couple minutes.
