Blah... Skyrim & Dota 2 Edition
Ok, so that super secret game that I was expecting last week did arrive, and yes it was Skyrim. Like usual with Bethesda RPG titles I always tend to get distracted by side quests and exploration, so I've still got a pretty epic journey ahead of me even though I've already spent a lot of time with it. Unfortunately I'll be unable to share impressions until the embargo lifts, but I should have had the chance to get an entire playthrough in by then.With RPGs in mind, do you guys tend to struggle with hoarder like tendencies when you play? I do! I'm seriously always at the brink of a full inventory, this has been a problem as far back as the old Ultima titles, maybe even TSR classics. It's like I want to take every last thing I can find in the hopes I can turn it into a few bucks. The limitless inventory change to Dark Souls actually gave me a break from the stress of managing inventories, and I loved it.
Oh, and about that Dota 2 story that I put up last night. Well, the NDA lifted quite some time ago, and I've played it a lot since I got access. Dota 2 even in beta form has a level of polish that few companies can afford to apply, Valve obviously being one of them. If you haven't signed up for the beta yet I highly suggest you do just so you can get in early, and see what it's all about. I think Valve is really in a position to rock the foundation of the current MOBA kings.
That's all for this update, but we've got a special little surprise for you first! Jube has been secretly feeding data taken from mindjack sessions on Gmoist to the guys behind Italian Spiderman on Youtube. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Danger 5 trailer!
The great thing about Bethesda's games is that you can just do all the piddly stuff and then go do the main quest when ever you want. I read that the you have to go through the main quest at least a little bit before you start encountering dragons in the wild, I'll probably veer off just a bit to get my character a bit ready for that if I can. i hoard like a sonofabitch! i logged over 200 hours (before my 360 ringed) in oblivion and all of my dwellings were filled with stuff that i wanted to keep or just didn't have to sell. similarly, with fallout, i have numerous stashes strewn about the world. my characters hoard so much, they could probably benefit from some therapy or an intervention. ;) I'm not really feeling the Skyrim excitement at all. The last couple of Bethesda RPGs (New Vegas excluded, yay Obsidian!) have been exceptionally mediocre, badly written and sort of empty/repetitive when it comes to meaty content and not just random, boring crap. If I hear it's more like Morrowind I'll pick it up, but if it's Oblivion all over again I'm not wasting multiple hours on another mediocre RPG. They've fooled me twice, so no more launch day purchases from me.
Oblivion Side Quests - News
Like usual with Bethesda RPG titles I always tend to get distracted by side quests and exploration, so I've still got a pretty epic journey ahead of me even though I've already spent a lot of time with it. Unfortunately I'll be unable to share
I sank 150 hours into its brilliant predecessor, Oblivion, and now Bethesda wants me to visit their offices and play three hours of Skyrim. Three! Three hours from 300. Three hours of a game I've been desperate to play for five years.
Forget all the other guff; in the main quests, the quirky side-missions and even the random events, the team at Bethesda know how to spin a yarn. Or rather, they know how to let you spin your own. I spent three hours with Skyrim recently.
And you can jump into strangers' games also. Dark Souls isn't about exploration or side-quests – those are luxuries of the powerful. It's not even about winning so much as enduring. In other words, it just may be the definitive game of this dark year.
The Lord of the Rings: War in the North is an attempt to stretch out the fabric of Peter Jackson's film trilogy by fabricating a massive, concurrent side quest onto it. More importantly though, it's an attempt to bring back cooperative hack and slash
Tell GR: Main Campaign or Side Quests?
Really it depends on the game. In Oblivion the side quests out weigh the main campaign in shear number, and amount of “goodies” you get, so I prefer the side quests. Yet in The Witcher the side quests are mostly good for grinding and getting cash, so I prefer the main campaign. I guess I prefer the one that gives me the most story and game play, but I always try to complete them all even if I have to replay to do it. I'm with tiny, it depends on the game. In most that I've played, the main storyline outshines everything else (Mass Effect). But then there's games like Oblivion where the main campaign has me returning over-and-over-again to the same bland copper-tinged netherworld while the sidequests have me defeating liches, becoming the head of an assassin guild, and leading the tower of mages. I think I prefer the games with the better main campaign though; they have a much more cinematic feel to them. Here's hoping Skyrim can pull it off in both respects though where Oblivion did not. The vast majority of games I play, I attempt to juggle both until one is more compelling than the other. I recently went through inFAMOUS 2 and I was doing just fine on the side quests up to the last few hours or so, when I would purposefully ignore people needing help just to find out what happens next to Cole MacGrath. Some games don't have much of a sidequest, like Uncharted's many trinkets that can be found. i try to look for them without sweating over it too much along the way. If there's a conspicuously looking area just off the beaten path, I'll investigate. I don't frantically search for them until the main runthrough is done and I've got an item checklist by my side for my second runthrough on a harder difficulty. The Assassin's Creed Series is a strictly "Main story first, Sidequests off my direct line of sight to my objective are ignored UNLESS it relates to Subject 16".
@ DId you know, that I actually never finished TES4:Oblivion? Someday I lost myself in side quests and exploring.
I uploaded a @ video Oblivion - LP - Episode 76 - Side Quests - Bear Season
Oblivion - LP - Episode 76 - Side Quests - Bear Season - now live!
@ yep, s'why Im nervous, heh. Even when my main Oblivion quest line got bugged so I couldnt finish, I still spent hours on side quests.
@ companions in Skyrim are more like New Vegas or Oblivion? They have backstory and side-quests like Cass and Boone?