I sometimes imagine having a beautiful wife, waiting for my return by the warmth of the fire

I’m not sure I can bring myself to go through this again today. The pointless repetition wouldn’t be so bad if now and again I could at least have time to reflect and take stock of everything, but the chance would be a fine thing and I can’t see it happening any time soon. I long for the day when I can finish before sun down, head back to a comfortable warm house and be greeted by my beautiful wife and perhaps even a couple of excited kids who’d be overjoyed to see their father once again, asking to be told about his latest adventure or how wonderful it is to be a hero. We’d huddle around the hearth while the light from the fire dances like faeries across our faces and the warm glow would start to burn our cheeks, but it wouldn’t be close to the warmth that we’d each feel inside our hearts from knowing that good people are treated well and shown respect from those around.

Once the kids had exhausted themselves from running around slaying imaginary beasts and fallen asleep on our laps, we’d place them in bed and kiss their sweet, gentle foreheads before wishing them health and happiness for the following day. My wife and I would look at each other, not needing to speak, and fall into each other’s arms before eventually sinking into a deep, content sleep that’d see us through to the morning when we would sit on our balcony overlooking the village and watch the sun rise.

Instead, I’m lucky if someone allows me to sleep on the floor of one of their run down shacks on the waterfront where it’s rife with crime and attacks from whatever creatures dwell in the murky waters, without so much as a crust of bread to eat. When I say “lucky” I do genuinely mean that, as some won’t even bother extending such meagre courtesies and somehow expect me to travel for days without sleep where I’m ultimately subjected to sleeping with one eye open on bedrolls in the middle of the wilderness after dragging half rotten corpses off them and turning them over to lessen the stench.

It's something, I suppose.

They’ll call me traveller, wanderer, stranger, courier, mercenary or whatever best suits their own particular mental well being and yet none think to ask my name, so that I may at least have a tombstone should I fail in my quest for whatever riches they want themselves but are too spineless to seek out on their own. Were I never to return, I doubt anyone would notice apart from the cowardly slime who tasked me with the job in the first place, and only then because I hadn’t returned with their treasure.

Next time, try doing your own dirty work

As well as the greed hounds, we have those who seek revenge and lack the stones to carry it out on their own, begging the first available newcomer to the village to do so on their behalf after explaining how badly they’d been wronged. I may carry a sword, yet they rarely ever entertain the idea that this may be for my own protection rather than to put an end to the life of another. Still I give in to their pleas, and their promise of riches should I return with proof that their enemy has now “met with a little accident”. The riches, however, rarely ever appear and instead they’d thrust a few muddy coins into my palm as garnish to their story of how they’re no longer able to pay that which was originally agreed. If I take payment in their blood then I am no more than a cold blooded killer, yet if I walk away I show lack of principle.

The number of ridiculous requests I’m expected to undertake without question is unthinkable and I’m rarely even afforded the opportunity to speak my mind with these people, instead having to opt for whatever sanitised response best suits the occasion rather than just tell them they’re an idiot and would be better off taking their own life than continue to inflict their idiocy on those around them. It’s never a case of going to meet with someone to drop off a package either, there’s always so much more to it than they think to disclose at the start with their “Just head on over to the town of Reese and meet with Hilda and she’ll give you this package to bring back to me, then you can get paid” sales pitch. By the time I eventually arrive in Reese I’ll have invariably been attacked by bandits or some such lawless faction who try to rob me of everything I own while they continue to lord it up with a myriad of weaponry and loot stashed in whatever crates or chests they seem to lug around with them wherever they go.

Of course, once you finally arrive in the town and meet with the person who has the package… they no longer have it. They gave it to someone who went out hunting in the mountains several days prior and who failed to return home, leaving behind a concerned wife who hasn’t yet thought to bring the small matter of their disappearance to anyone’s attention. So much so that the disappearance is almost an afterthought when they explain that this is where I’ll likely find the package. Oh, and can I please also bring their husband back at the same time! So here I am, tired and sore after traipsing half way across the land to meet with some stranger to pick up an unknown package for another stranger, only to find that I now have to leave for the mountains to find whatever idiot thought it’d be a good idea to go hunting on their own AND take an unknown package with them.

Seriously? I came all this way... and... oh nevermind.

So… hell knows how many days later, after countless wild animal attacks, there’ll be some cave with a scrap of clothing snagged on a rock outside suggesting that the idiot has perhaps holed themselves up there while they contemplate the universe or some other ridiculous notion, but inside there’s no hunter. Inside there’s more beasts, ravenous beasts, and a veritable labyrinth of treacherous corridors that’ll invariably lead to a large clearing… with a corpse. A corpse, next to a chest with bugger all in it other than some crappy potion that is no good to man nor beast and beside the idiot lies his journal. Oh gosh, lookee here, it appears that some goblins attacked him the night before and took everything from him, including the package that he shouldn’t even have had in the first place.

This sort of crap continues for days until, ultimately, the package is found inside some hollowed out rock on the edge of a mountain where some other idiot is planning to pick it up to prevent it getting to the original guy that asked me for it. So now that I’ve got the package which, by the way, is so small that it can’t conceivably contain anything of any value to anyone whatsoever, I head back to Nobbend or whatever the village is called to find my client. A smile bursts across his face as I hand him the package, and he has the cheek to ask why it took me so long… “do I hit him now or wait until later?” I ask myself as he hands me a grubby bag of coins.

Don’t expect any more than that though, because the bag of coins is as much as you’ll ever get. No “so terribly sorry for the inconvenience old chap, and here was me thinking it’d be a simple courier job” or any additional money for having half a leg gnawed off by some cave dwelling feral girl, not even so much as an enchanted ring. It’ll always turn out that the package will contain something stupid too, like a herb or some scrap of paper with a drawing on it that’ll open a door somewhere… wonder who they’ll get to go through it, as it sure as hell won’t be them, I can guarantee it.

The amount of gear these people expect me to carry is also pretty damned ridiculous. I have ONE backpack, not a herd of pack horses, and yet they’ll ask me to pick up a shield here, a polearm there, umpteen bits of machinery from some old dwarven ruin and never offer any of their lackeys to come and carry the stuff for me. I swear there have been times where I’ve emptied my pack and just stared at the contents strewn across the ground and yet I always seem to fit everything in… and always seem to be able to carry it. For the most part. There are times when I just can’t squeeze anything else in and it’s always at the point where I need to pick up some other godforsaken piece of junk for someone… so do I leave their crap lying around and come back for it, or do I throw some of my own stuff away to make room? Nothing’s ever there when I go back for it so, rather than have to listen to any more of their whining, I’ll always chuck some of my own gear away to make room for their trinkets and bric a brac. It never gets any easier.

Blessings of Akatosh to you penniless and ill equipped stranger - would you like to overthrow some hell beasts while we run away with all our swords 'n' stuff?

What pains me the most though, what sticks in my throat more than anything else that makes this job sickening… is the utter idiocy. Nothing quite screams stupidity more than turning up at the gates of some village or other to be greeted by an entire army of men telling you that you can’t come in because someone’s only gone and opened up a hell mouth. Before you can even shrug it off and head for the next village, some lazy assed commander has roped you in to single handedly rid their village of this vile array of demons and beasts… because they weren’t capable of handling them on their own. Their army, of trained men with heavy armour and a plethora of weaponry at their disposal, wasn’t able to close this hell mouth and dispense of the creatures therein and yet they somehow think that this lone stranger arriving on their doorstep with no written credentials, no recommendations, and no formal training other than breaking out of prison through a sewer system to help Captain Picard to safety (and fail) can waltz in and do what they couldn’t. Whilst dressed in leather. With a rusty sword.

A man can dream.

Wasn’t easy but, of course, I still managed to take care of it. I always do. And that’s what grates the most… these people carry on with their lives feeling safe and secure that there’s a hero out there to take care of them and protect them from the evils of the world. A hero capable of closing hell itself, bringing Kings to rule, slaying dragons with a rusted old sword and walking thousands of accumulated miles for nothing more than a few coins here and there. But they’ll happily walk past me in the market square without the slightest knowing glance, unaware that this bedraggled rough looking man that they clearly find offensive to look at is the reason they live to see another day. Do they buy me a drink? Do they offer me a bed, even for one night? No. They never even ask my name.

Tomorrow is another lonely day.

According to Wired:

“The game’s Radiant quest system randomly generates new tasks based on your progress in the game. An innkeeper might ask you to hunt for bandits in a place you haven’t found yet, or an aspiring alchemist could request that you collect 10 undiscovered flowers for his work. Howard claims that the options are endless.”

In addition, extra work can be picked up from the guilds to keep you out of mischief, and further extending the game’s life.  What we found more interesting, however, was Howard’s revelation that the game will feature ‘environmental storytelling’, which Wired talk briefly about:

Skyrim’s world is sprinkled with secrets and minor bits of narrative that you’ll have to piece together as you explore, an aspect of game design that Howard says the team picked up while working on their last game, Fallout 3.

One of Fallout 3′s biggest strengths was in the things it didn’t tell you and, instead, left you to piece together on your own – read Mark’s ‘God Is In The Details’ article for more on this topic – such as the tragic spooning skeletons laying on a bed beside packets of Rad-X, while a child’s skeleton lay next door beside a sad pile of blocks, or the skeletal remains of a family who were on their way to the safety of a vault, with their suitcases in the boot of their car and a letter of acceptance in their pockets… only they hadn’t made it.  This and a myriad of other tiny, blink and miss them discoveries enriched Fallout’s universe, and while Oblivion sadly lacked them – Nate Dyer and Fort Nikel being one of the heartbreaking exceptions – we can’t wait to find out what similar treasures lay buried in Skyrim’s lands.

So, when you’ve finished decorating your mountainside pad with dragon hides and gaudy vases made of Minotaur penises, it is nice to know that there will always be something extra to do.  Not that we ever ran out in Oblivion.  A quick poll and some cajoling (threats) here at GLHQ caused many writers to grudgingly reveal that they spent too much time in Oblivion pottering around playing Sim Cheydinhal, arranging armour in cabinets and sorting out alchemiacal ingredients into separate cupboards from magical jewelery.  Another reason to masturbate furiously over Skyrim?  We think so.

Source: Wired

The GamingLives podcast returns from man flu and brings you that something special this week, no not Avatar items… This week we’ve got soul. The team discuss Halo being the big deal that it is and ask if it was more a case of ‘right place, right time’, Ben and Lee come out and say they didn’t like Oblivion, we talk about making connections with characters in games, Mark talks about X-Com (again!), Ben looks back over the GTA series, Lee says he’d pay silly money for a game if he could download it on launch day via Xbox Live and so much other stuff that it’s a good job we recorded it for you. All that and a competition where you could win some Microsoft Points or a PSN voucher!

Don’t say we aren’t good to you.

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Halo: A Case of Right Place, Right Time?

I’ve kept quiet for long enough on this subject. I find it difficult to speak about, simply because the total onslaught of opposition I have on the topic. It’s no surprise to anyone that a good portion of video gamers are ridiculously devoted to certain games, to the point where they would defend them, even in the face of indisputable evidence that a certain feature was poor…

Chris puts forward a good case

Open Up

There are times in life when you have to let yourself go, open yourself up to whatever is thrown at you. There will be times when the only option available to you is to break down and cry, no matter how tough you think you are; there will always be that moment where there is nothing left, you can’t take it and the tears stream down your face leaving glistening trails on your cheeks.

Joey gets emotionally attached

Nostalgia can be a bit of a strange beast, especially when it comes to gamers who seemingly, for whatever reason, are constantly in a partial state of remembrance for games of yesteryear. Everyone is guilty of it at some point, whether it’s talking with friends about the stomping grounds of old, educating youngsters about how good it was back in the day of 16kb memory and 3.5Mhz processors, or just wishful daydreaming about a HD remake of your favourite franchise…

A look back at GTA

DC Universe Online Goes F2P

John Smedley, SOE’s President, announced on Twitter this morning that over 120,000 new players have signed up for their action-RPG MMO DC Universe Online on the PC since the game transitioned to free-to-play Tuesday evening. In the same tweet, he announced that the number of concurrent users logged into the game has increased 300% in that same time, and that they’re planning to launch a massive TV and online ad campaign later this month. He did not mention any numbers for PS3 users.

Details over on PC gamer

Retail Model is “broken”

The retail video game model “has always been and still is broken”.

That’s according to Dino Patti, boss of Limbo developer Playdead games.

Limbo, a digitally distributed game that launched last year on Xbox Live Arcade, wowed critics and proved an immense commercial success. It was later released on PC and PlayStation 3.

Full story on Eurogamer

The crowd roars, but the only thing I can hear is my pulse pounding. A minotaur twice my size swings his weapon directly for my head. My shield barely halts the blow, I feel my gauntlet crack from the pressure. Fix it later. The minotaur doesn’t let up. The hammer he’s holding is roughly the size of a child, and his one desire is to see it smash my body into a bloody, unrecognizable mess. He tries an overhead strike this time. I roll out of the way toward his unarmed side and the hammer digs into the Arena sand. With a leaping slash I cut out the beast’s throat and his body falls to the floor alongside his two brethren. I hear chanting. Dragonheart. My name.  The people cheer their champion. I hold my sword up and let out  a victorious roar. The Arena spectators roar with me.

Whoa, lost myself for a second there. What were we talking about? Right, YOU. You, Oblivion. You never-ending game, you. You realize it’s been almost three years since I first bought you? Yep, I remember the day. You were sitting there in Best Buy all wrapped up in your finest cellophane. Me, I was there with my Dad, he needed some wires or whatever and I decided to go along because I had some extra scratch and felt the new game itch. I remembered people talking about you when the 360 was released. Didn’t really pay much attention since I was one of the late comers to the 360 scene. What I do remember though, is that a lot of praise was thrown your way. The words “incredible” and “revolutionary” were tossed around rather liberally. I figured you and me, we could have a good time together. You brought along all your DLC already since you were a Game of the Year edition, so how did you expect me to say no? I honestly had no idea what to expect. Nor did I know at all what I was in for. I remember this one time…

I slip around the corner making sure I am out of sight. This tunnel is next to abandoned, but being a secret passage for the Emperor it is naturally guarded. The Emperor is not my target though. I just need to make it through here, and my prize awaits at the end. I cast my spell. This is the reason I stooped behind this corner. Through magic you can do amazing things: become invisible, shoot lightning, even summon up personal slaves from the depths of Oblivion itself. But there is no stopping the light generated by using magic and right now, as I said, stealth is my greatest ally. At my will my body fades from the visual spectrum. Not perfect invisibility, but that kind of magic is too unstable for my work. Should I make contact with anything outside of walking that shroud would fail, and right now stealth is my greatest ally. This spell simply fades my appearance. A shadow against shadows. In this near pitch black tunnel it will be more than enough. I cast my second spell and feel my eyes morph. My vision loses all distinction of colors, the trade off being that now no shadow can block my vision. In any pitch tunnel I would be able to see clear as the brightest spring day; in this tunnel with its sporadic torches, it will serve me well.

I make my way through the seemingly disused structure. I encounter guards on patrol at regular intervals but avoid any confrontation. Sithis only demands one victim tonight. I plan to please him to the utmost. How much easier this would have been if I could simply end them all.  Instead I cling to shadows and move around their patrols as best I can. I even press myself next to a pillar while a guard passes so close I can feel the heat from his torch blister my skin. The pain is strong, but for Sithis I remain silent. My body is obscured from his vision by the shadow of the pillar, my own partial invisibility and the fact he never looked toward his torch side. Fool. Once past him only a door stands between me and my prey.

I push the pressure block and the entire wall slides open. The guards are making their rounds far enough away that they have no hope of hearing it. Arrogant swine never believed someone could make it past the vaunted Imperial Legion. They never had a chance against a true child of the dark, and they should feel grateful my Lord did not demand their blood as well. I step through the open passage into my old jail cell where this all started. My target is across the hall. I open cell door with the key provided by my benefactor and step across to the cell of a living dead man. He is asleep. I silently open his cell with my key and enter before locking it shut behind me. I do not intend to let him die in his sleep, I will not deny Sithis of the dying pain in his eyes, or shall I be denied the pleasure of vengeance. I drop my invisibility before kicking him awake. He raises with a start, never expecting to find a hooded figure standing within his cell. He cowers against the back wall. Lovely.

“Wh… who ar- who are you?!” He stammers looking around for anyway to hide or defend himself.

Tenderise the worm a bit first...

I let out a low chuckle in response and lift my hood. “You mean you don’t remember me? How hurtful. After all the wonderful time we spent together.”

“Yes,” I growl “You remember, good. I was tossed in here for a crime I didn’t commit. And you preyed on the fear I felt, informing me that I would die in this pit. And you with your black skin and red eyes that all Dark Elves have, looked like the true embodiment of my fate. I was young then, inexperienced. Since then I have basked in true darkness, and revel in all its beauty. Now I’m back, to inform you of the truth.”

“The truth?” He tries to shrink even further into the wall, fear beginning to take root in him. Wonderfully glorious fear.

“The truth is, I am not the one who is going to die in this place.” He notices the unsheathed sword in my hand far too late. “You are.”  With one quick motion I stab through his heart. He falls to the floor convulsing in pain. The poisons I coated my blade with would make sure he lives for the longest time possible while causing him unbearable pain. The paralyzing agents will also make sure he suffers silently. I bend down and wipe his blood from my sword with his tunic. It was a gift from the Daedric Prince of Darkness himself and does not deserve to be stained with the blood of this wretch.

I exit his cell, and make my exit from the Imperial prison. I cloak myself again; true invisibility this time. Instead of traversing the hidden tunnel once more I make my way up the stairs out of the dungeon and head for the front door. I pass a very bored looking young guard, obviously unhappy with this assignment. True to the spell’s nature the cloaking fails as soon as I grasp the door handle and he jerks in his seat, shocked to see someone simply appear. I open the door casually, turn to the guard, wink, and leave.

I mean honestly, these two very diverse sections not only occur within the same game, but I didn’t even need to make another character to experience it. Most player choice games have you choose one of a select few character classes, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. While a class system exists in your world Oblivion, it’s less rigid than other games. Your classes simply give a bonus toward one stat or another, and specialization in a few of your multitude of skills. So while your classes offer a good head start, they basically are only used for a head start with character development. So even though I started as one class that was almost exclusively focused on the straight combat of a warrior, I made the shift to a stealthy spellcaster about half way through my game with no trouble at all. While I eventually made a new character that focused mainly on these skills (which ended up being way better at them than my first) this kind of freedom was brand new to me.

The skills on their own deserve their own attention. Everything from repairing equipment to spell weaving to fighting with a variety of weapons is represented within a character’s growth. How fast someone moves, how long they can fight without getting fatigued, how big of a fireball they can create… these things and more are all upgradable through your natural progression system. Want to cast better magic? Use more magic. Want to fight better with a sword? Make it your primary weapon and watch as you steadily gain access to new moves.

Honestly Oblivion, I could go on and on and on about how you exceeded every possible expectation I had ever held, and how you set brand new ones for every game I would play since. You don’t even understand how, more then three years later, I still don’t truly feel I’ve finished with you. I’ve now made over six different characters with their own specializations and ability focuses. Between them all I’ve poured over five hundred hours of my life into your disc. The best and also craziest thing about that is that each and every play through I never fail to find something brand new in your world. I honestly want to pour love for you all day but I know you brought me here for a reason. You had something to say. What was it? What’s that? You have a sequel coming out?!

Oh fuck you!

• Unbound     –   10  -  Complete “Unbound”
• Bleak Falls Barrow  – 10 –   Complete “Bleak Falls Barrow”
• The Way of the Voice –   20 –   Complete “The Way of the Voice”
• Diplomatic Immunity  -  20  -  Complete “Diplomatic Immunity”
• Alduin’s Wall  -  20  -  Complete “Alduin’s Wall”
• Elder Knowledge   – 20 –   Complete “Elder Knowledge”
• The Fallen  -  20 –   Complete “The Fallen”
• Dragonslayer  -  50 -  Complete “Dragonslayer”
• Take Up Arms  -  10  -  Join the Companions
• Blood Oath  -  10  -  Become a member of the Circle
• Glory of the Dead   – 30 –   Complete “Glory of the Dead”
• Gatekeeper  -  10  -  Join the College of Winterhold
• Revealing the Unseen  – 10 –   Complete “Revealing the Unseen”
• The Eye of Magnus   – 30 –   Complete “The Eye of Magnus”
• Taking Care of Business  -  10  -  Join the Thieves Guild
• Darkness Returns  -  10 –   Complete “Darkness Returns”
• One with the Shadows  -  30  -  Returned the Thieves Guild to its former glory
• With Friends Like These…  -  10  -  Join the Dark Brotherhood
• Bound Until Death  -  10 –   Complete “Bound Until Death”
• Hail Sithis! –   30  -  Complete “Hail Sithis!”
• Taking Sides  -  10  -  Join the Stormcloaks or the Imperial Army
• War Hero  -  10 –   Capture Fort Sungard or Fort Greenwall
• Hero of Skyrim  -  30 –   Capture Solitude or Windhelm
• Sideways –   20 -  Complete 10 side quests
• Hero of the People  -  30  -  Complete 50 Misc Objectives
• Hard Worker –   10 –   Chop wood, mine ore, and cook food
• Thief    –    30 –   Pick 50 locks and 50 pockets
• Snake Tongue   – 10  -  Successfully persuade, bribe, and intimidate
• Blessed    –    10  -  Select a Standing Stone blessing
• Standing Stones  -  30  -  Find 13 Standing Stones
• Citizen    –    10   – Buy a house
• Wanted    –    10 –   Escape from jail
• Married    –    10  -  Get married
• Artificer  -  10  -  Make a smithed item, an enchanted item, and a potion
• Master Criminal  -  20  -  Bounty of 1000 gold in all nine holds
• Golden Touch –   30  -  Have 100,000 gold
• Delver    –    40   – Clear 50 dungeons
• Skill Master  -  40  -  Get a skill to 100
• Explorer –   40  -  Discover 100 Locations
• Reader   –     20 –   Read 50 Skill Books
• Daedric Influence  -  10  -  Acquire a Daedric Artifact
• Oblivion Walker –   30 –   Collect 15 Daedric Artifacts
• Dragon Soul  -  10  -  Absorb a dragon soul
• Dragon Hunter  -  20  -  Absorb 20 dragon souls
• Words of Power -  10  -  Learn all three words of a shout
• Thu’um Master –   40  -  Learn 20 shouts
• Apprentice –   5  -  Reach Level 5
• Adept  – 10  -  Reach Level 10
• Expert –   25 –   Reach Level 25
• Master –   50 –   Reach Level 50

Some time ago, in a Morrowind blog post, Executive Producer Todd Howard said the following: “There’s something about having a physical object in your hands that feels like it’s part of this other world, that you are that person in the game, finding your way among the hills.”  And he’s quite right; those of us who enjoy sinking into the atmosphere of a game and studying the world in which we’re playing are often absorbed by the game-maps, so to have one reproduced as a premium item, is ideal.  While games around it are slinging out download codes for in-game items and outfits, it is refreshing to see gamers being handed something more tangible for once.  Whether or not the premium quality will be evident, or whether the Skyrim map will end up a flimsy mess remains to be seen, but if you’re pre-ordering anway, it may just be worth it.

“This source not only confirmed that the game is in current production, but also spoke briefly about the content – with fantasy-sounding phrases like Dragon Lord, something with The Blades” Report Eurogamer, who had the original article translated by Eurogamer Denmark’s editor-in-chief, Kristian West.

They go on to say that “…this will be the chronological sequel to what happened in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion” and that the voice acting is currently being worked on.

We’re sure that we’re not alone here at GLHQ in holding our breath during every major gaming event for the big announcement about Elder Scrolls V, only to be let down when it passes without word.  To say this has made our day would be an understatement and Elder Scrolls V has been flirting with the top spot in our ‘most wanted ever’ list for the last four years.  While there have been faint rumours that Bethesda have been working on the game for some time, anything more solid than wishful thinking and speculation has, until now, been elusive.  Finally, it seems that Elder Scrolls fans’ wait is over.  Now, just announce the damn thing already, so we can start complaining about the torturous wait until the release date.

Source: Eurogamer

Crysis... wow. Just... wow.

The times, they are a changing.  As much as I adore music, this wasn’t actually a musical quotation, and I can barely ever make out a single word when Bob Dylan sings anyway so I’m hardly going to use him as a point of reference.  No, I mean the times are literally changing… for me, at least.  A childhood interest in art and design became a passion which then turned to a vocation and, ultimately, became a way of life spawning a built in expectancy that seems to be falling short more and more as time goes on.  My love for gaming is practically fuelled by my passion for rich, stunning graphics and so whenever I’m faced with a game that I know could be more visually pleasing than the image I’m currently viewing on screen, I start to become preoccupied and the flaws become more obvious than they perhaps should.

In an earlier article, I questioned the need for high spec gaming PCs when consoles can retain the same internal specifications for a good four to five years and yet still be able to handle whatever new games are thrown at them while a decent PC gaming rig today may be fine for current games but will undoubtedly struggle with the latest releases another two or three years down the line.  Moving on from this, another article covered my disdain with the graphics on the XBox 360 version of Risen, to the point where the character faces were more or less illegible compared to the pin sharp textures and meticulous detail of the PC version.  This disappointment led me to not only stop playing the XBox version entirely, but prompted me to scrape together enough funds to buy a decent gaming rig.

Ten months on from the initial acceptance that if I wanted to play Risen without getting distracted by inferior graphics I’d have to suck it up and play it on PC, I find myself becoming more and more drawn towards being an outright PC gamer.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that ALL the games I’ll ever play will be on the PC, as I see no need to indulge in all that messing around with installing games to hard drives and checking for latest patches and driver updates JUST to play something disposable like a driving game, but certainly any serious games will likely end up being played on the PC.

Last weekend I got a tad fed up waiting for Two Worlds II to be released, too impatient to hang on for Fallout: New Vegas, and itching to play something NEW rather than something that was just “unopened” on the shelf.  I’d heard good things about the Gothic series although, to be honest, I hadn’t really paid much attention to the franchise until very recently, but this particular day had the “Gothic 4: Arcania” demo available for download on XBox Live and so I did what any self respecting impatient role player would do… I downloaded the demo.  My first impressions didn’t take very long to form, perhaps ten seconds at best, and I was immediately drawn to the fact that there was very visible pixelation around the edges of everything on screen, as well as an inordinately low texture quality that left me questioning my eyesight further than I do already.  Instead of something which you would expect to, at the very least, be comparable to the four year old graphics from Oblivion, I was instead treated to something that looked like it could have been taken directly from the original XBox and blown up to fit the HD resolution of the XBox 360.  My previous experience with Risen was enough to remind me that I should give the game the benefit of the doubt and continue to play through the demo to see if I actually enjoyed the gameplay itself enough to justify playing the full game.

Click on the image above to view a video comparison between XBox and PC version

I persevered to the end of the time-limited demo, and actually enjoyed the gameplay much more than I had with the Risen demo… but the graphic quality, or lack thereof, was enough to rip me out of this new virtual world on my own voyage of discovery.  After a few hours of downloading, and armed with the PC version of Arcania on my USB stick, I leapt back upstairs to see what my gaming rig would make of the demo that the XBox 360 couldn’t.  The difference was apparent within the first few seconds of playing.  The level of detail on the character itself was incredible and I could easily make out all of the individual features on the faces of the NPCs rather than odd looking muddy complexions.  The landscape transformed from being a rather nondescript high school student’s attempt at a watercolour to being a fine oil with bright vivid colours akin to Joseph Wright’s “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump” and the texture detail was enough to have me doubt my beautiful black console now more than ever.

At this point you’d be forgiven for thinking that I would immediately disregard a game because of the quality of the graphics, regardless of the gameplay or storyline… and you’d be correct.  Almost.  It’s no secret that one of my favourite games of all time is UFO: Enemy Unknown and that, along with the original Command And Conquer series before Tiberium was discovered, had graphics which are particularly crude BUT they work well for that particular genre.  First person role playing games are, as far as I’m concerned, written specifically to pull you in with a greater level of immersion than base building and controlling a squad of soldiers against an enemy army, earthbound or otherwise.  If I’m expected to be fully immersed in a game to the point where I care about the character, the people met along the way, and the outcome of a fifty or one hundred hour journey then the last thing I want is for blurred textures, unrecognisable facial features and pixelated graphics to constantly remind me that it’s just a game.

Make no mistake, I’m not an imbecile.  I understand that a decent PC gaming rig will always out perform any console, regardless of whether it’s a four year old console or one that has been released with the most modern technology available on the market.  I’m not disputing that whatsoever, but I am now starting to question the validity of console gaming for games which require an acute attention to detail and a hyper realism to draw the player unquestionably in to the environment and whether or not I can set aside my intrinsic desire to be initially blown away by game visuals and continue on with the XBox 360 as my main gaming machine or jump ship entirely to the driver-ridden sea of PC gaming.

Before making this rather final, and potentially expensive, decision my first question was, as you’d perhaps expect, whether the PlayStation 3 would be capable of reigniting the console torch and persuade me to actually power it up rather than have it act as an odd looking object gathering dust under the television.  As someone who doesn’t own a single PS3 game, I wasn’t in the position to actually test the quality of the unit and so I asked an avid cross platform gamer what their opinion on the XBox 360 vs PlayStation 3 graphics situation was and, unfortunately, their own experience was that there really wasn’t much difference between the two except when it came to PS3 exclusives being more finely honed than XBox exclusives.

To that end, the words “PC please” are now firmly planted on my lips when it comes to someone asking which format of game I’d prefer for birthdays.  There is a mixture of excitement and dread with this revelation because, as much as I’m looking forward to being awestruck by the rendering capabilities of my Nvidia GTX 295 in impending releases such as Fallout: New Vegas, Two Worlds II and the incredible looking Crysis 2, I can’t help but be wary of the prospect of having to remember specific keys for specific movements and actions.  Some would argue that it’s no different than having to remember the button configuration of an XBox controller but, as someone who spends more than twelve hours per day using a keyboard and only 5-10 hours per week with a controller in my hand, I’m still much more at ease playing games with a controller than a keyboard.  In recent weeks I’ve been revisiting Oblivion on the PC as part of an ongoing research project and still find myself having to look down at the keyboard before selecting weapons/items from my inventory and even though I played through Risen for a good 80 hours, I still wasn’t comfortable enough with the keyboard where I could play without glancing down from the screen to my lap every time I had to do something other than move in a typical forward/back/left/right fashion.

Alienware... if only they weren't overpriced shit.

All this will come in time and, presumably, there will be a moment of realisation where everything will fall in to place and using the keyboard for gaming will become second nature to me as the controller has.  It was, after all, how I started gaming… and had never used a controller until I got my first XBox in 2004, so regressing to keyboard control certainly isn’t out of the question.  For now, all I can do is resign myself to the notion that playing games will now mean the arduous task of installing to hard drive, maintaining the latest drivers, frequent patch downloads and cumbersome controls… but at least it’ll look great and be worth the extra effort. Right?

At this point, there are four things that, if you are anything like me, you will always do:

1 – Panic.  Pound every single button and trigger repeatedly because you never know if one will suddenly, magically unlock your console and save your game.

2 – Wait. If you wait long enough, surely it will unfreeze, the game will judder apologetically back into life and you can go about your business.

3 – Scream.  Pound your controller into the carpet/table/thigh/wall in sheer rage and vow all manner of horrendous punishments involving woodchippers and dog shit.

4 – Admit defeat. No matter how badly it chaps your chafeables, you have to give in eventually and switch off, allowing all your progress (unsaved, naturally) to fade to black.

Lockups and freezes are as much a part of console gaming as crashes are for PC gamers, however, this isn’t sugar coated by the fact that such things only ever seem to happen at the most inconvenient, soul destroying, game wrecking moments.  Boss battles, after a number of tricky platform manoeuvres, at the end of a level or campaign, when you are far enough from a save point to be utterly screwed, after locating a tricky collectable, or have built a sprawling home/metropolis, or achieved a top time in an especially difficult challenge.

It will never happen while you are in the menu, during the intro video, at the start of a campaign, immediately after saving, or during a cut scene.  It will wait until it really matters, until you are at the point where it will royally screw your game/day/mood beyond repair, almost as though there is a sadistic sentience built into every game.  I’ve had vast mansions in various Sims games vanish under a blue-screen after not saving for two hours, I’ve had Naughty Bear glitch and freeze at the end of an especially nasty challenge while on track for an achievement.  Mirror’s Edge has frozen in the middle of a flawless speedrun on several occasions, leading to my scream of rage reaching a pitch of hysteria that shredded canine eardrums up to five miles away.  However, my most recent experience was the one which prompted me to finally whip out a vitriolic pen – namely Left 4 Dead 2.

I am reliably informed by veterans of the game that freezing is not all that common.  This offered little solace however, especially since, as ever, the timing of the freeze was nothing short of impeccably dickish.  The last campaign, the last level, the last fucking section of the bridge…I was that close to finishing the game.  Ellis was charging up the left hand side of the cluttered bridge, armed with a fire axe and a machine gun, determined to scoop the achievement for making it in under three minutes; I was on my way to victory and to completing the game after a long trudge through a pain in the arse campaign in which I had managed to get lost more times than a blind pixie in a hedge maze.

It may have been premature, but I was pleased with myself and on the verge of celebrating.  My team had fallen behind, the Tank’s music kicked in, but I ran on, determined to make it….and with a shudder, the game froze.  I waited for that brief, initial moment…the moment where you discover whether it is a nasty piece of lag or a genuine lock.  Nope.  You.  Utter.  Bastard.  In horror, all I could do was listen to the endlessly looping Tank music, stare ahead at the bridge, and taste how close I had been.  I’d almost finished the level, campaign, and game.  I’d almost snagged the achievement.  Almost.

After fifteen minutes of button mashing, swearing, and playing the waiting game, I had to concede defeat and switch off.  What made it worse was that there are no mid way saves in Left 4 Dead 2 – if I wanted the achievement for completing the last campaign, I’d also have to redo the lot in one sitting.  Well, fuck you.  I gave up for the night, vowing to ignore the game and my Xbox for as long as possible in protest at the shabby treatment it had doled out.

At least, in the grand scheme of gaming pains, it wasn’t so bad…I’d only lost an hour or so.  There are far worse freezing casualties.  Back in the old days, before the Elite, when the Xbox would run hotter and heavier than Barrymore chasing a pool boy, freezing was far more common and, given that one of the launch titles was the vast and gorgeous Oblivion, it was a very big issue.

They played the waiting game too long...

Try spending hours completing quests, faffing in forts, and unearthing a piece of grade A magical loot, only for the game to freeze and your Xbox to die.  From the enraged screams coming from my partner’s gaming sessions at times, this fate also befell him more than once.  Progress aside, you know damn well that next time you go all the way back and loot the same boss or chest, your wonderful bit of loot will be a piece of shit, equivalent in effectiveness to a magical pencil sharpener.

There are/were ways, however, to thwart the freeze, at least as far as Oblivion went.  My other half started to wise up to his Xbox’s tricks and trained himself to recognise the sound of the fans changing – the prelude to Oblivion freezing.  This subtle hint would be all the warning he needed to quickly save his game before the screen froze.  These days, with the Elite being slightly more reliable and the problem not being quite so prevalent, it is far more unexpected, so when it does catch you, it hurts.

With Left 4 Dead 2, the game actually teased me many times – those juddering, laggy moments which seem to threaten a freeze induced a near heart attack at times and there were many of those moments.  However, when the game carries on and you relax, it is merely leading you along an undulating path of near misses which allows you to be utterly blindsided when it does eventually occur.

I suppose the worst of it is that there is nothing that you can do about it and there’s no way of really predicting a freeze, bar a few cases, which is one of the reasons that it is so gutting, not to mention the progress and effort that evaporates.  While console gamers are often quick to chide PC users over patches, bugs, crashes, and compatibility issues, they certainly can’t boast of a trouble free gaming experience.  It seems that crashes and freezes will be here to stay, walking hand in hand with our hobby for the foreseeable future.  Still, the Russian Roulette of freezing gives me something to moan about…at least until Kinect porn finally arrives and turns out to have a Sims-esque censor blur over the good stuff.

So, are they merely protecting their IP or genuinely planning a saga of epic Elder Scrolls films?  With the in-game hero being player created, conjuring a strong, marketable character(s) to carry such a weighty franchise will be a big ask, let alone paying proper tribute to a title which still rides high among ‘top anything ever’ lists.

Ordinarily, by now, we’d be throwing things at our PC monitors as we do whenever the latest asinine game-to-film rumour surfaces.  This one, however, appears to have stayed our hands.  Instead, at GLHQ, most of us are  quietly contemplating how good it could be if they, by some miracle, got it right.  It could be like Lord of the Rings but without the endless walking and two dozen endings.  Imagine seeing the Oblivion gates opening up on the big screen, the searing beauty of the Imperial City, or the snow-dusted charm of Bruma’s sleepy town…it has the potential to leave Rivendell and the rest a blubbering, ugly mess by comparison.  It likely won’t happen, but if it did…scorchio.