Tag Archives: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Games

Communication Breakdown in Dragon Age: Origins

My first experience with a Bioware game was Dragon Age: Origins. At the time I didn’t know much of anything about the studio, what their “return to roots” project meant to people or, really, what I was getting into at all. I just read a lot of really good things about a game — namely, the amount of narrative choice it offered players — and thought it would be worth trying out. Now, having played two Mass Effects, two Fallouts and Skyrim, I’ve gone back into the first Dragon Age with, maybe, a bit more of an understanding of how to approach these kind of massively customizable RPGs (MCRPG?) and a better grasp on how to play off their shortcomings.

In short, I’ve learned how to communicate with a videogame by speaking its own language.

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Games

Skyrimming Part 2: (Unintentional) Werewolf Bar Mitzvah

This was originally meant to be the second installment in a long series of Skyrim-related posts, but it turns out that everyone and their mother has already written this game to death. This leaves the continuation of Digital Love Child’s inagural gamiary in a bad spot, further complicated by the fact that I no longer even want to play Skyrim much anymore. Why write more about something that’s lost its magic? Why add more text to an experience that everyone is already chronicling like crazy?

That idea, in itself, seemed like a good thought to follow through with. It only seems fitting to wrap up this miniscule, two-part series on Skyrim with a look at how I became a werewolf then because, if nothing else, this (maybe familiar) story and it’s details demonstrate why such an absorbing game can start to feel hollow after the passing of no more than a handful of weeks.

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Games

Skyrimming Part 1

Play enough Skyrim and the game can start to convince you that it is not so much a collection of other people’s work but something of a personal toybox instead: a sort of fantasy madlibs creator. Every encounter, whether with monster or human or random item lying on the floor of a cave, wants to shape the story playing out in your game.

Bethesda’s latest — and maybe greatest — is the kind of game that seems tailor made for these Gamiary entries. It is a massive world that begs to have its dynamic narratives chronicled and shared (which is the point of this whole thing, after all) and is, luckily, also a stupid amount of fun.

Continue reading Skyrimming Part 1 →