Happy new year, everyone! Hope you've all had a good holiday. I spent several solid days being drunk and playing Skyward Sword, which I hadn't gotten to until now. I suppose I'll have some kind of formalized "thoughts" or whatnot on it soon, but for now I've gotta focus on catching up from some prolonged nightmare flu and an intense holiday period.
I wrote about the peculiar comfort in being ill over at Thought Catalog, plus the uncommonly silent limbo of spending a holiday in New York City if you're not particularly Christmas-oriented.
Okay, so one article about being sick, one article about a holiday, and here, one sort-of serious satire about my struggles to get my work done on time and well. Believe it or not, there were some people out there who thought this piece was real advice. I disclaim all liability for what will happen to you if you're that oblique!
Right, but somehow I still did get some stuff done: An editorial on Skyrim. All right, trolls: I think Skyrim is completely rubbish. I have no interest in playing it any more. I have no idea who designed the combat system, looked at that swordplay and went "HEY IT WORKS IT'S PERFECT." Like, really? The game also combines a lot of things I'm just not interested in: high fantasy setting, open world, and loads of lore.
However (who am I kidding, half of you will not read the 'however' and have already begun typing me nerd rage death threats) -- HOWEVER, I totally get why people love it. Totally get it; I wrote a bit about that at Gamasutra.
People like feeling like they're an influential part of something larger than themselves; they like games that give them things to explore and share together. That's the principle with which Jesse Schell is working with his company's new Puzzle Clubhouse, an intriguing new idea for crowdsourced game design. Check the interview.
And it wouldn't be a new year at Gamasutra without our usual exhaustive year-end roundups; I contributed Top 5 Controversies a bit ago, and now I add Top 5 Surprises.
As usual we round up all our year-end material -- including our overall top ten games -- into one big feature for your reading pleasure. This year, our individual contributions to the game of the year list were bylined, so you'll be able to see which titles I vouched the hardest for. Give it a read!
Lots of you have asked what I think of the big changes going down at Kotaku. I've worked with the staff there for some years, including both Brian and Joel, and I wish them tons of the best in their new endeavors, Brian in particular after years of service to -- come on, face it -- our space's most relevant consumer gaming site.
But I'm also incredibly thrilled to see what Stephen and the new guard (including my real good bro Kirk Hamilton) will accomplish over at the big K. Stephen in particular is a fantastic editor who's done a lot for me, and I think his role as Kotaku EIC spells amazing things.
For those that mailed/IMed/Tweeted whatever, as far as I know I'll continue my monthly column as normal, as I've done for I think nearly three years now!
10 comments:
I find myself on the same sidelines. I'm not into the massive titles that receiving acclaim. Plus I barely keep up with anything Nintendo related. Seems like I've lost touch with that gamer side of me. After the Gamecube, I felt that it was it for me. I don't feel like I've missed anything with Skyward Sword (aside from the fact its now deemed the origin of the series). Wait we had that way back when. Now its the opposite, seriously I don't care.
Skyrim = it looks nice, but overall it sounds like a syfy movie of the week to me.To be honest, I never was a Morrowind fan either. So I don't fall under that category.
What I have played.. Sonic Generations, King of Fighters XIII, and recently Spider-man Edge of Time. Its funny, what I enjoyed most I keep up with. But I haven't enjoyed an rpg in forever.
I glance by Final Fantasy XIII, my heart sinks. What is this series now? I don't understand it anymore, its a cinematic masterpiece filled with gameplay somehwere (minus some random battle). I promise myself sometime soon I might rent it, maybe. But I just don't know if my gaming heart is into the genre anymore. (And I honestly don't care about Mass Effect 3, or the next SW RPG blah-blah)
My gaming heart beats for something else. Its just not what it used to be.
I'm so glad you called out Skyrim like that. I enjoy the game, but am absolutely stunned at all the perfect scores it got. I'd say at best it's an 8/10.
Bethesda's formula has not changed in over a decade, and while I enjoyed it back in the Morrowind days, it's a little insulting for present-day game mechanics.
Even so... I enjoy shouting down dragons, so there you go.
Where is the Skyrim editorial? I'm excited to read a Leigh Alexander article that I can actually understand given my limited video game experience.
The only way I could tolerate Skyrim was by using a Lightning mod(complete with Gunblades) and pretending I was playing FFXIII-2 early...fml?
I'm not far into it, but I feel like I should be sword and shielding if I want to melee but I also want to use magic(cause Lightning duh) but then I can't do anything defensively except run around and use my knockback shout? It's just terribly designed and unacceptable for a combat engine in today's world.
Also, it amazes me that nobody really held them accountable for the bullshit they pulled with the PS3. I mean, they withheld review copies of that version(meaning people would have no chance to cancel pre-orders before the problems were known).
It's the equivalent of releasing Transformers 4, having the special effects unfinished for the half half of the movie and getting huge early numbers then just going "meh, it's uhh...someone else's fault heheheh *counts money*.
The internet loves to go apeshit over things they can be dicks about(The Avenger PR fiasco) yet we just let Bethesda get off with a free pass? I don't understand that. Considering, they released a game that becomes virtually unplayable for some people after a certain point.
I don't always agree with you Leigh, but I got your back on Skyrim.
I also thought Skyrim was bleak to say the least, just couldn’t finish the game, ok I'm lying, couldn’t finish half of it. The gameplay is horrendous, and why the fuck does the char walk and run like that? Where is the link to the editorial Leigh?
Thank you for all the laughs from Thought Catal. and the epic pieces on Gama.
I find Skyrim fun to watch (I watched my brother play about 10 hours or so since Christmas) but I always tend to get bored with open world titles. I play games more for a driven narrative experience these days. I want a concrete story that I can sink my teeth into.
Melee combat in Skyrim is pretty meh, though slightly better than melee combat in Oblivion, which was tons better than that from Morrowind. That's why I stick to magic and archery as those systems keep Skyrim playable.
Just in case you haven't heard yet, the complete version of Katawa Shoujo is now out. Going to do a followup review?
The combat system in Skyrim isn't great but the kill animations and spells are fairly spectacular, and pincushioning someone with arrows is gleeful as ever... and I struggle to think of a first-person roaming & fighting game that does all of this well. What's the comparison here?
The more serious criticism of the series is that the lore, characters and voice-acting are cheesy. No one would follow any of the religions and the books they took the trouble to write are unreadable.
They gimped a lot of the fun jiggery-pokery you used to be able to do with stats, enchantments and potions, etc, to become uber and subvert missions, which is probably for the best because I got a sense of ennui from turning myself into a human (well, elven) stealth-bomber in Morrowind, after the initial cackling jubilation wore off. So many Youtube videos showing nerds (not the trendy nouveau nerds; I mean just nerds) how to grind/exploit for stats, just so they can say "I did it myself without console commands" - blegh.
I played through more than half of the major questlines and a bit of the main quest; now I feel a bit alienated from it cos when the (real) awe and majesty of the world wears off it's the usual plasticky Second Life experience I've come to expect from Elder Scrolls. It's always a step from greatness and misses the mark in the same way. They need to take on a serious writer to take singular command of the thing; it seems bland, committee-written. Needs an auteur.
Now i'm thus happy you known as away Skyrim that way. I quite like the overall game Buying Runescape Gold, nevertheless feel absolutely stunned at the best standing this acquired. I'd state at greatest this is an 8/10.
Bethesda's formulation have not changed throughout more than a 10 years, and even though We appreciated this within the Morrowind nights Runescape Gold, it's actually a tiny disparaging regarding present-day online game mechanics.
Even so... I love yelling down dragons, so there you have it.
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