The new features include a new Legendary difficulty level and Legendary skills. The company hasn’t revealed any details about what the new difficulty changes to make the game more difficult, and considering how new the patch is, it will probably take a couple of more days for modders to figure it out too.

The Legendary skills system works like Prestige Mode from Call of Duty’s multiplayer. When you hit the level cap on a skill, you have the option to turn it into a Legendary skill. Doing so returns all the perks you had spent in that specific skill tree and turns it down to level 15. This is essentially meant to be a way to completely remove the level cap from the game and give players an incentive to play further.

Legendary skills are meant to be like the Prestige Mode from Call of Duty

Back in February, Bethesda had finally gotten around to releasing the Heathfire DLC for Skyrim players on the PlayStation 3. This came as a breath of fresh air for PS3 gamers as before this, Bethesda had been unable to port its DLCs to the console. January saw the first instance of the PS3 getting Skyrim DLC through Dragonborn, and it looks like the developers have finally figured the porting out. It won’t be long before we can see simultaneous release for the DLC on all platforms.

Hearthfire was originally released back in October. It allows you to purchase land and build your own house from the ground up – from a simple one-room cottage to a sprawling compound complete with armoury, alchemy laboratory, stable, garden and more. The DLC introduces new tools such as a drafting table and a carpenter’s workbench to transform stone, clay and logs into structures and furnishings. The new DLC also allows you to adopt children.

Skyrim has been a massive success for Bethesda, proving that big budget games without multiplayer can be successful. The Creation Kit for the game was released earlier this year in February. Within weeks, the Creation Kit had clocked in over two million downloads. This is a testament to the dedication of PC gamers and the popularity of Skyrim, the only other game on Steam that went toe-to-toe with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 last November. Bethesda had also announced that an average PC player of Skyrim has clocked nearly 75 hours in the game.

Song Of The Day:

It’s the last few hours of Winter. Tomorrow Spring begins… but it won’t feel anything like Spring. In fact on Thursday through next Monday looks like there’s going to be two snowstorm chances. They’re saying totals up to 10 inches is possible here Thursday and Friday, then again Saturday to Sunday for more accumulation. *sighs* I can endure this for a little longer. But I want Spring to come dammit and I want trees to start budding and leafing out!

This music video is nothing short of amazing. Like I said before on my old blog it reminds me of the same type of dark, emotional thoughts I have. Though, mine’s not about longing for a dead sibling or anything like that. But aspects like the cold, bleak world in seclusion in the middle of the woods and creeping darkness hit close to me too. So does the feelings of misery and sorrow – it’s the same with me. I wake up every morning (assuming I slept) and I look around the room then look down depressed, then I look out of my window.

Now, I’m not going to let those thoughts ruin my otherwise good mood today. I got bored and actually decided to play Skyrim without screwing around killing everyone. It’s not too bad, though I’d prefer killing everyone. With that said, since there really isn’t anything much more to say, song lyrics time!

Sing for me
Sing for me
You can come with me
You can live with me
Heal my soul
Make me whole

Sister I lost you
When you were still a child
But I need you now
And I need that former life

I’m afraid to wait
I’m afraid to love

And just because I’m weak
You can steal my dreams
You can
Reach inside my head
You can
Put your song there instead

Please
Come to me
Please
Stay with me

Please
See
Try
Cry

Sing to me, raven
I miss you so much
Sing to me, raven
I miss you so much

Sing to me, raven
I miss you so much
Sing to me, raven
I miss you so much

Sing to me, raven
I miss you so much
Sing to me, raven
I miss you so much

Rock, Paper, Shotgun What Happens If You Play Elder Scrolls Online Like Skyrim?

Unfortunately, my mighty Xenorc The Warrior Princess didn’t quite cover enough ground to really break out of her box, but apparently unique skill lines will come from all over: level-based progression, special quests, PVP, world events, etc.

There weren’t any crazy AI shenanigans or moments of utterly unexpected player interaction. For better or worse, everything functioned as expected. I felt like I was playing a competent – and in some places, even fairly impressive – MMO, but The Elder Scrolls’ trademark spark was dim, sometimes invisible against a backdrop of pre-scripted heroics and canned conversations.

I never felt like I was roaming this giant, continuous world so much as I was clomping through a series of rigidly defined zones.

Enemy AI, however, might just steal the show. In short, every single baddie is crafted with heightened battlefield awareness, making basic notions of aggro look downright archaic. Many of them are smart enough to work together, pooling both skills and resources to devise on-the-fly strategies to cope with whatever your party’s dishing out.

Unfortunately, however, when pressed further, lead gameplay designer Nick Konkle told me that player-centric racial recognition won’t really be present in TESO.

PC Gamer The Elder Scrolls Online: What I loved and what I didn’t as a long-time Elder Scrolls fan

You also won’t be forced into Tank/Healer/DPS roles. Adhering to said roles will help players manage the game’s hardest enemies, according to the devs.

Your class determines three of the Skill Lines you have access to, while the others, universal across all characters, are based on weapon types, fighting styles, armor classes, and magic schools.

The models seemed proportioned correctly, and the textures, characters, and architecture struck just the right balance between fantasy and gritty realism we’ve seen in the series’ history.

In a particularly extreme example, a group of necromancers sacrificed one of their own in a ritual to summon a powerful, undead bruiser.

Massively ZeniMax’s Paul Sage on The Elder Scrolls Online’s edngame, PvP, and crafting

In ESO, you choose one of three alliances, each with different zones, quests, and stories to explore. Once you hit level 50, you can choose to journey to another alliance’s territory and experience a more difficult (and rewarding) version of those areas.

Small groups of friends can spend countless hours refining strategies and accruing rewards in the nearly 30 different dungeon experiences ESO will have at launch.

You can actually go into the adventure zones with a small group and accomplish some goals, but there are large areas in these maps dedicated to larger group experiences.

He did confirm that there will be gear progression at the endgame in ESO, stating, “The game is going to get more difficult, and the gear is going to get better to match that.”

PC Gamer The Elder Scrolls Online hands-on: first-person mode, skills, stealth and more

There are no damage numbers or debuff indicators for enemies beyond what is visibly happening to them. At present, the game could do with better feedback – I can get behind the idea of toning down typical MMO on-hit fireworks, but they need to be replaced with something and at the moment it’s not quite there.

Its resemblance to a traditional MMO quickbar is deceptive, because skills in TESO are not cooldown based. Your ability to spam skills is entirely based on your available health, stamina or magicka, and as such combat is more about effective use of those resources than it is about settling into a set rhythm.

Active skills level up through use, and at rank five you can spend another skill point to ‘morph’ these spells and abilities into one of two variants. An example we were shown was a Daedric summoning skill that could be altered to conjure either an exploding scamp or a hulking clannfear.

Monsters also have special abilities. Spriggans will possess and enhance any woodland predators that stray nearby, and spiders will eat their slain allies to gain strength. Lovely.

Other players’ companions are rendered as anonymous mercenaries, preserving your immersion in a way that evades TOR-style companion clone syndrome.

Massively Hands-on with The Elder Scrolls Online

You can build your Sorcerer around using a mix of heavy and medium armor while wielding a greatsword.

While your class will determine some of the abilities you acquire, it doesn’t lock you into a particular playstyle or role.

Though ESO employs a traditional questing system — complete with speaking to NPCs, accepting tasks, and turning them in for rewards — you aren’t put on rails that lead you from quest hub to quest hub. There’s a main storyline that you can direct your attention to immediately, or you can put it on the back burner and occupy yourself with myriad side missions.

It’s become common to regard these projects with a healthy dose of skepticism, but I’m happy to say that for ESO, the proof is in the pudding.

Skyrim

Aaron Birch,
News,
Mar 19, 2013.

Bethesda is set to give Skyrim players a legendary challenge with the latest patch…

If you’re still mooching around the province of Skyrim in Bethesda’s eponymous, open-world RPG, then you may be in the market for a little more challenge. As luck would have it, Bethesda’s got your back.

It’s been announced that PC players will be able to grab the 1.9 patch, which will add a few new features to the game, chief amongst them being the new ‘Legendary’ difficulty. This level of challenge will not only boost your foes’ strength and defence, but will also add higher level skills for you to learn. The update will also remove the level cap, so you can keep on trucking no matter how much experience you amass.

Legendary skills will reset learned skills already at 100 to 15 and will return the perks. This means that skills can be levelled once more. The patch also contains a wealth of bug fixes, which can be found in the full patch notes (link below).

The patch is available to PC users via Steam now, and Bethesda has said that console users will hopefully get it later on in the month.

Full patch notes

[Den Of Geek]

Related articles

• Skyrim patch beta offers Legendary difficulty setting (vg247.com)
• Final Skyrim Patch 1.9 Available on Steam, Consoles Get It Before Month’s End (news.softpedia.com)
• ‘Skyrim’ Update 1.9 Adds Legendary Difficulty, Removes Skill Level Cap (gamerant.com)
• Check out the Skyrim beta for ‘Legendary’ features (destructoid.com)

Back to the game diaries and just before I get mixed up in Gears of War: Judgment, there is an element of Bioshock Infinite I want to highlight. Something I think that should engage me like no other game I have played over the last 5 years. That element is the AI companion, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth is your AI companion in Bioshock Infinite but she almost didn’t make the cut.

After playing a female character in the reboot of Tomb Raider, I’ll now have the pleasure of being paired with a female companion that looks sure to break the ‘damsel in distress’ stereotypes. An interesting side-note to that is what Ken Levine said about the development of Elizabeth in his recent Q&A at Bafta. The video of the Q&A is below and I recommended watching it all but to find the references to Elizabeth you will find them from 16 minutes in.

Interestingly Ken Levine states that, ‘the most requested cut feature, in this game, from our team was Elizabeth’. I’ll not pour out the details why that was here in this post because Ken does a good job of telling the audience why after that statement. He does also state that Elizabeth is the heart of the game. There is also a demonstration of how free-wheeling she can be in the game IF the player allows her the freedom. Like I said, if you haven’t watched the Q&A yet and are planning to play Bioshock Infinite then do watch it. Ken Levine is a very charismatic speaker and you can’t help be infused with his enthusiasm.

I’ll be posting my Bioshock Infinite and Gears of War: Judgement game diary posts from around the 26th March.

I never noticed before how beautiful the evening sky is.  Maybe I noticed because of the Sims 3 Aurora Skies premium world.  Whatever the reason, I am sharing a few screen shots from Skyrim.

I downloaded the two expansions earlier this month and a content file that allows the player to purchase land and build their own homes from a selection of plans.  Teague owns three sites now and has completed one of the buildings.  He and his wife adopted two orphans and they are all living in the house that Teague built.

With the purchased land, a player has the opportunity to hire a steward which will procure other optional additions to the home: livestock, wagon, and a fresh horse.

Related articles

• Dawnguard Expansion Announced for Elder Scrolls’ Skyrim (epicagames.com)
• From Skyrim to The Elder Scrolls Online (jopami.wordpress.com)

After being rudely awoken by the inn’s owner screaming, I cautiously poke my head out of the door frame, wishing greatly that it had a door in it at this point. And perhaps a nice, sturdy iron lock. I can’t really see anything amiss at first glance, so I walk over and talk to the innkeeper. Apparently her inn has suddenly become haunted overnight. It seems that these kind of things just keep happening around me, I swear it’s as if the world just keeps throwing ‘interesting’ things at me. Well I don’t want interesting! I’m a merchant! I want UNinteresting! And profitable! I spot the offending spirit seated and one of the tables and irately walk over to him to see what in oblivion he wants with me.

Wait, who?

Hjalti? No sir, you must have me mistaken for someone who wants to be bothered by a translucent blue guy who likes creeping up on old ladies. I figure he’s probably just racist, you know the type “Oh, all you cat-people look the same to me!” or something like that. Either way, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that he’s actually waiting for someone else, so I turn on my heel and go to the innkeeper again to earn a little cash.

“Do you think the ghost is one of Tiber Septim’s dead men?” She asks. I hand over all the berries I collected on the road from Falkreath and she gives me a handful of gold coins. “Do I look like an expert on the history of Skyrim?” I completely fail to retort as I walk away and try on some of those nice hats I found yesterday.

Snazzy.

Eager to leave this ridiculous charade behind me, I head through the door and into the beautiful… rain. Oh, it’s going to be one of those days. I follow the little path down to the main road again, picking berries and flowers as I go. As I reach the worn trail, I check my map. I look to be more than halfway, so as long as I keep a good pace I’m sure I’ll reach Markarth before the sun goes down. Oh what a joy it will be to be back in civilization. No stupid bandits or wolves or ghosts. Just lots of people with lots of money. Paradise.

Before long I see some sort of shrine in the distance, just off to the side of the path. It looks fairly old and unimpressive, the surrounding trees and plants encroaching on the old stone dais. A couple of figures are milling around, a man and a woman, but they seem to just ignore me as I approach the main focus of the shrine. A small statuette sits on a little raised platform, surrounded by offerings of gold and plants. I’m not exactly sure which of the gods this shrine is dedicated to, and I don’t even know how one prays to a god in Skyrim. So after a brief look around to check that nobody’s looking, I poke the statuette.

OH GODS… wait…

Well that was easy. I like how these Nords do things. Need to pray to a god? Poke a statue dedicated to them. And as a bonus I feel suddenly more eloquent, perhaps even sly. As if by some magickal force, I feel as though I have become temporarily better at talking to people. Hmmm, I suppose I should try this out… I walk over to the man sitting behind the little shrine, and it turns out he’s a hunter. Perhaps this hunter will want to buy something other than just armor. I manage to get him to part with a few cold coins in return for some of the random jun- uhh, ‘treasures’ I’ve collected along my way; Fox and wolf pelts, berries, and the like.

I finish up our transaction a few pounds lighter and a little richer, and smile to myself as I head off towards the main path again. A goat hops out in front of me and darts away from the road. I really wish I had that bow. A bit further down the road I see a person that looks to be pacing back and forth along a little bridge. Yep. Really wish I had that bow. Travelling here is nerve-wracking to say the least! As I draw closer however I see he’s just a normal man, wearing no armor, carrying no weapon, and wearing quite a cheap-looking hat. He seems to finally make up his mind about where he’s going, and he walks towards the main path, and starts heading northwest – towards Markarth! Perfect. If I let this guy walk in front of me, any of the bandits, thieves, or wolves along the way will attack him first, giving me time to get to a safe distance or run past him!

My hat is way better.

He doesn’t seem to mind me following him, and I do so for quite some time, lagging a little behind to pick the various flora by the path, being sure to let him stay a reasonable distance ahead. He does look over his shoulder from time to time, but I don’t think he suspects anything. I think this guy is probably the most sane person I’ve met in my travels, and he’s the perfect companion. He doesn’t talk, he’s clearly happy to sacrifice himself for my safety since he hasn’t complained about me following him. Such a selfless act of kindness. This man must be some kind of hero… Wait, where’s he going?

Uhh, Sir? I think the path is this way. The thing with the little stones all in a row.

He takes a sudden and random detour up the side of a hill, pauses for a moment to contemplate the rocks, and then walks back to the path and continues on his way, still heading for Markarth. I try and stay a little closer to him now, still letting him take the lead but being cautious not to let him get out of my sight in case he wanders off again. I distract myself from the monotony of all this wandering by exploring the sides of the road a bit, finding new and different flowers here, and a whole mess of little birds nests just sitting on the rocks, which I happily relieve of their eggs. It’s not like the birds were using them! Come to think of it, I haven’t seen a bird since I got here!

I keep following my unwitting guide, and ahead we see what looks like an Imperial patrol. They’re just on the other side of a bridge which fords a fairly fast-flowing river. Then the little guy walking with me loses his mind. He strolls up to the bridge, does a sharp turn to his right, and walks down the embankment beside the bridge and straight into the river.

… I can’t even begin to understand this.

I begin to wonder about the poor fellow as I head across the nice, solid bridge, leaving him to walk his own path a while. What if this is all my fault? I look at it from his perspective. He’s walking along, trying to figure out where he wants to go, and suddenly sees someone coming so he makes up his mind to head for Markarth. Some scary-looking Khajiit, armed with an axe  and fairly well armored starts following behind him. Even the Khajiit’s hat is nicer than his sloppy-looking excuse for a head-covering. So he wanders out of the way to let the Khajiit pass, and instead, the Khajiit waits for him to get back on the path and keeps following him. For almost a whole day. Eventually, he just cracks. He figures that Khajiit don’t really like water so he flat-out wades through the meanest looking river he can find, trying desperately to shake his apparent pursuer.

So this is only my third day in Skyrim and I’ve driven an innocent man crazy. Great.

As I cross the bridge I see the man come up out of the river and start to walk ahead of the Imperial patrol, so I follow a little ways behind them, hoping he doesn’t mention anything about a psychotic Khajiit who’s been following him all day. The last thing I need is to anger the Imperials! For all I know they could cook up some terrible story about crimes I could never have committed and send me to a dungeon, or worse, a headsman! They’ve been known for that kind of behavior, it’s true.

But before long, the great, profitable city of Markarth comes into view. Its towering stone walls fill me with hope of the wealth contained within.

Even the front gate looks like it’s made of gold! I’m gonna be rich!

I make my way up the stone stairway, and pass through those heavy, golden doors, taking a deep breath as I take in the place that could be my new home. The tall stone buildings, the shining dwarven-looking doors, the marketplace right by the front gate, the man stabbing an innocent woman in the back… Oh. Great.

Perhaps it’s some kind of Nord political protest?

The man in question screams something about the Forsworn owning the area, before he’s quickly set on by one of the town guards. Turns out that the scary looking man with the knife isn’t only a murderer, but a mage, too! He fires a jet of flame from his hand, even as the guard hacks at him with a giant sword.

These Nord battle-cries are somewhat less terrifying than I had been led to believe.

Despite Mr. Flamy-Fingers’ apparent magickal skill, the fight is over quickly in favor of the guard, who hastily tells people to move along and that there are “No forsworn in Markarth”. Well, clearly not any more since he just hacked the guy in half. Suddenly a man walks up to me, not even giving me time to turn around and face him before he starts asking me all kinds of questions about the forswarn, and the attack that literally just happened right in front of him, as if I’m going to know anything about it. I brush him off and head off to find the store, but before I can leave he forces a note into my hands and runs off.

This city is a bit odd.

I find the general store and finally sell as much as I can get rid of. By the end of our transaction I now have a little over 400 gold. Not bad for only 3 days! I look around to see if she sells bows, but she only has the arrows, and they are far out of my price range, so I leave. I explore the town a little bit, but find it to be generally unremarkable, much to my disappointment. A man standing outside one of the houses starts harassing me about if I’ve seen anyone going into the house he’s standing outside of, which seems a little redundant to me, since I only just got here, and he’s obviously been there a while, so I tell him no and continue my little wander around the town, before finally heading dejectedly to the town’s inn for the night.

I buy some food and a mead to drown my sorrows. Markarth isn’t what I had hoped it would be. One of the drinkers in the inn suggests that I hire him to be my bodyguard, and suddenly I’m filled with hope! Now that’s a great idea! I could go exploring all kinds of places with someone to fight for me!

Is… is that a skull on his shoulder?

I tell him I’d love to take him up on his offer, and he says it’ll only cost me 500 gold… Well… damn. Still, if I make it to the end of this week I could have earned double that. Then I’ll find me a mercenary to fight my battles for me, and the money will just roll in. Well, that’s the plan I suppose!

I talk to the innkeeper and pay up for a room for the night. He leads me to a small stone room just off the main hall. Markarth has rather a lot of stone. Stone walls and floors I can understand. But the desk, the chair and the bed are all made of the stuff. Seriously. A stone bed. It’s just got a fur rag thrown over it! I’m not staying in this town. Tomorrow, the wider world awaits me. And I’ll start by heading north to the capital. The most civilized place in the whole province, for sure.

Tomorrow, I’m going to set out for Solitude.

Nintendo 64
Most my 64 games are lost in storage but from memory this is what I have:
Star Fox
Mario Party
Mario Kart
Super Mario
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
Banjo Kazooie
Castlevania
Diddy Kong Racing
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater
Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes

Nintendo DS
Animal Crossing
Full Metal Alchemist: Dual Sympathy
WarioWare Touched
Super Mario 64
Mario Kart
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

Gamecube
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Wii
Lego Indiana Jones
Rayman: Raving Rabbids

PS3
Grand Turismo 5: Prologe
Uncharted
Dragon Age Origins
Infamous
Infamous 2

PC/Mac
Minecraft

Xbox
Laura Croft Tomb Raider: Legend

Xbox 360

Brutal Legend

Minecraft
Mirror’s Edge
Tomb Raider: Underworld
Dead Island
Gutair Hero: World Tour
Gutair Hero 3: Legends of Rock
Gutair Hero 5
Gutair Hero: Warriors of Rock
Brutal Legend
COD: Modern Warfare 3
Halo 3 ODST
Halo Reach
Halo 4
Soul Calibur IV
Banjo Kazooie
Banjo Kazooie Nuts&Bolts
LOTR: War in the North
N3 Ninety-Nine Nights
Final Fantasy XIII
Final Fantasy XIII-2
Fallout 3
Fallout New Vegas
Fable II
Fable III
Mass Effect
Mass Effect 2
Mass Effect 3
Oblivion
Skyrim

That Concludes my list. If There are any games on here you don’t see that you think need to added to my collection please let me know!

Elder Scrolls: Fallout 3.

Bethesda Softworks have released the final piece of DLC released so far. Its called Dawnguard and is available on the PlayStation 3 PlayStation Network and is currently 50% off during launch week.

From bethblog.com: “Vampire Lord or Vampire Hunter? North American PlayStation 3 players will make the ultimate choice, Dawnguard is now available on PSN. And like our PS3 releases for Dragonborn and Hearthfire, the content will be 50% off ($9.99) for the first week of release.”

It’s good that everyone can now play all the DLC on whatever platform they choose.

Some of my other Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim posts:

• All Currently Released Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim DLC Out in February for PC and PlayStation 3.
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Dragonborn is Available. Other DLC Coming to PlayStation 3 Soon.
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Patch 1.8 is Now Available.
• Twelve New Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Dragonborn Screenshots.
• Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Books #15 2920, Rain’s Hand, v4.
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Dragonborn is Coming Soon. Also a New Trailer and Some Information.
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Dawnguard Achievements.
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Achievements.
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Books.
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Diseases.
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Dragon Priest Mask Locations.

Over the weekend, I got married. The day before I got married, I got engaged, and it was a sunny, clear day, with chickens skittering around on the ground and dragons roaring in the baby blue sky above. Couldn’t imagine it any differently. I didn’t really know the woman I just promised to share my life with too well, but she seemed more than eager, and in a realm like Skyrim you only live once. I immediately fast-traveled to the Temple of Mara to speak with the priest and prepare everything. There was little work for me to actually do. He said to get some rest and come back tomorrow. I took a thirteen hour nap in the temple’s basement. Upon coming upstairs, I was surprised to see the guests had all arrived–though none looked like any of my friends. Where was Hadvar? The Greybeards? Before a candlelit altar, the priest said some elegant words, and my bride-to-be and I shared our vows. When the ceremony ended, she turned, started to say something to me about a “happy life,” and exited the temple in mid-sentence. I rushed outside, deeply worried about my new wife and the possibility she might have a concussion, and discovered that she had vanished entirely from Riften. It truly was a Skyrim moment.

So, for those curious, I married Avrusa Sarethi. This piece of Dunmer flesh and mind:

Meooow. At first, I was just turning in a quest. See, she asked me long ago to find like twenty Jazbay Grapes, and after discovering that a merchant in my fully restored Thieves Guild hideout sold them, I just bought one or two each time I visited the place until I had enough to complete the miscellaneous task. Think she needed them for potions or Nirnroot stuff. However, before I gave her the grapes, I noticed a dialogue option that basically went, “Ya want dis?” Nice to know that she was interested in me long before I did the quest for her; otherwise, that’s just guilt driving her forward, which would never last.

Currently, Lohgahn is level 47, married, and totally alone. He adopted a kid some time back out of generosity for an Achievement, and I think that young boy resides in Breezehome–by himself–but it’s hard to remember as I have four houses currently, thanks to the Hearthfire DLC. Here’s hoping that my dear Avrusa disappeared to one of my many abodes, because having a spouse offers some gameplay bonuses, like free food and he or she will shop for you while you’re out slaying dragons and finding Word Walls. Not sure how much of that is useful at this point in the game when I have all the money in the world to buy food and ingredients, but it’s kind of neat if a bit old-fashioned. When I’m up to all the fast-traveling and loading screens, I’ll go around the realm and check all my houses to see where she ended up, if she is even alive. If not…well, that’s another blog post.

Regardless, with the words said and before my new wife could hightail it back to Sarethi Farm, this Achievement popped:

Married (10G): Get married

And truthfully, that’s what marrying in Skyrim is all about: showing off.

Dragonborn DLC Screenshot

About a month ago I wrote about the staggered release of downloadable content (DLC) by the Elder Scrolls (TES) franchise.  By early February, the DLC was ready and waiting to be played on PC. And this week, to the excitement of PS3 users, it’s available on PSN (Playstation Network).

This week’s PS3 release is the beginning of a three-week Skyrim DLC-release schedule – it will be followed by Hearthfire next week and Dawngard during the last week of February. Both Hearthfire and Dawnguard DLCs have been available to PC and Xbox 360 users since summer and fall of 2012.

There’s been a lot of excitement and anticipation in our house around this release. I actually imposed an embargo on questions like, “Have you had a chance to look at the reviews?” “…watch the trailers.” “…see the game play?” And there were strict penalties for asking me any of these questions (or variations of them) more than once a day(!).

As in Skyrim, the DLC received an M(ature)-rating due to the potential for play that contains blood and gore, intense violence, sexual themes, and use of alcohol. I say POTENTIAL because the format of the game — open world role playing game (RPG) — lends itself very well to a modified version of the game that could be rated T(een). The issue as a parent becomes, do you: 1. Trust your child to play a version of the DLC that agrees with your family values, and/or 2. monitor their play as a copilot watching your child play?

Gameplay

In TES tradition, the game’s animation is stunningly detailed — it’s gorgeous. Even the island of Solstheim, which lacks colorful flourish, is rich in detail. And so is the musical score.

I’d read that the DLC was a bit glitchy and buggy in places and found this to be the case with ours (PC). And by the way, I opted for a combination of 1 and 2 above, trusting my son to play a version of the game that I’d allow him to play while I was out of the room, as well as working alongside him as he played. My advice (and code of conduct rule) to The Gamer Boy is that he should always play as if I’m sitting beside him (not as creepy as it sounds).

Closing

It’s possible to play a T-rated version of the DLC that’s limited in violent gameplay, sexual content, and use of alcohol. The open world RPG design of the game lends itself to exploration, which is a major component of the main quest and the game’s narrative. Fans of TES games will be pleased with this DLC — mine certainly is. The Gamer Boy is challenged by the problems that are presented to him in the DLC and gratified by the rewards reaped from completing challenges. In addition, this DLC is a feast for the eyes and the ears — both players and observers can enjoy this one.

VERDICT: RECOMMEND FOR SOME KIDS 12 YEARS PLUS