SKYRIMMING ME OUT!
Yes, Things and Stuff, my usual weekly nerd/gadget/tech blog for TheVine will, for this festive season, now morph into a massive weekly Skyrim dedicated geek-out. Prepare yourselves. Incidentally, if you haven't played Skyrim, you're missing out; i'm not plugging the game, or Bethesda, i'm just sharing my love for a game which, let's face it, is ruining relationships everywhere. It's Tolkeinesque, motherlickers.
First, getting shot in the knee. Basically every guard in Skyrim, somehow, at some point, has taken an arrow in this knee. This is something they'll tell you without the slightest provocation, as if the sight of you standing there, mid-adventure, is an affront to the drudgery of their chosen profession. This video explores the arrow in the knee phenomenon and takes it to it's logical conclusion.
Next up, the adventures of Felix, the Peaceful Monk. Felix (played by youtube user WestSideLuigi) doesn't kill. Anyone. Not even the undead. Here's a video from WestSideLuigi with commentary, talking us through how Felix likes to roll.
Me? I play my mage, Bridge, like he's a fireman. By which I mean he sprays fire on everything. The guy is awesome sex, and here he is, standing on a mountain, looking stoic.
He's somehow reached level 36 already, and has barely touched the main quest line. And be him, I mean me; it's just that Skyrim does tend to take immersive to the next level.
Bethesda have released a bug fix/compatibility patch for the PC version of Syrim. You're probably thinking, hey, how could such an awesome game have bugs? Well, the bugs are radcakes. Observe.
… Yeah. Oh, and one of the bugs which drew so much attention recently was this bad boy: dragons FLYING BACKWARDS.
Incidentally, I seriously hope you didn't sit there and watch the whole thing. It's like the Twilight books; you only need to ingest the smallest amount to understand the rest.
Someone has managed to hack Skyrim to work with the Kinect, which means motion control can be used to move, attack and generally wreak havoc in the game. Voice control has been integrated, as well.
And finally, the darker side of Skyrim. Kate Harrad over at the Huffington Post has written an article called 'A Skyrim Widow Speaks Out'. It's written from the perspective of a non-gamer, and whilst Harrad writes well and seems charming enough, she's almost wilfully anti-gaming. The same way old people are (and I'm generalising here) wilfully anti-new music. They CBF, an acronym which, ironically, they wouldn't get. Anyway, she does rather succinctly sum up the air of fraternity and brotherhood which has sprung up amongst players of the game:
We went to a child's birthday party last weekend and the father greeted my partner with the words: "Wood elf?" "No," he replied. "Dark elf." They both nodded wisely. I stared at them and ate apple crumble.
You see, quite recently a friend of mine, Liz, told me that now, whenever she sees a butterfly, she tries to grab at it and exultantly yells "butterfly!' at her partner, Heath. And then the two of them share a knowing nod. So now whenever I'm outside, NOT playing Skyrim and I see a butterfly, I'll grab at it and yell 'butterfly'. Because I need to eat the wings and absorb some sweet knowledge for my alchemy awesome.
…It's an addiction. And I'll BE BACK NEXT WEEK TO TALK MORE ABOUT IT!
/Paul