Hey let's catch up on some video gaming in the sandbox

xp there's a rough patch between early levels and later levels where archery feels a little sluggish, but once you've got some kickass bow (ideally something that delivers damage in the 40-50 range --nightingale bow for instance, or an ebony bow -- plus extra enchant damage) and arrows at Orcish and above (really Elvish is where difference because apparent), you're a DPS machine. combine that w/ Lydia + give Lydia a staff of companion spawning and be preparing to pull up some atronachs when necessary and you've got tons of tanking and you just blast away.

differences becomes* apparent

in most respects i'm a stat whoring powergamer type but i just don't like rolling with a companion, even for the extra baggage carry.

yeah I cant handle npc fucking my shit up.. and they die all the time and makes me sad. I got the conjure dremora lord before I finished the game and that was the shit right there.. dude pops up in full bad ass armor and flaming double handed sword and will kick the shit out of anyone in his way,. then disappears after a minute or two.

i really wanted to get bound bow spell but apparently you need conjuring 50 to get it and i have like conjuring 21

i've run with bound sword every now and again, if i don't feel like wasting charges. the wikis say it's equiv to a pretty nice sword but it takes a couple seconds to pull up. also i don't think casting is silent w/o perks so backstabbing with it is tougher.

I used the bound sword a ton of times because I usually rolled with a magic sword of some sort and would use the bound sword on things I didnt want to waste charges on and didnt want to add weight

oblivion w/spells

four?!?

Yeah, I've killed Lydia, that image of the fendahl guy, some dude whose ancestral shield I'd recovered, and a beefy woman who agreed to join me after I beat her in a fistfight in a pub in whiterun. Game seems to be full of potential companions though, I've turned down a lot more than I've taken on.

You don't know the meaning of annoying companion until you've spent some quality time with jzargo or whatever from the mages guild

i prefer to go at it alone!

Todd

Todd?

That's my name!

Todd

Can anyone rec a decent first person ps3 shooter with a good deathmatch feature? Specifically for irl players - not online. I don't play by myself much anymore, but plan to host a monthly get together w/some friends so we can chase each other around with flamethrowers and whatnot. This seemed to be a staple with all first person shooters on ps2 games, but not so much anymore.

I gots an iPhone 3GS, can anyone recommend some good games for it? Preferably free, just because I can't be bothered dicking about with credit cards.

Its hard to find good game apps that are free, unless yer ok with stuff thats either a single demo level or is covered in ads. I'm really enjoying Helsings Fire, but not sure if there is a free version of that (its only 99c but you do need to set up an account with a card. In fact I think you have to do that regardless dont you?)

Whoohoo first full on console lockup in skyrim! Now I finally feel like I am playing a Bethesda game.

Also fuck a sightless pit.

I've just enrolled by sorceress/archer into that magical college up north. Looking forward to smiting.

Since I want to be a magic+archer person, do I need to train up with a sword/dagger/whatever? Or can I just rely on my bow and some kind of awesome fire spell?

Film Crit Hulk expands into games crit:

http://badassdigest.com/2011/11/29/film-crit-hulk-smash-hulk-vs-the-bat-shit-evolution-of-the-modern-warfare/

Playing LA Noire and I'm sort of bored by it.

totally fucked up by destroying my necromancer/regain magicka 75% faster robes for enchantment; my new character build was predicated on fast regenerating magic for healing/firebolts. I gotta find and kill a new mage pronto.

I've settled into a nice pattern of shooting a target with my bow to pull it, setting it on fire then smacking it in the face with my two-handed axe. I think I need to learn fast healing tho.

Nothing faster than drinking a potion.

I got into a bit of trouble with some mercenaries, half a dozen of them and their leader all at once was a bit too much for me. Afer three or four attempts I remembered I had some scrolls, paralyze and frost damage - job done.

Nothing faster than drinking a potion.

haha true, but I kind of keep chugging them all at once, making me okay for wave one but not so much for wave two

I guess I should be incorporating scrolls and some form of blocking into my combat patterns

I love stopping in the middle of a frenzied battle to change weapons, drink some potions and eat a whole wheel of cheese, and sort through my scroll collection.

oh shit, FOOD

I forgot I have food

WoW has totally screwed up my expectations re: what is and isn't feasible during combat

taking a time out to carefully apply a dose of poison to a weapon is very handy.

Better yet: Planetfall allowed you to take a nap in the middle of a fight.

I'm hesitant to ask but is the ps3 much better than the 360 or about the same?

i have wondered the same thing

with certain games, the graphics are tighter
in general, the only reason you'd need both is if you're into console exclusives.

I was 100% convinced that the voice actor for Paarthurnax was Peter Cullen, the optimus prime dude. But I finally remembered to look it up just now and...it's-a bloody mario!

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Voice_Actors

Woah, and it turns out Cullen was the original mario anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Cullen

so skyrim is half price in gamestation in the uk? should i? i fear i'll never have the time it apparently deserves, though if it was really good maybe i'd make the time!

It's very good indeed and I can totally see how it could take over someone's life, but it doesn't need to be that way. I've been playing it in hour chunks in the evening, and the dungeons seem designed for that kind of play. It'll definitely give you twenty quid's worth of fun.

btw can I just say the Companions are AWESOME so far and I will be crushed when I discover they are secretly evil bastards bent on eating the world

also I just bought a house! squeee!

Was holding off from the companion missions, they seemed a bit suspicious in a libertarian kind of way, but ok I'll try and bro down with them. Got into the Thieves Guild but only 'cause I want to improve my lock-picking. And maybe I can take them down from the inside...

I love the Companions and their Warren Zevon ways.

I intend to marry Mjoll the Lioness.

preeeety sure i just stumbled into a dungeon that is some sort of main storyline quest thing by accident and am now worried that i am going to throw some game breaking wrench in the gears. its the one with the various skulls as keys. if anybody can confirm/deny that i am about to bungle the storyline plz speak up.

looked up "skull keys" and i don't think so

cool, it just kept popping up those text captions "YOU HAVE FOUND THE KEY OF WAFATHURIA" that only seem to happen when you are doing some big deal sorta thing, and considering i just sorta stumbled across a cave or whatever i figured i was on the verge of screwing something up.

i went thru a whole dwarven ruin (i was sent there to assassinate someone) and when i finished it there was a mechanism that required a piece to start it up. i didn't have the piece tho, and when i looked online it seemed like you got it from a different quest. i have yet to break a quest from doing something out of order.

altho tbf some of my favorite rpg moments are always the *cue dramatic music as lord whatever walks towards you* "I seek a champion and stalwart fighter! Long have I hungered to once again grab my ancestral sword and stride into..."
"Oh that thing yeah I got it in my backpack just a second."

xpost goole and i were talking last weekend about some supposed game-breaking bugs to do with the whole civil war thing happening out of turn so now i am paranoid i think.

also i just finished the big write up in game informer on this south park rpg they are doing and there is just absolutely no way that it will not be an epic clusterfuck of hilariously bad proportions. i mean when you have a show that is built around fairly wonky aspect ratio and foreshortening and perspective uh do you not see where that is going to be a problem. without even getting into the impossibility of sustained funny in video games.

yes that is a sensibility i want to spend 80+ hours in

"Oh that thing yeah I got it in my backpack just a second."

lol, they saw that coming with the dragonstone, huh

nothing like picking up an undroppable quest item that weighs like 12 pounds when you have no idea what to do with it. i guess that's what the internet is for...