These are my personal thoughts regarding games and related stuff. I am not very good at gaming, but I have utmost enthusiasm for games. I am 29 years old, and I spent more than a decade playing games, starting off with an ancient Atari console. On multiple occasions, I thought about giving up gaming...but some great game brought me back in to gaming. This happened so many times that I doubt whether I'll ever quit gaming...

And yes, I am a big, big fan of The Beatles.

• 14Jul 12

  Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Initial Impressions

  

  I've started playing computer games from around 1999. Well, actually that was the year when my dad bought me a top of the line Intel Pentium II 350 Mhz computer with an awesome16 MB Creative Voodoo Bansheegraphics card. I had the best gaming PC among my friends and I'd gladly show off the shiny new graphics on games like Fifa 99, Age of Empires, Need for Speed 2 and 3, etc.From the very beginning, I had a thing with non playable characters and non-interactive elements within a game's universe. Although EA Sports had the tagline of "If it's in the game, it's in the game", many elements within a game seemed restrictive. As an example, when you are playing a first person shooter game, you would quite often hit invisible walls, i.e. inaccessible areas. Also, you see things lying around the terrain but you can't interact with them, i.e. a soda machine is there but you can't buy soda.Things got a lot better with the arrival of Half Life, and other modern era shooters like No One Lives Forever, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Max Payne, etc. Back then I didn't care or bother about RPGs at all.

  I heard about games like Diablo, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Elder Scrolls, etc. but never ended up playing one.It wasn't until 2009 that I seriously considered playing through an RPG. I think I tried playing Fallout 3 in 2008, but gave up soon after encountering a weird situation. My character started moving like an elephant and I was constantly getting a written prompt which said "you are heavily encumbered". I was such a novice RPG player back then that I didn't even know that heavily encumbered translated to "you don't have enough space in your inventory" and I could easily fix things by dropping some useless gadgets! Earlier, I also encountered a similar problem with Oblivion and quit playing that game, too.Inspired by some internet friends in a gaming community I belong to, I took up a personal challenge of completing a basic RPG. I started with a very old, classic role playing game; the original neverwinter nights. At first, I found the game to be a little too much retro for my liking. However, I soon figured out the patterns of the game andThere are many capitals, large cities, small towns, caves and other miscellaneous locations to explore in Skyrim. It really is marvelous in a sense that each location is unique, with different NPCs, landscapes and quests. Resolving all issues of one town can take hours, or even days. While taking care of all the quests in a town named Riften, I felt like completing Dragon Age 2.

  Yes, it's such a pity for EA that Bethesda's one town can feel like their one whole game.The game is unique in many ways. The best thing is perhaps that you can approach it in multiple ways. While fighting is an integral part of the overall experience, you can do quite well without fighting at all. Sneaking around in stealth mode is as good as direct confrontations in many cases. Also, there are many dialogue based fetch quests which can take long hours to complete. A day ago I spent a whole evening in Skyrim without doing a single fight. I went to different people, talked information out of them and acted accordingly to complete quests.When you open your journal where all active and inactive quests are listed, you can easily single out the quests where violence isn't involved--at least initially. Retrieving Olaf's verse for the Bard's college may sound like a mundane task, but it actually involves visiting a ghost infested pit and defeating a powerful undead king. However, apart from a few deceivingly titled quests, there are many where you don't need to apply brute force at all.When my character was below level 10, I was struggling against the very basic brand of bandits. But, now with a level 18 warrior, I've learned to block attacks better and I invested level ups in health and perks in heavy armor, shields and one handed weapons. Instead of making a jack of all trades character, I have started emphasizing on his core competencies of sword swinging and shield blocking.The only kind of enemies that gives me a tough time now are mages, who attack from a far with ice and fire based fearsome spells. When battling it out against them, one must drink a fire resistant potion or otherwise you will become a burning corpse in no time.
  
  Looks like I am advancing in the game faster than this blog post is advancing--I am already a level 28 warrior, and I can now challenge the frost trolls (the things that I've mistaken for Yetis) and the mammoth herding mountain giants with ease. I've completed some missions from the main story line and now I now know a lot about the titular character I am playing with.
  
  During the initial phase of playing Skyrim, I was constantly getting challenged by the absurd amount of loot I was collecting from fallen foes and random locations. "Loot", or collectibles are a standard feature of any RPG game, and to many (me too), collecting loot is a very enjoyable part of the gameplay experience. Loot can be almost anything; starting from weapons and armors, health and stamina boosting potions, ornaments, amulets, food items, trophies (head of deceased enemies), wine bottles and what not! Most of these items can be sold off to specific NPCs and these are a very good source of money. One can definitely earn gold by completing quests, but in order to go for major cost involving activities like buying a house, upgrading the house, buying training lessons, etc., selling off loot constantly is a must.
  
  However, just like most other games, the protagonist in Skyrim has limited carrying capacity, and in no time that capacity gets full. You lose some very important skills when you have more items than you can carry. You lose the ability to fast travel and sprint, without which it is almost impossible to play. If you are wearing heavy armor and can't sprint, going from point A to point B (even if it's just a few yards away) feels extremely lagged and tiresome. The only time I was forced to do that was when I pressed the "free movement" button and saw my character turtling towards the Inn where I wanted him to go and sell off some heavy weighing items.
  
  There is no stash in this game (at least not initially) where I can keep the items that I can't carry right now but don't want to part with. The carrying capacity can be increased by increasing stamina, but the option comes once after each level up and levelling up is not a very easy task. So I had to resort to a command line parameter which allowed me to set my character's carrying capacity to the maximum. I gave input of 99999, but the actual value came out as something around 12 thousand.
  
  Now I can loot without bothering about inventory management, and I can concentrate more on the core game.
  
  
  Updates:
  
  I wrote the above preview when I was in the initial stages of playing Skyrim. My OS crashed at the very end of my journey and I gave up playing Skyrim before beating it. Now that a new DLC is out and I have finally managed to get Windows 7, I am planning to re-install the game and replay it using magical skills. I played with a sword and shield wielding warrior character (with a few magical abilities) in the last game.

  • Posted Jul 14, 2012 7:19 am GMT
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• 30May 12

  Has a video game ever made you cry? [Mass Effect 1 Spoiler]

  I have fresh memories of beating the entire Mass Effect trilogy. I just spent 90 hours of my life to finish all three games back to back, and I must say I've had crying moments multiple times through out the 3 games. Spoilers for Mass Effect 1, read at your own risk please:
  
  In the very early stages of Mass Effect 1, I was given the option to rescue Kaiden Alenko (a male companion) from a tight corner, and I headed off instantly. Meanwhile, rest of my squad containing Ashley Williams (a female companion) got confronted by the game's mega villain Saren, and I got an anguished distress call from Ashley. Her voice really sounded serious--as if she won't be able to survive unless I go to her. My character Shepard was harnessing romantic feelings for Ashley, so I headed off to her direction.
  
  This caused the death of Kaiden, but before sacrificing himself, he gave a very emotional speech over the radio, where he thanked me and told me that it was an honor serving in my team. I couldn't hold back tears, and after that chapter ended, I wandered around space ship, the Normandy for a long time aimlessly. I was talking to the other crew members who were trying to give me consolation.
  
  I know it's a video game, but I truly felt like losing a good friend and comrade. Although I didn't use him much in the missions, I made sure I sought his opinion on each mission after each of them ended. Clever bioware gave him a lot of deep dialogues, where he gave me off the record thoughts on the council, other companions and a lot more. He used to stand in that same place every time, and even after his death I took Shepard down there hoping to get a glimpse of the ever alert Kaiden, but no, he couldn't be found. No, I am not crying again, but I must say Bioware makes great games and has touched me emotionally a number of times. I had similar moments in [SPOILER for Dragon Age: Origins] Dragon Age: Origins when my character sacrificed herself to save the world from darkspawn.Edit
  • Posted May 30, 2012 5:34 am GMT
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• 22May 12

  Mass Effect Has Affected me Massively

  I've been spending a lot of time playing Mass Effect in this month. Started from April, now I've done beating all three games which took me more than 90 hours, and what a memorable experience it has been! Some of the greatest RPG moments of my life since playing Dragon Age: Origins. The only low point was the ending in Mass Effect 3; the last 20 minutes of the game, to be precise. That portion was really, really lame and I wish the developers dedicated a little bit more time in thinking out the finale.

  I am glad I started playing RPG games in 2009. Previously, I did not really understand the concept well, which caused a lot of frustration on my part. I remember buying Mass Effect 1 back in 2008, when the game was first released. I tried to play it like a FPS, and I desperately hated all the stuff outside the fights, i.e. walking from point A to B to talk to people and recruit them. I would skip all the dialogues, and did not wait to buy items or level up my companions. Result--premature death of the companions and my inability to progress much farther in the game. I think I stopped playing after I was sent to a distant planet where I was supposed to navigate the terrain using a rover. I didn't even know how to get my squad out of that car, and I got stuck in an area from where I could progress no more. Deeply pissed off, I uninstalled the game and didn't bother to replay it in about four years time.

  

  I also remember getting pissed off at Garrus for inviting himself in to my squad. I thought "What the hell, I already have Ashley and Kaidan, why do I need you?" and so on. I hated every walk down (without throwing bullets) and I hated every conversation. I also made a female Shepard, which decreased the immersion value to a great extent. While I enjoy using female characters in RPG games a lot, but I know believe that at least the first play through should be via a male character, with whom I can immerse myself and do the role playing in a better way.

  

  So the Shepard in Mass Effect was actually me--I was taking all the decisions, and Shepard was just letting others know. I recruited all possible companions and waded through all the missions of the three games, trying not to skip many side missions. I did skip some of them in ME1 due to the tedious navigation system, but I didn't miss any in ME3 and only missed a few DLC missions involving a hovercraft like vehicle in ME2.

  Apart from a few design choice flaws, the entire trilogy is an RPG gamer's dream come true, and if you have the remotest interest in planets ans space travelling, you will love to immerse yourself in Mass Effect's world.

  The only grievance I have is about the ending. It couldn't have been worse. I won't give any spoilers here, but I surely hope they can fix the damage done with the epilogue video they are currently making.

  • Posted May 22, 2012 10:18 am GMT
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