Borderlands 2

Friends Save the Weekend

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Good Morning Folks! Sunday was amazing and helped rejuvenate my batteries quite a bit. Last week was fucking awful… full stop. Saturday was also sort of awful because I woke up and went to go get donuts like I always do… and my truck would not start. I was able to get it jumped but after a bunch of run around trying to get the battery and alternator tested, I wound up dropping it off at the shop next to our neighborhood and walking home. Sunday though… was phenomenal. Because of the generally shit week that I had, I missed out on running the raid fights on Tuesday night, and because Saturday was awful too… it got postponed to Sunday. This means that I got to hang out with Ace, Ash, and Thalen and have a generally amazing time doing all four raid fights… all of which were one-shots… though some of them were a bit on the rough side, and then unlock two expert dungeons for Thalen afterward.

We need to do this thing that we did way more often, and maybe Sunday is a day that works for everyone. I was also able to complete all of the left side pieces of 710 normal raid gear, which means I am mostly after a few more pieces of jewelry. This is the first time since Heavensward that I have ever been current with my gear. That should tell you something about how good Dawntrail has been that it has managed to keep my interest and despite largely spending all of my time in Path of Exile, I am still returning at least once or twice a week to hang out with friends in Eorzea. I would love to do the Savage version of the raid fights, but I am not sure that is in the cards for me… since I am not sure I want to do them through Party Finder.

In other news, I watched the Borderlands Movie… in part to see if the wide panning of it by both fans and folks who know nothing about the series was warranted. It was. This is maybe the worst video game adaptation I have ever seen… and retroactively makes the Uwe Boll slop from the 2000s look better. Everything looks like Borderlands but feels way more like one of those high-budget live-action commercials that video games seem to love to film… and less like a cohesive movie experience. I feel like this was probably a film assembled in the editing room because there is a lot of voice-over exposition. In fact the movie opens with a solid ten to fifteen-minute plot vomit of extraneous details that don’t actually matter to the core story of “vault hunters want to find the vault”.

Worse than all of that is the fact that everyone save for Jack Black seems to be phoning in their performance. No one seems like they want to be in this film or care at all about their character or what is going on. Tiny Tina is fine, and originally I thought we were just seeing the traditional child actor thing at work… but also this same actress played a perfectly cromulent young Ahsoka Tano…. so I am just guessing it was a bad script and bad direction. Is it a movie that is worth raging about and making the lives of those who created it hell? Absolutely not… and it is never okay to do that. However, you should probably not go out of your way to see this. The abomination that was the Monster Hunter movie was better than this. It was kind of cool to see Kevin Hart in a role where he was not the constant bumbling fool that was the brunt of everyone’s jokes however. Maybe he should do that more often.

Over in Path of Exile land I beat my first T17, and have now unlocked my sixth map device socket. It turns out that T17s are in fact totally reasonable… if you just so happen to spend a bunch of chaos orbs on rerolling them until you land on non-toxic modifiers. Like I can’t say that they are actually fun. I’ve done two now successfully and I did not enjoy fighting either boss at the end of them. I could see maybe running the mapping portion for fun, and skipping the boss… but then again… maybe it is just better to sell them. I can easily get 70 Chaos for a single t17 map… and there is no way in hell I am going to get 70 Chaos worth of loot or enjoyment out of running them myself. I still think T17s are just a “not for me” mechanic because I am all about zooming around and blowing shit up, and for the moment they get in the way of me doing that. I am happy I was able to get my map device slot without buying a carry, but also I doubt I will be doing any more of these.

I spent a good chunk of my available Divines on an Oriath’s End flask. This will be the second league in a row that I have used this item and while it isn’t necessarily revolutionary it does make up for not running maven boots anymore. Basically, I am already all about exploding things with Hinekora, Death’s Fury and this just adds an additional layer of explosions when I charge into packs. Usually, if a map boss spawns in a room with a lot of adds I can charge in and one-shot the boss with all of the subsequent explosions that are triggered. It is a bit of an extravagant expense given I had to pay ten divine orbs for it… but it also feels good when it triggers an entire room full of explosions. Last league was really the first league I invested a ton of effort into my Righteous Fire build after whatever it took to clear t16s and I gotta say this flask was probably my favorite addition. For as lauded as Mageblood is, it is actually sort of a boring option.

There is a challenge that requires you to have cleared 400 Depth in Delve, and for some reason on Saturday afternoon, I decided I was going to do this thing. At that point, I was sitting around 150ish depth and I thought it would be a quick jaunt down to 400. I was wrong. I am currently at around 300ish depth and it has taken me several days and several loads worth of Sulphite to get there. Now that I have set forth on this path… I guess I am going to do it. I’ve never been to 400 depth before and I might go all the way down to 500 while I am doing this thing. Basically, I am in the mode of trying to wrap up some challenges so I can get my totem pole because ultimately that has become my major goal for each league. I doubt I will finish as many challenges as I did last league, but it will be good to at least get another doodad for my hideout.

Tomorrow my schedule is going to be fried. I am not even sure I will get a blog post out, or if I do… it will be tomorrow evening. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Mine started out like shit, but it is amazing how much hanging out with some friends can help to improve things. I’m hoping that we can make the whole Sunday raid day thing happen more often.

Games of the Decade: 2012

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The Secret World – PC

Last week I started this series where I am talking about the games that were particularly important to me during this decade. The end of the year generally makes me introspective about such things, and with this being the first “decade” I can really observe on this blog I figured it was a reasonable series to dive into. I’ve already covered 2010 and 2011, but today we are diving into 2012 which wound up being a pretty significant year for various reasons.

Diablo 3

Diablo 3 – PC

At the time it released I would have had no idea that this game would become as important for me as it has. In fact I am not entirely certain if I actually managed to get a character all of the way to 70 before the end of 2012. The initial release of this game had some problems, namely when it came to any sort of loot drops that you actually needed. To make matters worse this initial release also had the real money auction house and it would not be until the release of Reaper of Souls in 2014 that a lot of this got sorted out. It was a game I dabbled with and I know that at the very least I had “beat” the story of the game within that initial month.

However in the years since its launch, I met my good friend Grace and with that I got indoctrinated into the tradition of running seasonal content… which also released significantly later. We’ve gotten into this cadence of every three months we return to Diablo 3 with excitement and spend a week or two of serious playtime before fading away again until the next seasonal launch. It mimics the behavior that we have towards any sort of a new MMORPG release and also manages to capture that same excitement every three months like clockwork. Due to all of these peripheral reasons… Diablo 3 has become one of my favorite games of all time, so it most definitely reserves a slot on this list.

The Secret World

The Secret World – PC

Every so often there are games that mean an extreme amount to you on a personal level… but that you also just don’t really play anymore. Secret World is definitely in that camp and I cherish all of the moments we experienced during the launch of this game. It is firmly set in one of my favorite genres… occult fantasy, and saw me being able to mangle together a character I enjoyed that was not quite like any other standard character build. I ran around with a Sword and a Shotgun and had an immense amount of fun figuring out how to make penetration damage combos. It was a glorious time for many of the AggroChat crew as we each got to build our own very custom and tailored version of the character we wanted to play.

Then unfortunately all of that joy came crashing down around us as we entered what represented the end game… the Nightmare difficulty dungeons. We had an amazing time with the Story mode and the Elite mode… but when we moved up to that highest tier all of our fun and custom builds started to fall apart. At that level you needed very specific tank builds, healer builds and any sort of melee damage was punished to extreme levels and not really viable. It was around this time that the magic faded from the game and we all sorta went our separate ways. I would attempt to return periodically to gobble up the story content, but even that only lasted through episode 8. I have fond memories of Secret World but they are also deeply tinged with regret.

Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 – PC

My experience with Guild Wars 2 is deeply fraught. I’ve told the story a dozen times now, but this is the only game I have ever resigned from an alpha process for. I remember being extremely excited when through my connections I managed to score a seat in the testing process. It also represents the most thorough NDA I ever had to sign, involving so much detail that it felt like I was signing away my first born. It was one of those testing processes where they forced everyone to join one massive all hands Ventrilo server, and gave us very focused testing directions. I was so excited for that first four hour testing session that I was nearly vibrating… and then I also remember the crushing “wtf is this shit” feeling I had moments later.

Guild Wars 2 was not the game I was expecting or the game that I wanted it to be… but by the time I reached launch I managed to push a lot of that beside me. However it still took years before I finally reached the point where I understood what people enjoyed about it. Now I get it… it is this weird casual sandbox that allows you to roam around and feel like you had an effect on the world with extremely short play sessions. It is a game of more or less checking things off lists, and if you are a list maker and a list completer I am sure it is an amazing experience. For me who was still very much in the rush to end game and raid all of the things mentality… I found the dungeons to be an extremely frustrating experience and the game play experience to largely be pointless. I’ve since found the joy in this game and the things that I apparently was missing, but in this first year it was a lot of confusion and frustration.

Borderlands 2

Borderlands 2 – PC

I am not really sure how much I actually have to say about this game save for the fact that it is important. The style of dialog and story was something unique at the time, and the slick package that it was all wrapped up in lead to some thoroughly enjoyable game play experiences. I played an awful lot of the original Borderlands, and this game took everything that was good about that game and iterated upon it. It truly is a masterpiece that still holds up extremely well by today’s standards. Unfortunately this is also the beginning of the end of the magic for Gear Box. I’ve not played Borderlands 3 at all, but the “pre-sequel” felt like they were phoning it in. When BL3 comes out on Steam I will likely use that as an excuse to pick it up and see where the game has gone. So far it has given me twinges of the same disappointment I felt playing Rage 2 just based on the trailers and such.

Dishonored

Dishonored – PC

Dishonored is a game that deserves not only its spot on this list, but a spot on a “best games of all time” list as well. I have a bad relationship with stealth in games, and often times when I encounter a forced stealth sequence it causes me to nope the hell out of the experience. Dishonored is this weird game that works perfectly well for Tam on his desire to get “clean hands” and “ghost runs” where he is never spotted and never has to kill a single person… or for me where I murderate every single person I encounter. The game does an amazing job of allowing you to play however the hell you want to play… and then brutally judges you for your actions.

The first game is a masterclass in level design and how exactly you bring a brand new IP to market. I love everything about Corvo Attano and the setting of Dunwall. I love the weird mix of Steampunk, Magic and Chthonic monsters of the deep that come together perfectly in a single tight package. I also love the way that this game and its two DLC perfectly feed into the experience of playing Dishonored 2 and give the player backstory about the events that take place between the two games. The entire series is a phenomenal and I highly suggest that everyone play the entire thing through just to experience it. This is one of those settings that could be made into a television series on Netflix and would be almost universally loved. It is the type of game I feel comfortable suggesting because it allows you to largely carve out your own game play experience with so many different ways to be able to complete it.

Where Bel Was Mentally in 2012

It was an extremely rough year for me. We had a bunch of deaths in the family and I was still more or less recovering from events that happened in 2011. One of the high points of the year however was recruiting my friend Rae to come work for me. I miss having her at work because her excitement and the unique way she viewed the world was infectious. 2013 would be a banner year, and 2012 was sorta this weird doldrum between the horrible year that was 2011… and me finally starting to come out of that storm.

Computer Blues

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Over the last few days I have been having what I term as “bad mental health” days.  I’ve been super stressed about various sundry things at work, and combine that with the fact that I just do not handle change well.  Every time my wife goes away during the summer for a conference, I go through this massive adjustment period.  So much of my life is intertwined with hers, that when she is gone… there is just a void.  I try my best to manage this “funk” but now and then it gets the better of me.  I am thankful that I have a lot of friends who are willing to cheer me up.

Computer Blues

It seems like over the last few days… my computers have been betraying me.  I have been having issues with my gaming laptop, where it is intermittently losing its power connection.  Fiddling with the cord brings back the connection for short periods of time, before going out.  I initially thought… this is likely a power supply issue so I did what I always do and went on amazon… found a replacement and got it shipped through prime.  I got the new power supply and it worked even worse.

After much research it seemed like the g73 model has had some issue with the power port getting lose itself.  After watching a few videos… I decided this was not something I wanted to undertake myself.  It involved pretty much a complete teardown of the laptop, de-soldering one port and soldering back in another.  I am essentially a software guy… I build my own PCs but that is mostly just assembling a bunch of parts that were designed to go together.  I have done soldering work before, but it was nothing I was ever extremely comfortable doing.

After digging around I found what appeared to be an extremely reputable guy here in my town that does this sort of thing.  He owns a “Nerds: We Can Fix That” franchise and as such is primarily a mobile pc repair truck, so we agreed to meet so that I could have him look over my laptop.  After doing various sundry tests his though process was that it really was a bad power supply.  After looking around he showed me a spot in the power connector one where of the prongs was most definitely crushed.  His suggestion was to find an original Asus power supply and try that.

After much digging I finally was able to get a real Asus power supply ordered… but unlike the speed I am used to with prime.. it wont be here until Thursday at the earliest.  As a result I am without my laptop and my ability to hang out downstairs while playing games.  I know I have blogged about this before… when I lost my Gateway FX laptop, but I never really appreciate how amazing that is… until I can’t do it.  After a long day it is so nice to just chill out on the couch with my laptop and half play games and half watch stuff off the DVR.  I am nervous however that this will not really be the issue, but I am willing to try it… and it is far less invasive than other possible solutions.

Another Betrayal

Last night I get home, and go upstairs to begin the evening ritual of playing something.  I get on mumble to talk to my friends… and in the middle of booting something up my gaming desktop locks up hard.  In fact at first I can’t seem to get it to boot…  which I later find that it is simply booting exceedingly slowly.  I go into diagnostic mode trying to figure out what exactly is wrong.  Everything seems to be operating as expected… voltage looks good… hard drive tests fine… memory tests fine.  So after much fiddling I am basically at square one as to what might have happened.

A lock up is common enough, but a lock up followed by not wanting to boot afterwards really floored me.  I am not talking windows booting… I am talking slow bios posting.  I am going to have to keep and eye on things, but last night switched from a gaming night… to a do maintenance on all the things night.  I went ahead and patched everything that could possibly be patched, updated all the drivers that could be updated… and did some registry maintenance.  Given my “bad mental health” state… having both machines down at the same time was a state I was almost unable to cope with.

I realize that these are all first world problems… and rather petty…  but having both machines potentially down at the same time sucked.  Luckily through all my fiddling whatever happened seems to be not happening now.  When a problem mysteriously goes away… it bothers the hell out of me though.  I am not sure what happened, have no log evidence of what caused the lockup/slow boot scenario and ultimately no evidence of what seems to have cleared it up.  My desktop is three to four years old at this point, so it might simply be aging hardware issues. 

Now that I think of it… it might be older than that…  I got it when we we were still raiding Wrath of the Lich King content in World of Warcraft.  It has been a trusty machine that has pretty much run anything I have thrown at it for several years.  It might in fact be time to upgrade…  but I would much rather do it on my own time than having a box just up and die on me.  Here is hoping that I have at least temporarily staved off whatever occurred.

Killing Psychos

I finally was able to get my machine in a state I was happy with around 9:30 last night.  At this point I got back onto mumble and decided to join some friends in Borderlands 2.  It was me playing Axton, Ash playing Zero and Rae playing a super bloodlust infused Maya.  Quite frankly the combination of Rae and I riding around in a vehicle together is probably a bad thing.  Especially when it comes to doing quests that have non-standard objectives.  There may or may not have been a few objectives we almost failed at… because we were both too busy shooting things to notice that was not the goal.

When the game first shipped for whatever reason I was not able to hook up with the crew playing it.  As a result I have pretty much only played single player borderlands 2 content.  Last night was an absolute blast, and having players to rez me…  really helped when I tried to play “tank” and bull rush a bunch of mobs.  I need to find some better weapons… because right now my assault rifle is a tap to fire model that seems to always need reloading at the wrong time.  I picked up an amazing sub machinegun last night, but it seems to go through bullets like water… and I am always scavenging to find more.

The combo of Axton/Maya/Zero seemed extremely formidable… but I think if you put ANY combination of different classes together you would have had the same results.  Looking forward to maybe getting back in tonight and finishing the quests we were doing.  Honestly I don’t really care if we even do quests…. I was just in the mood to roam around and kill things to satiate my “computer troubles” induced bloodlust.  Borderlands 2 is a really good game for that kind of mindless violence.  It is like the Saturday morning cartoon of death.

Rift Update

The other big thing going on today is the fact that it is the launch of the Rift Free to Play conversion.  It will be interesting seeing how this improves or damages the community.  My hope is that by lowering the barrier of entry it will be easier to get folks to try the game.  Additionally I am hoping for a path through the cash shop to pick up some dimension goodies… because quite frankly I have been way too poor thus far to really experience the dimension content properly.  In any case it will definitely be a massive change to the game… and as such interesting to watch unfold.

Additionally… it is really hard to type with a cat trying to balance on your arm.  I guess I should take that as a queue to wrap things up.  I hope you all have a great day, and that you are in a better mental place than I have been.  I think my body is betraying me as well.  This morning I am additionally having a “bad lung day” in that my asthma and allergies have decided to make my life hell.  Trying to decide if today will be a stay home and take breathing treatments all day occasion or not. 

Awesome Trailers Revisted

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Today my friend Liore posted a great run down of some of her favorite trailers of recent memory.  They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery… so hopefully she will understand that I am completely latching onto the idea.  Honestly watching the trailers she singled out, made me start thinking about some of my favorite trailers, and once the idea set root in my brain it was going to happen.

What makes an awesome trailer?

There are so many ways to make a trailer stand out, it could have an amazing soundtrack and visual or just be extremely well directed and emotionally engaging.  There are trailers I love that pretty much fall into all categories.  A lot of the ones Liore singled out in her post, are ones I love too for various reasons, but I noticed my favorite kind of trailer was mostly absent in the list.

I love a trailer that sets up the world of the game, the eternal conflict, and just pumps me up to play the game.  I love when I watch a trailer and walk away feeling “hell yes, I want to play this now”.  It could be the soundtrack of the visuals, but if it can somehow tap into my inborn sense of bloodlust… it is a win in my book.  I especially love the trailers that set up the lore of the world, and give us a window into the game that we normally would not see otherwise.

DC Universe Online

 

This trailer will likely go down in history as one of my all time favorites.  When someone mentions a kick ass trailer, this one is always the first one I think of.  For starters, everything Blur Studios touches is amazing, but more importantly it sets up the storyline of the game in a brilliant way.  I have always loved the DC setting where the traditional heroes are thugs, and Luthor is the hero… and to set that up as the basis of the MMO made me only want to play it more.

Sadly for whatever reason the game itself never met the epic quality of the trailer.  It tried extremely hard, and in some aspects succeeded.  The little references, like Booster Gold commercializing everything really made it feel deeply rooted in the DC universe.  I will have to say that no matter what, this trailer got me to buy the game and play it.  I still boot it  up from time to time when the mood hits me.

Hellgate: London

 

FOR THE LIVING!!!!  God there is so much that is amazing about this trailer.  Also there is so much frustration that I have that this game did not succeed.  It had some amazing story behind it, and this trailer sets up everything you need to know about it.  This has it all, awesome heroes of both genders and all of them making extreme sacrifices to save the next generation.  Considering my last name is Temple… I may or may not also have an extreme thing for the Templars.  So much was right about this game, but it also had so many failings… namely its horrible network code.  There have been many times I have considered playing the Asian free to play version, but it would just feel odd.

Transformers: Fall of Cybertron

 

I feel kinda bad about this next pick.  I truly love the feel of this trailer, and the epic qualities especially when my personal favorite… Grimlock makes his appearance.  Why I feel bad is that I have never actually played this game, regardless of how amazing the trailer is.  Every time I watch this trailer, I keep thinking… why god can we not get a full length Transformers movie that looks like this… instead of the odd biomechanical Transfomers from the Michael Bay movies.  Everything about this trailer screams Transformers to me, and takes me back to a chunk of my childhood.

Mass Effect 2

 

While I love Mass Effect 3, and the trailer Liore posted made me want to go back and play the series from 1-3 all over again…  my favorite game in the series will always be 2.  This trailer makes me relive all the badassery that is ME2, and its great swat team like side missions.  This makes me want to load it up and slaughter legions of collectors.  Doesn’t hurt that I am a huge fan of Thane, and he is completely badass in the trailer.

Bioshock 2

 

I will always love the Bioshock franchise no matter what.  The first one still stands out as one of the most transformative gaming experiences I had up to that point.  As trailers go however, the launch trailer for Bioshock 2 is great.  I love the relationship between the Big Daddy and the Little Sisters, as someone who has always chosen to play a tank… and protect the squishy players of the world…  I can totally relate to the dynamic of the eternal protector.  Watching the video fires me up to play the game and wreak havoc on some splicers.

Fallout New Vegas

 

This trailer falls in the category of letting you in on something, that you normally would not be let in on just by playing the game.  While this scene is alluded to in the gameplay, you only know it exists by watching the teaser trailer.  Fallout has been and will likely always be one of my favorite series.  It means two things to me, huge wastelands to explore, and badass guys in armor.  This trailer teases the NCR Ranger in such a tantalizing way, that immediately I thought… man I have to get that armor in game.  I went from lusting after the Brotherhood Armor in the previous games, to making my goal in game to acquire the Ranger armor with those cool goggles.  War… War Never Changes.

Borderlands

 

As far as Borderlands goes, I will always prefer the original trailer.  I love the way it introduces each character and gives them a comic book style introduction frame.  The soundtrack to me has become so connected to this trailer, that when I hear the song on the radio all I can think of is playing Roland.  As badass as this trailer is however… it fails miserably at one thing… getting me to by the game.  When you watch the trailer, it just looks like another shooter, albeit an edgy and graphically interesting one.  All someone had to do was tell me the phrase “Diablo With Guns”… and I shifted into “take my money now” mode.  Problem is this was about 6 months after the initial release.

Warhammer Online

 

This is yet another jaw droppingly epic trailer from Blur Studio, and sadly also another trailer that is leaps and bounds better than the game itself deserves.  As a longtime fan of Warhammer, there were so many little geek out moments.  From the Squid Herder, to the Bright Wizard, to the Chaos Maurader…  the video just oozes lore.  The moment that just takes the cake however is when the Tzeentch Bringer of Change steps through the wall.  Yes…  I am definitely a Warhammer geek.  Like I said, I just wish the game was as good as this trailer.

Rift

 

I have gone back and forth on this trailer over the years.  At first I was not sure about it, but the longer it exists… and the longer I have played Rift.. the more I appreciate it.  There are so many little things about this video that make the Rift player in me geek out.  The number one subtle element is the way the crow flies into the scene, then becomes life touched at one point, and finally at the end a flame touched phoenix.  On top of this, I recognize the abilities they are using and could in theory guess the specs of the supposed characters that are shown.  My favorite moment however, is when the warrior visibly switches souls… something that really slickly explains what to expect about the game itself.  It does what I think it set out to do, introduce players to the setting… and as icing on the cake it uses a setting that actually exists in Stonefield.  So often in these videos, they are in completely made up settings… grounding the video in the actual game is just kick ass.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

 

Once again Blur Studios makes it into my list, this time with a series of three trailers that were released leading up to the launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Return, Hope and Decieved each set up a segment of the storyline leading up to the game timeline itself.  In addition, each sets up the archetypal character for each class in the game, and fleshes out some back story.  Combined they make an epic story arc that I can watch over and over. 

I loved Star Wars: The Old Republic…  until I ran out of content, but every time I watch this sequence I get nostalgic about what might have been.  The game is still pretty solid, but sadly it is wrapped into one of the most egregious free to play models I have ever experienced.  I realize that Bioware in essence had to sell its soul to stay afloat and keep the game running, but I will always be wistful about the game that could have been.

Rage

 

This trailer does an amazing job of setting up the universe that Rage takes place in, and explaining how the world got to the point where it is today.  Everything about the trailer makes me want to play the game.  I have a certain measure of regret over this title.  It is one of the best single player experiences I have had in recent years, but also one of the absolute shortest.  If the game had roughly twice the content, it would have been a truly phenomenal game.  What is left is a great experience, and the trailer tells you everything you need to know to enjoy it.

Diablo 3

 

Like Liore said in her post, it would be inappropriate to have a list of trailers that did not include something from Blizzard.  While I probably would have also picked the Wrath of the Lich King trailer, I didn’t want to copy her pick.  Probably my favorite series from Blizzard as far as trailers go, is Diablo.  Each trailer is always so rich in storytelling, and the Diablo 3 one is no exception.  Sadly for me, this is another case of the trailer being better than the game. 

Actually I have to take a step back from that, and say that the actual game itself was really enjoyable and I liked the story quite a bit.  It just was over way too damned fast.  I essentially played the game until I had completed the content, and then have not really touched it since.  All of this does not change the fact that the game trailer is pretty amazing.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

 

I am a HUGE fan of all things Elder Scrolls, but this trailer just set the game up perfectly.  Patrick Stewart as Uriel Septim was such an amazing casting, and this trailer which also serves as the intro video to the game pumps me up every time I watch it.  All I want to do when I see this is get into the game and explore, and become the epic and heroic warrior I know I can become in an Elder Scrolls game.  It does what I am looking for in a trailer, introduces the setting and provides the urge to play.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Live Action)

 

I can remember the first time I saw this trailer, I was just amazed that they went to the amount of effort to create a big budget live action trailer.  This feels exactly like Skyrim, where the peasants run away the Dragonborn runs into the action, and draws down on the drake.  This trailer and later commercial is just such a perfect representation of how epic the game feels.  It really makes me wish there was an Elder Scrolls television show.

Elder Scrolls Online

 

This is the trailer that I am most pumped about right now, so I saved it for last.  This trailer was released to announce the opening of beta signups for Elder Scrolls Online.  There is just so much about this game that excites me, and I love the way little callouts are made to the various factions.  I have always identified with the Nords, and when they crawl out of the bowels of the fortress after slaying a bunch of undead werewolves… just makes shivers of happy run up and down my spine.  Don’t get me started on how awesome it is that the werewolves were undead in the first place…

I’ve heard plenty of snide comments saying that the trailer is all about the guy from Assassins Creed, but all I can see is a Breton Rogue.  I am a notorious carebear, but for whatever reason I am really looking forward to the RVR in this game.  The frontier in Dark Age of Camelot was just a cool place to be, there were so many things that were NOT keep raids that you could do.  It was just cool to go out there and feel confident enough to be able to hunt the really hard mobs that were out there.

The fact that Cyrodil sounds like essentially the Dark Age of Camelot frontiers, just sounds so amazing.  I mean this is Cyrodil, the setting that the ENTIRE 4th game was set in.  That is so much space, and I am really hoping there are so many amazing non pvp targets out there as well.  It will be so much fun going out there with a group of friends and seeing what all we can do.  This video just pumps me up for doing some RVR and exploring Cyrodil.

I Blame Liore

This post went on so much longer than I had intended it to, but there are just so many amazing trailers that I love.  Right now I want to play every single one of these games, but I think I will ultimately log into Rift and cause as much havoc as I can.  If you’ve made it this far, I really hope you have a great night and can get something knocked off your gaming bucket list.