Modding Skyrim to Perfection

I’m a great fan of The Elder Scrolls games. Morrowind was the first role playing game I ever played, the first game I ever modded, and for a long time, my undisputed favorite across all genres and flavors. Then came Oblivion, which was the first game to keep me obsessed for a thousand hours and the first game (or any form of entertainment) that had me write fanfiction. It’s no exaggeration to say that these games changed my life, and I don’t mean just my “gaming life”.

So it shouldn’t be difficult to imagine that I had great expectations from Skyrim. It was to be larger, prettier and better than its predecessors in just about every way imaginable – and mostly it didn’t fail to deliver. Yet, even though I got it immediately upon release and tried playing it twice, I couldn’t get into it, and I never finished it.

It is only now, with more than a hundred mods installed, that I’m finally able to enjoy Skyrim the way I always hoped to.

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The Music of Dragon Age: Inquisition

I got this game in preoder, but haven’t finished it yet; I started and quit the single player campaign twice (for reasons that are out of scope of this post), and mostly just played the multiplayer. But I feel compelled to speak about something I studied in detail nevertheless: its music. What follows is a somewhat extensive, but by no means exhaustive review; the entire soundtrack (without DLC) has some 40 tracks, all of them excellent to varying degrees, but these are the ones I come back to over and over again:

Warhammer 40k Space Marine

The Imperial Forge World of Graia is being invaded by the Orcs. Instead of an all-out retribution that would put the production of invaluable Titans at risk, the Ultramarines are deployed to resolve the situation before it escalates. But of course it does escalate when the forces of Chaos unexpectedly appear on the scene with an interest in a powerful artifact.

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Interstellar

How long has it been since I last saw a sci-fi movie with more sci than fi that I actually liked? I can think of a few I didn’t like, namely Gravity (2013) and Sunshine (2007), but the closest thing to fit the above description would have to be Contact (1997). So it was about time something like Interstellar finally happened. In a word, it’s awesome. Everything, from the unforgiving plot and intelligent characters, over the stunning visuals and a magnificent soundtrack, to the scientific background, exceeded my expectations. I have seen it twice and enjoyed it to bits both times. 10 out 10, would definitely watch again.

Tomb Raider (2013)

When I started playing this game, I went into it with practically no expectations. Perhaps that is why I finished it with practically no objections. In its twenty-something hours, I had nothing but fun taking twenty-something Lara Croft through her first adventure. The visuals are stunning, the environments detailed and evocative, the difficulty of various challenges seemingly tailored to my taste. And then there’s the addition of skills to develop and tools to find, craft or improve, and for the first time, a sense of character to accompany Lara’s fancy moves. What’s not to like?

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Dear Esther vs Gone Home

In the past few weeks, I played two short, experimental games: Dear Esther by The Chinese Room, and Gone Home by The Fullbright Company. The mysterious vibe, the focus on storytelling, the surprisingly fine audio and visuals and the undeniably unorthodox character of both games make it impossible to not draw comparisons, so that’s exactly what I’ll do.

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