Wednesday, December 21, 2011

You'll Turn 360° and Walk Away


I was so enthused after I re-read the incredible twofer I wrote a week ago that I decided we're doing Skyrim again. S'more. Only with 78% less "Arrow to the knee" jokes than the rest of the internet.

I present to you the top 5 things I hate about Skyrim:


  • After I logged around 150 game hours whenever I open up the directional menu with (B) it can take a variable amount of time for the down or left button (both on the d-pad and the analog stick) to actually function. Long enough to make me highly irritable (See picture at right). The same thing happens when I open up inventory menus whether it be looting bodies, chests, or my own sordid furniture in my house.


  • When placing loot in furniture that I own inside my house in Whiterun there is considerable lag when depositing individual items. Is this due to the large volume of stuff inside of a burlap sack under my bed or the cupboard by my door? Possibly, but why in this day and age when we have decades of computer science research into data structures can a company that makes GIANT games not have found a way to quickly and easily store data? I can only imagine that there are gremlins inside of my Xbox slowing down the spindle that turns my disc like some kind of burgeoning DJ who is attempting to scratch one of those doublesteppe records the kids like so much. I can't just throw everything I steal off the backs of the poor citizens into the moat, that would be just silly.


  • That feeling when I'm pretty sure I have "Whirlwind Sprint" equipped and I accidentally Fus Ro Dah an entire village square. The same kind of crestfallen feeling when you accidentally steal something in the alchemy shop that is frowned upon, when the proprietor seems totally cool with you stealing anything worth less than 100 Septim.


  • Why can't I climb more shit? I'm a climber. I want to climb to the very top of everything I can find, and by Talos I'll do it! I once got a job at the now defunct (thank's EA) Pandemic Studios because I shared my love of climbing with the gal who interviewed me.

    "Tell me about how you play games, Grant," she said.

    "I climb. In Crash Bandicoot I would always try to run to the very edge of the on-rails style levels and jump onto something that just got me stuck in mid air. WWF: Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain I would construct ludicrous tottering towers built with tables upon tables upon ladders upon spanish announcer tables. I only cared about one thing when a new Smack Down came out: how many tables can I screw around with? My all time favorite game is Shadows of the Colossus, a game about if nothing else climbing." I shared.

    "You are perfect, we are going to hire you! Here, go play Saboteur and write some Bug Reports." the gal offered.

    And then EA shut down the company and I no longer had a job.


  • WHY WON'T THE FUCKING DRAGON LAND SO I CAN KILL IT!?!


  • But I really do like Skyrim and I have logged almost 200 in game hours. I'll keep playing til there's new Modern Warfare 3 content or I get fed up with finding cabbage inside of sacks laying on the floor of a dungeon that no one has set foot inside of for hundreds of years.

    -G

    Tuesday, December 20, 2011

    Twofer Tuesday

    Fus Ro Dan!~ Today's twofer is about something very dear to my heart. I was a big fan of Elder Scrolls IV: Morrowind having logged quite a bit of time with my twin's help, and the sequel is no exception. Having just witnessed Skyrim win Game of The Year at Spike Tv's Video Game Awards (Yea, I was working at it and I met Charlie Sheen and saw Stifler and Deadmau5 and all sorts of cool dudes - including but not limited to Hideo Kojima and his Hiro Nakamura-esque pal and Shigeru Miyamoto. This {while a bit more interesting} is unfortunately a tale for another time.) I decided today is all about Skyrim baby.



    Occasionally you bump into glitches and bugs, especially in a game as large as Skyrim. Bethesda I'm not mad at ya, I've only gotten stuck in the geometry like 8 times and had my game crash at the load screen like 5. On this particular occasion the texture for the dragon I was battling only sorta loaded. I quickly got out my camera and began to record it for posterity, but as soon as I killed it everything became pretty again. So ends another exciting dragon battle in the cold and brutal land of Skyrim.



    I just got the Block skill to 100 and I decided I'd toast exactly how high ones levels are at 65. I'm a bad bad man. Really this video is just an internets dick-measuring contest. And yes, mine is the biggest.

    Thanks for tuning in to this weeks twofer. What's in the future? A holiday themed rap song? New Years Resolutions? TK's Birthday? Trying to convince Dan to buy us a laser that is too powerful for any reasonable consumer application? All this and more (maybe)!

    -G

    Bonus: Have you read TK's blog about Kate from Lost? We were having a few pints last night and he started saying much of what you can now read and it was so funny that we did it live and he wrote it. You should probably read it again.

    Saturday, December 10, 2011

    An Open Letter to the Actress who Played Kate on Lost:

    TK writes:

    Actress who played Kate on Lost, I love you. Lets get for real married. I don't know if you're married in real life or not, because I'm afraid to Google you, cause I'm afraid you might be married.

    Actress who played Kate on Lost, I know you spent a lot of time in Oahu during production of the show, but I could totally take you to a bunch of awesome spots. I like Shiro's in Pearl City, they have great saimin.

    Actress who played Kate on Lost, I'm a pretty good cook, and also good at sex. I suppose it would be unfair to ask you to accept these claims on faith, therefore I am willing to prove myself. I mean if you want.


    Actress who played Kate on Lost, how are you so pretty? OMG you're so pretty. OMG stop flirting with me.

    Actress who played Kate on Lost, I know I'm a little late to the "Lost" bandwagon, but please do not hold that against me. <3

    Actress who played Kate on Lost, my roommate said that some of the actors on the show got DUIs during production, and that ABC reacted by killing their characters off prematurely. I'm glad that you didn't get a DUI because then you wouldn't be on the show as much and your perfect face wouldn't get beamed into my living room via Netflix.

    Actress who played Kate on Lost, I painted my car army green with military stencil lettering on the side. It's so rad I wanna show it to you. You'll love it.

    Actress who played Kate on Lost, you lived in Hawaii when you were shooting Lost. I'm Hawaiian! OMG we have so much in common.

    Actress who played Kate on Lost, I just watched episode 301 and actor who played Sawyer gave you a fish biscuit. I would give you like 5 fish biscuits, real talk.

    Actress who played Kate on Lost, I work out a lot and I'm pretty handsome.

    Do you like me?
    • YES ( )
    • NO ( )
    • MAYBE ( )