I've decided I'd like to play some more Skyrim, so I've made a plan. Previously I played as a Mage and an Archer, so this time it will be as a Warrior. The plan is to strictly stick to the main quests - that is, the Dragonborn and the Rebellion quest lines - and play as an Orc with a bit of an attitude. I'll be recording the first episode tomorrow, then chopping it into ~30 minute segments and uploading to YouTube. I will probably release a few episodes per week.
I've done gameplay vids before, but usually without a voice over. This time I'm going to try different things. I've released 3 videos already. In the first two I was talking while playing, but I find that can be difficult as I'm usually focused on the gaming itself and much like chewing bubblegum while walking, I can't seem to do two things at the same time.
In the 3rd video I added an intro that I'm quite happy with. I learned a lot about my editing software to do that which is great! I also added my voice-over post-gameplay. It's a bit weird doing that, though... I guess I'm just a newbie at all this. I'll get better. I promise.
I'll also make a post about the mods I'm using just to get it out there for the curious types. I've previously made a list of Skyrim mods I like, and I'm still using plenty of those, however some are no longer available. I'm not using many new ones, and I don't have the patience to browse Steam's Workshop for good ones. I still prefer using Nexus for that (sort by endorsements makes it so easy).
Here's the first 3 episodes (you can also subscribe to my YouTube channel and they are all being added to a playlist):
Amnesia: The Dark Descent. I got this game as soon as it was released and I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it. In preparation, though mostly to determine if I would like the game or not, I picked up the Penumbra series. Penumbra is a series of 3 games, although only 2 are really part of the series with the 3rd being quite a bit different. Anyway, the first 2 are almost identical, gameplay wise, to Amnesia so it was (and is) a great place to start. These games are all made by Frictional Games, and are all survival horror games with somewhat of a classic "point and click" adventure style, by which I mean you will find many notes and clues as well as items to pick up and combine to solve puzzles.
I recently felt like playing Amnesia again, so I loaded it up. Had to download quite a bit of new data, though, so I wasn't surprised when the loading screen had new options - namely a button labelled Justine.
As it turns out, Justine is a new level. I don't know who the protagonist is (though I have an idea), but you wake up in a cell and off you go to make your way through a series of trials. Unfortunately there's some evil corpse creature trying to murder you, and there's some Gramaphones you can activate to hear recordings that indicate this is all a purposeful trial for you.
Without any further ado, this is my first attempt at it. Please note: I failed. For maximum immersion, play in a dark room with headphones.
I recently played through Alan Wake. Going into it, I didn't know what to expect. I have heard some good things in general about it as it was out on consoles for a while before its fairly recent PC release. However, I wasn't keen enough to look into just what this game is all about as it didn't really affect me at the time.
I can now say that this game flew WAY under the radar. This is a game that should be a highlight of your recent gaming endeavors.
Alan Wake is awesome.
What is so good about it? Well, the game itself is kind of a halfway between Dead Space and Amnesia: The Dark Descent, two games I have very much enjoyed and for very different reasons. Alan Wake is more action than Amnesia - afterall, you do get weapons and can kill the baddies. On the other hand, it's nowhere near Dead Space with your futuristic arsenal of ass-kicking. Until the later game, your main weapon is a simple pistol that pretty much takes a full clip to kill the "medium" baddies. The Shotgun and Rifle round out your gun choices, with a few other tricks like flash-bangs, flares, and a flare gun... not to mention your trusty flashlight!
Alan Wake is based around the concept of darkness. There is a darkness in the lake; it is evil, and it wants out. Almost all the enemies are corrupted, dark versions of real people you meet in the game, which gives those encounters an extra chilling effect.
The story starts with the protagonist, Alan Wake, going to some little town out in the mountainous woods with his wife. Alan, or Al as he's often referred to, is a writer suffering from writer's block, so his wife thought going out to this relaxing little town could be of help. You wind up at this cabin on a small island on the lake, where things quickly take a turn for the worse. And by "for the worse," I mean things go batshit insane.
If you played Bastion, you probably enjoyed the narration. In Alan Wake, Al is the narrator. Quite often he will describe his thoughts as you come across various things as an internal monologue. Generally this works very well and helps enhance the story. On top of this, you collect manuscript pages of, well, a story of what's happening. You can access these in your menu and Al will read out the pages. I don't want to put any spoilers in this review, but these pages are central to the game. The point is, the game manages to keep you interested with this narration as it gives you something to focus on when maybe not a lot is actually happening in the game. It definitely adds a lot to the character of Al, making him much more believable and it helps create a bit of a bond with him.
The game is split into day time and night time. The day time is when you meet the sheriff, the doctor, the waitress... and the night is when you fight. Again, without trying to spoil anything, the short of the story is that you are trying to get Al's wife back. You're led by the nose a little bit, for a little while, but then about halfway through the game steps it up a bit and Al seems to be more driven to end his nightmarish adventures and things get very intense.
During the nights, you generally explore an area. The game is not open world, but the levels are large enough and so well designed that it does feel fairly open. I never really felt like I was "on rails" or anything, and often you can go off the beaten path to find manuscripts or additional items. At all times during the night, Al has his flashlight turned on. It acts as a cross-hair during combat, as Al always aims right down the beam. The enemies are shrouded in darkness, so you have to use your flashlight to burn off the darkness and make the enemies vulnerable to weapon fire. The flashlight can run 100% of the time normally, but you can hit a button to "focus" the beam and burn the darkness faster - however, this also consumes battery power. If you stop focusing, the batteries will recharge, but you also find many batteries and can just swap them in on the fly as needed.
The game, sadly, doesn't have many puzzles. Off the top of my head I can only think of 1. I think that is a bit of a shame, but fortunately the tense atmosphere and often chaotic combat keeps things interesting. It's also a heavily story driven game, which is something I definitely appreciate. In fact, I have to say, the way the game ended was rather impressive. Not exactly a happy ending, but appropriate. Bittersweet would describe it best.
There's a few levels of the game that are just outrageously fun, there's levels that are very creepy, there's a little mix up with the action gameplay here and there. Probably the worst executed aspect to the game is the driving controls... the cars handle horridly, but I don't mind. It's a pretty minor aspect of a couple levels that just switch things up.
I'm not big on number scores, so all I can say is that if you like "horror", "thriller", and "action" games then this is a must play. If you don't believe me, here's a video I shot of one level up until I was murdered. Very minor spoilers, if any (but proceed with caution).
This video is somewhat spoiler-ish. It's basically a full level near the end of the game, though it's not going to spoil the interesting story bits:
XFX 7970 advertisement. Hugely corny and silly, but also probably one of the funniest things I've watched on YouTube in a while. Definitely didn't expect to see something like this. It's probably funnier if you watched Power Rangers as a kid.
I made this video on mklinks for Windows. Basically, it's a way to move a folder so that it is stored in a different location, but then to have Windows think it wasn't moved at all. This can be very handy as in this example, with Steam games, but also if you want to move a program you have installed and don't want to go through the hassle of uninstalling and then reinstalling somewhere else.
