The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

February 6th, 2012: I Are Addict.

Well, I’ve finally succumbed to it, guys. I have caught the Skyrim bug.

I’ve owned the game since launch (getting the guide, on the other hand, was a SNAFU) but I, ahem, lacked the necessary hardware in order to play it. But ALL of that changed last weekend after I bought a brand spankin’ new Xbox 360. And what better game to pop a 360’s cherry than with Skyrim, amirite?!

I was a little worried I wouldn’t be able to fully engulf myself into it (Oblivion and Fallout 3 failed to hook me) but I gotta say this game fucking ROCKS! In fact, I started it last night and stayed up until 2 am completing quests, killing shit and just roaming around. <3333

It sounds like the story will be based around the civil war that’s plaguing this place. I’m not entirely sure of the names, but I want to say Ulfric (leader of the Stormcloaks?) killed some High King and that *really* pissed of the Empire, and they could no longer ignore Ulfric’s actions. If I can remember correctly, Ulfric is pissed because the (now dead) king of the Empire signed an agreement with…some people…that said open religious dedication to…Talos…is forbidden. So apparently the guards of…some people…were dragging those people who still openly worshipped “Talos” out of their homes, etc. SO Ulfric was pissed, and killed the guy that signed the agreement.

Holy hell, I don’t even know how accurate the above paragraph is. But it makes sense in my head, I promise! (That’s what the voices

Following the Helgen fiasco–I was about to be beheaded but a dragon sorta-kinda caused an epic distraction and I escaped–I ended up escaping to Riverwood with the Imperial soldier, Randar or Randarz0rf or something, instead of Ralof, the Stormcloak rebel. I wanted to go with the rebel instead of the solider– not because of what each side stands for–but because the rebel was cuter and looked 23% like Brad Pitt.

As of right now I’m not sure which side I’m favoring because I don’t know enough about each faction. Everyone in Riverwood shrugs their shoulders and supports the Empire, as the “Empire has always been there for Riverwood, blah blah blah.”

I was exploring and saw a chicken muddling about in someone’s front yard. Nobody was outside. I had a mace in my hand. I was curious. So, I whacked it. Little did I know that killing a freakin’ chicken would cause the ENTIRE town to go batshit crazy! Seriously, everywhere I went random folks were attacking me and I had no idea why. It was at the point I wasn’t able to progress in the game because I kept getting killed! So I went to the good ol’ interwebs, and it was there I found that I had apparently accrued some sort of bounty for killing said chicken, and the only way to get rid of my bounty was to find a guard and pay it off.

I made my way to Whiterun, where I was promptly stopped by a guard who somehow KNEW I was a chicken killer. I paid him 40 bucks, returned to Riverwood and NO ONE TRIED TO KILL ME. <333333.

Now I’m assisting the Jarl and his crazy cat-lady assistant to do something against a Dragon.

But alas, by the time I reached this point it was nearing 2 a.m. (IRL time) so I had to call it quits. But now all I want to do is play Skyrim. Like, that’s all I can think about. I HAVE THE SKYRIM BUG AND I WILL ALLOW IT TO FESTER ALL UP IN ME BECAUSE IT’S GLORIOUS.

February 9th, 2012: There’s a WHOLE Lotta’ Skyrim.

A few days ago I had a brief conversation with my buddy Kc. To make a short story even shorter, he told me had taken a break from Skyrim in order to play Lego Harry Potter as it made him feel like he was actually accomplishing something.

At first I was like BWUUH? What do you mean?

But after my romp with Skyrim last night I now know exactly what he was talking about. You see, after spending several hours wandering, slaying and looting I realized I had made absolutely no progression in the game’s story. NONE. But I did level up and increase my sneak, one-handed and lock picking skills, which is freakin’ AWESOME! <333

But I’m a little worried I’ll tire myself of side-quests and wandering in due time. That’s what happened the first time I played through Dragon Age: Origins (not to mention Fable 2) as well as more relevant games like Oblivion and Fallout 3. And I really, REALLY, don’t want to bore of Skryim, especially when I need to kick it’s ass considering Mass Effect 3 releases in a month.

And hey, I’ll be honest with myself: there’s no way I’ll finish Skyrim’s campaign by ME3’s launch. BUT if I have a hearty investment in Skyrim the chances are a kajillion times better that I’ll pick it back up post-ME3. And then I’ll pick up Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Deus Ex, maybe I’ll finish Arkham City….

I’m going to have to be extremely careful moving forward with Skyrim. I need to make sure I shoot myself up with ample doses of story every now and then before I run out of interest.

February 16th, 2012: I can JUMP! And use magic!

So last night was a very interesting Skyrim night.

Earlier I had read that an easy way to level up your sneak AND overall level in Skyrim is to slightly exploit the game by sneaking around in the guard barracks at Whiterun. How this works is as follows: You enter the sleeping area of the barracks sometime after 10pm. At this point several guards shuffle in from their excruciating day of work and plop on their oh-so-confortable cots. I, then, make a fool of myself and sneak around in front of them. This is extremely efficient in leveling sneak because I’m, like, totally sneaking around guards. Like a ninja.

The first time attempting this was frustrating because I couldn’t walk no more than two steps without being detected, so I spent a chunk of time looking like an artard doing some cracked-out rendition of the electric slide. I think I raised my sneak from 19 to about 24 (and overall level from 9 to 10) before I became way too impatient for that tomfoolery.

While leaving the barracks I encountered the greatest thing ever:

THE FUCKING JUMP BUTTON.

Now, the first thing I typically do upon popping my cherry with a new game is press every single button on the controller in order to figure out WTF it does. Apparently, though, I had completely ignored the Y button. Oh, the vertical mountains I can now climb…

I waited until morning and ventured into the fields and mountains of Skyrim.

So, like, you know those big ol’ giants that just kind of stomp around next to their pet mammoths? Yeah. I was feeling a bit, ahem, ballzy and had the brilliant idea of approaching one. I mean, I’ve seen them numerous times before but they looked mean and, well, tough. Anyway, with this new-found confidence I walked up to one and unsheathed my weapon. But it, just, like, looked down and breathed on me. At that moment I was so, SO grateful the videogame industry hasn’t invented some sort of controller add-on that emits smells and odors. I walked around the giant, eyeballing it. I saved my game, and with an eyebrow raised I slashed it with my pansy-ass Orcish Mace.

Oh, the big friendly giant wasn’t so friendly anymore. Now he was just big and MEAN. I lasted about a swipe before loaded my recent save back up. And, once again, Mr. Giant was big and friendly. But I then thought I heard some rustling nearby, and sure as shit some stupid Khajiit was freakin’ stalking me! I quickly took care of THAT problem and found this lovely little note on his/her person from the Dark Brotherhood:

I’ve heard many things about the Dark Brotherhood. And by “heard” I mean I’ve read many tweets from my peeps on Twitter, saying “VIVA LA BROTHERHOOD!” and “Dark Brotherhood FTW!” You guys, I don’t even know WTF the Dark Brotherhood is, but if they are trying to kill me and stuff they really can’t be all that great. But I know how it’ll go—I”ll call them out on their, you know, failed assassin and they’ll be like “OHAI you must be great or something come join us!” And then I’ll probably join.

After exploring a bit, I figured I’d finally tackle the Western Watchtower quest and go kill me a dragon. And I did just that. It was pretty easy, but then again there were a handful of people attacking it as well, so I can only imagine how tough these things will get. Apparently I absorbed the dragon’s power, which lead to the guards going on and on about how I’m Dragonborn, which then lead to this…

Y’know…I have no words. I guess I’m so accustomed to JRPGs and whatnot I assumed I couldn’t even TOUCH the magic menu. But hey! I’m now a Nord warrior who can heal herself! SWEET!

And now I can shout things. EPIC.

<3 Britt

February 20th, 2012: Freddy Farkas!

It’s official: I cannot last longer than 12 or so hours without thinking about Skyrim. This is rather unfortunate because today is Monday and I haven’t laid a hand on Skyrim since Friday. So if you see a pile of fingernails or something else indicating a nervous habit on the floor, please don’t pay any attention.

So I totally bought a house! That’s exciting, right? I even furnished it with a kitchen! Pretty soon every man in Whiterun is going to want my nuts. Speaking of men in Whiterun…I think I’m totally going to try and mack on Farkas. Sure he’s kind of weird looking and has shit for brains, but the man can handle a sword quite well if you know what I mean.

And seeing as I’m now an official member of The Companions, he’s probably already 57% in love with me. THIS SHOULD BE EASY.

But other than that, not a heckuva lot happened during my little two hour Skyrim romp on Friday. I slayed another dragon, learned some fireball-esque shout and finished some miniscule quests. The next big thing (heh, “big thing”) on my agenda is to travel to the mountains and speak with the Greybeards, who are “The Way of the Voice” or something. I dunno…I might have made that up. Anyway, apparently they’ve summoned me and my epic Dragonborn self.

I just want to know when I’ll learn how to shout FUS RO DAH!

<3 Britt

PS: Also, if you missed it, Emil Pagliarulo left a comment on my Skyrim log. I probably freaked the poor guy out seeing as I tweeted and Facebook’d the SHIT out this lil’ event, but you gotta admit, that is pretty freakin’ awesome!!!

February 22nd, 2012: A Handsome Man, Dirty Positions and a Dragon. Also, Neckbeards.

Yesterday evening I took a good, long look in the mirror. As I stared into these droopy eyes of mine (+1 for being sick!) I promised myself I would tackle the main quests and make headway in the story of Skyrim. Ladies and gentlemen, after spending several hours I’m overjoyed to announce I made minimal progress. That’s right kiddos, I am overjoyed. Progress is progress, amirite? And by progress, I mean I almost made it to the Greybeards. (Also, whenever I write out Greybeards I want to type out Neckbeards.)

After all, making one’s way to the Greybeards requires a good amount of travel, and one is likely to be distracted by shiny caves and tempting bandit hideouts. While I did my best to steer away from most, I succumbed to the allure of a few tombs and dungeons, one of which I thought led me to my future replacement for my future husband. His name was Golldir, and he was a handsome chap. I write about him as if he’s dead, and that’s because he is. But don’t get it twisted; I didn’t fail to protect him as we ventured into the tomb of his ancestors in order to defeat an necromancer—so Golldir is still alive and well—but he’s dead to me. He’s a pansy who allowed his aunt to go into the tomb herself because he is, I repeat, a pansy. All looks and no balls, that one is.

With that potential male prospect now nothing but a mere memory, I continued to make my way to Ivarstead. Holy balls, it took FOREVER to get there! The path is so wonky I had no choice but to trust the signs posted alongside the road, because it felt like I was slowly making my way into Bumfuck Egypt. And everyone knows Egypt isn’t in Skyrim, so I was really confused. :/

On my way to Ivarstead I ran into a poor soul alongside the road who claimed bandits had robbed him and stolen his cart. His name was…Tenvar? Tenir? Tenar? I can’t remember. Anyway, I knew this is the oldest trick and the book and that he HIMSELF was a bandit and would ultimately lead me to his bandit troupe. But I planned on slaughtering them, so I wasn’t worried. But oooh man, those bastards ended up being TOUGH to kill! I think I ended up fighting three or four bandits on top of that Ten-what-the-fuck guy. After my third or fourth try I finally defeated all of them, and looted their ish. It was a great feeling, except I feel like the spoils were so NOT worth the effort (or health potions!) that battle required. I guess a plus is that I was able to grab one of the female bandits by her ankle and contort her body into a dirty position. That’s always fun. Perversion at its finest.

And on my merry way I went.

Until I got distracted again.

Guys, I’ve realized I have a fetish with fire and water in videogames. If I stumble up a new river, creek or waterfall (or, respectively, a new torch, fire pit or just something burning) I have to drop everything I’m doing and observe. Sometimes for minutes on end. I’m obsessed. That being said, I’ll give the water and fire a golf clap. Some locations are better than others, but it’s definitely not the worst I’ve ever seen!

A few minutes later I FINALLY made it to Ivarstead! Aaaand it wasn’t too exciting, however there seems to be a few fun quests to tackle (like the haunted barrow!) but I haven’t had much time to explore. I did stumble across a few things, though…

Dude. What if Harvest Moon got a first person, upgraded look? HELL! It would be awesome, and I imagine harvesting your plants would look something like this. …crap. Now I really want to play Harvest Moon again. NGGGGH….

Hey, Temba, I don’t need to ask you why you’re so angry. After all, it’s pretty obvious what’s making you scowl so hard is that five o’clock shadow you have growing on your face. Also, get your eyebrows waxed. You’re never gonna get laid looking like that.

Aaaand now I have a lot of quests. Halp.

On a final note: I killed my third dragon! And of course he/she/it assumed the face-down-ass-up position upon slaughteration.

<3333.

February 28th, 2012: I got 99 problems but three dragon’s aint one!

So, I don’t know if it was, like, dragon season in Skyrim last night or something but within the span of 45 minutes I slaughtered three of those bad boys. It was crazy! There I was, meandering about murdering flowers, mushrooms and such when *BLAMMO!* my controller would vibrate like it had caught a seizure (yes, caught a seizure) and one of those bastards would land nearby. It would then proceed to belch fire at me. Unfortunate.

Thankfully the dragons I’ve come across thus far are easy to take out–when I’m by myself, that is. Comrade-ism is such a weird thing in Skyrim; races and creatures alike will join forces to defeat a dragon but as soon as said dragon is tits-up on the ground those fuckers turn on you.

Exhibit A:

I stumbled upon this guy while passing a fortress inhabited by several Stormcloak soldiers. Because he landed between the fortress and I everyone and their uncle joined the battle and began shooting arrows and swiping at the dragon with their weapons. I, amidst all the chaos, accidentally nicked a Stormcloak with my mace. The next thing I know half of the fortress is attacking the dragon, and the other half is shooting me with arrows! WHAT THE HECK?! (Ahem…I took so many arrows to the knee. OH YEAH BABY, I JUST WENT THERE.) I really didn’t feel like taking on an entire fortress AND a dragon so I loaded a recent save file and started the battle over, whereupon I accidently shouted my Fire Breath at three Stormcloaks. My bad.

Exhibit B:

I spotted this one as it landed on the other side of a river. When I finally caught up to it I saw Mr. Dragon was already beefing with two giants. From painful experience I know these oafs can kill me in two swipes but they normally don’t flip me shit if I don’t flip them shit. I trotted over to the fight and began partaking in it myself.

Apparently I hadn’t learned my lesson from Exhibit A because when my stamina ran low I used a Shout aaaaand two things happened: 1) The dragon died and 2) The giants were also hit and began stomping towards me. Wonderful. After I absorbed the dragon soul I ran like the dickens BACK across the river and waited. The giants followed me to the edge of the river but would proceed no further. I waited some more. They turned around and clomped back up towards the general area of the dead dragon.

Figuring I was safe, I headed back towards the kill zone–after all, I had loot to collect!

But those giants remembered me.

Fuckin’ giants never forget.

Exhibit C:

This dragon landed in an adjacent field therefore I concluded it was wreaking havoc on another poor soul. But in this case the poor soul turned out to be a bear. PIECE OF CAKE! I can easily take on a bear AND a dragon, but my plan was to wait until the dragon was dead before I turned Smokey into…into…a dead Smokey. (Smooth.)

Unfortunately the dragon landed a critical hit or something right before it croaked and nearly depleted my health bar—which was no bueno seeing as the bear I MANAGED TO AVOID HITTING DURING THE BATTLE WITH THE DRAGON was now charging me. I know, I know; my plan was to kill it anyway, but for a split second I was hoping he could, like, become my snuggle partner in Breezehome until I marry Farkas. Anyway, I realized I was out of my typical healing potions (which were stored on my “favorite” menu) so I had to pull up my inventory to find something else.

And I did it JUST in the nick of time.

Yeeaaaaah. Fucking dragons.

<3 Britt