#those are extra little levels that challenge your skill after finishing the dlc

[townslore]

why is literally no one talking about this

[colourfullsims]

LOVE ISLAND CHALLENGE: CASTING CALL

That’s right, you heard it here first - from the people who brought you Big Brother, we present yet another summer obsession: the Love Island Challenge! Has it only been about a month since I finished BB? Yep. Should I be taking on yet another huge project that will take a lot of planning and late nights of building storylines? Probably not. Am I still doing it? Hell yeah.

This will be quite the large casting call for what I have planned: I’ll be accepting 28 sims in total for this challenge! The game will begin with 10 initial sims entering the villa, with the remaining cast being released into the house in waves: as sims are eliminated, new players will enter the house in their place. About halfway through the game, the islanders will be met with their biggest test of the summer when we open Casa Amor, placing 12 sims from our cast pool into the game for a chance at love. 

As always, I’m looking to have a diverse cast with lots of varying backgrounds and personalities. And while the original Love Island focuses primarily on straight couplings, I’m looking to break that here by accepting all sexualities! As long as your sim is a young single, looking to mingle, they’ve got a chance at love!

Great info to include in your submission is:

Basic Bio: Introduce your sim (name, age, traits, gender, sexuality, race, hometown, occupation, etc.)

Personality Type: Give me a general feel for your sim’s character (outgoing, shy, serious, goofy, friendly, mean, etc.)

Relationships Back at Home: Who are the most important people in your sims life? (parents, siblings, children, etc). All potential islanders should technically be single (so no secret marriage scenarios please lol), but if your sim has any ex-relationships or situationships they’d like to talk about, feel free to share!

Their Intentions: Though this is “Love Island” not everyone may be here for love; some islanders will be looking for “the one,” while others may just be looking for some fun, and there may even be some looking specifically to get that cash prize. What led your sim to apply to the show and how will your sim play the game?

Backstory and Random Facts: Anyone who’s familiar with my last challenge knows I’m a sucker for a good backstory! You can be as simple or detailed with this as you please: any extra info given about your sim will aid me in writing dialogue and creating storylines for the posts.

Please keep any CC used on your sim (besides skin details) limited to their everyday wear, and Maxis Match. I’ll be applying my preferred defaults (eyes, detailed feet, etc.) to the sims and dressing them with my CC catalogue to blend to my posting style. Dress all remaining categories with DLC (I have all packs except for MFPS so go crazy), that way I have a sense of their style!

Submissions will stay open until Saturday, June 27, 2020, 11:59PM EDT, or until I have enough submissions to begin. Make sure to tag me in your submission posts, and if I haven’t reblogged your post within a day, feel free to message me - sometimes Tumblr likes to eat my tag notifications. I’ll be placing the rules I’ll be following below the cut for anyone interested in seeing how I’ll be playing this challenge!

Thanks for reading and I hope to see some of your sims soon on Love Island!

RULES:

For the challenge I will be using a version of the rules that I’ve tweaked from Scarlet-V’s original Love Island Challenge rules as well as @everfallsims Love Island Challenge rules. I’m aiming at playing my challenge as close to how the show is done, so check out the rules below to get a feel for how this will go:

Coupling Up:

For my version of the challenge, coupling ceremonies will take place under a predetermined schedule (which I will release once the challenge begins), and will alternate by gender for who will be choosing each time - so if the girls are choosing during the first coupling, the boys will be choosing the next time.

Sims will choose who to couple up with one by one at the coupling ceremony, and order of choice will either be determined by random draw or by viewer vote, depending upon the stage of the game.

Sims will couple up based upon who they have the highest romance level with. In the case an islander is choosing between sims they have no romance level with yet, they must choose the sim with the highest friendship level.

The first two coupling ceremonies will be heterosexual pairings only (for logistical reasons) but after that point, all genders will be able to couple up with whoever they like.

Once a sim is chosen to couple up with, they are no longer an option to be chosen. Couplings remain until eliminations and recouplings.

Recouplings:

Recouplings will happen on a predetermined schedule (again, to be released when the challenge begins) and will be an opportunity for pre-existing couples to continue getting to know each other, or for islanders to pursue new relationships.

Any new islanders will get the first choice at the recouplings.

If an islander’s first choice has already been chosen by someone else, they’ll have to choose an islander they have the next highest relationship with. Consequently, if a sim’s first choice is stolen away by another sim, they will lose some relationship with each other. This could lead to some sims having negative relationships with each other (who doesn’t love a little drama lol).

Eliminations:

Eliminations will take place under a predetermined schedule (again, to be released when the challenge begins). There will be three different types of eliminations: single eliminations, couple eliminations, and bottom two eliminations.

Single eliminations will take place when there is an odd number of islanders inside the villa. On a recoupling night when this is the case, one of the villagers who is not picking for the night will be at risk for going home.

Couple eliminations will get rid of a full couple from the game, in order to start whittling down the numbers for our potential winners. These eliminations can happen at any recoupling ceremony, and the decision will rest on either the relationships of the islanders, or on a viewer vote.

Bottom two eliminations will get rid of the two least popular islanders, from the two couples that have the lowest relationship levels with one another. This can take place at any recoupling ceremony and the decision will rest on a viewer vote.

Challenges:

Challenges will be an opportunity for islanders to win dates with other islanders, which will be key to advancing their romance outside of the villa.

Between each coupling ceremony, the sims will participate in skill based challenges. In gameplay, the challenge winners will be based upon one in-game day’s worth of skill building, with the sim(s) with the highest skill level winning the prize for the day.

Because of this, all sims skills will be set to 0 at the beginning of this challenge to give everyone a fair shot, but you can still influence what challenges your sim will be good at through their traits!

Dates:

There will be several different kinds of dates that the islanders will have a chance to go on: speed dates, solo dates, and the hideaway.

Speed dates will take place the day that new islanders are introduced into the villa, allowing the new sims a chance to get a feel for who they might want to couple up with. Speed dates can (but might not always) lead to an opportunity for the new islanders to ask their favorite islanders on a solo date, to get to know them even better.

Solo dates are just what they sound like - one on one outings for two sims to get to know each other. Solo dates will be earned by winning challenges, winning a viewer vote, or catching the eye of a new islander. Also, solo dates are not limited to sims who are already partnered up - so this is the prime chance for sims to drive a wedge between a relationship and shoot their shot!

The Hideaway is the ultimate date to win in this game. This is a fancy, romantic suite located in the villa, which will only open several times throughout the game, and will only be accessible to one couple at a time for one night. In the Hideaway, everything goes, and it’s the prime chance for a couple to take their relationship to the next level. Islanders will have the opportunity to win a night inside the Hideaway either through winning a challenge or winning a viewer vote. Unlike speed dates and solo dates, this is only open for sims who are currently coupled up.

Casa Amor:

Halfway through the challenge, Casa Amor will open, giving the islanders even more opportunities to find love with someone new:

The remaining islanders will be split between the original villa and Casa Amor, and will meet 6 new islanders each, who they could potentially recouple with.

The islanders will participate in challenges, speed dates, and solo dates as usual as they get to know their new roommates.

After several days away from their current partners, the original islanders must decide whether they want to stay coupled up with their current partners, or if they want to be recoupled with one of the new islanders.

Any of the new islanders who are not chosen to be coupled with will be immediately eliminated. Any of the old islanders left single will be at risk of being eliminated.

Viewer Votes:

Throughout the challenge, viewers will get the opportunity to influence the game through a series of polls. Advantages that viewers will be able to deal out will include:

First pick at recouplings

Solo dates

Hideaway access

Viewer votes will also come into play when it comes time to start determining which players should stay in the game.

How to Win:

The challenge will continue until there are four couples remaining. Of those four, it will be down to a viewer vote which of the final pairings should win the $100,000 grand prize. As consolation prizes, the second and third place winners will win $50,000 and $25,000 dollars respectively (sorry fourth place lol).

After the winners are determined, the final test of whether this was true love will come in the form of the money envelopes. Both sims will receive an envelope each - one will have the cash prize inside, and the other will be empty. Whoever receives the envelope with the money will have to decide to either share the money with their partner or take the cash and run. This final decision will come down to a combination of storytelling and whether the sim ended up with a partner they loved more than anyone else in the villa.

And that’s it! I may tweak these rules slightly as I begin playing, especially once WW interactions come into play, but this should cover most of our bases for the time being. Let me know if you have any further questions, and I hope you’ll consider submitting a sim!

[theclarkystuff-blog]

Yoshi's Wooly World

In 2011 when courting with my wife, we enjoyed a summer of various games with co-op options, which for most part ended on the Wii, one of those games which brought us the most joy was Kirby’s Epic Yarn. I found this to be a beautiful game with its quilt and patch art style and combined with the usual high quality found within Kirby games. While I had a great time with this game alongside my wife, the game was met with its critics, feeling the game was either too short or easy, despite these views Kirby’s Epic Yarn would go on to be one of the Wii’s highlights during its lifetime and Good-Feel was already talking about making another game but with Mario taking the starring role this time. Fast forward to 2013 and during a Nintendo Direct we are given an unveiling of Yarn Yoshi, a new Yoshi adventure coming out on Wii U, this game would remain on the quiet side for the best part of 2 years before re-emerging as Yoshi’s Woolly World, employing a different look based on woolly toys and art & crafts the game bore a similar appearance to Sony’s own Little Big Planet. Yoshi in his own respective of games has gone through highs and lows, ranging from Yoshi’s Island, released during the Snes twilight years powered on the SuperFX2 chip which made this game look like it could have been an early PS1 or Saturn game. The series has had several successors on N64, DS and 3DS, I always felt that the series had not managed to capture the charm nor challenge of the original until now.

In 2015 Nintendo would finally release Yoshi’s Wooly World with a 3DS port released later in 2017, renamed now as Poochy and Yoshi’s Wooly World. With the new port released I decided it was about time to finally finish the game after picking it up and dropping it various times. Booting into the game we are told that Baby Bowser has sent henchman Kamek to turn Yoshi and his friends into bundles of yarn and hidden them around neighboring islands, leaving it up to you and Yoshi's abilities to conquer obstacles and foes in which to take the battle to Baby Bowser personally. Getting control of the game you are thrown into a hub world, connecting all the islands you will explore and displaying various highlighted posts from the Miiverse, a feature also used in the loading screens to showcase art made by its players and provide hints like what to look out for. There are various tents found in this hub world which allow us to change the look of our Yoshi to another design which can be unlocked in game or the ability to scan certain Amiibo’s which will unlock various Yoshi’s based upon a look of whichever one you scanned, so if a Sonic or Pac-Man coloured Yoshi ever appealed to you, this would be your moment. While a lot of people have found Amiibo to be a new form of DLC locked behind a toy I was comfortable with the Amiibo support in this game as it was more merely a cosmetic bonus rather than a paywall holding back any game play based content like levels, the only other use they seem to have in game is making a second Yoshi appear during story mode to assist. 

In game has support for various controllers ranging from the Wii U Pro Controller, Wiimote and Classic Controller, I ended up mainly playing with a Wiimote Motion Plus controller due to the extra control option found in it to aim eggs using the gyro for quick and accurate aiming. Before loading out for a level you can decide if you would like the assistance of a badge power, these badges can grant you temporary stats to help you either complete or find secrets in levels, while I can imagine these skills could maybe enhance a second play through or help younger or inexperienced players, I never really saw the appeal of them for my play through. In game we play through various islands containing levels which will require you to explore, defeat enemies and make your way to a goal post, dotted throughout the levels are jewels, flowers, wool and stars which will increase your health, finding all of these in a level will unlock features such as new Yoshi’s or a bonus game. The bonus games found in this tend to be based around small timed events which see you trying to collect fruits or jewels or overcome obstacles, while I found bonus rooms in the middle of the levels to be more fun, due to them mainly being vehicle based levels or new forms like becoming a mermaid,  I found the bonus game at the end of each level to be a bit boring, as the bonus jewels feel somewhat redundant. The worlds vary on theme  traditionally seen in platform games such as forests to tropical islands, lava worlds and ice domains, all of which contain there expected obstacles such as slippery surfaces, underwater caverns and wide pits. With previous Yoshi games I have found the difficulty to never quite be right, either being too easy or for some entries having certain levels which were either designed bad or just with weird difficulty spikes. Woolly World however manages to capture a balanced difficulty, very similar to the original Yoshi’s Island, from the every start the game is easy and forgiving while it allow you to become comfortable with your skills but the end you will need to master the flutter jump and various other skills to complete levels and defeat boss battles later on. 

The co-op mode in this one I found to be better implemented than the likes of New Super Mario Bros Wii which I have found a bit too chaotic with the game moving usually at a fast pace and having 4 players on screen at once was just a bit too much for me, but with this game encouraging players to take things a little bit slower and to explore your surroundings to find collectibles or hidden areas, I just felt this game benefited more from that however there is no online play, while this may have been a great option for many I honestly think this game would be better played with someone beside you. Being able to work with a friend to unlock get to hidden areas which may normally require more skill is always great fun and can cause silly moments where you may eat your partner but this can provide an easy way to carry an ally over a tricky platform section which may give your partner problems. If the game proves to be too challenging for maybe younger or inexperienced players a Mellow Mode option exists which makes Yoshi invincible and gives him unlimited flight, a similar feature seen recently in New Super Mario Bros series and Donkey Kong Country Returns, while these options are maybe controversial to certain “gamers” I found no problem with these options being in the game, if these help players enjoy the game and be able to see all the levels, fair play, I never needed the option so I can’t really pass any comment on it. 

Good-Feel has managed to take what made Yoshi’s Island into a great game and stitch it together in a game which I feel is good enough to stand up alongside the original, with its varied and challenging level design, well placed secrets and easy accessibility while leaving out various elements which may have dragged it down like character gimmicks or crying babies tied to a health system. This game was never going to save the Wii U but it did become one of the few shiniest gems the system offered, while it is now one of the many gems of the 3DS it is a game I was very happy to experience due to its wonderful art-style and fantastic level design, I enjoyed it enough that I would be happy to try the 3DS port one day just to experience the game again in 3D and that I am curious to see how the 3DS handles Wii U ports, as I felt a little disappointing in the ambitious port of Hyrule Warriors to 3DS. This comes highly recommended by me if you need a break from mainstream gaming or if you want to just have simple fun with a friend. 

[bubonickitten]

What are your favourite/most reccomended skyrim mods for someone who's only played vanilla?

Okay, so I went through my Nexus Mods Manager and Steam Workshop mods lists and picked out some of my favorites. (Note that some of them require SKSE.)

General:

ETA: Forgot to mention the Unofficial Skyrim Patch, which is honestly something worth having even if you don’t use mods, because there are a lot of broken quests and glitches even in the vanilla game and this makes it so you encounter less of that. 

SkyUI - Takes a little while to get used to, but once I did, I definitely prefer it to the vanilla UI. Also adds a Mod Configuration Menu (MCM) that a lot of other mods use to toggle different options offered by those mods.

Sounds of Skyrim - There are three: The Wilds, Civilization, and The Dungeons. Adds a ton of new sound effects to the game and lets you toggle which ones you do/don’t want.

Climates of Tamriel - New weather patterns, sounds, lighting, etc.

Run For Your Lives and When Vampires Attack - If you’re tired of unarmored, unarmed NPCs rushing at incredibly lethal creatures and expecting good results.

Better Stealth AI for Followers - Because it’s really annoying when you’re trying to sneak and your follower is carrying a damn torch.

Mods for your convenience:

Detailed Mine Map Markers - Adds the type of ore that can be found in the mine in parenthesis after the mine’s name on the map. VERY convenient.

House Markers - Adds map markers to player homes that are available in the base game.

Return Home Teleport Spells - Adds spellbooks to each of the houses you can get in the main game, plus the Ragged Flagon and Archmage Quarters.

Teleportation Books and Teleportation Books (Dawnguard) - More teleportation spellbooks.

Lock Picking Chalk Marks - I wish I found this mod twelve playthroughs ago. It makes lockpicking a lot more tolerable.

Infinite Gold for Merchants - Gives each merchant 20,000 gold to barter with. Useful if you’re like me and like crafting and stealing and hoarding but then have trouble selling it all without having to travel to five different cities.  

Lightweight Potions and Poisons - Adjusts potion/poison weight to 0.1 instead of 0.5 so you can carry more stuff.

Earring of Unburden Lite - Earring that significantly increases your carry weight. Thank god.

Bandolier Bags and Pouches - If you still need more carry weight (I know I do) and/or love accessorizing.

Stones of Barenziah Quest Markers - If you’ve ever done this quest, you know how useful this would be.

Jiub’s Opus Quest Markers - Why this wasn’t in the base game is beyond me. 

Unread Books Glow - Adds a glow to any books you haven’t read yet (including skill books). Helpful especially if you like collecting things.

Enemies-related mods:

Extended Encounters - The original that I have installed has been taken off Nexus Mods, but apparently there’s a similar one here.

Even More Dragons! - Adds significantly more encounters with dragons - I love it, but it’s hell when you’re still at a low level, so be careful. There are two other versions - More Dragons! (more encounters than usual, but less than Even More Dragons!) and Most Dragons! (which… I tried this one first and it’s great if you feel like fighting four dragons at once outside of a major city and then having to resurrect like 20+ NPCs when the dust settles just so you’re not walking around in a ghost town, but if you just want to casually complete quests without constantly being on fire, I recommend downgrading to More Dragons or Even More Dragons, lmao).

Extra Encounters and Extra Encounters (Dawnguard) - In case you still aren’t satisfied with the sheer number of people, places, and things that want to kill you in Skyrim.

Diverse Dragons Collection - Adds 14 new types of dragons to the game, so while you’re constantly being harassed by dragons, at least you get some variety.

More Enemies - Adds new types of enemies to the game. (Beware the bridge trolls, they’re dicks.)

(This is getting long, so I’ll put the rest under a cut.)

Factions:

Moonlight Tales - Customizable werewolves. Offers different pelt and eye options; a wolfkin alliance option (i.e. if you’re a werewolf, wolves and other werewolves aren’t hostile); and options for involuntary lunar transformations, which adds a new dynamic to the game.

All Thieves Guild Jobs Concurrently - Lets you take one of each type of job from Vex and Delvin simultaneously, which means less trips to and from the Ragged Flagon.

Localized Thieves Guild Jobs - Lets you choose which Hold you want a job for, rather than having it be randomized. Which means less saving and reloading and cursing in order to get a job in that last Hold you haven’t taken over yet. (Not compatible with All Thieves Guild Jobs Concurrently. I’ve tried both and both are good, it just depends on your playstyle which you might prefer.)

Improved Vampirism - Requires Dawnguard.

Aesthetics™:

Enhanced Blood Textures - [chanting] more blood! more blood! more blood!

Pure Waters - Really improves the appearance of rivers, lakes, etc.

Book Covers Skyrim - Adds really nice unique covers to all the books in the vanilla game and DLC.

Lanterns of Skyrim - Adds lanterns along the roads all throughout Skyrim. They turn on automatically when it starts to get dark (iirc you can customize the timing in the MCM).

Shadowmarks - Adds Shadowmarks to player homes. Because the Guild Master lives here.

Skills/Crafting/etc.:

Complete Crafting Overhaul Remade - Exactly what it says on the tin. Also very customizable depending on your specific preferences (requires SkyUI for its MCM feature).

Wintermyst Enchantments - Adds 124 new unique enchantments to the game. FUN.

Smithing Redesigned - Redesign of the smithing skill tree.

Smelting Plus - Melt more stuff.

NPCs:

Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions - Lets you adopt up to 6 kids. You need to couple it with player home mods that allow for 6 kids (there’s a list of compatible mods in the mod description).

Khajiit Child Ma’isha - Adorable Khajiit daughter. Just recently, a dragon was attacking me and she ran over and started wailing on it with a dagger I gave her. I love her. (Supplement with this mod, which lets her wear actual child clothes. Because sometimes with mods that add non-human children, the clothes are glitchy bc the mod uses the adult models of those races that already exist in the game, just… make them smaller, lmao.)  

Adopt Aventus Aretino - Because when he grows up he wants to be an assassin, just like you.

Lucy and Louis - Adoptable vampire children, because why the hell not.

Marriable Serana - Because why isn’t she romanceable already? (+ Hearthfire addon, to allow her to move into homes added by the Hearthfire DLC.)

Khajiit Black Market - Adds black market merchants to taverns across Skyrim. They sell useful stuff like spellbooks, all kinds of soul gems, rarer alchemy ingredients (e.g. nirnroot, daedra hearts), etc. - and, of course, skooma and moon sugar.

Kidmer - Adds a bunch of adoptable mer children to the game. Because it’s weird that only human children exist in Skyrim.

Beast Kids - Adds Argonian and Khajiit children to the game.

Adopt Beast Kids - More Argonian and Khajiit children, but adoptable.

Dominions More Khajiit - Just adds more Khajiit NPCs throughout Skyrim (and not just enemies - they’re NPCs with specific names and present in different factions, e.g. in the Companions and Dark Brotherhood).

Dovahbit of Caerbannog - Super cute immortal bunny follower that wears tiny helmets and carries all your stuff. Seriously.

Friendly Brynjolf - Makes it so he doesn’t keep blowing you off with the same one-liner after completing the main Thieves Guild questline. Also makes him marriable.

Quests:

The Paarthurnax Dilemma - Makes it so you can say “fuck off, I’m not killing the penitent dragon, he’s just minding his business on top of his mountain and talking at clouds” to the Blades and the quest won’t just indefinitely hang around in your quest journal forever because you refuse to kill Paarthurnax because who would want to do that. But also if you do want to kill Paarthurnax for some reason, this mod apparently adds dragons who will defend him from your treachery.

Wyrmstooth - This one adds a whole new region and questlines to the game, but it’s been taken off Nexus (it was the same author as Extended Encounters). I’m mentioning it bc it’s worth knowing about in case it ever gets put back up.

Falskaar - Adds a new region and questlines.

The Forgotten City - This one’s hard to explain so I’ll just say I highly recommend it and give you the description as provided by the mod creator: “a murder mystery investigation set in an ancient underground city. You’ll need to solve it using your wits, and the ability to travel through time. It has a dark, non-linear story in which you’ll interrogate suspects, explore the city and its many secrets, and navigate challenging moral dilemmas. It features multiple endings, an original orchestral score, and professionally voiced dialogue.”

Following Mercer: A Thieves Guild Quest - A short questline that takes place after the main Thieves Guilt questline. You kinda just follow clues to find Mercer’s hiding places for all the loot he stole, and also kick his now-ethereal ass a few more times.

Markarth Undercity - Really cool questline. In case you wanted to spend more time in Markarth, but underground this time.

New Markarth Adventures - Because hell is Markarth.

Helgen Reborn - I literally just installed this one for my newest playthrough so I don’t have much to say about it yet, but it looks interesting. Make sure you don’t have this one active until after you finish “Unbound” (the first quest in the game, where you escape from Helgen) because otherwise you get stuff like this.

Legacy of the Dragonborn - This is a HUGE mod. It adds a museum in Solitude for you to put all of your collectibles (including collectibles from several player-created mods that are either packaged with it or compatible with it), as well as its own questlines.

Moonpath to Elsweyr - Adds a new questline that lets you travel to Elsweyr. Can be a bit glitchy, though - like, in some of my previous playthroughs, it would make all sabre cats in the game invisible, lmao. It’s packaged with Legacy of the Dragonborn if you decide to use that one, and I don’t have the invisible-sabre-cat problem anymore ever since uninstalling the standalone Moonpath to Elsweyr and just using Legacy of the Dragonborn, so ymmv.

Missing Apprentices - This just fixes the unfinished Missing Apprentices quest in the vanilla game.

Armor/weapons/items:

Immersive Armors and Immersive Weapons - Both add a ton of new armor and weapons to the game.

PrivateEye’s Heavy Armory - Adds a ton of new weapons and variety to the game.

More Interesting Loot - What it says on the tin.

LC_Immersive Looting - More loot items, like above.

EK Ring Limiter - Toggle how many rings you want your character to be able to wear at once.

Cloaks of Skyrim - Cloaks! Cloaks everywhere!

Amulets of Skyrim - Now with more amulets!

Konahrik’s Accoutrements - Dragon Priest Armory - This is another one I just added and I’m not far enough along in my playthrough to be able to see any of the content yet, but supposedly it’s pretty good.

The Gray Cowl of Nocturnal - If you’re in for some Oblivion nostalgia.

Skyrim’s Unique Treasures - If you’re the collecting type.

Improved Closefaced Helmets - Better meshes for the closed-face headgear in the game.

Skill Book Overhaul - Adds more skill books to the game. I just added this one yesterday but so far I like it.

Royal Armory - Just added this one yesterday, too. Adds some unique weapons for certain prominent characters.

Unique Weapons Redone - Gives unique weapons actual unique appearances, rather than just looking like common weapons with added enchantments.

Recurve Longbows, Recurve Longbows - Dawnguard, Recurve Longbows - Dragonborn - Add longbows to the game. They do more damage and have a longer range, but the pullback time is longer, so it’s a nice balance. There’s also a really cool longbow you can get once you unlock the Dragonrend shout - it’s basically a longbow with an enchantment that has the same effect as the Dragonrend shout, and it’s great (especially if you have one of those More Dragons mods installed).

Diamond Smithing Collection - A series of mods for craftable gemstone weapons and armor.

Light Armor Hoods - Craftable hoods.

Thieves and Assassins - A Better Rewards and Treasure Mod - Makes it so the loot you find will be more oriented toward thief and assassin characters (light armor, daggers, bows, etc.). Nice if you’re like me and usually play the exact same type of character and have little use for heavy armor or two-handed weapons.

Player homes:

Elysium Estate - My favorite player home mod so far. It’s gorgeous and detailed, has toggle-able displays for unique items (Thieves Guild quest items, dragon claws, dragon priest masks, Daedric artifacts, etc.), a guest house for followers outside, planters outside for planting your own garden, tons of storage for specific items, a lot of bookshelves, a bunch of crafting stations in the basement (Skyforge/smelter/grindstone/workbench, alchemy and enchanting tables), its own cow and goat and chickens (they have names any everything and they’re coded as necessary NPCs, so you don’t have to worry about the constantly-spawning dragon in that area killing them). There’s a cute little backstory (it belonged to a gardener who worshiped Kynareth and is passing it on to the next worthy person) but there’s no quest to get it, you just have to read a note on the front door and find the key, so you can basically access it in the very beginning of the game. It’s also compatible with Hearthfire multiple adoptions, so there’s an option for six children’s beds.

Breezehome FullyUpgradable - This is my second-favorite player home mod, and it was my go-to before I found Elysium Estate. It adds a lot more storage, displays, etc., but my favorite thing about it was that it added a basement area with a library, a secret entrance accessible from a cave outside Whiterun, and crafting stations with autochests. Basically, when you access a specific storage container (smithing chest, alchemy ingredient bag, etc.) it automatically scans your inventory and gives you an option to automatically empty all applicable items into that container, rather than having to go through and put away each item yourself. It’s also hooked up to the crafting stations - so if you activate the forge/workbench/grindstone, it automatically adds everything from the smithing chest to your inventory, and then automatically puts it all back when you’re done. It’s pretty convenient.

Khajiit-related mods:

I basically always play a Khajiit, so I have a lot of mods specific to beast races.

Amazing Race Tweaks - Khajiit - Different passive race abilities for Khajiit. I also have this supplemental mod installed to cancel out the jumping bonus - jumping very high is fun but it takes twice as long to come back down and that was annoying for my impatient ass. (Amazing Race is a series btw, there are versions for other races besides Khajiit.) Also check out Passive Race Abilities.

Khajiit Speak - Complete Dialogue Overhaul - Makes playing as a Khajiit a LOT more immersive. It changes your dialogue choices to match the dialect of the rest of the Khajiit in the game (e.g. use of the third-person rather than the first-person), and also adds Khajiit-specific bits of lore (e.g. using the Khajiit names for the various gods). Also, lots of sarcasm - it’s pretty great.

Khajiit Ears Show - Headgear doesn’t hide the kitty ears. This is a TES5Edit script so it requires you to use that. I honestly have no clue what I’m doing with TES5Edit but I followed the instructions in the mod description and somehow got it to work, so… 

Coverkhajiits - More high res textures for Khajiit.

Digitigrade Beast Races - Gives Khajiit proper paws for feet. Also gives Argonians raptor feet. Compatible with the armor in the main game and DLC, but not always compatible with new armor from other mods.

Better Claws and Gauntlets - Actually see the claws on Argonians and Khajiit. Like above, not always compatible with armor added by other mods. And if you’re not wearing gauntlets, the claws usually don’t show.

Dawnguard Glowing Vampire Eye Fix - Lets Orc, Argonian, and Khajiit vampires have glowy vampire eyes.

Beast Skeletons - Adds Mer, Khajiit, and Argonian skulls and skeletons. Because it gets boring seeing only human skeletons everywhere. (It’s mostly lore-friendly, so you won’t come across a bunch of nonhuman skeletons in the ancient Nord burial sites or anything like that.)

[thelongestdamnreviews]

Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen

I forgot to get a screenshot of the title, so here's a picture of me stabbing a cyclops in the head with the logo watermarked on the image.

I saw that Dragon's Dogma was in the December Humble Monthly and I had some interest in the game, so I jumped on it for $10.80 with a few other games.  I wound up finishing the game at 53 hours and finishing the postgame to unlock New Game Plus at 65.  I played the game with the Xbox 360 controller only.  I took my time, but I didn't complete all of the quests or even touch Bitterblack Isle (DLC area).  I played a little of each class but stuck mostly with Strider/Assassin.

Life in Cassardis is pretty nice as a fisherman.  The days pass by in absolute peace and you couldn't be happier.  And then one day, a dragon attacks your village and you feebly attempt to fight it off, only to get your heart ripped out of your chest for your trouble.  But you don't die.  You become something more than human, an Arisen, an ageless but not immortal being challenged by the dragon to reclaim your heart.  But along the way, there are many people who need help, and what better way to sharpen one's skills than slaying countless monsters and taking their loot?  

Nope, it's not even one of those conceptual hearts like the shape.  It's your actual, beating heart the thing takes!

Dragon's Dogma is a third-person action RPG.  To me, it felt a little like a mishmash of elements from The Elder Scrolls, Dark Souls, Shadow of the Colossus, and even Phantasy Star Online.  It still manages to stand as a unique product all the same, though.  The game takes place in a wide-open sandbox like TES, the combat is weighty like Dark Souls, there is climbing on giant enemies like SotC, and the team aspect reminds me of PSO though your allies are all AI-controlled.  You jump, you swing your weapon, you'll probably get knocked down, stunlocked, and die a few times starting out.  What I liked about the world was that enemies don't scale, like in Morrowind or Dark Souls.  If you go to an area you aren't meant to be in for a while, you'll certainly feel it in the encounters.  But on the other hand, you'll eventually hit a point where you overpower your enemies.  

Health had an interesting mechanic I've only seen in fighting games prior--a recoverable damage portion of the bar.  You have a green health bar, representing your current health, and when you take damage, you may have some white health bar, which represents how much magic and some other effects can heal you.  Grey/black bar is completely gone and can only be restored with items, resting, and some other things.  If you have a healer and neglect to take any restoratives, you can still be whittled to death, so keep that in mind.  Stamina governs all skill use, be it weapon or magic, as well as sprinting, clinging to giant enemies, holding objects/enemies/other people, and so on.  Thankfully, you can sprint infinitely in safe areas, so that's a very nice touch.  A weight meter pops up whenever you cross the next weight category threshold, and it's visible at all times when you're looking at the inventory.  

Sword, bow, or magic?  There are nine Vocations in DD, and they're all based around these archetypes and combinations of them.  A Fighter uses a sword and board to safely approach and dispatch enemies, while its advanced version Warrior uses only two-hander weapons to destroy enemies, and a hybrid Magick Knight can cast party-wide buffs and attack at range with unique spells as well as knock some heads in melee.  Each Vocation has nine ranks which determines the active skills and passive boons you can buy and equip, and each Vocation also adds a specific amount of points to your stats when you level up, so there is some potential for min-maxing.  You cannot sculpt an entirely-unique character out of all the skills you learn--for example, even though your Fighter can use a sword like the Assassin, you cannot use their Gouge ability.  Passive skills at least do transfer over, so there is still some flexibility to be had.  

Your Pawn is able to use six of the nine classes and they can learn and use skills exactly the same as you do.  You get to design your hero and their stalwart ally, the latter of whom will learn from your actions and attempt to act as you do when it comes to combat and other actions--this can be both good and bad, understandably.  Breaking off of combat to go pick flowers could result in your Pawn doing the same, just the same as clearing out the goblins escorting a cyclops first .  Monkey see, monkey do.  You are also able to hire two additional Pawns created by other players, though you've no impact nor control over their behavior or skills.  This is the most prevalent online aspect to the game (the other being an instanced fight against an optional superboss) and it's kinda neat to see how other people have built their helper, not only in appearance, but skills, behavior, and personality.  

Pawns are a lot more helpful than this picture leads you to believe, believe me.  

A neat thing about the character builder is that the features have a gameplay impact.  Apart from character height affecting hitbox, short and tall characters climb at different speeds, much like how a heavy character burns through (and recovers) stamina slower than a beanpole character, but they also don't flop around as much when a monster tries to shake them off while climbing.  Which is more important to you--stats or appearance?  You have specific things like faces and noses and eye shapes, and you can somewhat fine-tune them with sliders, like eyeball spacing or eyebrow height.  You're only able to pick hair/eye/skin color from a list as opposed to setting RGB values, but few games allow the latter.  There is a pretty wide variety of equipment for a number of slots:  Head, torso clothing, torso armor, leg clothing, leg armor, arms, a cloak, and two unseen jewelry slots.  Almost everything provides some modicum of defense, though some people would rather try to make an attractive ensemble out of the gear their class can use.  

The game repeatedly warns to be careful out in the wild during its loading screen tips, and it's not kidding.  While you are able to pause the game and spam health restores when things go poorly, you can't expect to do this and win every fight.  Part of combat is watching enemies and knowing when to block or dodge and when to strike back, but also striking to stagger or knockdown foes.  This applies mostly to the melee classes, but ranged classes need to make use of positioning and knowing where the enemies are, so one can't sneak up and interrupt your spell.  One neat thing is that you can actually grapple several non-giant foes that are staggered or downed--you can either pick them up direct to toss off a cliff for an easy kill, or hold them fast so your allies can get free shots while your opponent is vulnerable.  And your Pawns will do these too, so pay attention and work together to efficiently cut through everything in your way.  Just remember that even with a lantern, nights are still incredibly dark and spawns change depending on the time of day.  

When it comes to big monsters, you and your allies can and are encouraged to climb them, to gain better access to a weak point, to have a way to damage it even while it moves across the battlefield, or just to keep yourself safe from its attacks.  These fights are really where the teamwork aspect of the game shines.  You might climb on top of an armored cyclops to remove its helmet so your bow-using Pawns can drill its eye with arrows.  You might have a Mage pawn enchant your weapons with fire, which you then use to knock a griffon out of the sky by setting its wings on fire.  You might also hold on for dear life while the thing you're clinging to rages, pausing to replenish your dwindling stamina.  And the battle music changing as you've got the beast on its last legs is a nice touch too.  The controls are the only really bad part because it turns into tank controls (left/right to turn as opposed to move left/right) and it can be difficult to tell which way you're moving sometimes.  

Quests are your standard "kill X things" or "get Y items" and there are several optional escort quests.  There are no different storyline quests like the guilds in TES games, so that might be a letdown to some.  Several quests are given out on the notice boards in various safe areas, and these generally automatically reward you when you meet the criteria--though with some, you might suddenly find yourself with an extra heavy weapon you weren't accounting for, impacting your looting.  Other quests tend to deal more directly with people, as there's a somewhat obscure affection system which has some impact on the ending.  If you do some quests for one person and they start blushing with a pink glow around their heads while talking to you, you might have stolen someone's heart yourself.  

And speaking of thieves of hearts...

Music overall isn't bad.  Most people speak with a British accent or at least inflection (pretend that makes sense), and the dialog is a little dated.  Not like Elizabethan, but I can't remember ever hearing "aught" or "afore" before.  It kinda stands out to me, especially given how much Pawns tend to talk.  Pawns will make comments about things, either randomly or in proximity, and they'll note enemies and what strategies work if they know them.  There are only so many voiced lines so you'll be hearing them quite a bit, but that kinda lends the game a bit of charm.  I wound up using a trainer to adjust the sound levels due to the game assuming you're using headphones or surround sound, which I wasn't.  Look up the game on PCGamingWiki for information about that.  

The only really glaring problems I had were with the save system, fast travel, and combining.  There's only one save slot.  If you start a new game after having a save already, you erase it.  Thank goodness there's a mod for a save manager (or just using Steam Family Sharing) but that's still pretty limiting for a game like this.  The game also autosaves, but it's somewhat unreliable.  I have lost a couple of hours due to reloading a checkpoint save despite a manual save being more recent, but just get into the habit of manual save/loads.  There is fast travel, but it requires Portcrystals in the world and Ferrystones in your inventory.  There are a few Portcrystal stations placed in the world you can teleport to after an early quest, and there are portable Portcrystals you can place and warp to at almost any time--but there are only four in one run of the game and you can place a max of ten in subsequent loops, giving you a total of 13 warps with the three permanent locations.  And you are able to combine the things you find in the wild and buy in stores together to generate new items.  For example, a Shackle plus one of different kinds of metals gives a Skeleton Key, or you can combine herbs together to create more potent curatives.  When you select an item to start combining, you are given a list of known secondary items and the final product if known.  My issue is that there's no way to have that in reverse, a list of things you've made and when accessed, gives a list of every combination that makes it.  A minor issue I'll admit, but not having to consult a guide to remember how to make a Cerulean Concoction would've been a nice quality of life improvement.  At least you can do it right in the field instead of needing to be back home with your specialized equipment.  

Overall, I liked Dragon's Dogma.  I hyped myself a bit and it didn't quite make the mark, but I had a great time with it.  Just wish it was possible to have multiple characters without mods, so I could make specialized people like I always make in TES.  It controlled well and it was nice to have a small team at my back for an ARPG outing, and for the AI to mostly work well.  And slightly spoilery, but the final act (before postgame) was pretty satisfying.  When I think of a final boss dragon, this is kinda how I want the fight to go.  Even though it took me a little while during the actual fight because I kept getting grabbed or knocked off.  The game was a decent challenge, mostly at the start, but a lot of difficulty can be mitigated with a good team setup and bringing along the right items...and knowing your enemy, of course.  

Here we go again!  And wow at the timing on this shot.  

They're masterworks, all.  You can't go wrong.  

[vocatharsis]

Cogs’ TS2 Apocalypse Run (XI)

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Out of intense nostalgia, I started revisiting The Sims 2 early this year. I got the online Ultimate Edition with all DLC via Origin -- after making my case to support -- and had a lot of fun with it! After stumbling across a variety of old challenge runs, I decided that I would try out an apocalypse challenge (specifically Phaenoh’s tiered, mod-enforced version on Mod The Sims, check it out, it’s great). On my first attempt, I failed quite badly. But this time, things are going much better. 

I’ve resolved to see this attempt all the way through, and document it in post form. If you like any games from the Sims series, nostalgic videogame reflections and/or challenge run blogging, feel free to read on!

THE SMITHS’ FREE STATE, PART 11 -- SIMS FALLING OVER

Teenage romcoms are back, baby -- boot camp: fun? -- grow old, stop wearing smart clothes to work -- another tragic fashion victim of the apocalypse.

Welcome! It’s my first one of these in about a month, ‘cos I’ve been on uni holidays and with the advent of the dreaded Steam summer sale this year I’ve been romping my way through a bunch of delicious indie titles (including Frostpunk, A Hat In Time, Subnautica, and now Darkest Dungeon - all great). It occurs to me that I have a bit of an image backlog, so I’ll use this post as an opportunity to refresh my memory as I’ll get back into the Apocalypse once I’ve finished the last little bit of Darkest. 

So, quick recap: Aaron & Forseti, the aspiring law and order twins, have made it to teenhood. Juan, spouse to Panoptica (heir of the household’s second generation), made it to the top of the Architecture career track, which means I’m finally allowed to extend the house beyond its initial 8x8 square and put down John’s military obstacle course. This thing builds Body skill wayyy faster than Yoga, so it’ll be great for Aaron, who needs to work out to top Law Enforcement. 

Oh, and Amanda Carlson -- Forseti’s intended future spouse -- came over to build up the relationship meter, only to get scared by Sake’s ghost and wet herself.

Sake doesn’t seem to ever spook members of the household... perhaps ghost pets don’t harass Sims they were friends with in life? If this is the case, then I’ll have to be very careful with future generations...

Aaron’s hitting it off with Tosha Go, a teen townie who walked down the street at some point. They’ve been flirting for a while, so it’s about time for the first ever teen romance of the apocalypse!

N’awww. 

(Odd observation: Whenever another Sim uses the bathroom, everyone always seems to get a thought bubble over their head with a cross superimposed on that person’s portrait. I mean, it’s not like you need those facilities right now?)

The adults are getting themselves some handy extra aspiration points by grinding Body skill points on the obstacle course (thank you, Knowledge), and I’ve definitely taken way too many pictures of people using it, because it just gives so many good photo opps:

But while they were doing this, I noticed something unexpected. According to the career rewards panel I accessed this object from, the course doesn’t raise Fun. Which I guess would make sense to me; fallin’ on yer arse trying to climb a wall made of wood doesn’t seem like my idea of a good time. Then... why is Juan’s maxed-out fun meter not going down while he spends hours crawling around in the dirt...?

You know what this means? The obstacle course, for whatever reason, is Fun. This means I can start training Aaron up while he’s still a teen. (Showbiz Pet rules - which I can’t lift for a while - prevent children and teens from skilling with any object that doesn’t increase the Fun need at the same time.) And that means more adorable pictures of People Falling Over.

John’s getting on in his old age, and wants to max out all of his skills. I figure I might as well oblige; he can’t sleep in anymore now that he’s an Elder, and he needs something to pass his remaining time.

The two brothers have slightly different attitudes to all the exercise they’re now doing:

Panoptica and Juan are drawing ever closer to Elderhood, so I took a few romantic pictures of the two of them in their top-rank work uniforms. (There’ll be more romantic diversity, definitely, once adoption becomes a valid method for lifting restrictions - I think Law is the thing for that? So -- next generation, basically.)

I love this goddamn power couple, just look at them

Here’s hoping they get decent clothes to die in when their hair turns grey!

Forseti is the first of the two twins to max out the Body skill, no doubt due to his ultra-Active personality...

He’s not even gonna be using those Body skill points for anything, yet look how triumphant he is. (He mastered the skill almost immediately after I took that image.)

Well, Panoptica and Juan’re gonna grey up, so let’s get Juan to go first. 

Whatever clothes he gets as an elder, I don’t really think they’ll be better than what he’s currently got. (If he’s lucky, he’ll get something John-tier. But there are many, many outfits in this game.)

Swoon all you want, girl; this is the last time his thought bubble’s gonna look like that good.

The whole family are here to celebrate. And Jessica Picaso is here, because she followed John home from work

And now: will Juan’s clothes age gracefully?

No! They won’t! :)

Looks like boxer shorts and a polo shirt, more or less. I think this is better than poor Kent’s obnoxious orange suspenders, though? (The suspenders which, coupled with those old world blues, drove the poor man to red aspiration levels?)

Now, much as I love Juan, I took way more pictures of Panoptica’s ghost-clothes presentation aging-up ceremony, for the simple reason that Panoptica is all-round awesome.

(The best picture from this scene is hands-down the one I used as a preview above the cut. She did the little ‘pretend boxing’ animation, and it was just a great last bit of magic.)

I’m thinking, will she at least get better death clothes than her spouse? 

She does.

Not bad, not bad!! Certainly more apropos than what Shelmerdine got stuck with.

Juan’s happy with it too, it seems.

just make your wife’s sixtieth birthday awkward by making raunchy remarks in front of yer two kids, just do it

Buuuut those two are both good now. In fact, since they had their kids pretty early on, we’re actually one day off Aaron & Forseti reaching adulthood. I’m thinking I’ll invite Tosha over, so I can use that ‘select NPCs to age up’ feature. Give them some adulthood sweetheart time while I wait for Forseti to unlock the ability to move Sims out. (That way, I can actually marry off both twins, and have their children count as able to lift restrictions.)

The twins’ll be aging up within the same 24 hours, so I invited Amanda Carlson as well. 

Amanda will (ideally) lift Business restrictions, since she starts off as a President (rank 8). Tosha, meanwhile, I’m thinking Journalism (doesn’t lift much, but I can get it out of the way with a married-in character, yeah?)

Hm! Ok, he was in his athletic outfit when he blew out the candles - I don’t know what his everyday apparel looks like yet.

Everyone’s celebrati-- wait

What. The hell is that. 

I’m terrified. But intrigued at the same time. I’ll get him to have a shower and thus change into his daywear so I can see the full extent of the damage shortly, but first, we need to age up his girlf...

Cute!

Ubercute!

(I mean-- since Townies tend to be at green aspiration by default, I did get a notification in the top right-hand corner of her going wow that part of my life was shit to go along with this dashing smile. But I suppose being a Townie means only half-existing, and becoming playable is like being selected to receive a soul, so, comparatively, her adulthood will be infinity times better.)

While I’m getting Forseti set up to blow out his birthday candles, Aaron goes to take a shower. Let us now take a moment to lament how the apocalyse has claimed another helpless fashion victim. 

A suit made out of what might be fake snakeskin, and a wreath made out of what the remaining restrictions dictate must be some scavenged AstroTurf. Law and order will be returned to the Free State, perhaps, but taste will remain a site of anarchy for some time.

Now for Forseti to make the transition. I have so many awesome shots of everyone posing for this birthday:

A staple of this Apoc Run is getting excited for new outfits! 

Or, in this case, an alternate palette of the exact same outfit. 

Still -- here we are! Both twins have made it to adulthood, and are ready to start bringing Law and Enforcement back to society. 

I’ll need to do one more post to get through my current batch of snapshots, but after that, I’m officially back to doing this. If you’ve been reading these updates, thanks for reading this one; hope it was enjoyable! 

[baburaja97-blog]

New Post has been published on Vin Zite

New Post has been published on https://vinzite.com/batman-arkham-city-3d-review/

Batman: Arkham City 3D Review

3D saves a PC game plagued with bugs and a missing DX11.

Chances are you know who Batman is. If not, he’s this dude who wears tights and likes to swing around tall buildings. Not to be confused with Spiderman, who also wears tights and likes to swing around tall buildings. Chances are you have also played Batman: Arkham Asylum and know the score. If not, Batman Arkham Asylum is a third-person action-adventure game based on that Batman guy. Batman: Arkham Asylum was developed by Rocksteady Studios and was released in 2009. It was a good year to be a Bat, and the game was met with rave reviews and its fair share of awards.

Batman: Arkham City is the sequel to the successful Arkham Asylum. Arkham City is a maximum security prison for the nastiest criminals that Gotham City has to offer. As chance would have it, Bruce Wayne gets his ass tossed into Arkham City for opposing the new prison’s existence, and is forced to go all “Escape from New York”. Within moments, Bruce manages to score his crime-fighting equipment and become his alter ego, Batman. We all watch TV, anything can be got in prison if you know the right people. I don’t want to get all nuts with spoilers, so let’s sum up the story by saying that Catwoman drops in, Batman runs into an old flame, fails to get laid, Robin makes a brief appearance and Alfred is only a radio signal away. On “team naughty”, Batman bumps into a load of our favorite baddies, including Harley Quinn (damn, she’s annoying), Two-Face, Mr. Freeze (possibly the toughest boss fight of the game), The Joker, Penguin, Hugo Strange, Poison Ivy, Clayface and plenty more crazies.

Batman: Arkham City is a single-player game with the main storyline which sees Batman seeking a cure to a disease which could wipe out a superhero or two. In addition to the main story, you will regularly unlock side missions, which can either be completed right away or put aside for later. The side missions are just as good as those that are included in the main story, which makes for a lot of awesome added gameplay. In addition to the side missions, you’ve got the Riddler to contend with. Cataloging and collecting Riddler’s trophies is an addictive game within the game. Then there are the challenge maps, which make for some excellent mindless melee fun. Challenge maps are unlocked as you play through the game, and more are available in DLCs. There are three funky flavors to hone your Bat-skills with, including ranked leaderboard combat, timed campaigns, and custom rules.

Technical

In Arkham City, there is always a superhero around when people need one, in real life, there certainly was no superhero around to help me gain access to the game. First, you enter your key on Steam, then you enter your key for SecuRom (if you’re lucky it accepts it the first time; I was not lucky), then you have to tie it all together with Games for Windows Live. GFWL was the primary bottleneck. I spent an hour trying to log in to GFWL as it gave me some song and dance about needing to update. Like really, what’s the point of this kind of layering? The games are going to get pirated all the same, and according to many, the reason the PC version of Arkham City was delayed was so that they could maximize sales from the console versions first.

When Batman: Arkham City has released just over two weeks ago, PC gamers were disappointed to find out that DX 11 was buggered. Upon launch, Rocksteady immediately recommended DX 9, as reports of DX 11 performance issues began making the rounds. People wondered how something like this, a selling point like DX 11, could have made it through testing and out the door for launch. It took a couple of weeks, but a DX 11 patch was finally released. The outcome was not really worth the wait, and many are still plagued with low FPS and game-breaking bugs. I consider myself one of the lucky, as I only spent about four hours dealing with crashes and bugs that would not allow me to proceed further in the game.

Arkham City comes with a built-in benchmark tool, so using both that and Fraps I grabbed some quick stats to share. Right before publishing this review a patch was released for Batman: Arkham City, which in part addresses the DX 11 issues. Running Alienware M17x laptop /w NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M and 6GB RAM / 3D Vision (not 3D Vision 2), at 1920 x 1080. Both DX 9 and DX 11 were run with all settings max, including detail level, tessellation, and PhysX.

The DX 11 patch seems to be hit and miss. For many people, it solved the issue of poor frames while running DX 11. For others, it buggered things up even more. For me, the patch DID improve FPS in DX 11, but oddly lowered frames with DX 9. Go figure.

On my system, the best settings for performance and aesthetics are DirectX 11 (very high) and PhysX set to “Normal”, this works out perfectly both with and without 3D Vision enabled.

Combat

Combat in Arkham City is ridiculous, while also being ridiculously fun. Here’s the ridiculous bit… there were very few times during the game that I needed any sort of strategy in order to win an encounter. A couple of bosses had an attack pattern that had to be learned in order to defeat them, but outside of that, you can literally finish the game by repeatedly hitting your left mouse button. In fact, I broke a mouse playing Arkham City. Yup, button-mashed it to death. While using special attacks makes combat more fun, it isn’t actually necessary. Now for the ridiculously fun part… combat is an absolute joy to watch, and even if you don’t have mad take-down skills, the simple act of punching, kicking and evading is wicked fun. That said, if you want to kick ass on the challenge maps then you’ll need a bit more than button-mashing. The challenge maps are slightly more skill-based and if you want to rank then you’ll have to use combos and special moves.

Sometimes I thought I preferred combat while playing as Catwoman because she’s mean, lean and fast as hell. But after a while, I’d sort of start missing the Bat. Both characters have their own missions, skills, and gadgets, but the character I really would have liked to play is Robin. While the Robin Bundle DLC will allow you to play the Boy Wonder, you will only be able to do so on challenge maps. I’d rather be able to play him inside missions like you can with Catwoman. Sadly, Robin’s appearance in the game was very brief, and although he was looking buff, tough and not at all like the Robin we all grew up with, Batman simply bitched him out and told him to piss off. So that was that.

NVIDIA 3D Vision

One of my first experiences with 3D was seeing Friday The 13th Part 3 in 3D. I walked five miles through the snow with no shoes to see it at the theater. It was crap, but exciting at the same time, and it was the best we had. For the next quarter century, I would associate 3D with eye strain and headaches. Whenever I post about 3D Vision on VE3D the post is met with comments like “I’m too old for 3D, I don’t need the eye strain” or “3D gives me headaches”. Exactly the things that I had always associated with it. Well, Toto, it looks like we’re not in Kansas anymore! This ain’t grandma’s 3D. I’ll admit that I’ve reached the age where reading glasses come in handy. I didn’t have much interest in 3D. Mostly I was afraid to try it because I thought my head would explode. I guess I had read into the old school hype a bit too much. But I survived 3D, and am loving every second of it. Eye of the tiger baby, an eye of the tiger. Plus I look cool in the glasses.

Since I just recently began gaming in 3D, my experiences are limited. What I have noticed so far is that 3D Vision adds an extra layer of realism to games. 3D games come alive, giving you a greater feeling of actually being there. In Batman: Arkham City this is especially true, particularly when grappling around the city and using gadgets. Even cut scenes are great in 3D. All of the villains in Arkham City look amazing and force you to keep watching, even if you don’t normally enjoy cut scenes. Graphics look sharper, and cleaner and flaws that you would see while out of 3D tend to get smoothed over. If I was to slap a number on Batman: Arkham City without 3D Vision, the game would land a 7/10 (70%). While Arkham City is a truly entertaining trip through the gutters of Gotham, the bugs and the graphic issues that the game shipped with are not acceptable. Waiting over two weeks for a half-assed patch is also not acceptable.

Because 3DV enhanced my Arkham City experience, Batman: Arkham City 3D is a 9/10 (90%), and worth its weight in guano.

What I Liked:

Gloom and doom atmosphere makes for some very immersive gameplay.

The story is actually interesting, you’ll want to watch the cutscenes.

Both Batman and Catwoman show wear and tear in their costumes as the game go on.

Catwoman side-missions, it was fun to take a break from Batman and spend some time crawling on ceilings.

Challenge maps are a good workout and a nice change of pace, actually requiring some combat skill.

Voice acting is great.

I can’t wait to get back in and collect more Riddler trophies.

Arkham City is totally engrossing, and the experience is even further enhanced when playing in 3D.

What I Didn’t Like:

A three-layer activation process.

No side-missions for Robin.

Getting stuck to my Batarang on a block of ice for two hours.

Spending another two hours trying to figure out why I couldn’t dive-bomb.

I would have loved to see Arkham City in the daylight.

A little too much traveling back and forth across the city.

Combat, while fun to watch, requires no skill.

Crashing during the closing cinematic.

Finishing the game before a DX 11 patch was released.

Trying to find a good tutorial on 3DV video rendering.