Collection of Interesting things

I have been driven out of my silence to write some words about where I’ve been spending all of my time lately - Skyrim! 

To be honest, I’m not sure what I can say. I’m not sure if there is anything to say that has not already been said before in the countless tales of adventuring and awesome anecdotes that have been spreading across the internet for the past few weeks or so.

By far the best of these is the story of Lydia, her life, her death and the quest to find her frail and lifeless body (and the ultimately failed attempt to resurrect her). You should totally go there and read it.

However, that’s somebody else’s story and the great thing about Skyrim is that, like almost no other game I’ve ever played, it enables players to create their own game and their own experiences. Yes, all players will inhabit the same world with the same towns, cities, castles and ancient dungeons. You will likely meet the same characters, join the same guilds or organizations and will find you start in exactly the same place as everyone else, however from there on in what you do is completely your choice.

You’re free to wonder around the fantastical world of Skyrim doing as you please. Fancy frittering away a couple of hours chopping wood? Fine. What about hunting wild Elks with your bow on the vast beautiful plains outside Whiterun before skinning their hide, creating some lovely leather to be sold on or fashioning into armour.

If that’s all a little too calm and you’re after something a little more exciting you could try my favourite past time, base jumping off massive cliffs. The trick, of course, is to make sure you land in the deep blue water, and not on the rock hard, well, rocks!

You’ll notice that I’ve not mentioned the main story yet. The quest to rid Skyrim of the returning dragons. In fact, I’ve not mentioned any quests. That’s because they are likely to be the last things you do. This is clearly preaching to the Oblivion and playing choir (as well as the Morrowind playing bell-ringers and the Fallout 3 playing organist!). It’s been the same way in all of Bethesda’s RPG output of course, but here in Skyrim it just seems better, the mechanics tighter and the fun condensed.

In a world where you can join a bloody civil war and fight mighty giants, the only thing I want to do with my time is climb to the top of a mountain and watch the sunset.

This goes a long way towards explaining why I (or more precisely Mok, my sneaky Wood Elf archer bloke) have spent 35 hours in Skyrim and I’ve still not scratched the surface. There are 9 cities in Skyrim and I’ve only seen 3. Despite being a perfect candidate for them, Mok still hasn’t joined the Thieves Guild or the always brilliant Dark Brotherhood. I’ve only completed 2 or 3 quests in the main storyline, which is more than enough to know that the threat of the dragons can wait for a little while longer yet!

It’s safe to say Skyrim has got its dirty little claws in me more than any game since Mass Effect 2, and Skyrim is playing with the disadvantage of not including Miranda! 

Oh Miranda, how I miss you! Lyndia is no real substitute!

I’m going to try and keep this place updated with the tales of my adventures and next time, if you’re lucky, if you’re really lucky, I’ll introduce you to Mok!

My first review has just gone live over at Punchboard Kings where I take a look at Fantasy Flight’s Space Hulk Death Angel. It’s a hard game to review for a couple of reasons, not leasts because it’s bigger brother constantly lumbers over it.

To be fair it’s hard to compare the two. Ones a massive classic 2 player legend of a game going for over £100 on ebay, the other’s a small cooperative card game which can be easily picked up at most game stores for around £20.

If you want to read what I thought, pop over to PBK for my review.

Hello there. Welcome to my personal Tumblr bloggy thingy! It’s still a work in progress so please be patient!

For years I’ve been posting all my (not-so-)interesting things over on Twitter and more recently Google+, however, I thought it was about time I started my own blog. A little virtual dwelling in a rarely visited corner of the internet to call my own!

Don’t expect too much action here though, if you’re hungry for updates you’ll be better off following me on Twitter.

What you can expect here is a little football talk, discussions about the games I happen to be playing and maybe the odd book review.There will be other stuff too when I remember to post.

If you’re looking for my board game/card game stuff you need to point your browser in this direction.