Gameplay and Graphics

If you’ve seen the release trailer for Skyrim you know that the graphics are nothing less than stunning. They would have managed to really drag you into this new adventure by using purely the visual quality. From the very start when I had no idea what the story was about I had already fallen in love with the cold and brutal landscape being shown to me.

Merely looking at the different characters around the world makes you understand how much work was put into the small details that have a tendency to be overlooked by developers. I’m of course talking about things like tiny cuts in their faces; wrinkles and seeing as how this game takes place in something that resembles the Viking Age people are actually dirty. Which is a wonderful addition since the Vikings didn’t wash more than once a year.

Fear me, I have not washed!

These details really heighten the experience and with the new graphical engine they are beautifully rendered but gladly not to the point where they seem too real. Not only this but the environments are breathtaking especially when the rain starts pouring down or the snow begins to whirl around your feet.

One can’t say that this is like any other Elder Scroll title before it; you’re not allowed to choose a constellation at the start of the game for example. Instead you´ll choose a sign by finding something called a “standing stone” and selecting it in the world, there are thirteen in total. You don’t level with the use of experience but gain skill through things you do in the game, using a sword will raise your One Handed proficiency which in turn raises your level. This is simply wonderful because it happens so naturally.

There is something I’m a tad annoyed at however and that is the inventory and spells system, it is complicated and takes a long time to use. You have to first bring up the menu, then choose “inventory”, then scroll down to “weapons”, scroll through that list and choose. There is a way to put a certain spell, piece of clothing or tool of death as a “favorite” which makes the process a lot easier, but they should really have made an effort to simplify this.

Story

Here comes a part that has not been altered since Morrowind, which was the first Elder Scrolls title I ever played. Like in the previous stories you’re thrown into the world as a prisoner, this time being caught trying to escape Skyrim while a brutal civil war is raging in the country.

The two main rivaling factions are the Stormcloaks and the Imperial Legion, as with all civil wars both sides believe they’re best suited to rule. Right off the bat you’re introduced to Ulfric who is the leader of the Stormcloak rebellion, they seek to rid themselves of Imperial rule and become independent. This cannot stand so the Emperor dispatches his troops to quell the rebellion and bring back order to Skyrim.

Oooo, shiny.

During the first part of the game you learn that you’re something called “Dragonborn”, a mortal born with the blood of dragons flowing through their veins. These individuals have just but died out and slipped into legend. Being Dragonborn means that you’re one of the few who are able to permanently dispatch a dragon by absorbing its soul, which is great since they’ve just awakened again and are ravaging Skyrim which is already knee-deep in a bloody conflict.

Bethesda is known for creating large, involving storylines and they do not disappoint this time around either. When first starting my story I think I must have played about nine hours without stopping, except for food and toilet breaks of course. I’ve been playing the game for more than seventy hours and I’m still not finished with the main story. This is one of those games that is what you make it out to be. Depending on how much you explore the world the more you´ll be involved in the unfolding events.

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs

There is however a big flaw with most titles created by this developer, and that is the inclusion of game-breaking bugs. I had personally not seen a single one for the first thirty hours of playing and everything was running along smoothly. But when Bethesda released their first obligatory patch everything went from smooth to rocky as fuck, pardon my French.

Want to get launched into space?

I mentioned that I haven’t finished the main story yet, the one regarding the civil war in Skyrim, the reason for this is not because it takes a long period of time to run trough it as you might have thought. It has to do with the fact that the entire length of the quest is riddled with bugs and glitches that halt the entire experience.

When trying to hand in a mission you’ve finished for example a third option which should be available in a certain conversation isn’t there, which grinds everything to a complete standstill. I’ve tried doing other side quests to solve this, I’ve bashed the NPC with my mace, I’ve frozen her, I’ve rested and also re-loaded checkpoints over and over – nothing works.

I do not know if this has been fixed yet, but I surely hope so. And because of these issues I’ve been having with the game lately I cannot allow myself to give The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim as high a score as I would like to.

Music, Atmosphere and Customization

As we have all come to expect from Bethesda the music is absolutely wonderful and sets the mood perfectly for what’s happening on the screen. The sound of two swords trading metal or someone firing an arrow at your shield is really believable and only serves to pull you even further into the world.

I think I’ve mentioned this before but it is worth bringing up again, the atmosphere is of a quality that is very rare in today’s games. When looking at a pristine mountaintop with the snow swirling at your feet you can’t help but to bask in the glory which is Skyrim. Not to mention when a dragon flies over your head and kicks up the snow or dirt around you, or when it lands on the ground and makes the entire screen shake.

James has a Ph.D in Sneaking. Do you?

Being able to customize your items and characters is a big part of the game. You can create weapons and armor from metals and skins you find around the world, then improve them at a grinding stone. After you’re done with this simply head over to an enchanting table and place an ability on it so that it does extra fire damage. There is also the option of creating your own potions and all this raises your level as you gain skill.

There are no new races in Skyrim however, which is a bit dull if you ask me. Would have loved to see what new creatures they could have dreamed up, but the ones available are still tried and true. I recommend creating an Argonian because they are easily the best looking of the entire bunch.

Final Thoughts

Buying Skyrim was one of the best purchases I’ve made in quite a while; it’s a wonderful game to say the least. The story is glorious, the musical score is amazing and the graphical quality is nearly orgasmic. However – it suffers from bugs that are prone to severely damage the experience which is why I’m giving it a lower score than first intended.

Design: 9.1
Story: 8.8
Gameplay: 6.7
Presentation: 9.2

Total: 8.5

I probably only need to mention one game developer in order for 2012 to be a strong competitor to 2011 in terms of heavy-hitting game releases: Blizzard (activision). Starting off we’ve (almost surely) got a Diablo III release on our hands in early (hopefully Q1) 2012. I say almost surely because, as always, Blizzard assures us with quotes such as: “We will release it when it’s done” and “soon”, but as the first release date was expected in 2011 and the beta’s been going on for a while I think we’re pretty safe with a 2012 release. Diablo III continues the fight against the evil in the realm of Sanctuary, 20 years has passed since we fought against Diablo and his forces in Diablo 2. I won’t go into detail about the game, as much as I would like I feel like I’d go on a 1000 word story about the universe and why I am jumping up and down waiting for release. I will just say this: hours and hours of multiplayer (and/or singleplayer) fun, new bosses, new classes, real money auction houses and what I can only expect to be an incredibly epic storyline aided by amazing cinematics.

Blizzard also hope to release the second installment of Starcraft 2 in 2012, Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm. Where we play as Zerg in the campaign in order to help Sarah Kerrigan get control of the alien race. There will also be a lot of changes in the multiplayer, new units added, such as the Shredder, Viper and Oracle while some old ones get removed or changed, namely the Carrier, the Thor (now 1 max).

There might even be more coming from the Blizzard team as estimates have been made of a Mists of Pandaria release in Q4 2012, while a lot of people, including myself have long since given up on WoW they still do have incredible subscription numbers so I’m sure quite a few would really want a 2012 release for the newest expansion, although personally I think it’s a bit optimistic and I’d rather say it’ll come out early-mid 2013.

But Blizzard aren’t the only ones bringing something to the party in 2012, BioWare joins in with the highly anticipated final chapter of the Mass Effect-series: Mass Effect 3. Just like with ME 2 you will be able to import your previous characters into the game and in ME3 these will change the way the game ends, at least to some extent, which sounds really interesting. With a release date set to March 6th (US), 8th (AU) and 9th (EU) it looks like we have a great first quarter to look forward to.

2k Games also seems to have jumped on the sequel bandwagon with their tentative July 30th release date for the “Roleplaying Shooter” : Borderlands 2. Borderlands 2 continues five years after the events of the original game on the planet Pandora. Just like before you can play one of four characters, but none carry over from the first one, although their styles do look a bit familiar… but technically all playable characters are new ones. The storyline on the other hand brings back a lot of recognisible characters such as the mysterious guardian angel and claptrap.

There are a lot more games that will be released in 2012 but as you might understand we can’t name them all here. A few others are titles such as Max Payne III, Hitman: Absolution, SSX, Syndicate and Prototype 2. I’m sure the coming year will be a very productive one for all the game studios out there and we at Azuricate would like to end this segment by saying Happy New Year!

The market for PC peripherals is bigger than ever, especially when it comes to the gaming scene, looking back just a few years there weren’t that many manufacturers out there, this is no longer the case. Today there are plently of choises when you’re buying new peripherals to your PC, be it mice, keyboards, headsets or what have you. Many of them target the teenage computer gamers, with lots of flashy lights and “cool” effects, unfortunately these have a tendency to break within a short period of time because the company spent too much time on the looks instead of durability. Today I will be reviewing a mechanical keyboard from the, here in Sweden, lesser known company: Zowie.

The switch from standard to mechanical

I’ve been using the Celeritas for one month now and I must say that so far it’s been a pleasure testing this product. Switching from a “normal” keyboard to a mechanical one is a big change. The feel of the keyboard is entirely different, when I was using my old keyboard I thought it was perfectly fine, I had no big complaints apart from the fact that they seemed to break every few years. I won’t mention brands or models but I’ve covered pretty much every “gaming” peripheral brands all with similar impressions.

With that being said, naturally I was reluctant to spend €99 on a new keyboard that didn’t have any of the features that my old one had: No audio or microphone ports and no usb ports either. What made me take the step unto mechanical keyboards were the what seemed unanimous satisfaction of the people who had made the switch to mechanical.

So what did I get?

This is what arrived in the mail, possibly the cleanest presentation of a gaming keyboard, ever.

Simple & Stylish

What I found inside the box was the keyboard itself, well protected by styrofoam and a ps2/usb adapter… that’s it. There were no stickers or membership cards to some “exclusive gamer’s club”. This instantly gave me a really good feeling as it shows that they’ve put all their effort into the product itself instead of miscellaneous ”fanboy” items.

The keyboard is very clean looking, with only a subtly lit logo as well as the standard led lighting for the different locks (caps etc) and on the F9 key.

Cleanliness Keyboardified

The bottom of the keyboard is fitted with four rubber strips to prevent the keyboard from accidentally moving. There are two on the top and two on the bottom, each one about 1/4th the length of the keyboard, which is very nice to see.

Onto the keyboard itself

The Zowie Celeritas Pro is built with Cherry MX mechanical switches, specifically the Cherry MX Brown (if you want to read about the different switches have a read over here). The brown switches are pretty much the middle ground when it comes to switches, it requires a medium amount to actuate (press) and it does give you a “clicky” feedback sound everytime you press the key but it is not as loud as on other keyboards that uses other switches. As a first keyboard it felt safe going for the middle ground when treading new waters.

Using the keyboard while gaming I felt it being more responsive than my old one and it registered every keystroke without fail. I played some Starcraft 2 and I just wanted to push my APM (actions per minute) higher and higher because of the feedback I got from the keyboard. Just like everyone else I’ve also had my finals this month and I caught myself actually enjoying writing my papers, simply because it’s so easy to write on the keyboard.

While being a very simplistic keyboard the Celeritas does boast some features. Using the Zowie-Key, located where the right windows button usually is, you get access to simple media buttons (play, pause, next, previous). You can also change the speed at of which the keys register from 1x to 8x to make the keyboard even more usable in games (not recommended to use anything but x1 for typing as that’d completely mess it up for you).

Verdict

While the Celeritas Pro is fairly expensive at €99 if you’re used to the prices of standard keyboards it’s fairly square in the middle when compared to the market of mechanical ones. So how has this mid-range mechanical keyboard fared in our testing?

The build quality of Zowie’s Celeritas Pro is excellent, it is quite heavy and feels extremely sturdy, if you’re prone to nerd-raging I am confident this bad boy could take quite the beating.

The rubber strips on the bottom along with the weight results in a close to immovable object unless you’re lifting it. Which is really appreciated as accidentally moving your keyboard while typing or playing is extremely frustrating.

The mechanical keys are a pleasure to use and the sound it makes when you press the keys actually become really enjoyable after a while, especially when you’re typing as you kind of get into a rhythm. The feedback you get from pressing the keys is unmatched by non-mechanical keyboards, using the Celeritas feels a lot better than using a non mechanical keyboard and now when I use my laptop I miss the feel of the keyboard. If I’m gaming or typing, as I am doing now, I can honestly say I strongly prefer the Celeritas over my old keyboard and after using it for a month I would not go back to a non-mechanical keyboard.

It might be more expensive, yes but you actually do feel the difference, and I’m confident I’ve made the correct choice making the switch. Therefore I highly recommend everyone to at least try out a mechanical keyboard at the local electronics store and see how you like it, remember there are a lot of different switches to choose from, so find the type that suits you the best!

Performance: 5/5

Design: 4/5

Quality: 5/5

Features: 2/5

Price: 3/5

Overall:

Introduction

For a while now the team at Digital Illusions CE, known to most people as ”DICE”, had directed their attention at the Bad Company branch of the Battlefield franchise. The games themselves were good and came with a multiplayer side dish that was hard to overlook. But I and a lot of others were still to this day awestruck by the massive titan – Battlefield 2.

Building goes boom.

Completely revolutionizing the modern shooter by making people look at it in a whole new light. Battlefield 2 was released back in 2005 when the people at Infinity Ward were still releasing titles taking place in World War II. DICE proving time and time again that they’re ahead of the curve and this was truly their biggest success.

Infinity Ward backed by Activision later copied the modern style the newest edition of Battlefield had so skillfully shown the world. This in turn giving birth to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare in 2007 and it was in many ways an easier game. Placing a lot of focus on the single individual to carry a team rather than using the same team to achieve victory.

This started what I like to refer to as the “First Person Shooter War for Supremacy”. Fought between the Swedish studio DICE with their publisher Electronic Arts and Infinity Ward being backed by Activision the latter team won a whole lot of battles during the coming years. Now when Battlefield 3 has been released it seems like they didn’t win the war.

Gameplay and Graphics

I feel that the first point I should remark on is the new graphical engine used by DICE in Battlefield 3. Their earlier version of it was used for both Battlefield: Bad Company and the second game of that series. The newly upgraded and completely glorious engine is called Frostbite 2.0. Compared to others in the First Person Shooter genre this is the best graphical quality you can ever hope to find. But since I play on Xbox 360 I’m limited to what the console itself can manage, still looks gorgeous though.

Simply sublime.

People who play BF3 on their stationary computers have probably had an even greater impression of the quality than I thanks to the “Ultra” setting. However – to make a title look this good on the consoles isn’t easy and the team did an amazing job. Got nothing bad to say about the graphics at all, I haven’t noticed any bugs or mistakes which are in most instances unheard of in the gaming community.

When it comes to pure gameplay Battlefield has always taken the cake as far as I am concerned. Other titles like Modern Warfare for example have felt very stale in comparison, where as the Battlefield franchise has been able to really make you feel as if you’re really in the boots of a soldier.

Simple things such as the running make a big difference. Those of you who have played both these titles know what I’m talking about, on one hand we have Modern Warfare where you can sprint for roughly 5 seconds (unless you have the perk to run further). On the other you haven Battlefield which gives you have the ability to run as far as you want to without having to stop.

Makes one wonder what type of soldiers Infinity Ward were looking at when they were trying to find their inspiration. As far as I know it seems like they had a peek at the German soldiers back in World War II who were watching the beaches of Normandy. Since they didn’t fear an invasion they got lazy, and also fat. Whereas DICE studied real soldiers that are trained killing machines that don’t get a heart attack after a few yards of running.

Weapon handling is also significantly different, here it also feels a lot more natural than other shooters and a simple act as standing up on your feet from a prone position actually takes time. This means that you really have to consider laying down, if you do be prepared to die quickly if someone finds you. The same thing can be said about using your knife, not only is there an awesome sequence of you slicing the other player’s throat, but you’re also very exposed when doing it.

Singleplayer

Go here, do this.

This new installment of the series had a much more solid storyline and singleplayer experience than any of the previous games, which is why I’ve even decided to mention it. You start off by watching a cutscene where the soldier you’re playing as is being interrogated. Apparently two portable nuclear devices are unaccounted for and the story unfolds by using flashbacks.

It can easily be compared to the way Treyarch told their story in Call of Duty: Black Ops but if you’re a normal person like me you couldn’t care less. There are only so many ways you can go through a storyline in a game so drawing parallels isn’t very hard because most routes have already been taken.

Throughout the campaign you switch characters as it moves forward, a part when you’re playing as a Russian Special Forces soldier trying to track down a nuclear device in Paris is most likely the highlight. Just like in the previous titles you’re allowed to play around with several different vehicles.

Battlefield 3 has an overall good campaign but there is still much to be desired. I’m glad that the team is heading in the right direction however and can’t wait to find out how much better the singleplayer experience will be next time.

Multiplayer

Now we arrive at the most interesting and wonderful part of Battlefield 3, the player versus player online warfare. The series has shined as a bright star in the sky of online gameplay for many years, at least in my own eyes and as before they don’t disappoint this time either.

Fight like a team.

In the PC version of the game you can enjoy true fights with teams spanning up to 64 users (32 in each team) where as on the console version you only have the chance to have 24 players. I don’t see a problem with this since the maps are scaled down, but still feel like we are getting cheated.

There are four different game types to choose between one of them being Conquest (my personal favorite), the objective is to hold a certain amount of areas until the opposing team runs out of “tickets”. These are lost when people respawn and automatically if one side holds more than half of the points. You’ve also got the standard Team Deathmatch mode and versions of the two but only with four players on each team.

I can’t complain about anything when it comes to the multiplayer part of the game, except that they’ve destroyed the sniper class. In the Bad Company games you didn’t have to hold your breath before firing for example, in this installment you have to do so to be accurate. They’ve also removed the ability to use mortar strikes, replacing them with surveillance robots and such giving the sniper class a more scout-like place in the team.

Another issue is problems with the servers; many times I’ve been booted from the session in the middle of a fight and then lost connection all together. This can only be fixed by rebooting the game and re-joining the match manually. I do NOT blame this on DICE however; the issue is with EA who hosts the servers through their network. This problem has persisted through Bad Company as well as Medal of Honor and Electronic Arts must do something about this pronto.

Final Thoughts

I had a lot of hope in Battlefield 3 and I have to say that DICE did an excellent job on this game. There isn’t much more you can ask for except for bigger battles and a better networking service that doesn’t die in the middle of things. It’s safe to say that a game like this released from a Swedish studio makes me extremely proud of being born here.

Design: 9.5
Story: 7.9
Gameplay: 9.2
Presentation: 9.7

Total: 9.1

As we’re getting closer and closer to the long awaited release of Diablo III (which should hopefully be withing Q1 of 2012), but as always with blizzard it will be done once it’s done. Blizzard however are nice enough to be giving us small treats to help us quench our thirst for more diablo (and to keep us hooked).

Check out the new cinematic featuring our good old friend Deckard Cain here!