On 11/11/11, this beautiful, glitch-filled, masterpiece was released. Skyrim is the fifth of The Elder Scrolls series following The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It's set in the province of Skyrim, Tamriel in the year 4E 201. You play as the Dragonborn who goes on a bunch of quests to essentially destroy this "evil" dragon, Alduin. I put quotes around "evil" because in the very beginning of the game he pretty much saves your life by interrupting your beheading. But other than that, he's a pretty bad dragon. Dragons haven't been around for quite sometime; in fact, they died out a long time ago. Alduin's suddenly bringing the dragons back to life in the middle of a civil war between the Stormcloaks and Imperials. Like wow, dude. Cool timing. You're really cool (But seriously the dragons are really cool). CustomizationAfter the introduction, you get to customize your player. There are ten races, and they are all put into three separate categories: Human, Mer (Elven), and Beast. The human races are Breton, Imperial, Nord, and Redguard; the mer races, Altmer (High Elf), Bosmer (Wood Elf), Dunmer (Dark Elf), and Orsimer (Orc); the beast races, Argonian (Reptiles) and Khajiit (Felines). You can customize the gender, weight, skin color, face, and hair. Unlike previous Elder Scrolls games, gender doesn't affect gameplay, but race does (barely). Race basically determines how people talk to you, but it doesn't affect whether or not they will talk to you. Race also determines your skills, but in the end you could either be a sneaky Orc or a sneaky Nord; skill bonuses shouldn't determine which race you choose, but special powers should. Each race has their own special power or "shout." A shout is a group of three words from the Dragon Language that the Dragonborn uses to do a certain thing (eg: Unrelenting Force (FusRoDah) pushes/throws people, Dragonrend (JoorZahFrul) forces dragons to land). FactionsThere are so many factions you can join:
Attributes and CombatThere are three attributes: Health, Magicka, Stamina. Health is the amount of damage you can take before you die; Magicka is the energy you can use for spells; Stamina is the energy you have for sprinting and power attacks. Every time you level up, you can choose to also level up one of the three attributes; each time you do, the charge of whatever you chose goes up by 10 points. If you level up stamina, then your carrying weight (how much you can carry) goes up by 5. Unlike previous games, you can equip something in both hands; you can have a weapon in one and a spell in the other, or you can dual wield with either two spells or two weapons; you cannot, however, dual wield anything with a bow equipped. That'd be cool, though. Other Things You Should KnowThis game is really glitchy, but some of the glitches don't affect the gameplay; some are just things like people flying. Also, warning: this game is really good and you might become obsessed with it and play it nonstop for multiple days. So go play it. You can also learn more about Skyrim at the official website or the "unofficial" (it's totally official) wiki site.
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RWBY is a web series that's made by Roosterteeth. Before the actual show started, each of the main characters got their own trailer; the trailers were just scenes of them fighting people/creatures. Each character in the show is based off of a fairy tale, myth, etc. The protagonists, Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang, go to Beacon Academy. Beacon Academy is where they are taught to become official Huntresses. They're "team name" is RWBY, and each letter represents the first letter of their names (and, coincidentally, their designated colors). RWBY only has one season so far, but so many characters, conflicts, and creatures are introduced in only 16 episodes. Ruby RoseRuby Rose is the team leader of RWBY and the main protagonist. She's very friendly, but she can also fight like it's her job. Ruby has a special power, or "Semblance", which is her speed. She can move so fast that at appears as if she can teleport. She named her weapon (a scythe mixed with a sniper rifle) "Crescent Rose." You can probably tell that her "color" is red, considering her name is a red jewel and a red flower. Ruby is based off of the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood," and in her trailer, she's shown at first as just a red hood and cape. So it's pretty obvious that it's alluding to Little Red Riding Hood. Weiss SchneeWeiss Schnee is very proper, and she makes it clear that her father is the boss of "Schnee Dust Company" (Dust is something that is used against the Creatures of the Grimm). Weiss' Semblance is her glyphs. She can create them to manipulate objects, or she can even use them as a platform. She carries around "Myrtenaster," a rapier with glyphs that channel the Dust inside of her rapier. It's very clear that her "color" is white because her first name is literally "white" in German. Her character alludes to Snow White; her name means "white snow," and her necklace has an apple on it. The very beginning of her trailer shows us that she's very preserved and very proper. Blake BelladonnaBlake Belladonna is super quiet, but when she does talk, she's usually very sassy. Blake's Semblance is called "Shadow," and it allows her to make clones of herself. Her choice of weapon is a folding katana with a pistol in it's handle attached to a long ribbon, and she calls it "Gambol Shroud." Considering that "blake" is an Old English term for black, Blake's "color" is black. Blake has two meanings: deadly nightshade and beautiful woman. Blake is both of those things, so that makes sense. She's supposed to be influenced by Belle from Beauty and the Beast, but I can't see a similarity. Her trailer is the first trailer to have someone talking in it, and it shows that she has a lot of dexterity and swiftness. Yang Xiao LongYang Xiao Long is Ruby's older sister (they don't have the same last name, but that's not relevant), and she's very straightforward and confident. Her yellow gauntlets, Ember Celicia, act as shotguns that have exploding bullets, and they project flames. Her "color" is yellow, and it goes hand in hand with her name, Yang, which means "sun" and "light." Yang is inspired by Goldilocks because of her "gold" hair, and in her trailer, the DJ at the club she goes to is wearing a bear hat. The trailer shows Yang to be very energetic and confident. Long story short: RWBY is a really good show and you should watch it. Just like Red vs Blue, RWBY isn't on Netflix, so you can watch it on Crunchyroll, Roosterteeth's Youtube Channel, or on the Roosterteeth Website.
If you haven't seen Game of Thrones, you can just read this and maybe it'll be the same, but probably not.
Warning: This post contains season 3 spoilers; click the "Read More" in the bottom right-hand corner if you want to be spoiled (unless you've seen it already) *Reader discretion is advised* Also (sort of) Warning: I only care about two things during this season, so those two things are all I talk about. Whoops. If you haven't seen Game of Thrones, you can just read this and maybe it'll be the same, but probably not.
Warning: This post contains season 2 spoilers; click the "Read More" in the bottom right-hand corner if you want to be spoiled (unless you've seen it already) *Reader discretion is advised* Another Warning: I don't remember a lot from this season. Whoops. If you haven't seen Game of Thrones, you can just read this and maybe it'll be the same, but probably not.
Warning: This post contains season 1 spoilers; click the "Read More" in the bottom right-hand corner if you want to be spoiled (unless you've seen it already) *Reader discretion is advised* A lot of people (like, too many people) think that video games contribute to violence in the real world, but that assumption is far from right. These people think this because since video games have violence in them, it has almost everything to do with violence. These people are wrong. a little background info on video gamesVideo games have been a part of entertainment ever since 1972, when Magnavox came out with the Magnavox Odyssey. As the years went on, the graphics and consoles got better, and the industry got bigger. There are movies, shows, books based off of video games, and vice versa. People can even make a living off of video games whether they play them or make them. Many famous YouTubers (ex: PewDiePie, Roosterteeth, Machinima, etc) are famous because of video games, and playing video games is what they do for a living. A little fun factThe American Medical Association wanted to add "video game addiction" to it's list of mental illnesses. Video game "addiction" isn't a mental illness. Video games, if anything, help with mental illnesses and stress - stress that could potentially build up and hurt either yourself or other people. For a lot people, the reason they play is to let off steam. That literally helps society. In fact, researchers in New Zealand developed a video game called SPARX that helps teenagers battle depression. Also, the soundtrack is custom-made; how cool is that? As of now, SPARX is just a computer program that's single player, but the developers are testing out SPARX online. Personally, I think that before people go around yelling about how video games cause problems, they should do research and realize that video games, prevent problems. a little look-see on past eventsBack when the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting happened, people connected the actual crime with the fact that Adam Lanza would play Call of Duty in his basement instead of connecting it with the personality disorder that he was believed to have had. People would rather believe that a video game caused this rather than an untreated mental illness. Calling Call of Duty a "bloodthirsty computer game", The Sun implied that Call of Duty brought this "obsession" with studying weapons into Lanza's life. If anything, the "bloodthirsty computer game" was the thing that was brought into his life because of his obsession. It was reported that Lanza and his brother loved the military, so I wouldn't be surprised if Lanza studied weapons or bought Call of Duty, which is literally a game about the military. Another tragic event in which people blamed video games for is the Columbine High School massacre. As I recently said, The American Medical Association wanted to add video game addiction to it's list of mental illnesses. A reason for this was because of "how people react when they lose their fix." Let's stop here and look at that for a second. They're comparing video games to drugs. They're comparing something virtual - which, keep in mind, doesn't physically or mentally hurt you - to a real life thing that can actually harm you. Let's just pause and think about how out of proportion this whole "video game addiction" thing is being blown. It was concluded that after Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (the students who "shot up" Columbine)'s parents took away their video games, they decided to go on this "shooting rampage." "They relied on the virtual world of computer games to express their rage..." What else would they do? I'd rather them "express their rage" out on video games than out on a high school. The fact that it was known that they were playing video games to release anger and their parents thought that the anger would just go away if the video game would go away is ridiculous. If they had serious anger problems (which apparently they did, considering what happened when a video game was taken away), then they should be getting professional help instead of receiving a punishment. Jason Della Rocca, a blogger, wrote on his blog saying something similar: There's no denying the concern for someone that does something on an extremely excessive basis (be it gaming, watching TV, doing exercise, working, etc.). In most cases, this has more to do with the person than the thing: mental stability, depression, social anxieties, low self-esteem, whatever. Let's find better ways to help the people and worry less about the "things." a little wrap-upPlaying Surgeon Simulator doesn't make you a surgeon and playing Cooking Mama doesn't make you a chef, so why should playing Call of Duty make you a murderer? Don't blame entertainment for something that someone did. He wasn't told by the show to go out and rob a store. The movie didn't give her a gun to go out and kill other people. When someone commits a felony, you don't put the video game in jail, you put the person in jail because, this might sound alarming, the person was the one who did the crime.
Have you ever seen a TV show that uses video games? Well I have. One of my favorite shows (like top 5 at least), Red vs Blue, is made only by graphics from the Halo games. Two teams, the Reds and Blues, "fighting" each other in a civil war, are living in a box canyon called Blood Gulch. When I say "fighting" I really mean doing absolutely nothing. Later in the series, a team called Project Freelancer is introduced as a higher and more important group of people. You have to watch it before I start spoiling things for you. At first, this show might seem like the creators had no idea what they were doing; they didn't. Red vs Blue started this as a side project that a group of 5 friends started in their living room. They only intended it to be a 6-episode long series; they didn't know that it would soon have a total of 356 episodes in 11 seasons. Can you say over-achievers? Unfortunately, Red vs Blue isn't on Netflix (weaksauce, I know); however, the show is on the Roosterteeth YouTube, and it's on the Roosterteeth website. Make sure to watch it because, let me tell you, it's an amazing show. *Disclaimer: You do not have to be involved with Halo to like Red vs Blue. The only similarity is the graphics. The average life expectancy of a woman, like me, is 86 years. This means that I’m most likely going to live for about 1,773,900 hours. How much time did I invest in a certain video game called Crackdown? About an hour. An hour too many. Crackdown is an open-world, third-person shooter that came out in 2007. Sorry I’m so 2000-and-late. The only reason I downloaded this game was because it was one of the two free downloads for the month of August for XBOX Live Gold Members. Even though this was a free game, I spent way too much money on it. The game starts out with the player being an Agent, and you have to take down the leaders of three gangs. I only got to the first gang leader until I realized that I wouldn't want to waste any more time playing this. I technically only played for about 15 minutes because the other 45 minutes I spent trying to climb a building. I'm not really sure what it was that made me have a strong feeling of hatred toward this game. It was probably the fact that I had no idea what was happening because the game didn't really tell me how to play? Everything was just confusing, and I don't like confusing. I'm not gonna tell you that you shouldn't play this game. What I am gonna tell you is that my opinion is right, and I'm not a fan of this game. |
BellaI like cheese and video games. Categories
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