BioWare went to no small trouble to make it clear that the game was set thousands of years before any of the movies, as well as before any of the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games. So I thought it might provide a great opportunity to innovate and find something new and deeply interesting in the Star Wars universe.

What do I find instead? Pretty much the same Star Wars universe that we see thousands of years in the future. All the technologies seem pretty much the same. And the Jedi are still just as stupidly surprised as ever when the Sith show up to ruin everybody’s day, despite all the signs. Only the graphics and some item names seem different to me.

Maybe I could have overlooked that if the game play was fresh and innovative, but aside from the fully voiced quest givers—and a nice job on that I must say, BioWare—I just don’t see much of anything that doesn’t make me think I’m playing World of Warcraft Tython. My avatar runs around at the sort of leisurely pace one expects in an MMO, battles are fought with the same small set of moves, quests are all of the kill-this or FedEx-that variety, etc.

Granted, I only played for an hour or two, but that hour or two might as well have been spent with any other MMO. Save for the music, and the really annoying Jedi-Buddhist nonsense, it was completely generic as MMOs go. I did think the art was well conceptualized and relatively well executed, but it’s not all that impressive as modern MMOs go. Rift does a much better job with texture details, for example.

So I’m sorry to say my time with Star Wars: The Old Republic fell flat. I’m glad I didn’t break down and pre-order it like I almost did. Maybe I could enjoy the class quests and the story, but I can get that from single-player games that aren’t charging me a monthly fee and with better graphics to boot. Somebody please correct me if I’m missing where all the fun is hidden.

The matchmaking is improved to the point where I’ve seen only a couple of unbalanced games in the last dozen I’ve played, and that’s a complete turnaround. Even better, the ability to join games in progress helps them fill up again if players leave. I’ve been able to get into a game every time I’ve tried within a minute or two, and that’s a huge improvement.

The new stuff is appreciated too. The costume options have been expanded significantly, there are more weapons and other toys to play with, and the new map is great. I haven’t been able to play it much, because it doesn’t seem to show up often in the rotation, but it has been a lot of fun.

The best part is arguably that the community seems to have come back to the game. It’s not just the improved matchmaking, it’s that games start quickly with more players than I’ve ever seen before. I’ve even been able to get into games of psych warfare, which was practically impossible pre-patch.

The result is an FPS that holds its own with games three and four times its price. It has a smooth stream of rewards, achievements, unlocks, coins, and all sorts of goodies. Customizing your loadouts is deep and engaging and makes a huge difference in play. My rifleman with the semi-automatic and grappling gun plays completely different from my big fat dive bomber who plays completely different from my scrawny little ninja.

In short, I think GCI absolutely rocks as FPS games go. It’s a rare treat in a world of uninteresting Call of Duty clones.

First, the good: GCI is primarily a multi-player FPS game (there are a series of interesting, single-player “challenges” as well, but I find them only marginally interesting) that costs less than a third of most other such games. Its selection of maps and game modes is small, but not as small as you might think for that kind of money.

It includes “only” three game modes, for example, but they’re all good. Fumigation is Unreal Tournament‘s “domination” by another name, psych warfare is basically capture-the-flag with a small but funny twist, and team deathmatch is… well… team deathmatch. So the game includes three of the better modes from every FPS game released in the last decade-plus, all of which are well implemented.

The map selection is a little on the small side, insofar as I think there are no more than four or perhaps five available for online multi-player. The DLC, which may be released today from some things I’ve read, will add another map to that count, and it looks very nice in previews. The small-ish selection doesn’t bother me a bit because the maps are all good; I’d much rather have a handful of good maps than a metric crap-ton of bad.

Where GCI really shines, though, is in its gear. You’ll choose from a surprising variety of options in costumes, body types, fun facts (what other games call “perks”), weapons, mods, paint jobs, grenades, gadgets, rampages, calling cards, and other categories of stuff as you level up. And this isn’t any Call of Duty game, by which I mean the leveling doesn’t stop at 50, no sir. As I understand it, the progression is basically unlimited, with more unlocks, coins, etc. coming with each of the thousands of levels.

Unfortunately, it isn’t without its warts, and the very top on everybody’s list is surely its pathetic matchmaking, which is horribly broken in two significant respects. First, it doesn’t match for beans. It doesn’t put teams of players together in a timely fashion at all, nor does it balance the teams when it does. I’ve seen the stupid thing cram every high-level player in the lobby into one five-man über-team against two complete newbies. Its “decisions” are worse than I think any purely random system could possibly be!

Perhaps this wouldn’t be so bad if players were left to juggle the teams in-game, but that’s not even possible. There is no way to switch teams; you’re stuck with whatever the brain dead “matching” system vomited. I can see how that could be a good thing, insofar as I’ve played too many games in which players switch to the winning team simply for extra score, but that kind of restriction requires decent matchmaking and/or balancing from the software.

And second, it doesn’t allow joining games in progress, the result of which is that you spend much of your time sitting in the lobby, watching players come and go for minutes, never quite making it to the threshold for a game to start. Or if you do, it’s not at all uncommon for players to see a completely unbalanced roster and disconnect, at which point you’re back in the lobby. And of course once you actually get into a game, the host rage-quits about half the time, leaving everybody hanging. In short, the matchmaking is simply abysmal.

There may also be some balance issues with the game, and I say that because there is one particular style of play that many claim is unbeatable. The character body types make for interesting trade-offs: the larger body types have more health and can use heavier weapons without penalty, but they make for much larger targets. The heavier body types also do more damage with melee attacks, however, and that seems to be the main complaint.

To wit, a player who chooses the largest body type along with the glider can still move quickly and can basically one-shot anybody by dive-bombing them. Such players seem to gravitate toward launcher weapons as well, so even if the dive-bomb doesn’t get you being at ground zero from the rocket with which they’ll follow it up surely will.

I’m not convinced it’s a game breaker for a variety of reasons, most notably the simple fact that I’ve shot a lot of would-be dive bombers right out of the air and/or melee’d them to death on the ground before they can pull out their launcher as they recover from the dive. Heck, there’s even a “fun fact” that helps you avoid the damage from such a tactic. But I have seen games in which pretty much the entire enemy team is just a bunch of dive bombers, which does get old.

Despite the problems, though, I’ve more than got my money’s worth of fun from the game. I love the humor, I love the gear, the whole theme is right up my alley as a Batman fan (and part-time, freelance vigilante), and the whole leveling to unlock system alongside a convenient store chock full of DLC for folks who don’t have much time is bloody awesome.

Frankly, I’ve had more fun with a handful of hours in GCI than I’ve managed to have yet with Battlefield 3 (BF3), which is a non-stop, unbalanced rape-fest from start to finish in almost every game I’ve had the misfortune to play. But unlike BF3, GCI is actually fun and keeps me coming back for more despite its flaws.

And for a game that costs only $14.99, what’s not to love?!

I knew I had bought a game called Choplifter HD in the recent past. I knew I had received a receipt by email. So I typed “choplifter” into the Outlook search box and got nothing. Telling it to search all items also returned nothing. And searching for other messages, which were literally within my visible field, was also returning nothing.

I’ve had this happen before, so I know what to do: I opened the Indexing Options (which Windows 7 could find oddly enough) and told it to delete and completely rebuild its index. It took roughly four hours to re-index the 138k messages, files, etc., and after it was all done I still couldn’t find Choplifter HD!

I downloaded the latest beta of X1, installed it, and fifteen minutes later it had indexed 250k+ items. It found the email I wanted within the time it took me to type ‘ch’ into the search field. As it turned out, the email was still in my inbox, which was why I couldn’t find it in my receipts folder. For the record, Outlook still can’t find the damned message after two complete index rebuilds.

So I repeat: how is it that Microsoft, a company with billions in the bank, with hundreds (if not thousands) of PhD’s on its payroll, cannot write simple indexing and search routines?!

For example, I faced a quest recently that involved my character being transported by a Daedra—Azura herself no less—into a magical artifact. Azura wasn’t happy that a human mage named Malyn Varen had entered her star seeking immortality and befouled it, so she sent my character in as her champion to evict the bugger.

Varen was a pretty serious mage to begin with, and the nasty demons he was summoning (Dremora?) cast multiple spells right alongside him. So I quickly found myself almost overwhelmed by multiple, simultaneous fireball blasts. And that’s where the moral of our story comes in: don’t overlook “crafting” in Skyrim!

With but a wee sliver of health remaining, I fell back to a safer position to tool up. I quick-healed myself, quaffed a fire resist portion (37%), donned an amulet (30%) and ring (14%) of fire resistance, and whipped out my favorite bow, “Coldfire” by name. Of those items, I’ve crafted all but one; i.e., the amulet I found on a corpse, but I made the potion, improved the bow via smithing, and enchanted both ring and bow.

The change was dramatic. The multiple fireballs still hurt, but I could take three direct hits at a time, losing less than a quarter of my health, whereas “only” two near-misses had previously taken me right to the verge of death from the splash damage alone. Now I could actually stand and fight.

Coldfire did the rest. My character’s smithing and enchanting skills are only 52 and 54 respectively, but even such meager skills allowed me to boost the base damage via the grindstone and add cold damage for health and majicka as an enchantment. What began as a simple dwarven bow now does over fifty damage with any arrow I usually carry, and that doesn’t take stealth, poison, or other factors into account.

I’ve already plugged archery in a different post, but the combination of smithing, enchanting, and alchemy obviously adds a whole new dimension. Sure, one may focus on being Mr. Deadly with a given weapon or ability by focusing skill development solely on one constellation, but a little crafting goes a long way. So here are a few tips:

• Disenchant any item you don’t know how to make. Each new enchantment learned is one more tool in your kit and may raise your enchanting skill as well.
• Enchant some of the “trash” loot you find. Don’t overlook that steel sword when you can enchant and sell it! You’ll boost your skill and get extra gold.
• The need for filled soul gems means you should probably get familiar with the “Soul Trap” spell or enchant a weapon to do the dirty work for you.
• The simplest way I’ve found to rank up alchemy skill is to find a recipe with plentiful ingredients and work it to death. For example, snowberries are plentiful on high mountain slopes (Winterhold, anyone?), while dragon’s tongue is plentiful over by Bonestrewn Crest. Those two together make a great fire resist.
• The simplest way I’ve found to rank up smithing is to hunt local wildlife, use their hides to make leather, and then use that to make armor. I also make it a point to mine every ore deposit I see and make whatever armor I can. It doesn’t take more than a few minutes here and there to make a big difference.
• Look for vendors who will sell you ore or ingots; they’re usually pretty cheap and make it a lot easier to rank up your smithing than trying to find ore in the wild.
• The mask of Krosis is a fabulous artifact for boosting the effectiveness of your potions.

But of course that’s all part of the joy of Skyrim: if you don’t like my suggestions, you’re free to write your own story instead!

I found my mage to be far too squishy to deal with much of anything effectively in melee combat, the reason being the variance in armor. “Oakflesh” and other such spells can make you tougher, but nothing protects like heavy armor. But mages invest primarily in majicka, not stamina, so carrying capacity is too precious to waste on heavy armor.

For this and other reasons, my fallback from magic is therefore archery, and that’s my first tip for Skyrim: archery is big fun and enables crazy damage with some of the better bows—if you know how to use them. It takes a bit of practice, particularly if you’re coming straight from Oblivion (the mechanics being very different), but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be pulling off tough shots in no time. First, some basic tips for shooting:

1. The bow isn’t very “flat” at all. It fires high over the short range, compared to the reticule, and drops significantly even at medium range.
2. Physics matters! If you’re dodging side to side while firing it will affect your aim. Tribes fans may rejoice, but this is likely to frustrate others.
3. Head/throat shots seem to do more damage. I haven’t been able to confirm this officially, but anecdotal evidence has always worked for me (grin).

Don’t misunderstand the above: you can still pull off great shots with practice, but it’s quite different from the previous games in the series. Personally, I’m quite pleased with the changes, insofar as they make archery far more challenging and rewarding, though I must admit they make the game too easy at times. Beyond the mere mechanics of shooting, there are some other things worth mentioning:

1. Some points in archery perks, particularly the most basic “Overdraw” series, pay off big-time, especially with the heavier bows.
2. The “Eagle Eye” (zooming) and “Steady Hand” (slow-time) perks are less useful if you’re dextrous, but the former paves the way for “Power Shot” (staggers foes) and “Quick Shot” (reduces draw time), which are great against fast, melee attackers
3. The mask of Krosis gives a wonderful 20% boost to archery, which makes a huge difference for as early in the game as it’s possible to acquire the mask.
4. If you’re alchemy-capable, be sure to work up a good recipe for true shot potions; they can add large damage boosts for those tight spots where you need to do big damage. The mask of Krosis is a must-have in this case, as it also boosts alchemy 20%.
5. Be sure to improve your bow. The smithing improvements are useful, but even more so are enchantments. Even basic enchanting skills can add shock-based punch to every arrow, and it becomes trivial to keep a ready supply of filled soul gems if you enchant a bow with soul trap.

In short, I find archery to be a fantastic fallback from magic for a variety of reasons. My personal approach is to carry two bows and use them at the beginning and end of combat. So, for example, I’ll try to get a couple of stealthy arrows off with my heaviest hitting bow to initiate a fight, then I’ll switch to magic for the bulk of my damage-dealing, and finally switch to my soul-trapping bow at the end to fill up soul gems. It complicates the process a bit, but it’s big fun and very satisfying when it all goes well.

No matter what approach you take, though, archery can be as useful as it is fun. With the proper bow, arrows, perks, bonuses, and potions, it’s possible to do hundreds of points of damage with each shot, far outweighing the damage dealing capabilities of anything else in the game as far as I know. Give it a try, have fun, and I’ll “see you” next time!

I’m normally a complete head-case when it comes to CRPGs, as I’ve written elsewhere (at much greater length), but with Skyrim I decided to do something different. For example, I decided I wouldn’t save/load during combat. I wouldn’t save before trying things and load if I didn’t like the results. And I wouldn’t plan out my characters, read guides, or anything like that. In other words, I decided I would actually play the game.

This lent a sense of freedom to my choices and weight to their costs that I’ve generally not experienced. I’ve usually been too wrapped up in making sure I get the best gear, the “right” quest outcomes, etc., all on the dubious, unstated assumption that such things are essential to getting my money’s worth from the game. Let me tell you, folks, letting go of all that was the very best gaming decision I’ve made in some time.

Case in point: Lydia. Early on I ingratiated myself to the Jarl of Whiterun, and he rewarded me with a lovely, snarky shield-maiden named Lydia for a bodyguard. She was pretty limited in what she would do (sadly no outfit switching ala Heather from Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines), but she helped out in combat, carried stuff for me, and her lines were often pretty funny.

Until I got us in over our heads in some cave. I was sneaking (badly) toward a group of two enemies when I must have made some noise. Two others I hadn’t seen suddenly joined the fight, so we found ourselves on the receiving end of a mage, an archer, and two melee specialists coming at us with swords. I was still new to the favorites interface (which really sucks), so I bungled selecting spells while Lydia charged forward to meet them all.

She took blows from both swordsmen, along with at least one arrow and some spell, and went down in a heap. I barely had time to drop a fire rune into the tunnel behind me as I ran away. I came back after preparing myself and managed to do them all in, starting with a successful sneak and ending with the last one running into another fire rune. But the damage was already irreversible: Lydia was dead.

She died defending me, over nothing more than a little gold, a potion or two, and some crappy gear. My bad call got us in over our heads, I choked trying to select spells, and she had to lay down her life to save mine. I felt so stupid, so awful.

Seriously, I’m not making this up. I realize “she” is just bits of software, her “personality” paper-thin and brittle at that. She was capable of doing less than a handful of things and had nothing else to offer. But because I couldn’t undo what was done she felt real in the sense that I would never see her again.

I did my best to arrange her remains on the floor, and I didn’t take anything from her. I left her the nice sword and armor I had given her. It seemed only right; she had more than earned them. It probably wasn’t more than a minute or two before I left, but I am not kidding when I say my heart was heavy at leaving her in that cave.

I’ve thought of her a few times since too, oddly enough, and every time I do I still smile at what she did for me. Granted, had I died I would have re-loaded the game (I’m not hard-core enough to sacrifice precious hours of progress), but the fact that I didn’t just reload a save to bring her back to life, much as I wanted to, made her death poignant.

Ok, so maybe I’m still a head-case with these games, but Skyrim is amazing. It has sucked me in, and every time I play feels like I’m writing some epic tale in which I get to play an important part. Thus, stories from Skyrim. Stay tuned for the next installment.

But the most rewarding thing, to be selfish about it, is how it has helped me grow as a writer. It takes discipline to write every day, albeit not the Kate-Beckinsale-in-tight-leather of my dreams variety, and one’s skills improve with each post. I’ve come a long way since I started, and I’m pleased with my progress.

This surely isn’t goodbye, insofar as I can’t imagine I’ll ever stop writing, but it is a thank-you post to all who have commented and contributed over the years. Friends like Jackal, Faust, Rantage, and the irrepressible Ymar deserve special mention; my time gaming with you guys provides some of my fonder memories.

But to cut right to the heart of it, I’m taking a break. I don’t know how long it’s going to last, but I need to simplify my life. I can’t cope anymore with all the things I’m supposed to be doing, so I’m letting go of the blog for a while. Catch up with you later.