Month: August 2014

Feel free to be happy for me

Site Update

I’m here to disappoint all of you by announcing that I am, in fact, still alive. I know I’ve gotten all of your hopes up by being absent from this site for nearly three weeks now but that is merely due to the busy nature of that BIG HUGE MAJOR GIGANTIC life change that I mentioned before. I said I would elaborate on that topic further at a later date and now is that time.

Sometime late next week I will be loading a car full of my shit and driving it one thousand miles away from everyone I love in some silly attempt to go and live my life. That’s right! I’m moving from my hometown in Florida all the way to Chicago, Illinois.

Once I have settled in I plan to resume regularly writing articles that no one reads.

Thanks for not reading!

Love,
William Chandler

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Playstation Now…ish?

Opinion, Video Games

By William Chandler

PlayStation Now has been in open beta for about two weeks now and I’ve finally taken some time to give it a shot in between furthering the agenda of my Argonian land tycoon in Tamriel. Seriously, building mansions in Skyrim has been, like, simultaneously the best and worst addition to that game.

PlayStation Now exists nestled deep and snug in the UI of the already poorly designed PS Store. Navigating to the PS Now tab initially gives you a few informational cards on exactly what PS Now is, and the navigation bar on the left side provides options to peruse the library or test your internet connection to see if it will survive in the PS Now gauntlet. Don’t worry about having to get excited about any of the games on offer because the current library of streamable titles is absolutely fucking abysmal. What a rollercoaster of emotion I was while I attempted to decide between the absolutely amazing offerings of Dead Island: Riptide, Ben 10 Omniverse, and Greg Hastings Paintball 2. The lack of some major first party titles like Uncharted or God of War is pretty shocking, BUT you can play the overall mediocre Killzone 3. Since you likely will not be able find a title that you actually want to play, you won’t have to worry about being upset by how ridiculous some of the pricing options are. Asking for three dollars to rent a game for four hours just smacks of absurdity. Especially considering that you wouldn’t be able to near completion of most titles in that span of time anyway.

After deciding that perhaps I actually would like to subject myself to Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, I thought it wise to ensure my ability to play the game by testing my connection. After a couple of seconds spent staring at a loading bar, PS Now was kind enough to tell me that I could utilize its service as intended but neglected to provide any additional information. Perhaps I would like to know exactly how much above the recommended specifications my particular network fell? Nah, obviously not. I’m just a controller using, console playing mongoloid who couldn’t possibly comprehend such things.

So I rented Enslaved for the thirty day time period at the great price of $9.99 and was treated to excellent visual compression and screen artifacts in the opening cutscene. Enslaved was already known to be lacking in responsiveness but streaming it brought new meaning to the term input delay.

I’m going back to smithing nails so I can hang some doors in my alchemy laboratory.

PS Later

Lazily drifting through life on a bed of complacency

Site Update

Dear reader,

Yo, it’s that time again. Time to talk about the royal me here at Nerdorgy. Content has been coming out more infrequently as of late and this is due, in part, to a few factors:

First, I’m just a horrifically incompetent individual, but we all know that so I will refrain from elaboration.

Secondly, I am making a HUGE BIG MAJOR GIGANTIC life change in the real world which has, believe it or not, been occupying a rather large portion of my brain due to the fact that the planning stage requires such careful consideration of about a million factors. So, I’m distracted until that thing goes through at the end of August. I’ll provide more info on this later.

Lastly, I have been spending less time writing about news (which used to be a quick and easy way to churn out snarky content) due to both a lack of any news I find interesting coming out and a desire to write more long form articles about games. You know, I prefer for everything to be about me and how I feel about things.

Bear with me while I further examine exactly what I want out of this project.

Thanks for reading,

William

The hater’s guide to enjoying Skyrim

Opinion, Video Games

By William Chandler

Me (pictured above), screaming in rage from what I then percieved as an inherently dull Elder Scrolls game

I’ll admit, I was pretty pissed when Skyrim came out. Like, I only put 60 hours into it so it’s like I basically didn’t even play it. A big part of my frustration came from the complete removal of stat point allocation in favor of a more streamlined “perk” like system that would, in theory, provide more of a direct understanding of the ways your character improved over time. But, as a long time series fan, all I could see was the complete bastardization of what made The Elder Scrolls franchise an RPG and the subsequent attempt at pandering to a more mainstream audience. Plus, they took out Acrobatics as a skill and with it my ability to make an Argonian trapeze artist that could nearly leap entire structures by endgame, so fuck that. Another massive issue is the seemingly apparent choice of quantity over quality in regards to many of the dungeons, as the land mass has several times more dungeons than Oblivion (despite being smaller) but all of them felt like slight variations of the same dreary gray crypt filled to the fucking brim with Draugr and giant spiders. And can we please take a moment to shit on giant spiders as an enemy? Like, giant spiders are seriously the most generic and unimaginative trope in the fantasy genre and I would prefer a more sparing use of their stupidly disgusting asses in the future.

Anyway, the series has admittedly always suffered from having a distinct lack of dungeon variety, but it seems considerably more apparent with the increase in the number of dungeons. Plus, I preferred the style of dungeons in Oblivion to the ancient Nordic theme. But what’s truly remarkable is the fact that the main questline managed to be less immediately interesting than even the ridiculously shitty one in Oblivion where Sean Bean turns into a dragon. At that point, even the improvements made to combat, the addition of a sprint button, the massively improved quality of voice acting, and the fact that shouts are just straight up dope couldn’t stop my steadily flowing river of discontentedness. Disappointed in Bethesda and disgusted by Skyrim, I lived for two years as a Skyrim hater. However, that all changed two weeks ago.

I now present to you my guide to allowing yourself to appreciate Skyrim.

Step 1: Get drunk

Yeah, yeah, I know. Just hear me out. The ingestion of alcohol is admittedly what led to me returning to Skyrim at all. Like, to be honest, I just wanted something kind of relaxing to play and I thought walking through the ridiculously atmospheric woods of Skyrim sounded like a great idea. So, I create a new character and just start roaming. Like six hours later I find that I’m actually enjoying myself. Fucking weird.

Step 2: Mod that bitch

(I’ll add a full list of the mods I’m using to the comments later when I can see them)

And I don’t mean be a dumbass and add some fucking lightsabers or throw in a logic core from Portal just for the lulz. I mean find some mods that actually improve the atmosphere and the core systems of the game without completely changing it. For instance, there are some excellent mods improving graphical fidelity, upgrading blood textures and damage decals, improving sound design, and even drastic enhancements to the visual styles of the towns. Seriously, do anything and everything to elevate the game beyond the apparent limits of being ‘designed for consoles’.

Step 3: Change your mindset (a bit)

Expecting (or, more aptly, demanding) another Morrowind or Oblivion is what ultimately led to my inability to appreciate Skyrim for what it is. On some level, this type of thinking is ultimately unavoidable as you always want to preserve what you love about a beloved franchise or series. That said, it is sometimes necessary to judge a game solely on the basis of its own merits and try to leave previous entries mostly in the past. Don’t go all soft and completely forgive a game’s downfalls either because that shit is decidedly pedestrian. Rather, just try to keep an open mind. Feel free to apply this principle to other aspects of your life like meeting people and trying exotic new drugs.

And it really is just that easy. I can now enjoy the more streamlined and accessible Skyrim AND the fucking hardcore as fuck, ‘death to accessibility’, Divinity: Original Sin at the same time with no real consequences to my self worth.