Yes, you read that right: you can now pay for mods. Steam’s Workshop has been a really impressive source of user-generated content, and being able to easily load and unload mods into games has been incredibly useful. Skyrim in particular has gotten tons of great content from the modding community. Now, Valve has added a way for modders to get paid for all their hard work: you can list paid mods on Skyrim’s Steam Workshop. After uploading a mod, you can choose a set price for it, allow a “pay-what-you-want” model, or leave it for free as before. The idea is to have modders get paid for making good content, and also encourage higher-quality mods in hopes of hitting it big time. Read more…
Tony Swatton keeps on making crazy reproductions of awesome weapons. His latest project? An orcish battleaxe from Skyrim. It looks like it was lifted right out of the game, and they (of course) test it out at the end and it does plenty of damage. It’s really neat to see somebody creating all these weapons and tools professionally. Too bad we can’t get one, though! Anyway, just last week, he also made the Sword of Omens from Thundercats, and Cloud’s buster sword prior to that! Check out the video below. Read more…
Fresh off the heels of the rather-boring “Hearthfire” downloadable content, Bethesda has announced the next bit of DLC for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The main character of the game is a Dragonborn, but this latest content, also called “Dragonborn,” pertains to literally the first Dragonborn ever. He looks pretty tough too! Read more…
One of the most-requested features in Skyrim was being able to customize your house. Luckily, Bethesda has been doing an excellent job with making interesting DLC for the game, as well as listening to fan requests, so here’s Hearthfire! This update will allow you to buy tracts of land and then build your own house with material you collect. You can also adopt children to become part of your family with your spouse in the newly-built house, which I’m pretty sure was on the bottom of the list of “highly requested features.” Hearthfire will be out on Xbox Live September 4th and on PC sometime this year. Read more…
Ready for another trip back into Skyrim? Bethesda has finally shown the first trailer for the upcoming Skyrim expansion, Dawnguard, and for Elder Scrolls fans, this looks to be a nifty new addition. Vampires look to be coming back in a big way, and according to the trailer, the Dawnguard will be who they’re up against. Also, the vampires want to get rid of the sun, which seems to be a pretty difficult task to me, given that, you know, it’s the sun. But magic can conjure up many things, so we’ll have to see this summer when it arrives on Xbox 360 first for 1600 points, then one month later on other platforms.
While an Elder Scrolls MMO has already been announced, many people just want co-op Skyrim. Thankfully, as with previous Elder Scrolls games, the modding community is stepping up and creating exactly that. While it’s still buggy and imperfect, you and your buddies can hop around in your Skyrim world and explore a bit. The team promises to continue to add more features, eventually allowing most of the game to be played with your friends. It’s mighty impressive what modders can do and if I can eventually battle Alduin with my girlfriend, that’ll be a blast. Check out the video above for the latest features and download the mod on their site. Read more…
After much guessing, Game Informer’s exclusive cover story for their upcoming issue is none other than the heavily-rumored Elder Scrolls Online, a new MMO set in the expansive Elder Scrolls world. The MMO will encompass all of Tamriel, such as Elsweyr, Skyrim, and beyond. The setting, however, is a millenium before the events of the last Elder Scrolls game, Skyrim, allowing for plenty of new and different settings. I’m interested in how this will play out, as I’m not sure an Elder Scrolls MMO is necessarily the next step. The game is set for 2013 on both PC and Mac. Read more…
I’m sure in some office at Bethesda, a developer was thinking to himself, “Man, I wish there was a way to actually yell shouts from Skyrim in real life.” Then Microsoft laid piles of money on the table and they arrived at the next best thing: Kinect support for Skyrim. You still play the game with a controller, but now you’ll be able to yell (literally) each shout without swapping it in a menu. Silly? Yes. Are you going to do it anyway? Probably! Read more…
I think it’s a testament to Skyrim’s longevity that we’re still seeing so much fan-made material for the game, even long after its release. This recent video from YouTube user Timtimfed is very clever in its literal interpretation of Skyrim’s game mechanics. “Uninterrupted” indeed! Thankfully it doesn’t overstay its welcome like most fan videos. All that said, as cool as this video is, this is still my favorite Skyrim fan video. You’ll never guess why.
Back in December, YouTube user KinectFAAST showed off his Kinect-enabled Skyrim mod. Part of a larger series of mods in which he combines PC games with Microsoft Kinect functionality, the video made its rounds, eventually ending up on popular gaming blogs like Joystiq and Destructoid. Not too long after, KinectFAAST posted a follow-up showing off some of the enhancements he had made since his initial post. In addition to swapping through his favorites via simple voice commands, and simply interacting with the world, newer commands allow him to choose just how many potions he drinks, select weapon presets on the fly, determine the strength of his shouts by the word, and even use a bow and arrow with ease. Needless to say, it’s really impressive work. Be sure to check out more of his videos by visiting his YouTube channel, and let him know what you think by leaving a comment on each video.
Some things never change. The internet will always create parody videos of pop culture, and some of them end up being funny, too! And in this video, Skyrim is still the same in the year 2012. Sure, technology has advanced, but pickpocketing and placing baskets on people’s heads are still the preferred way of doing business, apparently. I’ll let the the Gro Pro Bros explain. Read more…
Let me preface this post with with a note: I really enjoy Skyrim. I think it’s an incredibly fun game, weighed down by poor optimisation and tons of bugs. The fact that an entire version of the game (PS3) becomes virtually unplayable after a length of time is ridiculous. That said, it’s good to laugh, and Mega64’s recent Skyrim-themed “fan film” (and I’m using those quotes heavily) is pretty funny, if one-note. Read more…
If you’re looking for a recipe for internet success, face it, you’ve been beat. Avemagnadude created a trailer that combines the two most popular video games this holiday season: Minecraft and Skyrim. Using a combination of in-game footage from Minecraft and custom CGI he recreated the Skyrim trailer in all it’s glory, and also brought to a conclusion this whole silly Mojang vs. Skyrim silliness. It’s really quite stylish, although the name ‘Minerim’ doesn’t exactly sound too pleasing. Click through for the full video. Read more…
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Nov 21, 2011 in Videogames
I love a good soundtrack as much as the next guy, but these days I’ll be hard-pressed to purchase an actual compact disc, let alone a four-disc set. That said, here’s one I don’t mine shelling the cash for. Jeremy Soule’s The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 4-Disc original soundtrack contains all the audio from the game, almost all of which, I imagine, feature live recordings. The opening theme even used a thirty man choir to capture that Nordic-feel, while using a runic language they actually made up just for the game. There are some really beautiful pieces contained within, and I wouldn’t hesitate to call it Soule’s best work to date. It really says something when I haven’t grown sick of hearing any of the music — something that no other Elder Scrolls title has managed to date. The full four-disc set only retails for $29.99 via Jeremy Soule’s directsong online store, and all copies purchased before December 23rd will come personally autographed by Soule himself.
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Nov 16, 2011 in Videogames
Oh Bethesda, I had such high hopes. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the game to death. I’ve been having an blast venturing across the winter wonderland that is Skyrim, and slaying the occasional Dragon that seemingly pops out of nowhere, but it’s been five years, so I just have to ask — why haven’t they fixed their horse physics? You’d think that at some point someone might stop and say “Hey, this is something people might care about.” Obviously it wasn’t high on their to-do list, but that’s okay. I can overlook it, after all, it’s still hilarious and makes for great videos. Don’t you think?
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Nov 14, 2011 in Videogames
So, Skyrim hit stores last week and I’ve been glued to it ever since. So far, I’m about twelve hours in and I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of the game in terms of content. There’s just so much to do; so much to explore. I haven’t really seen enough of the world to know if it’s as repetitive and drab as any of Bethesda’s other titles in recent years, though from what I’ve seen so far, I don’t expect it to be. Almost every experience I’ve had, from fighting Dragons, to exploring different types of ruins, has been a relatively fresh experience. That said, it hasn’t been without its fair share of glitches.
It’s been nearly six years since TheElder Scrolls IV: Oblivion blew us away with its vast world filled with rich open-ended content and seemingly unparalleled visuals — at least, for its time. Those visuals were quickly dated, but kept fresh thanks to a large community bent on modding the game to meet their standards. Now, we’re finally getting our first look at the in-game engine for the upcoming sequel, Skyrim. Read more…
