Impressions of Payday: The Heist

Steam recently held a free weekend event for Payday: The Heist, an online co-op shooter about robbing banks and other such missions in the life of an organized gang of criminals. It plays a lot like Left 4 Dead, except instead of shooting zombies, you're shooting cops. Instead of getting incapacitated by hunters and smokers, you're getting incapacitated by special forces units called the "taser" and the "cloaker." Instead of having to make it to a safe house, you're (usually) trying to break into a sealed vault somewhere.

Payday has enough distinctions from the L4D series to make it feel fresh and interesting, and could certainly provide enough hours of entertainment to justify a purchase. The RPG-style leveling mechanics alone could ensure that there's enough incentive to stick around, but after four hours of playing, I wasn't quite ready to buy it. It's a really good game, nevertheless, that you still might consider checking out. More of my thoughts after the jump.

Top 10 Alternatives to Skyrim

So you've played 500 hours worth of Skyrim and have finally finished experiencing all there is to do? Or maybe you only played for a short while before getting bored with it? Perhaps you don't want to pay $60 for a brand new game, and don't even own Skyrim? For whatever reason, we all come to a point when we stop playing Skyrim and search for games to fill the void it's left behind, whether that be a craving for more games like Skyrim, or for good RPGs in general.

As it turns out, there are actually a fair number of recent "fantasy-themed role-playing games" that are all good and worth playing, so I thought I'd compile a list for anyone looking for an RPG fix after Skyrim. Continue reading for the full list.

Why New Vegas is Better than Fallout 3

After having torn Skyrim to shreds, thus tarnishing Bethesda's reputation for generations to come (all with the best of loving intentions for RPGs and the industry in general), I was reminded of my experiences with the two most recent Fallout games: Fallout 3 by Bethesda, and Fallout: New Vegas by Obsidian. Given that they're both Fallout games that even share the same engine, they're about as similar as two games from two different companies can be. And yet, the experience of playing them is markedly different, with a lot of people loving one and hating the other.

I didn't like Fallout 3. Bethesda has a real knack for developing interesting worlds and then filling them with mediocre gameplay, and so I found Fallout 3 a bore and a chore. It just lacked a lot of the gameplay and role-playing elements that made the original two Fallouts (and RPGs in general) worth playing. New Vegas, on the other hand, was the solution to virtually every complaint I had with Fallout 3. Whereas Fallout 3 was basically just "Oblivion with guns," New Vegas was Fallout 3 with Fallout.

New Vegas gets an undeservedly bad rap from people who never played the first two Fallouts. A lot of people were introduced to the world of Fallout through Fallout 3, and they criticize New Vegas for deviating from the formula Bethesda used in FO3. When it should really be the other way around. Fallout 3 is the black sheep of the series, with New Vegas demonstrating a return to form and showing us how a real post-apocalyptic role-playing game should be.

(For related reading, check out my other New Vegas article, "New Vegas is a Better RPG Than Skyrim.")

Skyrim Kinda Sucks, Actually

I don't assign much weight or value to metascores, but I find it astounding that Skyrim has a metascore of 94. That number is about as close to perfection as a video game can ever achieve, and thirty-one of the [supposedly] most credible, influential critics thought it was deserving of such high praise. There is not a single "mixed" or "negative" review among critics. How can that be, when a majority of Skyrim's content is so obviously shallow, dull, and boring?

It's clear that Bethesda learned a lot of valuable lessons from the blundering mess that was Oblivion, and Skyrim is better for it. But it seems, however, that Bethesda failed to learn the most valuable lesson of them all, and their core design philosophy still remains a matter of "quantity is better than quality." Instead of focusing their efforts on filling their beautiful, sprawling world with unique and interesting content, they just churned out a thousand different fetch-quests and generic, lifeless NPCs, all in an ecosystem where none of your actions really matter.

This leads me to one of three conclusions, in regards to Skyrim's critical reception: 1) that none of those critics knows anything about video games, 2) that all of those critics have low standards, or 3) that all of those reviews were written after only 20-30 hours of gameplay. Skyrim is a grand, breath-taking experience at the start (excluding that terrible, terrible intro/tutorial), and so it's easy to praise in the beginning, but it reaches a point far too early in its incredibly long lifespan, when everything becomes shallow and pointless.

Skyrim is still a competently-designed game that managed to hold my attention for 130 hours, so it must be doing something right. But I can't believe that seemingly everyone overlooks (or excuses) these genuinely crucial problems. How can a game that's noticeably flawed be scored so close to perfection? And so it falls to me to point out the honest criticism, explaining exactly why Skyrim sucks and why it's not worthy of such fanatical praise. My full review awaits after the jump.

Video Games in TV: Life

"Some TV shows just don't get it." Part of a periodical series: Video Games in TV.

I've been writing these articles for several months now, and this is the first show I've come across to use a real, actual video game instead of making something up. I don't know which is worse; inventing a pathetically stupid-looking video game, or disgracing a real game. I can laugh with some sense of pity at the made-up stuff, but seeing the Prince of Persia like this only makes me sad.

The short-lived NBC crime-drama Life aired an episode in its first season called "A Civil War," in which police detectives have to reach "level 10" in Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones to unlock some hacked files. For some reason. Don't ask me, because even though I watched the entire episode, I still don't get it. You can watch the whole scene for yourself and read my commentary after the jump.

Skyrim Screenshots & Wallpapers (Part 2)

This is part 2 in a catalogue of some of my more artistic screenshots from Skyrim, showcasing how beautiful the game can be. Some of these might make for interesting wallpapers, but they're all just nice to look at. Check out part 1 here, or continue reading the full article for the pictures. If I take any more interesting screenshots before I finish the game, I'll add them here. 

Skyrim Screenshots & Wallpapers (Part 1)

Regular readers will have gathered that I've been playing a lot of Skyrim lately. I put two other games on hold that I was already deep into, just because Skyrim is such an engrossing experience. One of the great reasons for its captivating nature, I believe, lies with its visual design. The game is beautiful, simply put. I constantly find myself in awe of the landscapes that lay before me, spamming the F12 key everywhere I go, like some kind of Nordic photographer. 

As I write this article, Steam says I have 790 Skyrim screenshots. And I'm still not through playing the game, so I'll most certainly be adding a few hundred more to my collection. Since I have so many, I figured I'd share some of my more artistic shots that depict some of the more beautiful aspects of the game. All of them are "ruined" by HUD elements, because I was too lazy to bother with disabling it, but I'm going to justify that I like them being there because it adds gameplay context for everything. 

Since I've got so many of these screenshots, I'll be posting them in multiple articles. Click the full article for the screens.