Dawnguard, where is it?

It’s no secret now that Bethesda have messed up, big time. Currently Dawnguard and Hearthfire, the downloadable content (dlc) for Skyrim, are only available for Xbox 360 and PC users. Playstation is worryingly absent from that list. Here’s the low down.

Bethesda will have you think this:

“We are not satisfied yet with Dawnguard’s performance on the PS3,” says the blog. “We would like for everyone to have a chance to play Dawnguard, but we aren’t going to release it for PS3 knowing that some people’s experience in Skyrim will be worse.”

Which is true, but doesn’t exactly offer a clear explanation as to WHY they aren’t satisfied. Basically the PC and Xbox use their random access memory (RAM to tech wizards) as they wish, they use it where and when it’s needed. The PS3 version however requires half of the RAM at any one time for graphics due to the blu ray nature of the game. This impacts the versions stability every time something changes, in short the more you play Skyrim on PS3 the worse it will become as the memory cannot cope will the pile up of changes such as more opened doors or more piles of unwanted Giants Toes.

Doing a little bit of spring cleaning will make your Skyrim game run more smoothly.

The Dawnguard dlc obviously just tips the version over the edge and crashes with the content installed. Bethesda even called on Sony for back up, effectively saying “This is your stupid consoles fault, you wanted it graphics focused, you sort it” and they’re now working closely together around the clock to attempt to solve this. Unfortunately it’s over a month since the release of Dawnguard for Xbox and the likelihood of the dlc ever reaching PS3 dwindles by the day.

The grim truth from Vice President of Public Relations and Marketing at Bethesda.

It’s a real shame, the Oblivion dlc was fantastic and added a lot more playtime to the game and it’s simply saddening that it’s highly probably that PS3 users simply won’t gain access to continuing their Skyrim adventure. At the end of the day it means that PS3 users have received an inferior product for the same amount of money as those that didn’t which is something you don’t really expect from any company, let alone the mighty Bethesda.

To any PS3 users out there, do you feel ripped off? Do you feel that compensation from Bethesda is required? Are you looking into trading your beloved console in for an Xbox? To any PC/Xbox users, how does Dawnguard play? What’s it like in comparison to previous Bethesda dlc such as The Shivering Isles. Please feel free to share any comments. Fingers crossed Sony and Bethesda sort their shit out, a full review of the dlc will be imminent if they do.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim PS3 Version

After an exceptionally long 3-year gap between the release of Oblivion, the fifth installment of The Elder Scrolls arrived. Skyrim. The Elder Scrolls V hit stores November last year and to be honest if you haven’t played I want to know why.

Oblivion brought RPG’s into the limelight and moved it in unprecedented directions creating one of the most enthralling, solitary gaming experiences since the last Elder Scroll installment Morrowind.  The inclusion of dragons was probably what got everyone most excited about the launch but you cant help get the feeling someone went a little overboard on dragon related things. The dragonborn is the main protagonist who can utilize an ancient skill to perform dragon shouts to help kill dragons and defeat the evil dragon by talking to a dragon,dragon,dragon. You get the picture.

 

Unfortunately the dragons are quite possibly the worst section of the game, not only do they offer a near impossible threat at the beginning of the game (if you play on any difficulty apart from novice) but they also then cease to offer any kind of decent reward later in the game. They also have a habit of appearing at really odd locations, the best example of this was at The College of Winterhold where three appeared at once and continued to attack the resident mages offering a interesting battle scene. Thankfully the dragons have a range of species such as frost, blood, bronze etc. that all vary in difficulty helping to avoid the random encounters becoming boring and severely easy even later in the game.

Bethesda noted the success of having NPC followers in it’s recent Fallout instalments and subsequently has brought this to The Elder Scrolls with access to a few NPC’s that can join you on your quest. Unfortunately they have a habit of developing suicidal tendencies and rarely remain alive for long.

Combat is typical Bethesda RPG whack-a-mole style; however dual wielding like Bishock 2 has implemented creating system that enables the player to mix and match weaponry and special skills such as the all-important Magika

 

Classes have been dropped in Skyrim and instead, what the players style is determines their abilities and power. Therefore if you favour wielding a great sword then your two-handed will improve, if you prefer using a bow then your Archery will improve. These individualized skills allow the player to create a truly unique character and helps to form gameplay built around the players actions.

Quests are lengthy tasks that are helpfully categorised to avoid forgetting them and mean the player can effectively prioritise them. Most side quests are largely enjoyable and offer the player opportunities to collect rare and interesting items and to continue playing even after the main quest line is finished, something that many RPG’s seem to forget about.

The graphics are a ridiculously big step up from Oblivion offering some truly staggering scenes such as sunrise/ sunset and really help to develop a sense of belonging and immersion when playing the game. You can clamber to the top of a mountain, peer over the edge and see the bottom or gaze into the distance and spot a circling dragon. Bethesda have also aided the open world element of Skyrim by designing it to stay how you left it, if you dropped a cabbage back in Riften chance are after you come back from a shopping trip to Whiterun it’ll still be there. This element also follows a logical method in the sense that if you dropped thousands of coins someone’s obviously going to pick them up because they have worth.  Unfortunately this addition to the game has caused some serious issues especially with the running of the game on the PS3 version of it, which I will address in a later review.

 

Summary 9.5/10

If you’ve played any of the other Elder Scrolls games or even the recent Fallout games then bugs and mishaps are an expected occurrence and easily overlooked when faced with a game of such splendid enormity. With lots to do even after the main quest is finished, better combat, better graphics you’re likely to lose huge chunks of your life to this game. Time well spent.