Pak Watch: Crypts and Towers

Slain: The Seven Towers
Slain is a PC game being developed by Andrew Gilmour and published by Wolfbrewgames.  It's in a retro style that I love, and is heavy on the gothic horror.  Demons and Bleeding trees and a hero with a big beard and a giant sword.  What can I say?  I like indie games with a 16-bit style with detailed backgrounds.  And gothic horror is always fun.  I think Slain fits the bill, so I'm in support of it.  The website over at wolfbrew games has information if you care to know more.  You can also like their page over on facebook.  I did.

---------------------------------------

Courier of the Crypts

This game is another 16-bit style game being developed by a tiny team- 2 people, by the names of Primoz Vovk and Zdravko Djorjevic.  The game is a top down dungeon explorer with the central mechanic revolving around lighting torches and solving puzzles.  This mechanic seems reminiscent of the third Zelda game.  Graphically, the imagery looks to be tailored to the different lighting effects.

The team did not reach their goal with their indiegogo campaign.  While the campaign is closed, there is a demo available, and the game did achieve greenlight status on Steam. 

I originally heard about this game from an article in indie gaming news, a prolific website with regular news on upcoming indie games.  

-D

MIDI Week Singles: "Dark Flute" - Super Brothers: Sword and Sworcery EP (PC) (Android)

"Dark Flute" from Sword and Sworcery EP (PC)(Android)

Publisher: SuperBrothers and Jim Guthrie

Composer: Jim Guthrie

Developer: SuperBrothers

I chose this song because it has been my ringtone for over a year.  Truly, there are many excellent songs from Sword and Sworcery EP, and I may want to do a Game Scores feature to cast a light on the whole, beautiful soundtrack.  I got this game as part of a Humble Indie Bundle, and fortunately, I was able to get a copy of the soundtrack to Sword and Sworcery EP and several other games as part of this bundle.  This soundtrack and others made their rounds on my phone during work.

I'm very happy to be sharing a song from this soundtrack, as it is one of my favorite soundtracks and favorite games of the last three years.  Dark, and haunting, with sweeping rises in volume and intensity, Jim Guthrie's composition style is very atmospheric while also exciting.  

-D

Pak Watch: Non-traditional, traditional effects.

Lumino city 

I stumbled onto an article at the verge, about a new game called Lumino city by British developer State of Play. I was immediately taken with the visual design.  On their own, these images and videos are beautiful.  I am very curious as to how this game will feel and play.  The State of Play website pitches the companies products as 'Lovingly crafted games and animations.'  Isn't that sweet?

Lumino city was pitched as using 'paper instead of polygons,' Each setpiece was painstakingly crafted and designed.  Many of the sets are much bigger than they appear, as shown in some behind the scenes images in the verge article.   I'm a big fan of traditional effects, though in this case, these effects are not traditional to video games.

Lumino city is now available on Steam.  

Beeswing

Another game I stumbled upon, this time from a Gamasutra article by Talha Kaya.  Similarly to Lumino city above, this game's visuals are constructed entirely from traditional effects.  In this case, watercolors are the chosen medium.  Beeswing is a smaller production, put together entirely by Jack King-Spooner.  

King-Spooner has a track record of strange and artful games.  He comes across as slightly odd, but has an earnest desire to create art, and to use video games as an expressive medium.  I respect this goal and am even more interested to play Beeswing as a result.  Beeswing was fully funded in a kickstarter, but is not yet available to play.  

-D

MIDI Week Singles: "Downstream" - Braid (PC/XBLA/PS3)

Hokay, take a listen to this little diddy.

"Downstream" from Braid on PC

Braid Original Soundtrack

Record Label: Megatunes

Composer: Shira Kammen

Developer: Number None, Inc.

You know, it's not too often that I have this kind of a reaction the first time I hear a track from a video game soundtrack.  By now I'm sure that most people know of my love of video game music both in and out of the game environment, but I will be the first to freely admit that there is some music that I enjoy because of the nostalgic effect it has on me.  When you hear a track from The Legend of Zelda, you know that it's music from a video game because it's being performed with MIDI instruments.  We are currently at a moment in time when that is no longer the case, depending on what the game is trying to achieve with the sound and music in the game.

I had a very strong reaction to "Downstream" while listening to it the first time.  I had it on in the background while typing up another article and at first thought that it was a softer interlude from Eluveitie or some other folk rock/metal band.  But no, it was from the Braid soundtrack.  I admit that I was not immediately impressed.  I have heard tracks from the soundtrack, but I've never honestly listened intently.  But this song, once that drum (frame drum?) kicked in, my ears perked up and I had to check with what I was listening to.

Had I the capacity to dance, I most definitely would have been dancing.  

It is interesting that the composer of this track, Shira Kammen primarily plays and composes traditional medieval era music and that she has found her way into Braid, as this music might be something more akin to The Elder Scrolls series, the just released A Game of Thrones: A Tell Tale Games Series, or some other game with a high fantasy setting.  Regardless of why it is in Braid, I am very happy that the song exists.

I guess this also points out that I've barely played the Braid to not have reached this song, or perhaps I had, but was too intent on figuring out how to play the game and fully understand the jumping and time manipulation mechanic.

Anyway, THIS, is a beautiful song that I am sorry that I came around to six years late.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Instrumental

Full Review: Alone in the Dark (DOS/PC)

So a few weeks back I gave Alone in the Dark a spin because 1) I bought during Gog.com's winter sale earlier in the year and 2) I wanted to play something that I have never played before and 3) a game that I had through my Gog.com account that I did not have access to on my Steam account.

First off, before beginning to play, you have the option to play the game as either private investigator Edward Carnby or the daughter of the recently late Jeremy Hartwood,  Emily Hartwood.  From what I can tell, the game does not change at all depending on whom you choose to play, but that may not actually be the case as I have only gone through the game once and with Edward Carnby.

Some background first though.

Alone in the Dark was released in 1992 by Infogrames originally using the DOS operating system, later ported to 3DO, Mac and RISC.  I played the DOS version of the game and upon opening the game (post installation), it automatically opened up DOSBox and I had no issues at all with the game running an it never onced crashed.  I had some issues with the controls, but I will get to that later on.  One thing that surprised me was that the game was already in a semi-wide screen mode, although I am not sure as to the specific aspect ratio, but it was wider than the standard 4:3.

If you are anything like me, you probably have not played Alone in the Dark, but are aware of its existence as a video game.  I also knew that it was a horror game of some sort and only right before purchasing the game did I learn that it was the progenitor to the Resident Evil series of video games (1 through Code Veronica X anyway).  Yes, I know that Sweet Home is the granddaddy of survival horror, but as far as a "haunted" house with a person locked inside full of creatures, puzzles, fixed camera angles and plenty of instant death events.

The first of many times you can die instantly.

STORY
Regardless of whom you choose to play as, your initial motivation for entering the massive house (named "Decerto") is to locate a piano that either has immense value or was a family heirloom, again depending on your choice of characters.  Once you find yourself locked inside the mansion, your sole objective is to escape by solving a number of puzzles involving found items throughout the mansion.  You know, like in Resident Evil.

The depth of the story however is found by reading/listening to journal and diary entries found throughout the mansion.  With the exception of only a couple of books, these journals are not required to further the actual game play, so you could hypothetically go through the entire game without knowing anything about any of the characters, monsters, villains or the motivation behind anything else that is going on.  Combined that with the fact that you have a limited inventory, there is a good chance that a book picked up will immediately be put back down to make room for an item that might be needed later on.

One thing that I picked up on was how much of the material was reminiscent or directly borrowed from the writings of H.P. Lovecraft.  The "that book" that is brought up in the book (on the right) is later told to be the Necronomicon, a fictional demonic book created by Lovecraft.  Even the name "Abdul Al Azred" is a variation on the pseudonym that Lovecraft created when he was five years old after reading 1001 Arabian Nights.  Fellow weird author Arthur Machen (whose stories and autobiographies I love) is also referenced as the editor of one of the books in the game.  It is little details like this that I love to see in video games.

GAMEPLAY

How to play the game is probably what took me the most getting used to.  Keeping in mind that the game was played through DOSBox meant that moving was with the arrow keys and the controls were not customizable.  It actually reminded me a lot of how the first Resident Evil played, if you were forced to use a keyboard instead of a controller.  I am not 100% sure when WASD became the mainstay for pc gaming, but Alone in the Dark used the "more traditional" arrow keys to move around (I know now).  Moving around is what I did for about 90% of the time.  

Running though is probably what caused me the most problems, with reference to a couple of specific areas.  In one particular stage, your character is required to run across a bridge that begins to crumble and fall once it is touched.  Thankfully there was a bit of space to start running on approach to the bridge.  In one instance it took me 2m45s (I used a timer) before I could start running.  Running is achieved by pressing up a second time after your character is already walking.  The problem (apparently from what I have read) is that modern computers run faster than those of 1992 so it is not as simple as pressing Up Arrow twice, but has to be timed correctly.

Actions in the game, such as picking up items, opening doors, searching objects was all done with the spacebar, but each action had to be selected separately via the ingame menu.  Later in the game, jumping became an available action which, again, had to be individually selected by going to the menu, highlighting actions then going down to "Jump," going back to the play screen and pressing the spacebar when you wanted to jump.  This aspect of the game took quite a bit to get used to, especially when faced with a killable monster.  Oh yes, some of the monsters were either impossible to kill with your conventional weapons (Saber, shotgun, revolver, dagger) and had to be killed via solving a puzzle, such as placing a mirror in front of a Gorgon-like demon.  

The biggest problem that the controls presented was that timing when attacking enemies was crucial.  When swinging a knife/sword, the character would bring the weapon back and somewhat slowly, swing the weapon in the facing direction.  A miss would often mean that the monster would get their attack in first and since the character staggers with each hit, will usually mean that escape is impossible as their attacks happen faster than you can recover from their initial attack.

Losing key story items, or placing an item down that I felt was not useful was something that I constantly feared.  Granted items that I placed on the ground could be retrieved later, but finding out which room that knife that I thought I no longer needed was something that I rather would not do.  

GRAPHICS
As you can tell from the the previous pictures, the graphics for the game are antiquated by the graphical standards of today.

But keeping in mind that Alone in the Dark was released in 1992 and that the file size for the entirety of the game is 253 MB in size.  That the game could fit on four hard floppies.  You know, a 3.5 floppy.  However, after a few minutes I was able to acclimate to the graphics pretty quickly and I was not bothered by the sharp angled pixeliness of the world I was playing.  

There were only a couple of screens where Mr. Carnby was so far away from the camera that he appeared to be only a colored mass of pixels with little resemblance to his actual body shape.

SOUND & MUSIC
The music for Alone in the Dark was composed by French composer Philippe Vachey.  Unlike a lot of the previous survival horror games I have recently gone through (Outlast, Penumbra, Dead Space), the music here is somewhat more memorable, not that I could immediately recall a song without listening to the soundtrack, but after listening through the entirety of the 28 minute album, I can recall specific cases when the music was cued up.

There were a couple of purely atmospheric tracks such as "Growing Fear," "Terror" and "Watery," but that is to be expected, especially in a survival horror world.

FINAL THOUGHTS
I really enjoyed playing Alone in the Dark and from beginning to end I probably spent about three hours playing, even with the frequent instant deaths just from exploring.  I quickly learned that I needed to save after I did almost anything that required the use of an item.

I will confess that I used GameFAQs a bit while going through simply because I did not want to screw over myself by running out of lantern oil, of which there was a limited supply and at least three rooms/areas in the game that required you to have your lantern lit otherwise the game would not let you enter those rooms.  I did not feel like I was cheating, with the exception of looking at a four screen map that I had to navigate by lantern in an otherwise blacked out maze with the only lit area being a circle around you, Dragon Quest style.  There were additionally a few puzzles that I could not solve without ManiacMansionFan's help, but I still see it as asking another person, in-person, for help or advice, like what we used to do with NES and SNES games.  But in the end, I still feel good about myself, so it could not have been that big of a transgression.

In the end, I am glad that I played through Alone in the Dark despite its graphical and control limitations due to the time the game came out.  It is like going back and watching the first season of The Simpsons, you know it is that you are watching and even though it is still pretty rough around the edges, it is a fun game that helped create a genre that I absolutely love.  And soon I will get to Alone in the Dark 2.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Vengeance from the Grave


P.S.  I thought I would leave you with a screenshot of how I felt upon safely completing the game.

Yes, it's the classic 1980's jump of victory!

First Impressions: Unturned (PC)

Remember that article I wrote a couple of weeks back?  You know, the one where I talk about the number of Steam games on early access that fall under the "early access massive multiplayer online open world zombie apocalypse survival first person shooter" category?  There is a new game (new as of July 7th, 2014) that was released for free that popped up on the Steam front page a few days ago, and because I have almost no willpower and 640Gigs of spare hard drive space, I figured I could spare 200Mb.

Logo courtesy of the r/unturned sub-reddit

No, Unturned does not even have a "proper" logo.  Well, it does have a kind-of-logo that comes from the Steam store page, but it is not as interesting.

See.  I told you it was not at all interesting.  The game however is fairly interesting.  It reminds me of a mix between DayZ, Proteus and Minecraft; except that I have never played Minecraft (I know, I know), but I at least know what the game looks like so I feel somewhat educated enough to make that assumption.

But let us break down these comparisons.  DayZ:  In Unturned, you start out the game completely naked and depending on the difficulty setting, you either start out empty handed, or you start out with a juice box, candy and a flashlight.  In one playthrough (I died) I did manage to find some clothes at a laundromat, then I found a gun which I was able to use a couple of times before being mauled to death by a zombie.  Zombies also tend to congregate near objects of civilization be it a lighthouse, small towns, military installations or seemingly abandoned beach blankets and lounge chairs.  If the zombies do not kill you, over time, you become hungry and thirsty and I am assuming that you will starve to death or die from dehydration.  If you jump off from a high enough distance you can break your leg or if you step in a bear trap (that you just happen to recently set yourself) you will bleed out until you are dead.  See, a lot like DayZ.  The zombies are even attracted to the sound of gunfire, which is very annoying, although I guess somewhat realistic, depending on which zombie universe you are the most attached to.

Dying is something that I have become very good at in Unturned as well, regardless of the difficulty setting.  Even on "Easy" each hit from a single zombie does 10% damage, which does not seem like a lot unless you are being chased/mauled by a horde of zombies.  That is unless you happen to find a body of water to swim out into, in which case they will simply hang out in the shoulder deep water and follow your every move.  On an upnote, you are capable of swimming indefinitely, even with those stubby blocky arms.  

So how is the game like Proteus then?  Well, if the island in Proteus were populated with buildings and zombies, then I guess that comparison would make sense.  There is music in Unturned, albeit it is not interactive in the way that the music interacts with the environment or as peaceful or as calming.  But it is there and everything is all block-like.  So there is that.  Maybe I am just reaching for straws here, but that was what I briefly thought right before I was shown that I acted better as zombie food than a naked dude safely running around an island community.

So Unturned is still in alpha-release although the developer Nelson Sexton with Smartly Dressed Games does seem to update frequently and the game is free to download and play.  There is a pay option which could be seen as a way of helping to fund the game.  The $5 one time "Permanent Gold Upgrade" gets you your name in gold in chat, extra customizing options for your character (hair, skin, facial expressions), access to special servers [extra loot drops, double experience, suit and shades (clothing options)] and a sleeker UI; if that is your type of thing.

You know, for a game and article about zombies, I sure have done a great job not including many screen shots of zombies.  If that was something you have noticed, then I leave you with the following image of my last play/die through and encounter with a group/horde of zombies shortly before they mauled me to death.

I would be lying if I were to say that I have not become just a little frustrated with not being able to often survive long enough to pick up a weapon.  The last three games I played I was killed by no less than three zombies while trying to pick up Playthrough 1) Baseball bat, 2)Crowbar and 3) what turned out to be nails.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I am only playing a single player game, which might be because I have not figured out how to log into/host my own online game.  There is plenty of time to figure these things out of course, as long as I do not get eaten in the meantime.

Good day everybody!



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Touch My World With Your Fingertips

The Mighty Quest For Epic Loot: Chapter I: The Before

First, this is an awesome title for a game.  It'd even work well for a board game.  I feel like The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot is advertising that knows what kind of game it is and knows what their target audience is looking for.  The title conjures up the image of a game of Diablo mixed with Gauntlet, but with an even greater sense of humor.

And the game is free.  That can either be a boon or a giant warning sign to stay away.  At least that's what I hear about free to play MMOs.  Sort of anyway, I don't know what I'm talking about as I've only played The Elder Scrolls Online (Beta) and a little bit of Neverwinter (which I will talk about at a future date).

Okay, back on topic.  TMQfEL (which seems more work than typing out the full title).  After watching the trailer for the open beta, I developed a slightly different view of the game.  Now, based off of the information from the trailer, the game still looks somewhat fun with a healthy portion of "Oh what the hell god damnit it you asshat."  TMQfEL, again based off of the trailer, looks to be a game where you create your own castle, wonderfully portrayed as floating castles, that you fill with x amount of loot wherein you build traps to protect that loot.

Logic would dictate that when you begin the game, you start out with a set amount of money, presumably "gold," to build and furnish your castle with traps, hazards and other golf-titled pitfalls to protect the aforementioned loot from the rest of the online community.  In order to get more gold to build more castle and better traps, you have to raid other castles.  I do not know if your character is able to level up, which would make sense on one level in that you would need additional HP in order to make it through elaborate castles filled with elaborate traps; that is unless all traps are considered one hit kills.  I also do not know if you would be able to keep any gold you found along the way if you are unable to make it out alive; again assuming that you find loot throughout the castle and not just in the final treasure vault room.  The downside though is that someone who has a character built up would be able to ransack and destroy other community castles that are just starting off.  The way around this is to only allow the players attack/raid/ransack/pillage/lay waste other castles within a certain range of levels that are close to their own.

Again, this is what I presume the game to be.

What I would be afraid of is people not creating castles to be clever, but to be total assholes.  I feel like a game that is created by a person to be as difficult as possible is no longer creating a game/stage/level to be fun, but to be a dick to the rest of the gaming community.  But sure, I recognize that there is a percentage of the population that enjoys a rigorous challenge (meaning the people who have beaten Super Meat Boy), I just happen to not be a part of that particular group.

Not my idea of fun.

So, with all that, I will now give The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot  a try and report back next week with how my hypothesis compares to the actual game in "Chapter II: The After."


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
I Want to Reconcile the Violence in Your Heart

First Impressions: Slender: The Arrival (PC)

Slender: The Arrival is a full fledged version of the free game, Sleder: The Eight Pages that scared the shit out of the internet back in 2012.  For those of you all who are not familiar with the Slender Man mythos, you can read about it either on Wikipedia or any other numerous websites, but in short, Slender Man is a variant on a bogeyman who takes children.

Original pictures by Victor Surge, 2009.

So, what started out as a couple of short sentences in a "create your own paranormal image" thread has turned into a pseudo-legitimate urban legend with it's own cultish-type following, as well as two video games, Slender: The Eight Pages, in which you wandered around an enclosed forested area and picked up eight pages placed randomly on landmarks all the while avoiding the Slender Man.  And now, it's current full fledged iteration from Blue Isle Studios, Slender: The Arrival, which was released back in March, 2013.

I gave this game a go a few weeks back at the request of Conklederp wanting me to play a scary/horror game that had a story.  Both of us really enjoyed playing/watching each other having a go at Slender: The Eight Pages, so I began this new iteration only knowing that the full game had been expanded but not much else..

Slender: The Arrival, like it's predecessor is an FPS/POV horror game where you have to collect items/pages/documents as you progress through the level/stage.  You can walk briskly and sprint, look around with or without a flashlight (once you find one which is a nice touch) and pick up papers.  The game itself is pretty basic and the mechanics have pretty much stayed the same from the first game to this one, which is nice since they are trying to keep, maintain and grow the original fan base.

It turns out that my first playthough (I did not make it through Chapter 1) I accidentally accessed a secret hidden level, which Conklederp and I thought was a really elaborate glitch, but equally creepy and unnerving in it's own way.  The second time playing, I completed Chapter 1 and made it through part of Chapter 2 before I was "caught".  I feel like I am now stuck at Chapter 2, but just mentally stuck.

Chapter 2 is a modified version of Slender: The Eight Pages.  The chapter title is even called "The Eight Pages."  But what's that you say?  Isn't the whole game a modified version?  Well yes, but The Arrival is like an expansion as a whole, where as Chapter 2 in The Arrival, you are in an enclosed wooded area where you have to collect, I assume, eight pages before you can proceed while being "chased" by the Slender Man.

This is where I become mentally stuck.  I played The Eight Pages quite a few times and each time I failed to collect all eight pages as I would either be caught after locating X:8 pages or my flashlight would go out and inevitably be caught as I stumbled around in the darkness.  I would like to assume that this area in the game is easier than the whole of The Eight Pages, otherwise I just ran into a brick wall that I am not willing to spend a whole lot of time on figuring out how to climb over or dig under.

Jesus I hope I can't see it!

So that is where I am currently at with Slender: The Arrival.  I like that there is an attempt to create a story where there was very little to begin with and what I have played I really enjoyed.  The graphics are well done and the controls are your standard FPS PC WASD set up so as long as you're comfortable with the Left Shift being used for sprinting, then you are all set to go.  As long as you don't mind being scared by static, as if kids these days even know what static is.


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
You Better Get Up While You Can

Full Review: The Plan (PC)

The Plan, a "game" of sorts developed by Krillbite Studio, the same people who are developing the first person survival horroresque game where you play as a two year old, probably does not require it's own full article, but you know what, it's going to happen because I enjoyed it that much.  I've played through three times and I think I enjoyed it more the second and third times around.

Krillbite describes the game as an "atmospheric videogame, exploring the issues of death and meaning."  I feel that The Plan, while it does allow the player to explore those issues, I feel that they happen after the game has finished.  And by finished, I mean that it will take you between 5 - 10 minutes to complete.  And believe it or not, the game comes with it's own achievement that is really more of an Easter egg than anything else.

So what exactly then is The Plan?  You begin the game as a fly with the camera very close up on you, almost uncomfortably close, especially if you are not personally fond of flies.  You then progress through the game/stage and slowly the camera pulls back and back, all the while the music in the background (from 19th century Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg) becomes more-and-more pronounced and powerful, but not obnoxiously so.

The game is very simplistic and very calming for the most part, considering that you are controlling something that most people tend to kill on site and cats for some reason like to eat.  I would say that it would be better to go into this game without any expectations although I did tell The Kid that she would "either like it or think it's absolute shit."  And really, that is all I feel you need to tell people, that the game is a small file (~120MB) that takes less than 10 minutes to play and if you don't like it, then you only lost maybe 20 minutes tops.

I just find that The Plan is a nifty little experiment from a video game studio that, from what I have seen from them, is true to their development philosophy, not to put words in their brains.  I highly recommend downloading this free game if for no other reason than to give your opinion about it and what defines a "video game" in todays market.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Concealment of Joyful Laughter

My Time With The Elder Scrolls Online Beta Testing (PC)

Now that Bethesda and Zenimax have officially lifted the Non-Disclosure Agreement, I am now able to babble to my hearts content.  Keep in mind though that this will end up being a longer post than usual as I will be blabbing about experiences from three different beta tests going back to November of 2013.

With that in mind, I present to you:

The first of many loading screens, since updated.

First off, I am not exactly sure how many beta tests Bethesda/Zenimax have run, but I was able to take part in the last three (November 2013, January & February 2014).  The current word is that there will be one last beta test before the game is released on April 4th of this year.  My experience that I will relate to you in frustratingly bad detail will be from only those three beta tests.

Secondly, before November 2013, I had never played an MMO of any kind.  I never played World of Warcraft at any point even though I loved Warcraft I and II (still sad that I never played III).  I never played Final Fantasy XI despite my general love of the Final Fantasy franchise, although that love began to wain with Final Fantasy's VII, VIII and X, so it's no surprise that I didn't do anything with XI.  With all of this in mind, it will be pretty obvious that I am not hep with all of the lingo and understanding of acronyms and verbiage.  During the post play survey, I had to look up what LFG meant and I am still not 100% on what "aggro" means in the context of a battle and how it works.  Maybe I do know but I don't know it.  Even though I find it hilarious, this rant that I first saw as a flash back in 2006 doesn't mean a whole lot to me.

Thirdly, with the exception of the last beta test, each session was over a weekend that I had to work. At least two of the days of the test.  In November, I didn't work the first day, but the test did not start until 12pm PST, but as to be expected during a stress test, the server was overloaded at many stages.  The above picture I took after I had logged on.  The progress bar got about as far as the circular band before if froze and I had to restart.  Three hours in I was finally able to make it to the character generation portion, but I was booted out a handful of times before I could create my character:

Bosmer Nightblade, part of the Aldmeri Dominion (November)

In the forums (where the majority of people were very cool with not everyone coming from an MMO background), a lot of people were coming up with names that would be based on the race of character they were playing while I chose a name that people might recognize me by as opposed to a name that would blend in with the world.  So, I chose to be a male Bosmer (Wood Elf) and I was immediately excited that the heights of the races was restored to something more similar to their respective heights in Morrowind; that Orsimer (Orcs) are larger than Humans who are larger than Dunmer (Dark Elves) who are larger than Bosmer, et cetera.  While I am usually not a fan of tattooing my characters, I early on decided that I would give all of my characters the same tattoo pattern, just because.

Because I am lame, I didn't take any pictures during the character creation process, but I will say that it is somewhat similar to the process in Skyrim, but different in other ways.  For instance, you are able to change the general shape/look of the body to be muscular, large or thin and the face to be soft, heroic or angular.  The video put out by Zenimax Online does a good quick job of describing the process.

Moving onto the beta test.  While playing each time, I always had the fact in the back of my mind that what I was playing was not a finished product.  There were going to be errors, which was the whole point of the beta existing.  We were there to find bugs, problems, glitches and whatnot with the game so that it would be as bug-free as possible come launch day.  

My first time though, I initially felt that the controls (keyboard & mouse) felt very loose, almost as if I wasn't totally in control of my character.  Granted I was coming from playing Morrowind which has somewhat sluggish controls and your player does run pretty slowly, even when sprinting, but after a while, I became used to how the character moved/ran/interacted with the environment.

Battles/Fighting in the game is something that I have not noticed any changes to since November.  The fighting has seemed, for lack of a better adjective, weak.  Yes, when you swing your weapon and it comes into contact with an enemy damage is done, except that the contact part does not feel real.  I know that is an odd sentence but I cannot find an easier way to explain what it is that I am trying to say.  Here's another go: when your sword (or your weapon of choice) comes into contact with an enemy, the weapon passes through them as if they were not there, but damage is still done, but the feeling that you have inflicted damage is not there.

My first playthrough, I encountered a number of animation glitches while trying to draw my bow back.  I don't have any pictures or a capture card, but my character would draw the arrow and then begin to rotate very rapidly in a 90 degree arc.  When I released the arrow I would hit my mark, but the character was still wigging out.  In the last beta test, the main animation glitch was that my character would use a long range attack and the animation would stick at the end with the last bit of sound effect that accompanied so the effect sounded like buzzing tin foil.

The most frequent bug that I came across was that while exiting out of a conversation with an NPC, the dialogue options would be gone (as they were supposed to be), but I would be stuck in the same frame, unable to move, re-establish dialogue.  My only option at that point was to submit a bug report (by typing /bug in the chat window) and then killing myself (/stuck) so that I could respawn at a "wayshrine."  A random bug/glitch/error that I encountered and that I actually took a picture of was during the January beta test.  I was playing as a Breton Templar (Cleric) and running around part of the island and came across a missing graphic:

Just in case one "Missing" didn't get the point across.

Mainly because this didn't turn out to be the Dwarven Part that I was searching for, I thought this was pretty funny.

The last bug that I encountered with my Breton Templar, which was a game killing bug, was that I accidentally did a quest in a closed off area out of order and as a result, I was unable to leave the area or proceed with the quest line.

How many Orsimer does it take to kill an invisible prisoner?

What is going on here, is that you are in a memory.  The Orc with the arrow above his head should be standing next to a prisoner.  Upon talking to the Orc he states the prisoners crimes and you decide if they should live or die.  Being an Orc (in the memory I was an Orc), I felt that the prisoners should die, so I found four prisoners and had them all killed.  Only after the fact did I talk to the person who gave me the quest for the area.  The arrows above the specific Orcs appeared but the prisoners remained dead.  I was unable to reload the quest and even after I killed myself (/stuck) I was permanently stuck.  I submitted my /bug report but I was unable to use this character for the remainder of the beta test.

Over the course of the three beta tests, I did see some changes.  First there was a sound effect of coins dropping after purchasing or selling an item that was not present in the November test.  The second was the inclusion of two enemies that greatly expanded the first tutorial area, but I won't say anymore to prevent spoilers, of which I am trying to be somewhat vigilant.

The music!  I just realized I haven't said anything about the music.  From what I can tell, based on the music in the menus and in game music, Jeremy Soule is still the composer for the Elder Scrolls Online, although that is not confirmed.  The credits in the game consists of "Credits Text 1" through "Credits Text 3."  After listening to the music, I do believe that Jeremy Soule is still the composer.  At some point between the January and February beta tests, a lot of the menu music changed and while it does sound less dark than the previous versions, there is a lot more use of a choir, which in my book is very rarely a bad thing.  

And while we are on the topic of sound, Bethesda and Zenimax have gathered quite a cast to handle some of the voice acting.  The "only" voices that I came across, due to my inability to reach Level 10, was that of Michael Gambon and John Cleese.  Again, I will not say in what capacity they offered their vocal talents, but I will say that they were used very well.  I am told that this cast also includes Bill Nighy, Kate Beckinsale, Alfred Molina, Malcolm McDowell and Lynda Carter.  Not that just because the vocal cast is notable will make the writing any good, but the vocal notables do do a great job with the material that they have been given.

That being said, there was not as much reading material as one might have found in any of the previous Elder Scrolls games.  Books were few and far between and when you were able to read a book, it most likely came from a bookshelf full of books rather than a single volume.  This is something that saddened me greatly during all of the beta tests.    Because The Elder Scrolls Online takes place in an era that has, as of yet, been unplayable (ie the Second Era), I never really felt that I was playing roughly 700 years before the events in The Elder Scrolls: The Arena begin or nearly 900 years before the events in Skyrim.  Reading books is what helped me solidify my immersion in the Elder Scrolls games so I was a little sad to find out that, at least, as of the February test, literature would be somewhat scarce.  Or, maybe I am just not looking hard enough, which is always a possibility.

There is a lot that I have not touched on that is present in The Elder Scrolls Online.  There is a crafting system where you can create items related to your specific ethnicity and learn those of other groups as well.  I did not do anything in the way of crafting as I tried to spend the majority of my time doing story and side quests to raise levels.  There are group dungeons that you can only explore with three other people.  I am sure that voice chat is a thing, but I never looked into it as I primarily played by myself and didn't bother with anyone else.  And finally, there is the whole of the mass battles in the PvP area of Cyrodiil.  As briefly stated somewhere up there in all those words, I said that I never made it to level 10 (to note, level 17 was the goal and max for the last three beta tests) which is the minimum level required to enter Cyrodiil and the massive PvP areas.  I did not.  I also do not know about controller support for the PC as I only played with keyboard & mouse.  It would seem like controller support of PC should be a thing as there are plenty of people who simply prefer this way of playing a video game.  I guess these will all just be wait and see.

In closing (because it's late for me and I still need to sleep, as of the writing of this), I will say that I have (so far) enjoyed my time with the Elder Scrolls Online beta tests.  There have been a number of bugs/glitches that have hampered progress and some occurred frequently enough to make me turn the game off because of having to kill myself to become "unstuck."  The beginning areas, which act as tutorials were very linear, almost annoyingly so when compared to other games in the series, but I figure that they are simply that, tutorial areas, for you to become used to your character and to build their levels and abilities up a bit before putting you out in the big bad scary world of people yelling over the internet.

To date, I have had a very fun time playing, despite all the bugs/glitches that I would expect to be present in a beta test and I know that both Conklederp and myself are looking forward to the end of March when the game will launch for pre-orders and April for the rest of the PC market.


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
People Running 'round, It's Five O'Clock


P.S.
I wanted to share some of the other pictures I took during the three beta sessions.  Sadly though, I did not take many pictures of bugs that occurred during game play as most were either based around animations that would not translate to pictures or because the glitch would not have looked interesting in picture form.  So here are some others which you may or may not be interested in.

Breton Templar, part of the Daggerfall Covenant (January)

Dunmer Kightblade (Theif) as part of the Ebonheart Pact (February)

Mudcrabs feasting on a washed up corpse of an NPC.

It's never a good thing to see and/or be near a portal that leads to Oblivion.