telophase | (no subject)

I'd read plenty of things about Skyrim*, bought it on Steam a while back, and Toby started playing it, loved it, and is now deep into his second playthrough while I had difficulties trying to coordinate the keyboard and got maybe fifteen minutes into it before the camera movement made me woozy and I quit. I'd still been thinking about it, and thought maybe I'd do better on a traditional console with a traditional controller**, so we bought a used copy of it for the PS3 last night.

* Video game, for those of you who don't play.
** Yes you can get controllers that plug into your computer. But with the console game I'd be in the media room on the giant TV on a recliner, rather than in an office chair in an imperfectly-lit room.

I got about as far as I'd done in the Steam version when we realized that the game had glitched and the bit that's supposed to allow you to save wasn't working. When we quit the game and restarted, the last auto-save was right before character creation. :/ So I recreated my character, saved the game, and quite because I didn't want to run through all that intro stuff a third time. I plan on making Toby get me to the point where we quit, then taking over from there.

So, my character is named Murderface McKenzie because he looks like a Murderface McKenzie. Because I have not got used to the controls, which require you to use one joystick to turn and one joystick to move, while at the same time mashing buttons to fight, Murderface only attacks in one direction because he cannot turn and only survives things like wolf pack attacks because Toby is sitting in the other chair saying TURN! TURN! USE YOUR RIGHT JOYSTICK! at me. (Not in a bad way; he finds this hilarious.)

AND WHAT THIS ALL MEANS is that on Tumblr the usual meme about there being a zombie infestation is going around, where your team is the characters from the last three things you read/watched/played, which means I'm stuck with the cast of Community, a lady from the turn of last century who wrote an advice book for spinsters, and Murderface McKenzie, who literally can't turn to save his life.

I'm dead.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

haha. Yes, I got a cramped hand from Morrowind and Oblivion--didn't spend more than a dozen hours with Skyrim because of its setting. (Am medievalist. Picky despite myself.) The advice book's writer might be helpful, though?

Well, she seems never to have actually met a male human being. Or at least she describes their behavior and thinking as if they were some Platonic ideal. I do admit to mostly skimming it in search of interesting or amusing bits, so I may be missing subtleties.

So I'm not sure how she'd do against zombies.

Perhaps she'd be set for the Platonic ideal of a zombie invasion....

Apparently I shall be accompanied in the zombie apocalypse by the protagonist of Out There (basically Farscape: The iPad Game), a cheerful hot torturer from a dystopian future (http://www.mannazone.org/zone/admin/fic/mf.html), and the entire cast of Downton Abbey. I shall survive, but not without much angst over whether slaying zombies should be done in evening suits or white tie.

I'd ask you to come and save me afterwards, but I estimate I've got about five minutes, tops. And that's if Murderface happens to be facing the correct direction to start with.

My combat "strategy" for Skyrim usually involved charging an enemy and stabbing it in the face with a 1h sword before it could react to me. I nearly always had magic healing powers equipped to my off hand because I sucked at using a shield and it was just easier to "burst heal" myself than learn to block. It was effective, but pretty embarrassing since I made a Khajiit to be all stealthy and never, ever was.

I'm not sure what my zombie team is. Probably a combination of Steven Universe, YA fantasy I've already half forgotten, and... a medical drug company because I was playing Big Pharma. That last was probably the cause and potential saviour of the whole problem.

Edited 2016-04-14 21:10 (UTC)

I think that may be my strategy also. So far I'm coping by mashing the SWING SWORD button wildly as I attempt to turn in the correct direction, but accidentally use the wrong joystick so I run away instead. I may adopt that magic-healing-hand strategy once I have a suitable spell.

I'm playing an Imperial because they seemed to be able to use magic and fighting equally, so I figured I'd see which one I liked better and focus on that. Toby always likes sneaky characters, so he's played a Khajit and ... er, the lizardy one.

I think healing must unlock early on because I don't remember doing anything difficult without it and I also don't remember going out of my way to find it, though I admit it has been a number of years since I played.

Argonians are the lizardy ones. I mostly remember them because I always wondered why the female models had boobs when they were an egg laying reptile species. I think I ended up going with "because magic" since according to the elder scrolls wiki they are also reptiles directly descended from sentient hive-mind trees and their young is fed tree sap upon hatching, so... yeah... Tamriel is one messed up place.

We explored the spells available to Murderface and discovered that there was at least one healing spell available. But then Toby showed me how to set oil slicks on fire and I think Murderface maybe enjoys setting people and things on fire a bit too much. He may rethink that once he meets more opponents, though. Especially if he still can't turn to face them.

Well how else would you know they were girls? Can't go round not knowing if they're girls, now, can you?!

Setting fire to things is a time honoured path for any RPG character. I approve of Murderface's sense of tradition, even if it is later reconsidered (possibly after being accidentally caught in an inferno of their own making).

Murderface is nothing if not traditional!

Then I'd be in a group with warriors, a somewhat fail goddess, some lolicon magical girls, and the comedians of @ Midnight. It could be a lot worse.

You're better off than I am, for sure!

Oversexed badass werewolves (very effective in combat when not obsessively fucking each other), the Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild hockey teams, and the (~teenaged) Avengers (from the Avengers Academy game).

... I think that probably gives me an unusually strong chance of surviving the zombie apocalypse, at least for a while.

Yup.

I'd probably have a super-hilarious death, though.

True! Now I want that episode of Community to exist.

I need to find someone who writes Community fic to do that. XD