I had an overwhelming urge to play Heavy Rain Move Edition last night which I haven't done for many months. I almost forgot how good it was.
Yeah, they can ruin things but playing the early parts of Oblivion minus the guide meant I got sub-par loot which annoyed me. Had no idea quest rewards were levelled you see.
I never use guides and still manage to get good gear in most RPG's but saying that I am very meticulous with these sorts of things. I spent a lot of time in Fallout NV last year travelling around doing side quests and ended up quite overpowered for the end of the game. Looking forward to playing Skyrim but being the longest game I will get for Christmas it will be last in line.
Oblivion had a stupid levelling system for loot, so if you received a quest reward at level 3 it would be scaled accordingly. One of the best items in the game was therefore rubbish for me because I did the quest near the start. NEVER AGAIN.
I thought about that. One of the quest items I got had about 10 enchantments on it which could make it one of the most powerful items in the game. But eventually my skill level surpassed the enchantment level and it wasn't so useful.
I fought the dragon and triggered krosis just after the dragon died, right after I quicksaved too. Krosis was damn hard, but mainly because he just ran to the cliff edge and wanted to fight there. I ended up mainly taking him out with archery on my second attempt after him blasting me off the cliff on my first. I can't wait for the next fight with one of those masked guys, not all that much is a challenge anymore...
I learned my lesson from Oblivion. I didn't try to power level anything except illusion and restoration and I only did those because they had perks I needed. Illusion sucks but silent casting is a must for solid mages. Without it I was getting gang banged in every fight.
ppl misunderstand guides. Their just guides, not some totalitarian dictator looking to take all your fun for themself. Seriously take some english classes if you don't know how to distinguish from a guide and a WIFE.
Who buys guides these days anyway? There's website called google that does the same thing and its free.
A guide's much more convenient than scrabbling around on a computer/iphone as you go along. Still, the Internet is good for more - shall we say - impoverished gamers.
There's no scrabbling for me. I have my trusty laptop within reach when I game. If I want to find something out I'll google it or in the case of skyrim, uesp it.
Guides are pretty nice for collecting, I've got some of the MGS guides and they have nifty artwork and pretty things.
Yep, although the Prima guide for this game is as thick as a phone book. I picked it up though and have enjoyed having it handy for things like knowing exactly how far into the main quest that I am, and how many other quests exist etc.
No, that isn't really true. There are tips and strategy advice on a wide variety of subjects throughout the book, and they also have general walkthroughs of every quest. The three sections at the beginning that introduce you to character creation, combat, and general adventuring total 70 pages alone. I think you'd have to be an almost novice gamer to be strategically confused about Skyrim if you own the Prima guide.
By the way, Barbas the Talking Dog turns out to be a rather effective dungeon companion if you tend to prefer ranged attacks. He's indestructible, keeps enemies at bay and also doesn't block your line of fire since he's low to the ground. I used Barbas to help me take out Malkoran and Kvenel the Tongue in a much easier fashion. Of course, the constant barking and nudging of your character when you're trying to line up a stealth shot gets really annoying...so you'll want to choose your spots with Barbas. He's definitely great for the heavy hitters you occasionally run up against.
OK so I started this last night and I have gotten as far as doing the first dungeon with the golden claw. I find the levelling system a little weird I have to say so that will take some getting used to. I put two points into destruction but am not sure I am happy with my choices now. I like being ranged but am not sure at the moment whether magic was a good idea or whether I should have gone with bows. I don't want to start again as that seems a pain and I have only used 3 perks so will carry on for now. Is there a way to quick swap equipment on the console versions? Say if I wanted to switch between a bow and magic without going into the menus? I don't like the menus as much as I do the Fallout ones, I would go so far as to say I miss the pip boy. Not a fan of melee in these sorts of games at all (although the shishkebab in FO3 was good) but I did get a nice magic sword so I may try that out. Although I don't feel it is as good as the 2 recent Fallout games at the moment 2 hours of my life did disappear while playing it so it must be doing something right. I think I will spend some time levelling my crafting abilities next, might try to find some ores and skins. I did notice a bug already. I took Sven with me to the first dungeon and halfway through he completely disappeared. It was only when I loaded a new area that he came back so it seems Bethesda still can't get everything right.