Gameageddon: Enter The Holidays

Question: what do games this holiday season and nuclear warfare have in common? Answer: if you happen to experience either one, your life as you know it is probably over.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Batman: Arkham City, three different types of geekery greatness, all boasting hours and hours of gameplay, dominate the video game marketplace this year. You know that person who dresses up in fake chainmail for renaissance festivals? They’ll love Skyrim. Comic book reader? Batman: Arkham City is the way to go. Star Wars fan? Warcraft fan? All-around evil person? Star Wars: The Old Republic suits all three.

But let’s be honest, you’re reading this because you want these games for yourself. And why wouldn’t you? They’re amazing!

Batman will break you

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Batman: Arkham City is the follow-up to the smash hit Batman: Arkham Asylum, the first video game to do Batman justice. And Batman is all about justice. In Arkham City, the combat is even more fluid and with a whole miniature city at your disposal, the opportunities to rain down “scary Batman terror” on your opponents are omnipresent. The characters can be a bit overblown at times (just Two-Face, really), but the story is great and the voice work is incredible. Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, and Paul Dini knock it out of the park, bringing a darker feel than they ever showed in Batman: The Animated Series, which makes sense as it was a children’s show, but I digress. And so can you! With so many optional quests and new Riddler clues, there are literally hours of opportunities for non-narrative enjoyment.

My wife isn't the belle of the ball, sure, but just look at those... at that eye!

Speaking of doing absolutely everything that isn’t the main story, let’s talk about The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim! The best way to describe this game is through all the wonderful anecdotes you hear from people who’ve played it. So what is my favorite moment? Well, it might have been when I got killed four times in a row by a pair of giants, so I decided the fifth time to mind-control two nearby woolly mammoths, making them do my dirty work as I cackled evilly and shot arrows at them from afar, jumping through the air and celebrating like Rumpelstiltskin. Or it might have been that time I didn’t like this one guy’s tone as he brushed past me in the village, so I broke into his house late at night, set him on fire while he was sleeping, killed him, raised him from the dead, made him kill his own wife, and then killed him again just to show him who’s boss. Yeah, that was pretty good and had nothing to do with the story. Also, just because I’m a bad person, doesn’t mean you are. Skyrim is the best game I’ve ever played because it truly lets you craft your own story. Maybe you’d prefer to settle down on a farm with your spouse and mine silver all day so you can sell your own hand-made jewelry to the local werewolf gang so they can look pretty. Skyrim lets you do that.

And boy is it a bargain. As I mentioned for Black Friday, Skyrim is the best bang for your holiday buck.

However, Star Wars: The Old Republic is a close second place. It’s only been out for a few days, but luckily for you, I was in the beta for weeks (be jealous). The best thing about The Old Republic is that Bioware really accomplished what they set out to do. The Old Republic incorporates quality, choice-matters stories and character development in an awesome, polished MMO. But how can they do that? Well, here are a few examples with some sprinkled spoilers.

They're having a friendly conversation about whose dad can beat up whose.

In the Sith Warrior’s storyline, there’s a quest where you have to collect ancient artifacts, but you’re jumped by a fellow acolyte who tries to take them from you. After you fight him (the Sith fight a lot), you can murder him for his inconvenience or inconvenience yourself by giving him the artifacts and then going and getting them all again for yourself. Why would you do that? Well, I wouldn’t, because I’m not that nice. But my brother did. And much later on, when we both had the same mission to get our lightsabers and got jumped by our arch-nemesis, who came running to his aid but not mine? The scrawny acolyte he helped and I murdered. Needless to say, his fight was much easier than mine turned out to be. All because he was nice to someone instead of murdering them. Another example is in the Imperial Agent’s storyline when you’re sent to infiltrate a cult that worships Darth Revan.

The Imperial Agent‘s storyline is the most interesting by far, because you basically play James Bond via Star Wars (yeah, it’s awesome). After you’ve completed three pretty big tasks to build the trust of the cult leaders, the bigwig Master of the cult meets with you and tells you crazy conspiracy stories about the Empire and about Darth Revan being almost 400 years old but still alive. Then you have a choice: turn in the crazy Master’s identity and thereby destroy the cult or help this kooky cult out by framing a Sith Senator (and maybe find out if the crazy Master is telling the truth).

This type of subtle political maneuvering and actual storytelling is rarely seen in MMOs, which tend to have quests more like “go find this thing and bring it back to me” or “kill X number of monsters and prove it to me” or “go talk to this guy and then talk to me.” It’s certainly a breath of fresh air that every quest you do in Star Wars: The Old Republic is important somehow.

That being said, if you like doing those boring grind quests, Bioware hasn’t robbed you of them. You can still do fetch quests and such, but now they’re optional bonus quests so the rest of us don’t have to waste our lives on them.

Especially when we need that extra life to play Skyrim and Arkham City.

Sarlaaaaacc! *canned laughter*

In fact, why am I still sitting here typing when I could be harvesting the full moon’s power in my sword to burn vampires to death (Skyrim), dropping forty stories straight down into a gang of felons and then breaking every limb they have one by one (Arkham City), or rising up from the bowels of slavery to disembowel my enemies with sheer hatred-turned-into-lightning (The Old Republic)?

Oh, one last thing. If none of these games sound interesting to you, just buy Portal 2 for $15. If that game disappoints you, email me and I’ll personally tell you why you’re wrong about life.