If you aren’t one to read companion books that accompany the newest Bethesda releases, then the events after the end of the Third Era are left largely unknown to you. To fix that, user redphoenix over at gamefaqs has written up a wonderful summary of the events leading up to the current situation in Skyrim. In his opening sentences, he perfectly summarized exactly what i was thinking:

The game references many very important events that the player is never allowed to ask about or learn more about via dialog. We’re tossed into the game with no knowledge of current international events, yet are expected to understand local politics are part of the main quest? Impossible.

To fully understand the civil war in Skyrim, it is absolutely necessary to understand the what, exactly, has transpired in the 200 years since the last gates to Oblivion were closed. When we last left Tamriel, the continent was at peace: fully united, as it always had been, by the Septim Empire with its capital in the Cyrodiil Imperial city. But in Skyrim, Tamriel is a much different place.

His post hits on a little bit of everything: The creation of the Aldmeri Dominion, The split of Hammerfell, The mass exodus of the Dark Elves, and the decline of the empire.

The most impressive thing to note is the amount of time her spent scouring over in-game lore to discover the truth of what happened. There’s no way I could do it. I started out reading every book I came across, but eventually that ended, and soon i was only opening books to see what kind of stat bonus they might hold inside.

You can read his full write-up here

stay tuned for more of the best technology rekated articles

You remember Goozex right? If not, read up on them on one of my previous posts at this link. Well, great news, I’ve been brought on as an associate writer for their member-run blog The Goozex Report. I’m very excited to be an even bigger part of their community, and wanted to share my first article with you. Give it a spin here, and let me know what you think.

Thanks everyone!

Care to see your favorite gaming consoles and peripherals with x-ray vision? Your wish has come true. Check the following link for one person’s flickr gallery. Very cool.

X-Ray Funnies – a set on Flickr.

G4 has again been named the official broadcaster of E3 2009, and with only a month to go until keynotes, I’m definitely excited. Let’s just hope I don’t relive the fiasco that was E3 2007 on the same network. See my rant for more information on that.

G4 promises to provide over 22 hours of content, including five keynotes, hands on demos, interviews, and Steve Wiebe with another one of his live Donkey Kong high score attempts. If you’re unfamiliar with Steve, then be sure to check out the documentary: The King of Kong. It’s a great film. Other than that, additional details on the broadcast can be found at the following link.

G4 Named Official Broadcaster Of E3 2009 – G4tv.com.

And for those of you who wanted to check out the review from IGN, here you are. Sadly, they reviewed the game higher than the actual film.

IGN: X-Men Origins: Wolverine — Uncaged Edition Review.

I heard the rumors. I thought previews of the game had adequately described the game. They did not. I was wrong.

Those expecting a simple translation of the upcoming film are in for quite a surprise. A sweet one for some (me), and a sickening one for others. This game shows Wolverine portrayed, as well, more unleashed than in the film. This game is violent. Heads are cut off (by claws), heads are impaled (by claws), heads are pushed through chopper blades (with claws), and I’d imagine if the demo were a bit longer, we’d see them burnt and crushed. It just seems to be the natural progression for the content of this title. To see this happen with a licensed game is  stunning. I personally think it’s the right choice, I mean, Wolverine is supposed to be vicious.

As far as gameplay is concered, it’s pretty much standard fare for a 3rd person action game. Think Ninja Gaiden, with Wolverine instead of Ryu. I can’t say that I’ll be picking up the title based solely off its merits of violence, so we’ll have to see where reviews go, but definitely pick up the demo. You’ll be entertained in one way or another, and the only cost is bandwidth.

I spend a lot of money on games. I mean a lot. I buy 2 -3 new games a month easy. It’s an expensive habit, and it adds up, but hell, if you can’t enojoy yourself, then what good is living? I listen to a handful of gaming postcasts, and one day the topic was Goozex. I was intruiged, and looked into it further. I’m glad I did, because this site is awesome; something that anyone on a budget needs to take a good hard look at.

The idea is simple. Tired of getting ripped off at Game Crazy or Gamestop? Those unfamiliar, these companies thrive on giving you the smallest amount of money (or in store credit to be more accurate) for your game as possible. They then turn around and sell your game for the most they expect another will pay. The outcome? Sick sick profit. Goozex takes another approach. They use, what I refer to as, a lateral credit system. This means that when you trade a game, you get what Goozex deems to be the appropriate market value. No less. They have an algorithm working which takes the average value of a title, and adjusts slightly based off of demand. Using this information they then give each game a point value ranging anywhere from 100 – 1000 points.

Once you have some games you’d like to trade, you simply visit http://www.goozex.com, look up the game you’d like to dump, then place this in your offers queue. Goozex then adds your game to a list of available games. Once Goozex finds someone who wishes to purchase your games with their points, you accept their offer for your game, mail it off to them, and once they give you positive feedback, you’re credited points to your account. It sounds a bit complicated, so let me provide a quick example.

I had a copy of Silent Hill: Homecoming for my Playstation 3 which I no longer wanted (I purchased an Xbox 360 version for achievements… I feel so dirty). Goozex decided that it was worth 800 pionts (equal to $40.00), so I placed it into my offeres queue. After a few minutes, Goozex found a match, meaning someone had placed the title into their requests queue. I accepted the trade, shipped the title off using the shipping label I purchased from Goozex for $3.50 (the seller always pays the shipping), and once the recipient had received the game and found it working, they left me positive feedback, and 800 points were credited to my account. As a seller, I only paid for shipping in order to trade my game.

Once I had my points, I then decided that before trading any other titles, that I’d test the system just to be certain that it worked the way the site advertised. In order to buy games on Goozex, you first need to purchase trade tokens (your account comes with one token already). Each request costs you, the buyer, one token, which you purchase for one dollar. This means that for each game you purchse on Goozex, they make a total of one dollar. I found a couple games that I’d been meaning to test out, specifically F.E.A.R (350 points) and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 (450 points). I put the titles into my request queue, Goozex found a match within a day or so, and less than a week later, the games showed up in the mail. In the end, I spent two trade tokens, equal to $2.00, and $3.50 on shipping for a total of $5.50 to trade Silent Hill: Homecoming for F.E.A.R and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6 Vegas 2. Comaring this to what I might be able to get at Gamestop, and I think I came out far ahead.

Check it out. If you’d like, signup using this link, and you’ll automatically be added to my friends list. You can also check out my Goozex profile here, just in case you’d like to know what I’ve recently traded or purchsed on Goozex, as well as what games I’m playing, and some other interesting tidbits.

Enjoy.

I normally do not like to do this, but I just cannot resist. Please click this link, and check out Sony’s awesome thinking behind not including backwards compatibility in their new 40GB SKU released in the ol’ UK. It turns out that Sony, as they will find themselves with 65 games on their fantastic console this holiday season, believes that “there’s sufficient choice in the marketplace and that we’re still better off using that money that we’d put into backwards compatibility in either investing in new games or using that money to help support bringing the price down.” That makes a lot of sense. That emulation software must be really expensive to warrant that reasoning.

You know what Sony? You’re wrong. Your console does not, and will not have any games worth playing any time soon. Your holiday releases are abysmal compared to Microsoft’s and Nintendo’s. You should be ashamed. The only thing I do with your products anymore is play these older games you don’t think people longer want. These older games are from a time when you seemed to have some kind of fan base loyalty, a time when you made promises you could keep, and a time when you were a company that made video games exciting during a time when they had lost some of their luster. That time is long gone, and I’ll gladly spit on your grave when you’re done digging it.