So this is a quick blog post, that for once is not an amateur game review.
As my friends know, I suffer from 3 distinct mental 'issues'; Depression, Anger and Anxiety.
Depression I got inherently from my mother, it is something I will never get better from, simply learn to control. It's triggered by traumatic events but has been showing slightly my whole life. As a child I was branded 'moody' due to the fact it only took one comment, or telling no, for me to become very quiet and withdrawn. I don't remember much of my childhood, not due to abuse or anything, but simply due to a bad memory, however I am aware I hurt myself on occasion. This of course was put down to attention seeking. Unfortunately, as a result of this lack of diagnosis and treatment, my depression got worse and eventually my Anxiety and Anger developed. By anger I don't mean I have a bit of a short temper, I mean something as small as someone in the street saying "Look at the ginger" or something similarly pathetic and unnecessary can send me into a furious rage. Again, I will never be made 'normal' from this, it's part of me for good, but I have learnt to control it. My anxiety was last to develop, as a result of my anger. I came to a point in life where I would leave the house as little as possible simply because I knew that I would likely over hear someone make a comment about my hair, my height, my clothes, or something similar, which would make me so angry, to the point where I just wanted to tear their throat out, I would push this emotion down, and once on my own, slip into depression, becoming and emotional wreck because I felt so stupid for letting such a trivial thing make me angry, at one time this would even lead to self harm as a form of punishment for letting myself get angry. This circle of events lead to me rarely leaving the house so as to avoid it, which lead to my anxiety. 2 years of never meeting new people, going to new places, and hardly speaking to the people I do know, lead me to be very scared of these thing happening. It wasn't easy but I've finally broken the anxiety. I still have the odd panic attack, can't deal with crowds or too much noise, but it's rare and much easier to avoid large groups of people than to avoid all people entirely. My Depression anger will unfortunately always be bad, although I have enough control that they no longer show around others. I haven't got in a fight for 3 years and haven't self harmed for 2. However, I know it's always going to be difficult, and what makes it harder is knowing people don't understand. Some people say with my problems, I should be allowed to hit someone if he's making offensive comments about me, and while I'd love that to be true, I can't live a life like that, I'd have no friends, no chance of a job, or anything really. But if people could just understand that not only is Depression a serious problem, but anger problems can be too, and both together is hell. I guess I just want people to understand, I don't want sympathy, sympathy will make me lazy about my control. Just read, understand and pass this along, please? :)
~Rusty
Tuesday 1 January 2013
December DLC!
In this post I'm going to be looking at two major DLC packs released during December for their respective games on the Xbox 360. Starting with Forza Horizon's Rally pack and then Skyrim's Dragonborn pack.
Forza -
I have to say right from the word go I felt misled with Forza, they have labelled it an expansion, and with Horizon being an open world game, I assumed I would be given a new area to free roam in, along with races, cars and such. This is not the case. You are given what they claim to be 20 races, however they are counting each rally stage as a race, and there are around 3 to 4 rally stages per event. Meaning you don't actually get 20 'races' in the same sense as the original game.
You are given 5 new cars to play with, which I admit I'm very pleased with, however I have found during my play through that the car they give you to begin with (Same style as in the demo, here's some money if you don't have enough, buy this car and start racing) is the best of the 5. The other 4 are fun to collect, customise and use if you're up for more of a challenge, but the first one, the Mitsubishi is the all round best, being easiest to drive at all levels. Of course, if you know a thing or two about tuning, which I don't, you will probably be capable of bringing the others up to the same standard.
Other than it's misleading me, it is a very fun DLC pack. The tracks are as beautiful as the Vanilla environment, which I wasn't sure they'd manage, as the Horizon is the only racing game in which the environments have caused me to give a vocalised reaction, despite no one being around to hear it. The stunning scenery hasn't ceased to impress and the detailing of the cars is as impressive as ever. The core gameplay too is incredible. The handling is responsive and realistic, the races are as adrenaline pumping as ever, without the irritating "Spring break surfer dude" type voice overs of the later DiRT series instalments.
The new aesthetic rally parts for cars are fun too, although I remember reading somewhere they would be applicable to certain pre-release cars, I've yet to find any in my garage that have the option, although I only have maybe 40% of the Vanilla cars, and no DLC bonus packs. So things may be different for others.
It is a disappointingly short DLC pack, and thus this is all I can really say about it, a lot of fun, although how long the fun lasts is questionable, I would recommend it to rally fans or Horizon fans who want a bit of extra variety or length to their favourite game. Otherwise I would not suggest buying it until it's on sale. 1600MS points really seems a bit much for something so limited.
Skyrim -
My first taste of the Dragonborn DLC was when walking through Morthal I was attacked by two cultists, on killing them I found a note that pointed me to the new island of Solstheim, off the coast of Morrowind. As someone who only joined in on the epic adventure that is The Elder Scrolls series with Skyrim, I was very excited to get a taste of life in Tamriel outside of Skyrim, and what a taste I got. The main quest line, to those who will take time to explore dungeons fully listen to the conversations involved, can easily last a good 6 hours. Longer if you make the mistake I did, of not keeping some spare Dragon Souls on hand. As you will have seen in trailers, the story centres around the very first Dragonborn. It's mentioned often in Skyrim that you are not the only Dragonborn to have existed, however until now you are the only one alive. Miraak supposedly died 2000 years ago, but then, nothing involving daedric princes would be so simple. Those with knowledge of the princes will guess which one it is through the prevalence of books throughout the story, however I shall not ruin the surprise for those who don't yet know.
The gameplay and graphics are of the same great quality that Skyrim quickly became known for, and similar to previous DLC, it affects all aspects of gameplay. Tons of new side quests have been added, new armours both light and heavy can be crafted, new potions can be concocted via new ingredients to be sought out on your travels, especially fun for the thieves and assassins among us who use poisons to achieve similar effects to those of illusion mages. This is a DLC that, to do everything new on an all rounder type character, will easily fill 15 hours of play, 20 if you take your time. If however, you're like me, and play multiple characters of varying styles, you could stretch it to 40 or 50 hours. You really do feel the additions even when running vanilla quests. It doesn't limit itself.
If you have both of these games, and 1600MS points, I suggest going for Dragonborn. In fact, even if you don't have 1600MS points, go get them and then get it. It's brilliant fun and really reinvigorated a great game that I had in fact grown bored of. It's big, it's time consuming, it's fun and it's worth every single penny.
I should note, for those who are fans of MMORPGs (Which is how I got into Skyrim, I would never have bought such a game before I started playing WoW) the final fight has mechanics worthy of a Warcraft raid boss. So much fun and much more than 'damage damage damage, heal heal heal'.
Also you get to ride dragons. Just in case you weren't convinced.
Forza -
I have to say right from the word go I felt misled with Forza, they have labelled it an expansion, and with Horizon being an open world game, I assumed I would be given a new area to free roam in, along with races, cars and such. This is not the case. You are given what they claim to be 20 races, however they are counting each rally stage as a race, and there are around 3 to 4 rally stages per event. Meaning you don't actually get 20 'races' in the same sense as the original game.
You are given 5 new cars to play with, which I admit I'm very pleased with, however I have found during my play through that the car they give you to begin with (Same style as in the demo, here's some money if you don't have enough, buy this car and start racing) is the best of the 5. The other 4 are fun to collect, customise and use if you're up for more of a challenge, but the first one, the Mitsubishi is the all round best, being easiest to drive at all levels. Of course, if you know a thing or two about tuning, which I don't, you will probably be capable of bringing the others up to the same standard.
Other than it's misleading me, it is a very fun DLC pack. The tracks are as beautiful as the Vanilla environment, which I wasn't sure they'd manage, as the Horizon is the only racing game in which the environments have caused me to give a vocalised reaction, despite no one being around to hear it. The stunning scenery hasn't ceased to impress and the detailing of the cars is as impressive as ever. The core gameplay too is incredible. The handling is responsive and realistic, the races are as adrenaline pumping as ever, without the irritating "Spring break surfer dude" type voice overs of the later DiRT series instalments.
The new aesthetic rally parts for cars are fun too, although I remember reading somewhere they would be applicable to certain pre-release cars, I've yet to find any in my garage that have the option, although I only have maybe 40% of the Vanilla cars, and no DLC bonus packs. So things may be different for others.
It is a disappointingly short DLC pack, and thus this is all I can really say about it, a lot of fun, although how long the fun lasts is questionable, I would recommend it to rally fans or Horizon fans who want a bit of extra variety or length to their favourite game. Otherwise I would not suggest buying it until it's on sale. 1600MS points really seems a bit much for something so limited.
Skyrim -
My first taste of the Dragonborn DLC was when walking through Morthal I was attacked by two cultists, on killing them I found a note that pointed me to the new island of Solstheim, off the coast of Morrowind. As someone who only joined in on the epic adventure that is The Elder Scrolls series with Skyrim, I was very excited to get a taste of life in Tamriel outside of Skyrim, and what a taste I got. The main quest line, to those who will take time to explore dungeons fully listen to the conversations involved, can easily last a good 6 hours. Longer if you make the mistake I did, of not keeping some spare Dragon Souls on hand. As you will have seen in trailers, the story centres around the very first Dragonborn. It's mentioned often in Skyrim that you are not the only Dragonborn to have existed, however until now you are the only one alive. Miraak supposedly died 2000 years ago, but then, nothing involving daedric princes would be so simple. Those with knowledge of the princes will guess which one it is through the prevalence of books throughout the story, however I shall not ruin the surprise for those who don't yet know.
The gameplay and graphics are of the same great quality that Skyrim quickly became known for, and similar to previous DLC, it affects all aspects of gameplay. Tons of new side quests have been added, new armours both light and heavy can be crafted, new potions can be concocted via new ingredients to be sought out on your travels, especially fun for the thieves and assassins among us who use poisons to achieve similar effects to those of illusion mages. This is a DLC that, to do everything new on an all rounder type character, will easily fill 15 hours of play, 20 if you take your time. If however, you're like me, and play multiple characters of varying styles, you could stretch it to 40 or 50 hours. You really do feel the additions even when running vanilla quests. It doesn't limit itself.
If you have both of these games, and 1600MS points, I suggest going for Dragonborn. In fact, even if you don't have 1600MS points, go get them and then get it. It's brilliant fun and really reinvigorated a great game that I had in fact grown bored of. It's big, it's time consuming, it's fun and it's worth every single penny.
I should note, for those who are fans of MMORPGs (Which is how I got into Skyrim, I would never have bought such a game before I started playing WoW) the final fight has mechanics worthy of a Warcraft raid boss. So much fun and much more than 'damage damage damage, heal heal heal'.
Also you get to ride dragons. Just in case you weren't convinced.
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