Psychotic Informer - 8/5/11

 1. Woo hoo, Skyrim news! I am pumped for this game! The collector’s edition just makes be even more pumped. For a gruelling $150 (it’s all good, though, it’s sort of worth it!) you get a leather-bound art book, a DVD about the making of the game, and a freakin’ 12 inch high dragon! ...Alright, I lied, all that isn’t worth $150, but it’s a dragon! How can you refuse a dragon? All of these can be seen in the image above (click it to see the full-sized image!). What do you think? Are all these things awesome? Is this package worth $150 compared to the regular $60 pricetag? And most of all, are you excited for Elder Scrolls V? (For more information, read the full article)

2. When Notch filed a trademark for Minecraft, he also filed another trademark for a future game called ‘Scrolls’. Well, the team behind the Elder Scrolls series (Bethesda) is threatening Mojang with a lawsuit over their trademarked title, you guessed it, the Elder Scrolls series. They will sue Mojang if they don’t change the trademark to the game. What do you think? Does Bethesda own the rights to the word Scrolls? Do you think it is right for them to sue a company just because their titles share the same word? (For more information, read the full article)

3. Whatever happened to Spyro the Dragon? The first one was perfect. Just a simple little collect-a-thon game that was fun and had good mechanics. The second was more of the same, and it was amazing. Then they started getting crappy. And I mean really crappy. The new trailer for the new game Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure...it makes we want to cry. It’s just really horrible. Who thought of this, really? But what do you think? Is it as dumb as I think it looks?

SilverTrinity Rants About Video Game Music - Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Now, before Oblivion was released, I had never played an Elder Scrolls, and had never planned on it, either. For that matter, I wasn't even aware of Bethesda Softwork's existence and to this day can't think of anything they've made besides this, Fallout 3, and WET. I wasn't going to buy Oblivion until my friend had brought it over and showed me what I had been missing out on. So, just to pass the message on- yeah, go and get this game, if you haven't.

As for the soundtrack, I'm going to make myself perfectly clear on this. I STRONGLY DISLIKE AMBIANCE. Apart from the title theme (which sounds a bit like it's from Pirates of the Caribbean, does it not?), the majority of the music in Oblivion is soft, quiet, and submissive to the sounds and dialog that overlap it. The tracks really don't stand out on their own at all, they just set the mood, which, although it's not a bad thing by any means, it just doesn't work for me.

Now, to provide an opposing argument, the music really does fit in the game. What right do I have to demand action-packed music when the game itself has more dialogue and running around than anything? The dungeons and caves in the game have appropriately creepy ambiance that give you that "maybe I'd better not go in here" feeling, and the town and overworld tracks seamlessly transition from one to the other; honestly, do you ever notice when the song changes? Nope.

And although I don't really like the music itself, I can't deny the quality of the production. I just love the orchestration used here, blending the violin and flute together in a way that more games really ought to do. The battle themes are a little lackluster in terms of making it more fun to fight, but at least it makes you aware that an enemy's nearby. Of course I never notice, because I have other music playing.

To summarize, it's not that the music is bad- because I assure you it's not -but it's that this kind of lack of presence and character just doesn't cut it for my tastes.

SilverTrinity's score: 7.5/10.