Video Game Tuesday: Graphical Mods

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m covering a topic that get’s overlooked by most console gamers, myself included. It’s all about Graphical Mods!

PC MASTER RACE!: Yeah, yeah, we’ve all heard that before. It’s an old and tired shtick, and console gamers are pretty sick of it. There are downsides to being a console gamer, but there are also upsides. That being said, that’s a topic for another day. However there is one thing that warrants special mentioning. Graphical Improvement Mods.

Graphical Improvement Mods?: Yeah, so there are of course custom 3D model mods out there for all sorts of games, like Skryim or Grand Theft Auto. However this isn’t what I’m talking about, not exactly. I’m talking about mods that completely improve your entire visual experience of the whole game. Stuff like NaturalVision Remastered. Go check out the video I’ve linked. I’ll be waiting, and it’s definitely worth a view.

Done?: Great, so these sorts of mods are huge projects and I have immense respect and admiration for anyone who does this sort of work. It’s incredibly difficult and you rarely see something of such high quality like NaturalVision Remastered. Honestly the person behind the mod deserves to be hired like immediately into the industry. They are an amazing artist and coder who understands gaming engines and graphics to a degree that I can only wish I had even a tenth of their skill and knowledge. Of particular note is that the original NaturalVision mod aims to be as intensive as the base Grand Theft Auto V game. That’s an incredibly difficult goal, but they did it for the most part.

What goes into such a mod?: Well for a big part of it, it’s all about improving the textures to a much higher resolution and detail. That’s not an easy goal, not at all. You have to literally work on every single texture used in the entire game and improve them. That’s a massive undertaking by itself. However that’s not all, mods like NVR also tweak the physics and lighting systems and those are not any easier to deal with. The fact that the mod is attempting to do all of that and still be only as intensive as the base game is nothing short of a masterwork. Like seriously Rockstar, or any company with a decent reputation, you need to be trying to hire this modder.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday. Are there any favorite graphical mods you like and I didn’t mention? Leave a comment below!

Retro Game Friday: Oblivion

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m covering an entry in a series I love. It’s The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion!

Plot Synopsis:  The story begins with the player imprisoned in a cell for an unknown crime. Emperor Uriel Septim VII, accompanied by Imperial bodyguards known as “the Blades”, arrive in the prison, fleeing from assassins who have murdered the emperor’s three sons and are now targeting him. The emperor and the Blades reveal that the player’s jail cell contains a secret entrance to a part of the city’s sewer that functions as an escape route. Pardoned by the emperor, the player follows the group into the sewer, where they come under attack by assassins. All but one of the Blades are cut down in the fighting that ensues. Knowing he is destined to die by the hands of the assassins, Uriel Septim entrusts the player with the Amulet of Kings, worn by the Septim emperors of Tamriel, and orders the player to take it to a man named Jauffre, the grand master of the Blades, at Weynon Priory. Immediately afterward, one of the assassins kills the emperor. The player escapes the sewer and heads out into the open world of Cyrodiil.

Plot: The plot of the game is pretty decent, but it’s also not anything super great either. There are some really interesting sidequests, particularly the Sheogorath DLC, but the main story falls short in my opinion.

Characters: There are plenty of interesting NPCs, M’aiq the Liar for instance, but again most of them aren’t super impressive. To be honest I’ve never felt the same level of affection for the NPCs in Oblivion or Skyrim quite like I did in Morrowind. Granted that in Morrowind you could kill any and all NPCs if you so chose, other than the always present guards, but even then it was a choice….

Gameplay: However that choice was removed starting in Oblivion, which is a real shame, because I actually enjoyed the heck out of learning who I can dispatch and who I couldn’t. It also removed the ability to use the levitate spell from the repertoire of available spells, which again was a massive let down.

Art: The art is very badly aged, and the faces in the game look horrible. Especially the eyes.

Music: Decent, but not as catchy as Morrowind or Skyrim’s music.

Overall: An easily skippable entry in the series, it removed most of what I loved about Morrowind and added DLC Horse Armor instead.