The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I have, once again, taken the bait. Along with the launch of Skyrim Anniversary Edition, Skyrim Special Edition received an update recently to celebrate the game's 10th birthday, and it introduced something rather important: Skyrim's first official fishing minigame. It's a Creation Club add-on complete with fishing mechanics, quests and special rewards. And so, with the promise of fantastical fish in mind, last weekend I found myself trundling down a mountain in the back of a familiar cart.

The reason I was so excited for this addition - beyond the mere appeal of something new being added to Skyrim - is that I'm an amateur angler myself. Ever since I was a tiddler I've been float fishing for pollock and bass: I've tried my hand at coarse fishing, spinning for trout in Scottish lochs, and even fly fishing (with varying degrees of success). Over the past year I had great success as a mackerel angler in Brighton, bringing in table fare for my extremely appreciative flatmates. All of which meant I was eager to see what Skyrim's mystical waters had to offer.

A vast number of games boast fishing minigames, of course, and there are equally myriad ways to implement the act of fishing. Some games opt for a more "arcadey", intense version of fishing - Animal Crossing: New Horizons makes little attempt to emulate real fishing techniques, but provides challenge through float placement and tricky timing windows for bites. Other games take a more peaceful approach, encouraging anglers to admire their surroundings. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a great example of this, as while its fishing minigame provides a fair bit of depth (including bait selection and reeling techniques), it's also not afraid to make the player wait and soak up the game's atmosphere.

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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

A new update for Skyrim Anniversary Edition fixes an issue with black screens.

Unfortunately it also breaks mods. What's more, because the recently released Anniversary Edition is actually an upgrade to the previously released Special Edition, the update will affect owners of either version.

Players had reported an issue with the game where the screen would show black with the music still playing.

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Quake III Arena

Episode 1 of The New Eurogamer Podcast, featuring Quake legend Sujoy Roy, is now available to all. This took a little longer than expected due to faffing with RSS feeds, but you should now be able to find it in all the places you podcast. If you can't, please let me know below.

Also, yes, the Eurogamer Podcast is back! But it's slightly different to what we've done before, with a new host - me! - and a new direction. I've decided to move to an interview format instead of a chat show because that's what interests me most. I like sitting people down and hearing about their lives. Some of my best work on the site, in all the many years I've worked here, has come from doing it, so that's what I'm going to be doing here.

My first guest is Sujoy Roy, a name you might remember if you were a part of the Quake scene in the 90s. It's the scene Eurogamer originally grew out of, by the way, so it's a fitting place for a new series to begin.

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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

The forthcoming Skyrim Anniversary Edition could have a big impact on mod users.

Some of the best Skyrim mods available use the Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE) plug-in, but each time the Bethesda Creation Club receives a new update of content the SKSE can break.

That's why many players will load the game using a separate mod manager.

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Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition

Remember Games for Windows Live? It's a name I've not heard for a long time, but something which was still plaguing Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition on PC until just this week.

Games for Windows Live was Microsoft's much-hated first attempt at getting Xbox Live-style features on PC, stuffed in a launcher that no one wanted to use, and initially for a $50/year subscription.

After launching back in 2007, many PC games at the time were coded to require GFWL - including Fallout 3 GOTY - although most have since been updated to no longer need it.

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Eurogamer



Spoiler warnings for Mass Effect 2.

I'm not sure why I liked Kelly Chambers so much. There's definitely more exciting characters in Mass Effect 2. She was just cool is all. They seemed so good together, her and my Shepherd, two straight-talking women on a ship full of neverending melodrama, quipping back and forth along the bridge. But I was trapped in a loveless relationship with the odiously boring Kaidan Alenko. So Kelly remained elusive: the steadfast second in command, a constant source of warmth, good sense and pragmatic kindness.

Anyway, she melted. In fact, most of my crew died in that final mission, but Kelly was the first, melting down into flesh chowder in a giant frosted glass tube. Afterwards I read that the only way to save everyone was to max out your relationship stats, upgrade your ship to the nth degree, and hightail it over to the suicide mission the moment you can. Reader, that's exactly what I did. I went back to the start and put another 30 hours into that game, telling myself I was getting value for money. But in my heart of hearts I knew it was all for Kelly.

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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

One of the most enduring myths about Skyrim is it contains treasure foxes.

Ever since Bethesda's open-world fantasy game came out in 2011, players have wondered whether the foxes lead players to treasure.

The myth of the treasure fox pops up online every now and then, with players debating whether it's true or false.

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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion® Game of the Year Edition

Back in January, we got a pretty extensive look at the remastered environments and quests being made for Skyblivion - a mod project seeking to remake Oblivion in the Skyrim engine. The team behind this ambitious project has continued making progress, and the latest mod development video focuses on some of the stunning landscapes that are now nearing completion.

According to the new video, the majority of Skyblivion's map is now in the final stages of development, and the work shown so far is seriously impressive. The video discusses how areas such as the forest surrounding the Orange Road have been adapted and improved for the remake. The team decided to make the forest "more lush and detailed than its original counterpart" and make it larger to give it a more prominent role in the game, citing the area's ambience and popularity with players as the reason for giving it more attention.

Blackwood, meanwhile, has been given more fortifications and border gates to add points of interest. The new boggy marsh at the centre of Blackwood, called Blackmarch, looks suitably horrifying and spooky - promising players a subregion full of ruins and decay. The city of Leyawiin has been redesigned from the ground up "referencing concept art from Oblivion that was likely discarded owing to technical and time limitations", with the city divided into three distinct sections. Boats are now able to sail right through the city, allowing them to go further inland.

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The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind® Game of the Year Edition

The people behind Skywind have issued a video update for the eye-catching fan project - and it still sounds a long way away from completion.

Skywind is a non-commercial, fan-made modification for The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim that recreates The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind with the enhanced graphics and capabilities of Skyrim's engine.

In the video, below, the Skywind team show off the work done so far, and announce a few major milestones, such as the completion of almost all the concept art.

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Quake

Exactly five years ago, Digital Foundry Retro was born! At the time, it was an experiment more than anything else, focusing on just one version of id software's Quake - the astonishing Sega Saturn version, built from scratch by Lobotomy Software. It was the port that John Carmack reckoned couldn't exist, but somehow a talented team found a way. A half-decade on from the release of that video, DF Retro returns to Quake, this time covering it in its entirety: the game, the technology, the ports and the legacy.

Quake itself began as nothing more than a mention in some text blurb in Commander Keen, but even then, there were hints of a game that exceeded the technological limits of the hardware of the time. Building on the mega success of Doom, the first time gamers got to experience Quake was in the release of QTest in early 1996 - a Deathmatch test with three supplied maps. What was obvious was how demanding the game was. Id Software debuted with a software renderer that tapped into the strengths of Intel Pentium processors, running like a slideshow on older 486s and non-Intel processors.

The shareware episode launched in June 1996, with the full game arriving a month later. With its dimly lit corridors, abstract geometry and industrial soundscape, Quake certainly delivered something special. It was a deeply atmospheric, fast paced action game. Quake features vast, complex levels showcasing 3D graphics unlike anything the market had seen before. It builds on the artistic influences which served as a foundation in Doom while introducing dark industrial and Lovecraftian themes. It's chaotic but it works. The technology was phenomenal, but gameplay is king. In the years that followed, games would attempt to push interactive narratives and expand design possibilities but few remain as engaging as Quake.

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