Every day this week, we'll be visiting a version of Skyrim unlike any you've ever seen before - a world thrown into anarchy and chaos by Sheogorath, God of Madness, and the assistance of over 200 blindly-installed mods. In our first part, get ready for epic dinosaur battles, Whiterun's new theme park, fandom striking in the strangest places, and an awkward meeting with an old friend.



Like most of the best and worst ideas I've ever had, this started with a whim. I was browsing the Steam Workshop to see what kind of things modders were working on, with the idea of picking the best for a brand new playthrough, and trying to work out why I didn't have any enthusiasm. It's not like there's not loads of cool stuff. Damn near every aspect of Skyrim has been worked over by this point.

Then it hit me. Where would the adventure and discovery be in simply picking something off a menu? I didn't want to install, say, "Really Pretty Flying Boat House Mod" only to walk over, see it, go "Oooh," and be done. I wanted to turn corners and actually be surprised by what I found.

There was only one way - to embrace chaos and random chance. But how?



In short, I didn't choose some mods. I chose all the mods. Whole Collections on Steam Workshop, sight-unseen. Running through the Skyrim Nexus' categories and just hitting the download button without even looking at names. Even asking a few friends to send over mods, which I'm pretty sure is why the Riverwood tavern currently houses a gaggle of transexual adventurers and I apparently own an all-male brothel/bath-house outside Whiterun. Thursdays are veal night. Bring the kids. By the time I was done, I had over 240 of them installed, and actually knew what about ten of them were.

This is not a nice thing to do to Skyrim. I'm not going to keep harping on about this, because it's not fair to blame the camel for buckling under the weight of the straw - never mind the anvil that all these mods count up to - but yes. It crashes all the time, some areas are impossible to enter, several armour items were corrupted somewhere leading to random acts of nudity, the frame-rate is regularly drop-kicked into single digits, and as for balance... forget it. This modded Skyrim is I Want To Be The Guy: RPG Edition, only without the sense of mercy or fair play. If you feel like trying this experiment for yourself, great. Don't let your actual savegames anywhere near the result. Consider yourself warned...

And now, let the adventure begin...



My adventure begins in a familiar place; the Live Another Life mod. This starts you off in a locked hut somewhere in the world, where the goddess Mara appears in statue form to ask who you want to be - a shipwreck victim, a new recruit to one of the Guilds and so on - and both kits you out and teleports you to an appropriate starting position for that storyline. It's a good way to skip the intro and tutorial dungeon, especially if you've done anything that might dick around with the scripting (ahem), with a quick new quest for when you want to activate the main story. It's not quite the brand new, never-seen-before intro I wanted, but at least it opens up potential beyond the default Helgen stuff.

I pause for a minute to decide how to play this. All good Skyrim gimmick-diaries need rules; this one will too. Our heroine is a spellsword, Compass, who I have no doubt will live up to the heroism and sense of personal responsibility expected of a Dovahkiin. She's an Imperial, and this is her face:



Game mechanics wise, everything seen is playing on the default difficulty. Fast travel is a no-no, since that would probably mean missing cool stuff or bypassing interesting mechanics for surviving in the wilds. Any mods that present themselves have to be switched on, to at least their defaults, but cranked up a bit if it sounds like fun, and only switched off if they're causing impossible problems or just killing the fun. In the end I switched off one that made hunger/thirst a priority, since it was getting in the way of seeing things, and a couple of town mods that otherwise crashed everything.

Beyond that, given the likelihood of things breaking, some console commands are allowed. Death is not a problem, at least not as a running thing to worry about. Finally, most importantly-



...and mid-configuration General Tullius, Ulfric Stormcloak, and their men suddenly burst into the room, knocking seventeen kinds of shit out of each other. Tapping Ulfric on the back, he immediately swings round from a battle with his nemesis to say hello, and also offer awful polygon sex.

Oh yeah. This - if not that specifically - bodes well.

Even so, the first attempt at living in this strange new world... could go better.


Ugh. Where... where the hell am I? Why is my skin so smooth and my hair so... flowy all of a sudden? I thought... I thought I was meant to be on a cart, about to set some people on fire for thinking they could chop my head off. What...



Compass, my child, I am Mara. I offer you the gift of a new life, a life such as no Nord, Imperial or Whatever has ever even dreamed of. All you need do is choose your fate, and I shall grant your destiny. What shall it be?



Surprise me.





Surprise!


Thanks, Mara. For the second attempt, I opt for a specific start - a patron at the Riverwood tavern, which comes with both a promise of no immediate dragon ambush and also actual clothes. (Oddly, Compass did apparently have a set of mining clothes on, they were just invisible. Whether a bug or sabotage from some other mod, I have no idea. I will however point out that the anatomically correct nudity comes as no surprise - not only are nude mods the most popular, there are no fewer than three different female body replacement meshes. The guys in the game also of course let it all hang out if you swipe their trousers, but their naughty bits unsurprisingly get much, much less loving attention.)



Riverwood is pretty familiar, except for a gigantic aqueduct running behind it for no apparent reason and a new evil base across the way. At least, I'm assuming the "Evil Lair of Hydra" is evil. I hate to make snap-judgements, but I can't actually get in without a crash. Maybe they just sell cookies.

There are some differences though. I've never seen Skyrim so grey and murky... like North Yorkshire on a sunny day. When it starts raining, it gets worse - not a polite little storm, but a full-on monsoon. Also, as a status message helpfully explains, rain makes you wet. It's not just being polite. With a sinking feeling, I checked the in-game manual to discover that while getting wet isn't a problem per se, getting cold and wet can kill. And Skyrim? Skyrim is a pretty damn cold place, even in the nice bits.



I head back into the tavern to let it pass and check my gear. I have... basically nothing. The standard fire spell, a cheap mace, some bits of jewellery, and some food. For armour, we're talking a shirt, a thin skirt, and some boots. A nearby vendor offers to sell me essentially every spell in the universe, but I don't have enough cash. Chatting with the other patrons, a group of friendly transexuals offer to join the journey - and hey, those are ladies with plenty of experience handling a sword, right? Before I can pick one as an official Follower though, they're all upstaged when a decapitated Triss Merigold from The Witcher 2 runs up and asks to join without moving her lips. Or indeed, having any.




Ooof. Bad choice of words.


Even without eyes, Triss manages to follow along for a while, only to vanish early and never re-appear. So, pretty much like The Witcher 2 then. Alone, I find myself wandering through the snowy forests towards Helgen, and quickly discovering that my gear is nowhere near warm enough for even these climes. Before long, there's snow all over me, and things only get worse when night falls. The temperature drops along with it, and in this Skyrim, night is pitch black.

Then the messages start appearing. Messages like "A Forsworn is hunting you." Gulp.



Also, I finally figure out what's wrong. I can't see the world for the trees. Skyrim has big ones already, but now they're huge and absolutely everywhere. Forests are now incredibly oppressive at times, especially when a group of Hammerfell mercenaries suddenly bursts out of the greenery. A gloriously powerful, metal, version of the Skyrim theme kicks in as I blast the first two with flames - noting in the process that my magicka now regenerates incredibly fast. I don't have unlimited firepower, like you do when you stick god mode on, but the big blue bar refills itself within seconds.

The first merc to fall donates his armour and sword to my adventure - absolutely superb, if unenchanted, quality gear for a Level 1 character - and things are officially on.

Then I get killed in one hit by an unseen Thing. Grrr.



Fleeing, what would normally be harmless woods are now more like survival horror. I have no idea where I am, Skyrim has no interest in being balanced any more, and there's at least one enemy following me for whom my best sword attacks are like throwing pavlova at a castle wall and expecting it to turn into dust. Arrows shoot out of nowhere, wolves... well, I'll get to that in a second, but they do something far creepier than howl... and then out of nowhere, a torch! Light! Not just more red dots!

It's a group of travelling adventurers, and someone from a newly founded "Hunting Guild". They handily destroy everything behind me, we chat for a moment about how grateful or not, I do not in fact want their literature, and then they head off down the road. I'm about to do the same, when suddenly:


Any questions?


I spin round, but there's nobody there. Only a small, inquisitive looking dog, and...


Pfft. Dogs can't talk. It's not like they're microwaves.


Except they can. They don't converse, but most of the classic Skyrim animals can talk now - generic... pardon the expression... barks, but still words. You know the only thing weirder than having a Mudcrab mock you as you try to kill it? No. No you don't. But you will, soon enough...



Speaking of weird, look who I met on the way to Helgen. He kills me with fire when I try to go into his house. In retribution, I steal his pig and hit him so hard, Minecraft is now sprite based.



Arriving at Helgen, it's to the discovery that Alduin has already been and gone, and both Hadvar the Imperial Tutorial Guy and The Other One Whose Name I Can't Remember are lying wounded in a cave.


Riverwood! You need to... warn Riverwood! Get me a healing potion from the now completely obsolete tutorial cave and (cough) I can...



Will this new tutorial cave also have giant bloody spiders in it, by any chance?



I'm almost positive it won't.





Aargh! That still counts! Die in a fire, Todd Howard! And your little developers too!




Please... the health potion... while I still remember what it feels like to have blood...



Yeah, about that. Hypothetically, if I was about to die in some horrible, unfair way, and it was you who had the power to save me, what would you do?



...



MMM THAT WAS TASTY HEALING POTION. WELL, BYE!





Getting to Whiterun to tell the world that dragons want to eat a sizeable chunk of it proves an absolute nightmare. Everywhere I go, there are monsters - and if there aren't, they spawn out of nowhere. Models in bikinis with knives. Orcs. Wolves. If I stick to the road, there are often guards or travellers - but that can't be expected, only made use of. It's a complete throwback to when Tamriel was called Arena if you remember that, Day Z with a target on my back if you're more into modern games, and a maelstrom of sadistic entropy if you like fancy words. My F9 pressing finger has no fingerprint left.

The worst bit comes when I stumble on a circle of stones, populated by a small cult of lightning-spewing sorceresses and their skeletal minions. Easy to walk around? You'd think! Except no. Because on either side of them lives a pride of lions, whose aggro radius is measured in light-years. As for the long-way round, well, even assuming no spawns, there's a giant there, and a... triceratops? Yes. A triceratops, bullying some horses. Every single one of these things is instant arse-kickery.

But you know what they're not? Friends.




BEST. DAY. EVER.


Just to be clear, this absolutely destroys Skyrim, to the point that my computer shuts off a couple of times trying to render it. The AI has no idea what it's doing, things get stuck on the scenery, and the framerate plummets. But that's not important. Why? Because dinosaurs. Fighting lions.

Whistling a happy tune, I continue on my way to Whiterun, pausing only when a guard sees me with a weapon drawn and rushes over in case I do anything illegal with it. But wait a minute...




Bronies. Why did it have to be Bronies?



Excuse me? You have a problem with one of the few shows that combines classic nostalgia with a modern sentimental twist; one that treats little girls with the respect they deserve instead of churning out fluff-



My Little Pony, skinny and bony...



Stop that.



Who's your favourite pony? I like Pritt-Stick. You know. From the second series. Where they're all rendered into glue. And the glue has sparkles, only it's not magic, but tears. The tears of little ponies. What I'm getting at is-



Enough! I'm warning you!



You're a grown man obsessed with a show for tiny little girls who like pink things and ponies. What do you have to say to that, hmmm?



Two things. First, that there is nothing wrong with any sincere fandom, especially one that seeks to make an emotional connection not often found in this frosty land, and if you cannot appreciate that, you have my most sincere pity.



Uh-huh. And the second thing?



FUS RO DAH!




Yep. Turns out every Nord - every single Nord in Skyrim - has been taking sneaky trips up the mountain, and all of them now know this Shout. It's amazing how annoying it is when it's you being blasted off mountains every few minutes, though it does make civil war fights hilarious.

But I suspect we'll be seeing that later. Time to check in with the Jarl in Whiterun.





AGAIN! AGAIN! AGAIN!


Ahem. Where was I? Oh. Yes. The imminent dragon-based apocalypse.




Greetings to you. I-



Give me a Flame Grilled Whopper, large fries and a diet coke.



Excuse me?



No gherkins. I want it my way.



...



You look like the Burger King.



Are you quite finished? We know you witnessed the dragon attack... or officially did, even if in reality you skipped it with some kind of mod thing... which makes you the closest thing we have to an expert around here. I'd like to hire you to fight it.



What kind of reward are we talking about here?



Vaguely defined, and not even close to the life-changing fortune that would come your way were we not in a role-playing game that can't afford to set you up for the next fifty levels. Also, I'm ignoring that you're Level 2 and regular bandits can kick your arse.



Just as long as the preparation for this battle doesn't involve any more giant Spider-Men.



I'm almost positive that it won't.





That's it! I'm taking my business to McDonalds!


Actually, the quest for the Dragonstone is quite a refreshing change. Inside the dungeons, nothing seems to have been switched around or made worse, making for at least one dungeon where I can not only survive easily, but have much more powerful equipment than I'd normally have thanks to looting bodies. It's not exactly ULTIMATE POWER, but a few stumbling zombies are exactly no threat. As opposed to normally, when they're merely a minimal threat. It's not much, but it's a start.

Knowing that there's a dragon fight coming up though, I take a bit of time to nip into a few other familiar places, fight some more regular enemies, and claw up at least a couple of levels and grab some perks. In the end though, the dragon fight isn't much of a problem. As usual, I have enough redshirt goons around to do most of the heavy lifting, and the fight is exactly as it was in the vanilla version.



Okay, so that part is a little different.

Now with basic access to the same Shout as pretty much everybody else, everyone immediately hails me as their Dragonborn hero. Hurrah for me. I return to the Jarl and he hands me the ceremonial Hat of Who Gives A Crap and the +2 Axe of If You Hadn't Noticed, I'm A Spellsword, along with instructions to go see the Greybeards on High Hrothgar. This I do not plan to do, for the following reason:


Greetings, Dovahkiin. You are blessed with a gift few possess, to harness the ancient words of power and channel them through your body, performing wonderous actions. Like Force Push. And. Uh. Ice Beam. Running Pretty Fast, that too.



So, basic magic then? Wow. That would really be impressive if we didn't live in a fantasy world where physical gods hand out terrifying power to amuse themselves, and every other person can shoot fire out of any orifice!



This is completely different! We have devoted ourselves to the pursuit of these words! We've learned almost three of them! Not each of course, but....



I'm sure your parlour tricks really impress the kiddies. But me? I walk out, I kill a few wolves, I walk back more badass. And you know the best part? I get to do all of it without completely wasting my life on a frozen mountain.


So, yeah. Of course, the Jarl's reward does go one step further - the title of Thane, and with it the service of Lydia, everyone's favourite Housecarl. I'm not exactly short on potential Followers in this version of Skyrim, but honestly they're mostly just faces rather than characters and at least one of them has simply buggered off. With Lydia though, you know where you are. Good old reliable Lydia; a familiar ally still around to proudly serve her new Thane with honour and professionalism and-




I am going to kill everyone responsible for this. Then me.


Tomorrow! Will the world be saved from dragons? Will the world's modding community be saved from Lydia's wrath? And is there any chance she'll find a respectable set of armour?

Skyrim: Week Of Madness
The insanity continues... come along for the ride...

Day 1: The World According To Sheogorath
Day 2: Quest For Dignity - The Housecarl Chronicles
Day 3: The Dovahkiin Riften Deserves, Not The Hero It Needs
Day 4: Yet There Is Method In It, And Also Cheese
Day 5: The Life And Deaths Of Compass Meridian

< Part 3

I'm playing Skyrim with a rule: illusion magic only. No direct violence, just pure deception. So naturally, I've enlisted myself in the emperor's army: the Imperial Legion.

For my initiation, Legate Rikke wants me to get to Fort Hraggstead and kill all of the bandits, which I'm sure will be easy with no way of actually attacking them.

"I've got a good feeling about you," she says, "and I don't often get good feelings about anything."

After this, you will have even fewer good feelings.

The fort is a little way West of Solitude: an easy stroll down the city road eventually branches into a rockier path up into the mountains. I try to infuriate a passing rabbit and miss six times. This bodes well.

By the peak, the snow's thick on the ground and falling gently. When the fort walls come into view, I stop and scope it out. Squinting, I can see one guard on the battlements, and another patrolling the perimeter - no clue how many more inside, but it's big. I sneak over to a large rock, and plan.



The battlements guard is stationary. I don't see anyone near him he could attack, but it's got to be worth flinging a speculative Fury spell at him. After a long flight time, it hits. He flashes red and draws his bow, aiming down inside the fort. I never see who he's fighting, but after a while another bandit runs up to the battlements with a two handed sword and thwacks him. They spar, and then abruptly calm down. The sword guy wanders off. I duck back behind my rock. This might take a while.

I keep tormenting the archer with sneak Fury bombs, hiding behind my rock until the 'slightly suspicious' warning on my sneak-o-meter fades. When I look out again, he's gone - no idea whether he died or just got sick of the inexplicably shitty time he was having on the battlements and wandered off. The sun sets. I restrategise.

I can't hit a moving target from this distance, so I wait for the patrolling guard to head away from me, and scuttle over to a closer rock. I can shadow him from behind a ridge, safely out of sight, peeking over in third person mode. But there's no-one else outside the fort walls for him to attack, so when he turns back I carry on, skirting the perimeter.

The fort is built on a cliff, and I've reached the edge. The northern coast of Skyrim stretches out below, the aurora adds a tinge of green to the darkening sky, and a narrow stone ledge leads around the castle walls. This way, I guess.

I skirt the fort, switching nervously between scanning the battlements for bandits and checking my footing on the ledge. By the time I circle back to more solid ground, I can see a breach in the fort walls. I can sneak in!

Crouching behind some rubble, I can see into the courtyard. The two-handed sword guy slouches by the gates to the keep. Another bandit works at a forge in the corner. And, gratifyingly, a body lies in the center - presumably the archer.



The first bit is easy: I Fury the sword guy, then jump out and attract everyone's attention. The forge guy runs over, sword guy comes for me, then changes his mind when his friend shows up. The two clash in the courtyard, and in a few heavy blows sword guy wins. I run back to my cliff ledge and hide until he calms down.

During the commotion, I saw an archer on the battlements, and I think I can lead sword guy up there. I run back in, Fury him on my way past, and scamper up the steps to the battlements. The archer takes aim, and as I dodge, sword guy catches up.

He's cut me off: the only way I can run is away from them both, towards the high tower. I run up the spiral staircase inside with him hot on my tail, then jump clear over his head and bolt back out. He chases me towards the archer on the battlements, who's aiming an arrow right at my head. I dodge her shot and barge past her, hitting her with a Fury spell as I go.



When I turn back, I'm hoping to see her intercept sword guy for me. Instead, she spins round, looks at him, and falls backwards off the battlements. Er.

This is half-good, half-bad. On the one hand, that's one less bandit. On the other, sword guy has me cornered, and there's no-one left to help. I throw myself off the battlements too.

Next Thursday: the chase

You can read the next two entries in this series in the issue of PC Gamer currently on sale in newsagents in the UK, or from our online shop.

Last week, Warner Bros. sent a cease-and-desist letter to the development team of the Middle-Earth Roleplaying Project (MERP), a detailed Skyrim mega-mod portraying the Lord of the Rings experience with quests, iconic characters, locations, and visuals lifted from the books and films. Ambition, like a tenacious hobbit, won't diminish easily, as MERP's team set up a petition earlier this week asking fans and followers to convince Warner Bros. to rescind the order.

"As of 2012, the team ported the mod to the newest Elder Scrolls game from its predecessor, Oblivion," the petition reads. "Since the move, the team has built up a huge following due to its quality and drive. This rise in popularity has also drawn the eyes of Warner Bros., currently the rights-holder to The Lord of the Rings in gaming, who then issued the MERP team a cease-and-desist letter. We now need you, our fans and other gamers, to help make Warner regret sending that letter by showing them just how many people are behind this mod." A Facebook page for the petition also exists.



The conflict began when modder Marfaer revealed WB's actions and announced that MERP would cease development in a forum post. Speaking to PC Gamer, Maegfaer summarized his communication with WB's lawyer: "WB first said they wanted to see if we could come to some sort of understanding, but when we offered to remove the Ringbearer mainquest (they mentioned specifically that it was a problem) they refused and immediately wanted us to cease & desist without any further negotiations. We then offered to become a private project, with us only releasing screenshots/movies of MERP to be able to recruit modders, and they still refused. The negotiations felt like a farce, because they refuse anything unless practically all LotR content is removed."

When we reached out for comment, Warner Bros. VP of Public Relations Remi Sklar said simply, "While we appreciate our fans’ enthusiasm, we also need to protect our IP rights."

Maegfaer also provided excerpts of "the most interesting parts" of the team's back-and-forth with WB, which are copied below:

Warner Bros. lawyer: As you may be aware, Warner Bros. has developed and is developing, either by itself or through a licensed third party, games based on the LOTR and Hobbit properties. From the description of MERP available publicly, we understand that it essentially amounts to a LOTR game, which contains numerous similar elements to legitimately licensed LOTR/Hobbit games. The release of MERP into the marketplace will likely result in customer confusion and cannibalization with respect to such legitimately licensed LOTR/Hobbit games and will detract from the value proposition bargained and paid for by legitimate licensees of the LOTR/Hobbit properties. Furthermore, projects and games like MERP will diminish and erode Warner Bros.’ ability to manage and protect the brand, reputation and quality of the LOTR/Hobbit properties that it has invested significant resources to cultivate over the years.

We would like to explore with you ways to modify MERP to address our concerns from the intellectual property rights-holder’s perspective while, to the extent possible, allowing you to achieve at least some of what you wanted to accomplish with MERP. If you are interested in exploring that kind of an approach, please give me your contact details so we can arrange a time to talk. Among other things, we would like to see a description of the mod, settings, characters, etc. and understand how far along in development the mod is, when you were hoping to launch the mod, and who the key team members are that we should be talking to about altering the mod to remove the Hobbit/LOTR content.

MERP: It's understandable that a Ringbearer questline is problematic to Warner Bros, since it would re-tell the story of a large part of the books. Although it hurts, the team could probably agree to scratch the Ringbearer questline and not make any of the main characters (such as Frodo, Gandalf, Aragorn, Théoden, etc.) from the book available for playing, nor let the player follow major parts of main character's stories told in the book.

That way the player would only have occasional contact with main characters, who would usually merely function as quest givers to send the player on their own path. Usage of copyrighted contents from the books would then be minimal.

Warner Bros. lawyer: Thank you for your email. Unfortunately the removal of book content from MERP as outlined in your email does not sufficiently address our concerns, as MERP would still contain many infringing elements. Based on the information that you provided and in light of the current stage of development, we ask that all development efforts in connection with MERP be terminated at this time. This includes, among other things, cessation of the use of the name “Middle-earth”, which is the subject of a trademark registration owned by The Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises. Please respond at your earliest convenience to confirm that you will comply with the foregoing demand.

MERP: Development of MERP has been halted, as per your request.

We have another proposal though. We could turn our mod into a private project, meaning that we wouldn't have any public releases of the mod's game content. The mod would only be distributed among the developers of the mod, which would take away MERP from the marketplace and thus avoid any customer confusion and not harm Warner Bros' ability to manage and protect the reputation of the LOTR properties.

If Warner Bros will allow us to pick up and resume development of our mod, we will rename the project to get rid of the usage of the Middle-Earth trademark, and to the public we will merely mention that we have become a private project to prevent legal issues. Public presentation of the team's efforts (through pictures and the occasional video) will be limited, merely serving the goal of recruiting other talented modders to preserve the vitality of the mod's development team.

We think that this solution would take away any conflict of interest between Warner Bros and us modders, leaving both parties satisfied and unharmed.

Warner Bros. lawyer: Thank you for confirming that you have complied with our request to cease development. We have considered your proposal to turn the mod into a private project, and while we appreciate and commend you for your creativity and willingness to address our concerns, we cannot authorize the MERP team’s use of the LOTR/Hobbit properties in the mod, whether as a private project or otherwise. Accordingly, we cannot agree to your request to resume development.

There's no place like home, especially when said home contains the corpse of a giant spider you've slain, stuffed and mounted over the fireplace. Hearthfire is out today on consoles and Bethesda have taken some pictures and put them on the internet to celebrate. Some of them show the great wooden skeleton of a grand hall in progress, but just how customisable will the house layouts be? Ponder that while enjoying a still image of a Snowberry Crostata, which comes with a tasty 4% resist fire buff, just how 'ma used to make 'em.

Hearthfire will also let us adopt children to live in the houses we create and a bunch of new crafting plans will give us the license to fill our homes with adventurer tat. Find out more in the Skyrim Hearthfire trailer. There's no release date for Hearthfire on PC yet, but it'll probably pop up in a month's time, once the Xbox exclusivity period has expired. Grrr. It'll cost 400 MS points, which is about £3.50.

Chris and Tom bid farewell to Owen and discuss his time with the Oculus Rift as well as Hawken, Battlefield and Call of Duty co-op, Diablo 3, Guild Wars 2 and, for the first and final time, musical theatre.

Download the MP3, subscribe, or find our older podcasts here.

Show notes

Our video interview with Oculus Rift creator Palmer Luckey and hands-on with the headset.
Chris' Guild Wars 2 review in progress.

 

Skyrim's next slice of DLC will be Hearthfire, an add-on that will let you buy a plot of land, build a house, design its interiors and then adopt children to turn that house into an eternal prison home. It'll be out on September 4 on Xbox, so probably about a month after that on PC. It'll cost 400 MS points on the consoles, which equates to about £3.43 / 4.80 Euro / $5.

It looks as though there will be a bit of crafting involved in building your new abode, but once the roof's on you'll be able to start converting it into a monument to your mighty exploits. You'll get to show off the creatures you've slain by stuffing them or nailing them to your walls. Once you've created the most terrifying taxidermy diorama possible, you can adopt children and raise them among the corpses of your enemies. That's parenting, Dragonborn-style.

Here's the announcement trailer. I'm already mentally picking a spot for my plot. Hmmm, a bit of land among the silver birch forests near Riften would do rather nicely. What do you think?

The 30th edition of the HMV Gamesmaster Golden Joysticks are here, giving you the chance to whack your stamp of approval on the past year's releases for the good of PC gaming and JUSTICE. It's going to be a fierce competition. Diablo 3, Dark Souls, Mass Effect 3, The Witcher 2 and Skyrim are all battling for first place in the RPG category and Modern Warfare 3 is up against Battlefield 3 in the shooter category. As always, it's up to you to decide which games deserve to win.

To let your opinion be known, simply head over to the shiny new Golden Joysticks 2012 site, check out the categories and start voting. You can follow all the action on the Golden Joysticks Facebook page and the Golden Joysticks Twitter feed.

Two million people took part in last year's competition, which means we need even more people to vote this year to make sure those PC games secure their rightful spot in the limelight. The results will be announced later this year in a ceremony hosted by comedian Ed Byrne. Here he is explaining that if you vote in all categories, you stand a chance to win a ton of goodies from HMV, including an iPad 3, a 3DS XL and lots more. Take it away, Ed.

I’m playing Skyrim with a rule: Illusion magic only. No direct violence, just pure deception. So naturally I'm planning to join the Emperor's army: the Imperial Legion. Last week, I was on my way to their headquarters in Solitude. I'm nearly there.


< Part 2


There's just one more mountain range between me and Solitude now. I skid down its far side, cross a river, and see someone running towards me from the distance. I should run away, but I wait - I don't see a weapon, and it's unusual for an enemy to head right for you before you even get close.

Soon I can tell it's a woman, and that she's unarmed. When she reaches me, she explains that she's just escaped capture by bandits. She tells me I'd be a hero if I took them out. I bet! Well, see you.



I was hoping she'd ask me to escort her to the nearest town, because then she would effectively be escorting me to the nearest town, and the nearest town is now Solitude. But she just runs off.

I do the same, and run straight into the path of a bear.

Bears are nasty. I'm way, way off the beaten path the game expects you to take at this point, and a bear could munch a level 1 character like me in seconds. They're fast, too, but of course I don't need to outrun the bear. I need to outrun the weak, defenceless woman I just refused to help.

I pass her without a word, and glance back to see the lunk gaining on us. But is she actually going to fight it? If she keeps running, it might go straight past her and head for me. I have one way of making sure that doesn't happen, and it's not... it's not the gentlemanly option. I turn back again, just long enough to aim a Fury spell at her.

When I next look back, she's dead. The bear sits by her body, licking a paw.

Well, now I feel good.



Arriving

Finally, I can see it: the towering rock arch that juts out from Solitude itself. I wade through the swamplands without major incident, and finally climb the long winding road to the city gates. On my way in, a guard tells me who to see about joining the Imperial Legion, but it's not anyone I know or know how to find. I decide to explore.

Whenever you first enter Solitude, there's an execution in progress. I'm always tempted to intervene, and this time, my skills might actually make it possible. If I Fury someone other than the accused, who seems to be innocent, the ruckus might disrupt the proceedings. I hide in a bush and Fury the captain.

There's definitely a ruckus. I can hear it from my bush. It seems wise to stay out of sight until I'm 'hidden' - the game's term for when hostiles give up looking for what caused something suspicious. I hear a lot of unsheathed metal, screams of pain, and Skyrim's weirdly over-specific battlecries: "And you thought I was just a pretty face!" and "Never should have come here!"

A while after it quiets down, I feel safe enough to step out. I'm immediately arrested.



Interestingly, despite at least one dead body in the street, my bounty is only 40 gold: I'm only guilty of firing off a non-lethal spell. I can easily afford to pay it off, but I have another idea: go to jail. The jails are all run by the Imperial Legion, and my sentence will be incredibly brief, so they'll essentially be instantly transporting me to their headquarters, which is where I want to go.

I wake up in a cell, and immediately go to bed to serve my time. Sure enough, when I get out, my quest compass points directly behind me: the guy I'm looking for is in Castle Dour, where I just served my time.

It's General Tullius. He's sceptical of new recruits, but I tell him about Hadvar and he consents to let me join the legion. "Not many are as resourceful as you," he reasons. That's true! If you count other people's lives as resources.



And with that, I'm ready to start my new life as a soldier in the Imperial Legion. A soldier who can never, ever attack anyone. Let's just agree never to wonder why I was coming from the dungeons just now, or why I left the building to immediately walk back in.

"I'm sure that spell in our jail was just a misunderstanding," Tullius adds before I leave. Damn it!

The next entry will go up next Thursday, or you can read the next four in one shiny feature in the next issue of PC Gamer in the UK, out next Wednesday. It'll be up on the Apple Newsstand, or you can subscribe to the print edition.

I'm playing Skyrim with a rule: Illusion magic only. No direct violence, just pure deception. I've just reached Riverwood and exploited the locals into killing some bandits for me, then gone to sleep in the Hadvar family's bed.


< Part 1


Because I am bad at basic arithmetic, I wake up at 4am. The entire family is standing around the bed, watching me, waiting for me to leave. It's not yet light, so I sheepishly get out of their way and move over to one of the single beds in the corner for two more hours.

When I wake up at 6, a young girl is standing next to my bed, watching me, waiting for me to leave. It's possible I am in her bed. The rest of the family are eating breakfast, so I slip out.



It's my first day of not being executed - where am I going? What did Hadvar ask me to do, right around the time he was saying how the Jarl of Whiterun urgently needed to be warned about the dragon attack so he could save Riverwood? Oh yeah, join the Imperial Legion!

Their headquarters are in Solitude, so I'm going to Solitude. I uncheck the game's main quest and mark my new objective on my map. It's, er, kind of a long walk.

It's not far along the first mountain path before I spy a wolf. I reckon I can sneak by, get behind these ferns, and ow my face. I run through the ferns and jump down some rocks. It's one wolf! An actual lone wolf. Why couldn't it be two? I can't Fury one wolf, it'd only make him angrier with me.

After trying to make myself small for a while, he hasn't gone away, so I make a break for it. It's steep going, and after a while the wolf can't find a way to follow.

Breaking out into the plains, I can see Whiterun in the distance, but I press on. The plains are dull but easy going, like Russell Howard. And also like Russell Howard, when I cross them I'm attacked by two wolves. Two wolves! The perfect number. I catch the first with a blast of Fury as he pounces, and in a startling pre-emptive strike, his unaffected friend immediately kills him in one bite. This wolf is dire! And lone! Run!



I can't seem to get away - I was already out of stamina when they attacked, so now I can't sprint ahead. Am I actually going to get killed by a wolf? Who knew not defending yourself could be dangerous?

I'm relieved to see some robed travellers ahead, crossing a bridge towards Whiterun. I stagger to them, stumble through the river, and they stop as I approach.

"Somebody do something!" one of them yelps. That's what I was going to say!

We all look at each other urgently, then turn back to the wolf. There's no wolf. Instead, a small mudcrab is waddling his way up from the river towards us on the bridge. I laugh. Then, over his rocky shell, I see the body of the wolf floating in the water. You! You killed Lone Dire Super Wolf? WHAT ARE YOU? I run.



When I look back, both travellers are thwacking the mudcrab champion. Good luck, new friends!

Next week: Run and bear it

Tyler, Evan, and T.J. form a crack team of talk to discuss DayZ's stand-alone future, Skyrim's Dawnguard vamp-spansion, Steam's upcoming inclusion of non-game software, our upcoming PAX panel, and the future of storytelling in games. All of that, plus more news, Truthiness or Falsity, and a puzzling conclusion in...

PC Gamer US Podcast 325: Quest for Story

Have a question, comment, complaint, or observation? Leave a voicemail: 1-877-404-1337 ext 724 or email the mp3 to pcgamerpodcast@gmail.com.

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@elahti (Evan Lahti)
@logandecker (Logan Decker)
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