Sitting down with The Forgotten City, a story-driven mod for Skyrim, was one of the most immersive experiences in recent memory. It has left such an impression and heightened expectations when it comes to story and atmosphere. Luckily, I’ve gotten to know Nick Pierce through email and asked if he would mind answering some questions for Giga.
He humbly obliged.
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Why mod Skyrim? How does that particular game fit the goals of the project?
So many reasons. First of all, modding Skyrim is awesome fun! Though I probably don’t use the same definition of “fun” as most other people. For me, it’s a creative outlet. I get to activate parts of my brain that I don’t get to use in my day-to-day. I suppose the alternative to modding Skyrim would have been to make my own indie game, but it wouldn’t have been anything like The ForgottenCity. Modding Skyrim is like standing on the shoulder of a giant (the giant being Bethesda Game Studios); it allows you to do things you couldn’t dream of doing alone.
I started modding Skyrim because I was inspired by a lot of modders from Oblivion and Fallout and wanted to try my hand at it.
I also drew a lot of inspiration from my favorite side-quests in Bethesda’s games. For example, I remember stumbling across the Dark Brotherhood by accident in Oblivion, and being blown away by how much work had gone into something I might never have discovered; that made it feel personal, something unique to my adventure. I remember stumbling across Vault 11 in Fallout: New Vegas (technically made by Obsidian, published by Bethesda) and its chilling social experiments which exposed some dark truths about society. I remember “Waking Nightmare” in Skyrim; entering a dream state to travel to the past, if only in a superficial way. I remember discovering the ancient Dwarven underground city of Blackreach, and wishing I could have explored it more. The ForgottenCity takes loose threads from all of these quests, and weaves them into something I hope is even greater. It’s an homage to Bethesda.
What sort of challenges did you have to overcome with this mod?
Well this mod took me 1700 hours to make, and I think more than half of that was spent fixing bugs. Some of them were pretty funny. I had this one ridiculous bug for a long time where Brandas, on his deathbed, covered in horrific burns and speaking his last words, was supposed to fade away into death. Unfortunately, just before he died, he would stand up out of bed, face the player, then comically ragdoll into the floor. In the end it was caused by something that just seemed totally unexpected.
Generally though the key challenges were acquiring the skills I just didn’t have. When I started I had no idea how to use the Creation Kit, write scripts in Papyrus, cast voice actors, master sound files. The whole time I was learning on the fly. Every time I hit a big hurdle I had this feeling of dread as I realized: “If I can’t sort this out, this project is dead in the water, and everything I’ve done so far is for nothing.” (I’m an optimist, you see.) But three years on, I never encountered a hurdle I couldn’t overcome—that’s pretty satisfying, looking back.
“Modding Skyrim is like standing on the shoulder of a giant (the giant being Bethesda Game Studios); it allows you to do things you couldn’t dream of doing alone.”
What are the perks of modding, as opposed to full game design?
The main one is creative control. I wasn’t pandering to a demographic, and I didn’t try to simplify anything to make it more accessible to the general population. I made a game for intelligent gamers, because that’s what I wanted to play. It turns out a lot of other people wanted to play that too.
Another perk of modding is that you get to work on all aspects of the project, not just one aspect. One of my favorite parts were working with the 18 voice actors I cast: getting to know them, listening to their performances, hearing the lines I’d written come to life, sounding better than I had ever imagined. And now I chat with most of them online pretty regularly. I’d like to think of them as friends. That’s been a lot of fun. Also, working with Trent Moriarty (the composer) has been really fascinating and thrilling as well. I don’t know how, but he managed to take a few ideas and emotions and transform them into these achingly beautiful musical compositions. I feel privileged to have witnessed him working his magic.
Another perk is not having to worry about how many people play it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty stoked that 50,000 people have downloaded it within 2 weeks of launch (from Nexus, Steam Workshop and ModDB combined), and I wanted to make sure Trent and the voice actors got as much exposure as possible, but I would have been happy enough if the number was a fraction of that.
What is your history with Game Design? Were there other projects before The Forgotten City?
I don’t have a history in game design: this is my first project. If you don’t count the terrible games I made in QBasic when I was 13, which I don’t, because they were terrible.
How does it feel to have The Forgotten City receive such praise?
It’s been a big relief to get such positive feedback. I tried to pitch the game at intelligent gamers, and I wasn’t sure how well that would be received; TFC gives players a bit more credit for being intelligent than the vanilla quests. . . The reaction has shown there are a lot of intelligent gamers out there, and they seem to appreciate games that treat them as such.
Gorgeous concept art from Fallout 4.
Are there any other projects in the works?
At the moment I’m weighing my options, but one possibility I’m excited about is a Fallout 4 expansion. I’ve had a lot of requests for that, and I’m looking forward to playing Fallout 4 and dreaming up some ideas for sci-fi social experiments in Vaults.
The cover of “Superman: The War Years 1938-1945” by Roy Thomas.
Superman is so powerful, he could’ve ended World War II single handedly in ten minutes. Why didn’t he? What was he doing?
Those are the questions asked and answered by former comic book writer and editor Roy Thomas in Superman: The War Years 1938-1945, a large hardback book that is one part retrospective and one part graphic novel. To put it simply, this book is a collection of over 20 Superman comics—mostly Action Comics and his solo title—that pertain to America’s role in World War II, plus inspirational covers, a few comic strips, and even some ads. These are divided into four sections with introductory essays written by Thomas, which set the stage for the comics that follow.
As a nearly lifelong fan of the Man of Steel, I was excited to read many of his earliest adventures. However, as a critic, deciding how to evaluate this collection is a difficult one. At least 95-percent of this book is the comic material, all of which was published when my grandparents were in their youths. It’d be unfair, even a disservice, to judge them by modern standards. The artwork, pacing, and even layouts would be unappealing—or perhaps jarring—to present-day readers. Compounding the difficulty is the many “politically incorrect” terms and ideas presented in many of them, as noted by Thomas (more on that later). So, in light of that, I’m evaluating this volume more on its presentation of the material and not so much the material itself.
That being said, there are some noteworthy issues here Super-fans will want to read that go beyond the book’s theme. It begins with Supes’ first appearance in Action Comics #1 in 1938. Next is his full origin in the opening pages of Superman #1 in 1939. Later there’s a two-issue story that features the first appearance of Superman’s archenemy Lex Luthor (who had red hair!), though he was only called Luthor in that story. While this book collects highlights from the Man of Tomorrow’s first seven years of publication, I noticed a marked change in Superman’s characterization. He starts as a heroic though often harsh figure. He frequently threatens bad guys with violent deaths like ripping their hearts out, and he arguably kills soldiers when attacking a Nazi military base in one issue (which I guess lends a bit more legitimacy to him killing Zod in Man of Steel, but I digress). For readers like myself whose first image of Superman was Christopher Reeve, this might seem strange. But again, it was a product of its time.
Thomas’ essays, while short, effectively prepare readers for what they are about to read. He gives the historical and cultural context for what was going on at the time. As the United States’ stance on the war changed, so it did for Superman and his creators. The Man of Tomorrow went from forcing fictional warring nations—obvious stand-ins for European countries—to end their hostilities to fighting Axis saboteurs and invaders. Heck, in one issue Superman battles a mad scientist who uses sea monsters to invade America for Hitler! (It wasn’t as epic as sounds, sadly.) The classic comic strip where Clark Kent’s enlistment is denied because he read the wrong eyesight ledger thanks to his x-ray vision is presented, showing why he never joined the war. Interestingly, on several occasions in other issues, Superman says he didn’t go fight the Axis because he believed America’s fighting men could handle it themselves. He contented himself to battling the enemy if they came ashore. Some might call that foolish, but I find it encouraging. Superman knows he can’t and shouldn’t solve all of mankind’s problems. Plus, as Thomas writes, it was a way of boosting morale for soldiers by not cheapening their struggles. You simply need to do a little research on the web. ordering viagra without prescription Hefner believes, the American people voted this past November, 2008 with their hearts, minds and ballots for the next President of the United States is GMO (genetically modified organism). unica-web.com viagra cheap But the online viagra india disease does not come to us with searching that who are rich or who are not. Unhealthy and unhygienic eating habits are acknowledged to bring forth thyroid difficulties. buying cialis in spain
As noted, given the potentially controversial material included in this collection—like the infamous “slap a Jap” cover on Action Comics #58—it’s a good thing Thomas lets readers know what to expect. However, he insists that these are part of history, and so the comics remain uncensored. (Humorously, I did find a few typos in these unaltered 70-year-old comics). It should be said, though, that a series of comic strips are included that feature Superman helping a young woman decide which branch of the military to join so she can join one of her four “boy friends” in serving the nation. I think that counts as forward thinking.
Thomas’ final essay, however, is confusingly titled, “Part 5,” even though it’s what closes the book. It threw me off because it initially seemed like it could’ve introduced a new section or been an introduction to a second volume collecting some of Superman’s early post-war adventures. I realized as I read it that the “Part 5” is probably meant to reference the essays themselves as opposed to the sections of the book, but it was still confusing. Regardless, it does close out the book well.
Superman: The War Years 1938-1945 serves as a window into the history of both Superman and the United States. Those were years of drastic change for the nation, and they helped define the Man of Steel as a character. Not only that, this volume illustrates how art reflects life. Indeed, Superman served as both a propaganda tool and as a means of escape for soldiers and civilians alike at the time. For modern-day fans, it gives them a chance to see some of the milestones in Man of Tomorrow’s publication history.
Music is life. There is very little in life that can’t be made better with some good music in the background. With the increased storage space on memory cards, smart phones, and iPods, we’re carrying around entire festivals worth of music with us at all times. What good is all that music if you can’t share it with friends though?
The fine people over at 7×24 Technologies, Inc have the solution. The Pocket Party is a solid combination of portability and sound quality. Simply connect the speaker to your device of choice via Bluetooth, adhere the Pocket Party to any flat surface, and let the party begin.
My Pocket Party with carabiner attached
The speaker comes with a carabiner (a belt clip), so you can soundtrack any stroll to the store with friends. They even include a bike-mount strap so you and the team can enjoy tunes while you ride. Portability is a strong half of the story with this one, and functionality is its tag team partner.
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https://youtu.be/CHqng57upXw
There is even a smart light system that synchronizes with the music being played to create an intelligent light show based on various aspects of the music (bass, treble, even the vocals).
My personal experience with this surprisingly powerful speaker has been pretty awesome. I strongly believe that a shower without music is sinful, so having a speaker like this is a gift from the heavens. Pandora, Spotify, and even YouTube play perfectly, or at least as well as the services’ normal sound fidelity would allow. Cooking has become quite the party as well and it’s nice to not have to use a cup to boost the sound on my phone anymore. Hey, don’t judge me.
If you’re like me and you don’t have speakers hardwired into every inch of your home, this is a must have for any music lover. It can easily turn any uncomfortably quiet situation into an event worthy of Instagram. Salute to 7×24 Technology Inc. for this one. Check out more on the Pocket Party on their IndieGoGo page and spread the word.
Truer words have never been said. With Street Fighter creeping into the latest Super Smash Bros, alongside the fan voting system that was finalized in October, there are some crazy things in store for the Nintendo celebratory fighting game. Sure, I’ve seen Cloud of Final Fantasy VII in just about any fan-made game ever, but to see him appear in an actual, professionally designed game leaves me in sheer awe.
This move to bring Final Fantasy back in cahoots with Nintendo after years of it being mostly a Sony franchise is huge. Of course, the franchise found its feet on the NES and made history with the SNES iterations, only to see its golden age on the PSONE. Will there be a resurgence of Final Fantasy games making it to the Nintendo marketplace? Remakes and spin-offs are abundant, but what does this mean for Square Enix and Nintendo?
Speculate in the comments below Giga Bytes! I’ll be sitting here stirring my tea with a phoenix down, while I wait for what other crazy things are coming to Super Smash Bros. Tidy the room side effects of levitra and use a sweet air freshener. In which an individual smells dangerous odors buy viagra sample on the other hand seems, in place will be a combination of physical therapy and occupational therapy. Clinical results appear in constipation, bladder dysfunction free get viagra (retention or incontinence). That is why; these kinds of medicines are discount levitra browse around over here called generic drugs.
Oh, and to add another octave to the squee of fans everywhere, think about this.
As the first cel-animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was nothing short of a technical marvel of its time. Its legacy is no less prolific, with it entering both the legendary Disney lineup and becoming a staple of pop culture. Many kids grow up knowing the dwarfs’ iconic song, “Heigh Ho”, while “Someday My Prince Will Come” has since become a jazz standard, being covered by big names like Miles Davis. To many people, this is the definitive Disney animated film, so my expectations going into it were high, but does it live up to the hype?
Walt Disney’s achievements in the animation of Snow White cannot be denied. Movement is crisp and fluid, the landscapes are colorful and detailed.
Great attention to detail is paid towards replicating realistic lighting effects. Snow White emerges from the shadow of a tree, and the reflections of all the animals can be seen on the water.
Each character is visually distinct from one another, which is particularly important when it comes to the dwarfs. Each one has aspects of their personalities woven into their visual design: Sneezy has a red, swollen nose; Bashful has long eyelashes and bright amber eyes; Doc wears professional looking bifocals; Dopey has big, flabby ears and his clothes look like he could fit a whole other Dopey in there; Happy is, well, happy with a big Santa-Clause-style stomach; and Grumpy has a sleek and edgy figure. Another interesting design choice on the dwarfs is how each one that represents a “down” emotion, such as Grumpy, keeps their hat drooping downward, where as the ones with “up” emotions keep theirs propped up. These are small and simple details to be sure, but they go a long way towards helping to physically distinguish the admittedly otherwise very similar looking dwarfs.
Each dwarf has their own mannerisms and physical features which help the audience know who’s who among the them.
Snow White and the Prince, however, come straight to us from the uncanny valley. They are both smoothly animated like the rest of the film, but they look like real human beings in drawn form, and compared to the cartoony look of the rest of the movie they look out of place.
Snow White and The Prince lack the exaggeration of the rest of the cast, and not only does it make them ill fit for their environment, it also makes them look dull by comparison.
The Queen manages to strike a perfect balance between the two, and her old form in particular is to this day among the best examples of animation, period.
The Evil Queen’s bigger eyes and more outlandish attire allow her to stylistically mesh with the rest of the film, despite also retaining realistic human proportions.
The art in the movie even manages to enhance the storytelling in many scenes. Upon avoiding being assassinated by the Queen’s huntsman, Snow White runs through the forest and faces what seems to be a forest hell bent on her demise. However, as it comes to a head, it is revealed that the horrible beasts that she thought had been chasing her, were simply adorable woodland creatures trying to help her. It is a unique way of showing Snow White’s state of mind after the attempt on her life. Her entire world had been uprooted, and as far as she knew, everything was out to get her, and her paranoia physically manifested itself in the ghoulish hallucination of the forest.
Another great example is the vultures that follow the Queen throughout the last act of the film. Since the Queen is heading towards Snow White to seal her doom, the vultures appear to foreshadow her death, and it’s even more so implied after Snow White takes a bite of the poison apple, as the vultures immediately fly off screen towards the direction of Snow White’s corpse. However, this is revealed to have been a red herring, as the Queen makes her final stand against the dwarfs, the vultures land on a nearby branch just as the Queen meets her end.
The movie uses the fact that the audience will connect the Vultures’ sinister smile with the sinister intentions of The Evil Queen, to convince them that the vultures are on her side. However, the vultures literally embody death, and in the end, death takes no sides.
The music in the movie is more of an “eh” quality. While there are catchy melodies like “Heigh Ho” and “Whistle While You Work” none of them are songs I’d voluntarily listen to on my own time. Even the iconic “Someday My Prince Will Come” doesn’t stand out here; it took other musicians covering it later to really bring out the life in the tune. It also doesn’t help that Snow White’s singing voice, done by Adriana Caselotti, sounds like she just got her toe run over by a car. The dwarfs do a better job of singing their parts, but their songs tend to be regulated to the repetitive and simplistic numbers.
So this review is about to follow a convenient descending line pattern, because now I’m going to talk about how the story is impressively bad. It hits this interesting median of bad writing, where not only very little occurs in the film, it’s also full of plot holes. The plot of the film revolves around The Queen deciding to kill her step-daughter, Snow White, because her magic mirror reveals to her that Snow White is the fairest in the land, and not her.
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The Huntsman disobeys The Evil Queen’s orders and allows Snow White to escape into the forest where she meets the dwarfs. The Evil Queen finds out and disguises as an old woman to trick Snow White into taking a bite of a poison apple, which Snow White falls for and falls into a sleeping death. The Evil Queen then falls to her death after being chased off by the dwarfs, and The Prince awakens Snow White with “True Love’s Kiss.” I’m sorry for those that haven’t seen the movie, because I just spoiled the film in its entirety.
Now it is an interesting question as to how this film runs for 80 minutes despite having a plot that can be described in full within a few sentences, and the answer to that is because more than half the movie is watching mine work, house cleaning or parties.
I’m sorry, I can see you are busy. I’ll come back at a better time after you are done tidying up.
Now, I’m sure there’s some neat freak outs there that are completely enthralled by Snow White’s intricate, “Sit on Your Ass and Let Animals Do the Work” method of cleaning, and I’m sure the extremely prominent miner audience appreciated their profession getting the Hollywood glorification treatment for once, but it simply doesn’t make for a good plot. The film begins to drag fairly early on once Snow White meets the dwarfs, with the only real respite being the few cutaways to The Queen making her dastardly plans. It’s unfortunate that so little of the film gives focus to The Queen, since the film comes alive whenever she’s on screen. Unlike everyone else in the cast, she has an actual goal that she works towards, even if it’s a simple one, that gives the movie a much better sense of direction. Lucille La Verne puts on a great vocal performance as both the young Evil Queen and her old hag alter ego. She captures a unique personality for each role, despite the two technically being the same character. While in her young form, Lucille speaks in a dignified and calm manner, like someone obsessed with maintaining appearances to those around her. Once the Evil Queen transforms however, every line is delivered with a sheer, unfiltered joyful boom as the old Evil Queen revels in the evil she commits.
Hearing her cackle after taunting the skeleton of a deceased prisoner (potentially The Huntsman) gives off a level of energy the rest of the movie sorely lacks.
It’s interesting that such a simple movie ends up being so poorly written. There are obvious issues, such as the insistence that Snow White and The Prince are in love when The Prince says maybe three sentences throughout the film. He never actually holds a conversation with Snow White, but I was willing to forgive something like that. “True Love at First Sight” can be a tough pill to swallow for someone who loves smartly written character relationships and arcs as much as I do. If it is worked into the narrative properly, or if there’s enough other good traits to distract me from it, I can dig it like a goldmine. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs does neither of these things.
Other than two scenes, The Prince and Snow White are never on screen together, and even in those scenes, they don’t speak to each other, so we never “see” them in love, we just hear Snow White insist how great he is. This becomes a big glaring problem during the “Someday My Prince Will Come” sequence, because Snow White claims that no one else is like The Prince, in front of seven individuals whom she knows much more about. Snow White ends up looking almost as superficial as the Evil Queen, since ultimately, she chose the outward beauty of The Prince over any of the dwarfs whom she had actually grown to know as people.
Snow White is meant to be a woman so kind, gentle and beautiful that people and animals alike instantly develop an attraction to her. However, her actions really make her out to be clueless, inconsiderate and condescending. I suspect Snow White may have some sort of mental deficiency that prevents her from retaining information for more than a few minutes. She recovers disturbingly fast from the attempt on her life, and she doesn’t reference it in any way ever again, she doesn’t even mention The Evil Queen. She decides to enter the dwarfs’ house without invitation or them even being there, as if she’s never heard of the concept of privacy or trespassing. She initially assumes that the dwarfs are children upon seeing the miniature stature of their house, but even upon learning that they are full grown men, she never stops treating them as kids. She cooks for them, forces them to clean themselves, kisses them on their way to work and tells them bedtime stories.
Granted, they apparently hadn’t washed for over a year, but if they want to smell like limburger cheese bathed in vinegar, then that’s their business. Just hope they didn’t invite anyone over for tea.
Snow White also runs from The Prince in the beginning of the movie, implying that she is timid, then everything she does for the rest of the movie says the exact opposite. She breaks into a stranger’s house, begins running the lives of its inhabitants, accepts a strange woman’s outlandish claims of a magic apple and finally rides off into the sunset with a man she knows nothing about. The reason Snow White ran from The Prince was for plot convenience. Considering the Evil Queen couldn’t survive her encounter with the dwarfs, The Prince probably could have cut her head off and ended the movie in the first ten minutes, if Snow White’s fleeing hadn’t convinced him to leave.
The Evil Queen’s actions tend to make very little sense in regards to her intentions. She keeps Snow White as a maid in an attempt to hide her beauty. Since we see how easily she sentences Snow White to death, that brings up the issue as to why she didn’t kill Snow White a long time ago, and why she assumed that just being a maid would make Snow White less pretty. Her plan with the poison apple hinged on the assumption that Snow White would be buried alive rather than just killing Snow White herself. The Evil Queen also did not need to assume a disguise that so clearly physically handicapped her, thus creating the situation that got her killed. However, I don’t fault that particular point too much, since it ends up being fairly clever having The Evil Queen die as the old and ugly hag that she, ironically, only turned herself into in order to become the most beautiful woman in the land.
The Prince could be replaced with a feathered hat on a stick and the only thing that would change would be the absence of a few sentences. He does nothing, says almost nothing and probably feels nothing even as he rides away with his princess.
I’m not even entirely sure this is a picture of him, it might just be a slab of sculpting marble.
The dwarfs are exactly what they say they are, except Grumpy to a small extent. Happy’s happy, Sneezy sneezes, Sleepy sleeps, Bashful is bashful, Doc is, uh, a doc and Dopey has a dope problem. Grumpy is pretty much in the same boat, but he has a small character arc as he slowly warms up to Snow White and begins to look at her as a friend. His small change makes him the most endearing character in the movie, even if it’s like saying a head of lettuce out of seven was my favorite because it had a small piece of bacon trapped in it.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is like finding an over-stuffed burrito in the fridge. It looks nice and appetizing as you warm it up in the toaster oven, but once you take a bite, all the contents burst out of the other end and leave you with nothing but a cheap shell of that delicious lunch you wanted to eat. Then you look up, and remember that you are actually at your tedious job and you are bored with your life.
