Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style
The team of Elder Scrolls fans behind Skywind -- a mod that promises to merge the world of Morrowind into Skyrim -- have shared some new trailers of their work recently. All of them, including the most recent one posted above, are well worth watching whether you're a latecomer to the franchise or an ardent fan of the classic 2002 RPG.
A sad reality of modern gaming is that while many of us can look back at pixels with fondess and nostalgia, it's much harder to look at early 3D game worlds and models with anything approaching the same sentiment. Maybe it's because we're not quite far enough removed from those visuals, or because a lot of their shortcomings are still present in "ugly" contemporary games, but even beloved classics like Morrowind can be exceptionally hard to go back to. We've been spoiled by 3D models of increasing fidelity to the point that ten year old games just look like hot garbage. That's what makes Skywind (and Morroblivion before it) such an interesting and important project for past, present, and future fans of The Elder Scrolls. Being able to experience those worlds again (or for the first time) without having to force yourself to get over that ugliness barrier... Well, it's huge.
Unfortunately, so is the scale of this project. Skywind is truly a massive undertaking, and it will be some time before it's finished. Read more about the mod, download the Alpha version, and learn how you can contribute to its development here.
Iris Ophelia (@bleatingheart, Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Timesand has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan andwith pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.
Judging classics for its graphics. Very "hardcore gamer". Happy holidays!
Posted by: forthebestfuture | Monday, December 30, 2013 at 12:35 PM
Thank you for the news, I'm an old fan of Oblivion and Skyrim, but never played Morrowind, so I'm looking forward the chance to play it, for the first time in my life.
On the other hand, it's not necessarily so difficult to go back to 10+ years old games. While waiting for GTA V coming to PC, I play now both GTA San Andreas (2004) and GTA IV (2008), and to my surprise, I enjoy the ancient San Andreas much better. It can't even handle the mouse properly, the poor thing, and houses in-game look like photo-textured prim box houses in SL in 2007, but nevertheless, the game content, the skill system, the side quests, the reward system, even the vehicle physics are all better than GTA IV. So 10 years old games can still be appreciated (and they are necessary for realizing what actual new games are lacking).
Posted by: Merc | Tuesday, December 31, 2013 at 02:29 AM