OTHE POCKET GUIDE TO THE NERD UNIVERSE

SkyrimThe next Elder Scrolls game has been released for the eagerly awaiting fans. Five years since it’s predecessor Oblivion won Game of the Year, Skyrim comes out to a thunderous applause.

There has long been an unspo-ken covenant of sorts between Bethesda and it’s fans. Bethesda does it’s part by fashioning a massive world full of beautiful scenes and creatures, many peo-ple, hundreds of adventures to find, rich history and lore, and enough enemies and potential enemies to keep any player busy for hours. Then the fans do their bit by ignoring the AI combat failings, few voice actors, stilted repeated conversations and general design flaws that come at the price of packing so much more into the tiny disk.

One major critisism of Oblivion was it’s generally awful leveling system, having to go to bed before you could level up then choosing to boost whatever background statistics that are barely noticable you choose. Luckily Skyrim has come up with a much smoother leveling system. Giving you to choice of a small boost to Health, Magic or Stamina (Namely what we ac-tually notice when it’s low) along with a special perk to aid game-play depending on how you are developing your character.

Oblivion had a creative and use-ful class system that allowed for some decent costomisation. It is only after playing Skyrim do I realise how restricting it actually was. By getting rid of worthless schools like Acrobatics and Ath-letics, they have allowed for all schools to affect your level. This means that rather than having to stick to what you choose at the beginning of the game in order to get stronger, your character develops with everything they do.

The dragons however may be Skyrims greatest acheivement. They are “unscripted,” meaning they can appear before you for a fight any time. One minute you’re walking along looking for the Hircine’s Ring or some ran-dom item or enemy. Next thing you know you’re being assaulted by ten times your own mass in scales and wings and claws and fangs and fire.

As the Dragonborn hero, you can absorb the souls of dragons in order to grow stronger and gain more Shout power. A re-ward that can leave you tempted to keep fighting even when your better judgement tells you to run.

Like Oblivion, Skyrim has elect-ed to ommit the giant fleas that allowed transport between cities in Morrowind. No one seems to miss them for some reason.

Oblivion allowed the player to be gifted (or cursed) with vampirism. But with Skyrim, the developers seem to have decided that bloodsuckers get too much mainsteam attention as it is, and have returned to their more savage and powerful cousins. Werewolves.

Yes that’s right, the werewolves are making a comeback from Daggerfall and Morrowind: Bloodmoon.

The fatal weakness of playing a werewolf has always been that you are enslaved to the full moon. Or in Elder Scolls cases you can only turn during a full moon. But this time there is a side quest that can result in the ability to transform at will. Your own set of fangs and claws will most definately help the next time a dragon comes calling.

On top of hundreds of quests available across the enormous (really, really enormous) sprawl of the world map, Skyrim offers players hundreds of random events and tiny encounters in between towns. Whether it’s en-gaging in a random dragon bat-tle (cue epic music), stumbling over the hut of an angry witch, spending a night exchanging beer and songs with a traveling bard, or foregoing the main quest to attend Skyrim’s magi-cal academy for a few months, the way in which players express themselves through their hero’s

Contents

Apple Legacy.........................................................................................................................................................10Mass Effect 3, they finally caved in....................................................................................................................16Whatever happened to Legend of the Seeker?..................................................................................................18Retro recommendations......................................................................................................................................20Dogs for adventurers...........................................................................................................................................23Christmas for Dragon Age, Made by Knife-ears...............................................................................................24How to be a Turd..................................................................................................................................................25X-23 cancelation. Marvel and women...............................................................................................................26Batman and a new city.........................................................................................................................................28Christmas time for time travellers......................................................................................................................32Ryan Sohmer, A Tribute.......................................................................................................................................33Frank Millar on Occupy........................................................................................................................................34Top Ten Artists.....................................................................................................................................................35Image Parteners taking their toys and going home.........................................................................................40Your stories, A Cloaked Warrior.........................................................................................................................42Your stories, Starship Baby..................................................................................................................................43On your stories.....................................................................................................................................................44Avengers................................................................................................................................................................45Has Pokemon run its course?..............................................................................................................................48Merlin, stalling for time.......................................................................................................................................50Facebook vs Wikileaks.........................................................................................................................................51Skyrim....................................................................................................................................................................53DC Comics this year............................................................................................................................................55Marvel Comics this year......................................................................................................................................59George Lucas on a throne of fan tears................................................................................................................63Duckgate................................................................................................................................................................64Super Mario, 26 years of plumbing.....................................................................................................................66A comedy of AI errors.........................................................................................................................................68Heh 69....................................................................................................................................................................69Inheritance finishes the Inheritance cycle.........................................................................................................71Where’s our Wheel of time series?......................................................................................................................73Studying invented languages................................................................................................................................74Halariously Offensive...........................................................................................................................................77Top Nerds on Twitter...........................................................................................................................................80Syrio On Game of Thrones...................................................................................................................................84Skyrim books on Amazon....................................................................................................................................87Thundercats...........................................................................................................................................................90Hobbit on Nightclubs..........................................................................................................................................93Science Facts.........................................................................................................................................................95Nerd Corner..........................................................................................................................................................96

personal journey differs drasti-cally from person to person. And the sense that the journey and the world are yours alone is what makes Skyrim truly the masterpiece of the year.

Of course, with a game so great in scope, there are defi-nitely flaws — crashes galore, for example. If you’re playing the Xbox version, make sure to play from cache each time rather than installing: The hard copy has a glitch where, upon installation, textures revert to the lowest-resolution versions possible.

Some of my own experiences in game could go from seemilng rather epic, while others can just seem rediculous.

I killed a single chicken and had an entire town up in arms after me, torches ablaze. Apparently, chickens are highly prized in Skyrim.

I managed to stumble into a camp of giants and ended up getting clubbed to death by one immediately; my avatar’s body flew up off the map and into space, and refused to come back down again. One of the many AI failings longtime Bethesda fans have learned to tolerate.

What does draw a player into the entire Skyrim world is how it seems less of a game and more a virtual reaity experience.

No longer does the player try to wander off only to be held back by some invisible wall everyone else can pass through.

In Skyrim, when you are charged with saving a town from a dragon or with meeting the fabled Greybeards to train with, you always have the option of just not doing it.

And that is the real beauty of the game. Skyrim is a massive coun-try in itself. You are not required to stick to any quest, if it takes your fancy you could just spend hours catching butterflys.

But no matter what you do, the dragons will return and hunt you. You are still the Dragon-born, and they consider you a threat even if you spend all your time making leather.

Ofcourse the main quest itself is unlikely to make you strong enough to complete it. Luckily you have so many Side quests you can get very strong.

There are even other stories unfolding around you, if you let them. Join the Dark Brother-hood and kill for coin, Join the Mages College and become a master sorcerer, Join the Thieves Guild and start the biggest crime waave Skyrim has ever seen, or even join the Companions learning to fight and to become a Werewolf. The possablities are almost endless.

All sounds too tough to do alone? Not to worry, you have help if you ask. You can gain many Followers to well, fol-low you. Dozens of NPCs exist throughout the land of Skyrim for you to lead on in quests and tell what to do.

Overall a fantastic game. It’s small wonder you’ve noticed a hole in the world where all the nerds should be. We all emmi-grated to Skyrim. 10/10

Ryan Sohmer, a tribute

Now if you don’t know the name, it’s really no surprise. But this is the man who has made his success out of nothing but being a nerd.

This is the man who built up Blind-Ferret, an internet company that owns various webcomics and sells merchandise based on them.

Now that may not be invertly nerd-ish, it should be noted that this man also writes three of the six webcomics BlindFerret owns.

The first and the one with the biggest selection would be Least I Could Do. Eternal singleton Rayne Summers stars in this comic as he gets into antics everywhere he goes.

Rayne himself is based on Sohmer, albeit an exaggerated version. Both love themselves some Red Bull, both seem childish until they unleash their opinions on serious issues, both love a good laugh and both are fantastic in bed (Or s I’m guessing)

Back to the point, Sohmer has made a decent fortune from writing webcomics and letting people read them for free. Who else can do that?

The money from BlindFerret was enough for Sohmer to build himself up the dream job of nerds every-where. Owning and working in a comic book store.

That’s right, if you ever want to meet him, you can visit Montre-al Canada and find The Fourth Wall comic shop. Then again there are two of them now.

Among this he still finds time to write Looking For Group. A fantasy epic with a heroic elf out to save the world and an undead warlock who likes to kill things, and they’re on the same side.

He also writes a little webcomic The Gutters, Specifically there to poke fun at the comic book industry.

Now I know what you’re think-ing, with all this Awesome around this guy he can’t have much of a home life. Well you’re wrong!

Ryan Sohmer is not only mar-ried, but he has himself a son. Granted his wife didn’t let him call said son Aragorn Optimus Prime Sohmer, but he’s still rather happily married if you be-lieve his many website posts.

The morale of this story is basi-cally Aragorn Optimus Prime is still available as a name. I may procreate after all.