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Sandboxes and open worlds, or why I love Skyrim so much

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Back to my childhood years, my sister and I used to play a lot with Playmobil toys. What we found so enticing was the opportunity for us to tell our own stories. At least, my sister was telling stories, I was merely following her lead. Thinking back, I think she was some kind of game master in our own role-playing game. Playmobil gave us the settings and the characters, and it was all we needed to enjoy ourselves all day long. I loved this feeling of freedom, being able to make up our own rules, building relationships and backstories for every character. Recently, I realized I was doing exactly the same when playing Skyrim, and that’s one of the main reasons (the other reason being the amazing modding community) I’m never getting tired of this game. Each time I start a new game, I come up with a backstory for my character, which is gradually changing with random events happening in the game. Skyrim is a game that lacks depth in its narration, so exactly like when I’m writing fanfiction...
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Is there such a thing as ‘mainstream gamers’?

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Spending a lot of time hanging around on Discord or Twitch, I find myself frequently chatting with people about video games and video game industry. I often hear ‘people buy this’ ‘people like that’, ‘people are interseted in this type of game’, etc. But who are them ‘people’? Not me, not you, not anyone you chat with, ironically. They’re always this vague concept that seems to imply that 'people' know nothing about video games, 'people' are a little daft, and 'people' only play best-selling games to entertain themselves once in a while. Credits :  Iron Pineapple  &  GoogleyGareth As a disclaimer, I’m not a journalist, sociologist or well-versed in any kind of scientific research field. I’m just a video game translator and a gamer. But, as I grew a little tired of speaking about something I don’t really know about, I got out of my way to research the best-selling games in 2024, sorted by countries. And this inquiry raised a few interesting questions. B...
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Into Oblivion

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I didn't play Oblivion back in 2006. But, as I fell in love with Skyrim years later, when the remaster was released, I didn't think twice before buying it. A few weeks later, I have quite a few things to say about it. Yes, it looks good, but... Skyrim with mods looks better. Oblivion didn't blow my mind with its visuals, all the more because my Steamdeck has a hard time running the game, while I had no problem with recent games like Dragon Age: Veilguard , which in my opinion is far more stunning. Ray tracing, which is enabled by default, is a visual gadget and the game would play better without it. The colors lack authenticity and overall the performances are quite disappointing. When playing Final Fantasy XV with my old PC I was able to show very distant landscapes on screen, here I am doomed to reveal assets only when I'm getting close. Unfortunately, stuttering, painfully long loading screens and crashes keep preventing me from fully enjoying the game. A much bette...
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