This week I find myself running into the same problem I
always do whenever I’m trying to play through a long-form game – trying to find
something new and interesting to say about it. Fortunately, while playing
Skyrim this week, I played through A Daedra’s Best Friend. This is ostensibly
yet another side quest, however it adds to what – memes aside – the games has
been sorely lacking up to this point: a sense of humour.
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A nasty piece of work,
but brilliantly played. |
After exiting Falkreath by the West exit, I was met with a
dog called Barbas. He tells me that he’s had a falling out with his master, and
requests to accompany him to meet him and make amends. I followed the dog – who
uses a distinctive American accent quite remote from the Nordic dialects we’ve
been hearing so far – to a dungeon I’d already looked at earlier in the game:
Haemar’s Shame. I went through the dungeon again, killing all the vampires and
at least one spider along the way, until I met with the shrine of Clavicus Vile
himself: Barbas’ master. And my word, what a character. He speaks to you in
your mind with slight Cockney twang, as an entity that loves nothing more than
causing chaos by granting wishes in the most self-damaging ways possible, and
will only agree to take Barbas back if you retrieve an axe for him…
There are multiple ways this quest can end so I’ll leave the
actual description of it there, but even though the gags in this quest are
hideously dark in places, it is a refreshing change to the grim fantasy world
presented for us so far! This was the first situation for a while where I wasn’t
chasing quests to level up my character or progress the main plot in some way;
I genuinely wanted to see where this quest was going. It wouldn’t work if the
whole game was like this, but a little humour in a game can like Skyrim go a
long way, create some very memorable moments, and break the cycles of questing
and quite nicely.
 |
If you were wondering how they'd do the
"I am your father" bit when none of the
characters actually speak, here it is... |
I carried on with Lego Star Wars with Jessie, and we’ve reached
some areas that are surprisingly challenging to traverse, especially when you’re
still learning the nuances of 3D movement in video games! The highlights include
The Empire Strikes Back sections: Traversing Dagobah has a wonderful moment in
it where you play Luke Skywalker in the middle of his Jedi training. As Luke
isn’t a Jedi at this point, the usual mechanics don’t apply for certain parts
of this level – he can use the force, but not well. To use the force normally,
he must pick up Yoda and put him on his back. This came to a head when Jessie –
who desperately wanted to play as Yoda and had grudgingly resigned herself to
the fact that putting him on Luke’s back was as good as it was going to get –
had to use the force to lower some Lego Mushrooms so that R2-D2 can use the
gate at the end of the scene. The problem was that this required some quick
timing, and Jess kept getting attacked by bats. It took a few goes, to say the
least! The other part we enjoyed was the boss battle with Darth Vader, which was
nicely designed in the way that Jessie – who didn’t want to fight, so was playing
R2-D2 – was able to be useful by turning on steam vents and raising platforms. It
will help to build her problem-solving skills if nothing else!
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| A simple but very entertaining game! |
We also enjoyed a tabletop game called Monster Match, in
which you must roll two dice and try to match the numbers and body parts they
present to the cards on the table. We had to modify this down a bit – the cards
score between one and three points each, we had to take that out – but it helps
to build up her number recognition. As an aside, Jessie bought this game for me
for Father’s Day last year. We had a go with it then, and she didn’t enjoy it
much at the time; it’s lovely to see how well she’s coming on when we see her enjoying
it now.
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