ADG Episode 48 - The Elder Scrolls I: Arena

Channel:

Pixelmusement

Subscribers:

22,900

Published on October 16, 2013 1:58:23 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPmihFz_nmg

Game:

The Elder Scrolls: Arena (1994)

Category:

Show

Duration: 18:26

12,587 views

313

Episode Originally Released: June 4th, 2011

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While the Elder Scrolls series of games is highly regarded nowadays, it had quite the rocky start. The first game in the series, Arena, was originally going to be about gladiatorial combat, but that focus shifted over the course of development. While the final product has a ton of content it can be very finicky and ultra-fast paced.

And yes, I'm aware there's command line parameters to turn the speed down, but this affects the overall framerate, mouse cursor, and control responsiveness too so it doesn't really help make the game any "better". :P

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Additional Information and Corrections:

* Here's a link if you want to download the freeware release of Arena: http://www.elderscrolls.com/arena

* Now don't get me wrong, although I don't feel this game really stands up very well, I still think it's an important part of gaming history. Its successor, Daggerfall, while riddled with bugs, was more fun, more involved, and overall, a huge improvement, while both Morrowind and Oblivion I find are equally great games for different reasons. Since the debut of Skyrim as well, I can safely say I find it equally as good as the third and fourth TES games! :)

* I might be wrong about the game being pushed as an alternative to Doom. LOTS of games were and this one came out around the right time to be in direct competition with it.

* At certain points in the gameplay footage you'll notice that I seem to be selecting things and typing inhumanly fast. This is because I used to have to use fixed cycles counts to record gameplay footage of CPU-intensive DOS games and for some incredibly odd reason, doing this caused the still screens in the game to go incredibly slow. Just one of the many reasons you should stick with the "max" cycles setting when playing for real. :P

* There are about a bagigajillion spell effects (slight exaggeration) that you can use to make spells in this game, so I didn't really feel like giving an in-depth run-down of them. Essentially though, you can do stuff like damage enemies, create damage absorbing shields, break through or create solid walls, heal your self, steal various points from enemies, reflect enemy spells back at their casters, and many more. As I said though, as powerful as magic users are in this game, playing as them can be tough. It took Bethesda all the way up to TES IV: Oblivion to really get the magic system working its best and I feel that's the one you should play if you want to go the magic route. (Skyrim was actually a fairly large step backwards as far as spells were concerned.)

* Any of you who have played Daggerfall and not this game probably got a surprise when you noticed the sheer number of art, sound and even music assets that carried over. I like to think of Daggerfall as a remake that just took on a different storyline at some point. ;)

* I made a slight mistake. I said that enemies were based solely on the locations you visit. Your level does actually come into effect to some degree, but only for randomly generated places. Places that are pre-made such as the main quest locations will have specific kinds of enemies to face.

* 22 people sent in guesses for today's episode, smashing the previous record set by Episode 42 of 19 guesses! :D

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