T w e n t y S i d e d
Battlespire is catstrophically broken, inarguably mishandled, forgettable at its best and never more than two inches from the border of Creepy. I bought it with the intention of incorporating my thoughts on it in my Elder Scrolls retrospective. I barely outlasted the first room. The same berserk spirit that impelled me to finish all five core games in about a month didn’t survive an hour’s contact with nesting bags and glitching jumps.
Then I started this Let’s Play when a few other games fell through. I had absolutely no plans for it–I didn’t know how far I’d make it or long you’d tolerate it. And now that I’m sixteen posts in, I think I’m ready to confirm:
We’re going all the way.
I knew nothing about this game before I started. Out of self-defense I’ve since developed a pretty comprehensive knowledge of the game’s more arresting glitches, surprises, and pitfalls, and I can already tell it’s not going to get any easier to play. Quite far from it. There might be segments of the game where I’m stuck for a few weeks at a time, which hopefully I’ll have the buffer and wit to condense into something entertaining.
But I can’t walk away from this thing for two reasons. The first being, I can’t seem to go an hour without something happening that’s so bizarre or inexplicable or busted that I have to share it with someone just to confirm I’m not going crazy. This game is frequently terrible, but even when it’s boring, it’s not [i]boring[/i]. How am I going to stop when I know (for a fact at this point) that there’s even weirder stuff to come?
And secondly–when I did my retrospective, I’d thought it was such a shame that much of Bethesda’s history, its earliest forays into open-world gaming and its first sleeper hit, was forgotten. I wanted to share their origins with people who didn’t have the know-how or money or time to play them. In my own very modest way, I thought I was reviving obscure elements of gaming history. And then I found this. It’s like discovering Vincent Van Gogh not only painted cartoons of clowns farting, he earnestly and passionately painted them and tried to market them to the world, and absolutely nobody will talk about it–much less ask, “Is this an evocative cartoon of a clown farting?” It’s an incredible nugget of gaming history and I feel weirdly privileged to be the one sharing it with you.
So thanks for reading. We’ll be back to it Wednesday with an extra post on Friday, plus my RPG series restarting Saturday. See you then.
Could Have Been Great
Here are four games that could have been much better with just a little more work.
Twelve Years
Even allegedly smart people can make life-changing blunders that seem very, very obvious in retrospect.
Steam Summer Blues
This mess of dross, confusion, and terrible UI design is the storefront the big publishers couldn't beat? Amazing.
Blistering Stupidity of Fallout 3
Yeah, this game is a classic. But the story is idiotic, incoherent, thematically confused, and patronizing.
Programming Vexations
Here is a 13 part series where I talk about programming games, programming languages, and programming problems.
“It's like discovering Vincent Van Gogh not only painted scratch-and-sniff cartoons of clowns farting”
fixed
Ooooh, this needs a few Dog’s Playing Poker for good measure! I’m sure the pooches would be up for the scratch and sniff part.
Does this news call for throwing up the horns? I think this news calls for throwing up the horns.
Seriously, this series has been magnificent.
Aye right! I’m not at all sure Battlespire deserves the quality of writing it has been getting – well, I’m certain that it doesn’t – but I’m definitely not complaining. It’s been absolutely stunning at times.
You went all the way already! In fairness, when it comes to daedra – or daedra coming as it were – the boundaries of reality do tend to render that phrase with a little less meaning…
That’s great! I can’t imagine I’d enjoy even opening my install of Battlespire (yes, I got it on GOG for some reason), nor reading any other person do a text LP of it. Yours is truly a gift of turning utterly incomprehensible, pointless frustration into pure wit (or, dare I say, sass?).
Oh, I also picked up Redguard too. Any chance you can play that for me as well?
This whole thing makes me wonder if Redguard is the same, because like Battlespire it never took off either.
That extreme Redguard close-up is a thing of wonder.
Also, glad you’re doing more of these. They’re pretty consistently hilarious.
I eagerly await.
Up to today, I wasn’t sure if the bugs would finally break you (or maybe the game) completely. But I believe in you, Ruts! We’re all pulling for you to get through Battlespire and eventually live out your dreams of not playing Battlespire.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the actual connecting theme of all Elder Scrolls games is that you’re really fighting the broken game more than you are in-game enemies.
I think it’s a necessary condition for becoming a fan of Bethesda games: the bugs do not break you; you feed off them and they make you stronger.
To paraphrase Nietzsche, “Whatever does not kill my love for a game makes it stronger?”
Originally I started reading this blog way way back for the writings of Shamus. Now I’m here for this insanity. I’m glad you aren’t giving up and instead are going to suffer through this so I don’t have to.
You sir are a saint. Possibly the saint of self flagellation but nonetheless I salute you.
It’s certainly a nugget of something, that’s for certain.
Ruts I am going to use that picture. Your avatars face has the perfect ohh fuck expression for nearly any occasion. Its so bad its amazing.
Maybe some of Bethesda’s history just needs to be sealed into a crate and put in that warehouse out the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark until mankind is ready to deal with it.
Let’s be honest – we’re never ready to deal with it.
The hole only get gets deeper, will any of us survive the revelations of Battlespire?
Wrong brackets.
Comparing bethesda to Van Gogh?That implies that they made impressive works of art later on.Maaaybe you can make the case for that with morrowind and oblivion,but skyrim and fallouts most definitely arent that.
Oblivion was garbage. Skyrim is at least good.
Oblivion was better than Skyrim in pretty much every way except graphics. Probably the worst thing about Oblivion was that it’s success caused Skyrim.
Van Gogh didn’t paint clowns farting, but he was fascinated by Japanese woodcut prints. He and his brother imported and sold them and he made copies. Now all of this is well known by anyone who studies Van Gogh; he said “All my work is based to some extent on Japanese art.” Yet that influence is the first thing that drops out when a Van Gogh exhibition or something does a two page description of his career.
I guess what I’m saying is this makes Skyrim the “mysterious events surrounding him cutting his ear off” of Bethesda.
I’m not really a fan of the “this is so bad, it’s good again” stuff, but the special Rutskarn sauce is transforming this series into what’s currently my favourite series on this website. Happy to see you’re going through with this.
Also happy to see that you seem to have found a way of doing all this without melting your brain. I’m certain that this game would have melted a lot of lesser brains if it had been exposed to any significant number of players.
What gets me about this series is how little you’ve had to do to provoke the insanity from the game. The dance party was just from running away from enemies, a natural action for any player to try. The spider… thing was a pre-written dialogue choice!
You have reached the halfway point of the game. The thought of seeing new bugs, glitches, and inexplicable design decisions fills you with determination.