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Three new apps support console games from iOS
As if there aren't enough apps that supplement or promote console games, here are three more that have appeared recently. First up is Dragon Shout (free), the Skyrim-mapping app that was released a few weeks ago. It's quite handy, and players can use it to find almost anything in the vast and wonderful world of Skyrim. By the way, if you're a real Skyrim fan, check out our list of 5 apps for Skyrim. Harmonix has released Dance Central 2 Dance Cam (free), which works with Dance Central for Kinect to record players dancing in real life, and then turn that clip into a music video. It's not a port of Dance Central, but a fun bit of promotion. It comes with seven song clips you can dance to, if you don't have the full game around. Finally and as promised, Activision has released official apps for the Call of Duty Elite program, which let you check your CoD scores, standings, and messages from your iOS device. It's interesting to see how these developers have responded to iOS. Instead of porting terrible versions of high-definition games to Apple's devices, they've used iOS to promote their console titles and provide some extra functionality, which customers associate with the bigger brands. Yes, Dragon Shout is unofficial, but we assume the folks at Bethesda would shut if down if there was a problem.
Skyrim 1.4 detailed, PC 'Creation Kit' for mods coming soon
Skyrim's 1.4 update, which is not a patch of a previous patch, should be finalized by next week and submitted to console manufacturers for certification, as well as release on PC. Bethesda also plans to allow PC users to opt-in to "beta" versions of future patches through Steam, we're guessing so the company can opt-out of launching a patch if significant issues are found. The publisher also announced that the Creation Kit and Steam Workshop are nearly ready, and it is working with Valve and its modding community to do some final testing. To think, people will be able to mod back in backwards flying dragons and add even more of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic crew if they want -- and, honestly, who couldn't use a little more Rainbow Dash in their lives? The details of the 1.4 patch can be found after the break.
Skyrim mod replaces dragons with My Little Pony
As Bronies can attest to, the "Yay" of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic's Fluttershy is far more terrifying than any thu'um of a dovahkiin. As seen in this Skyrim mod, watch as a pack of the winged horses devastate a town, all while repeating their haunting call.
FIFA spends fourth week atop UK charts, exercise games perform well
FIFA 12 remains at the top of the UK chart for a fourth straight week, despite a 54 percent drop in sales. Nearly all the games on this week's top ten saw double-digit percentage drops in sales, as consumers adjust to the post-holiday rhythm. For example, Just Dance 3 had a 21 percent reduction, but moved up two spots into second. Skyrim had similar falling upwards, as it moved up two spots into third, with a 23 percent sales drop. It's currently a race of stamina on the charts. And very few top ten contenders have stamina quite like Zumba Fitness. The continued desire to work off Christmas pounds kept the original game in sixth place, as Zumba Fitness 2 moved into seventh. Other fitness games are also doing well, as Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012 for Kinect is up 173 percent, and so is Wii Fit Plus, holding spots at 12 and 27, respectively. Do some step exercises and walk on past the break for the UK top ten.
NPD 2011: Sales across industry between $16.3 and $16.6 billion, Ubi tops software sales list
Assassination and dancing has proven to be a lucrative mix, as Just Dance 2 and 3 and Assassin's Creed: Revelations helped Ubisoft to lead this year's best seller's list with three entries. That's according to the NPD Group, which also estimates the video game industry's profits, comprising "new physical video and PC games, used games, game rentals, subscriptions, digital full-game downloads, social network games, downloadable content, and mobile games," reached sales of somewhere between $16.3 and $16.6 billion in 2011. Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 took top honors (it's kind of a big deal), while Just Dance 3 and Skyrim occupied the second and third spots, respectively. NPD also says that, despite sales growth in the digital sector yet again, physical copies offered at retail outlets still accounted for the majority of sales coming in at $9.3 billion, "an 8 percent decline over the $10.1 billion in 2010." That decline was "partially" offset by increases in digital, mobile, and used game sales, which NPD expects to be a focus moving into 2012. "Our overall estimate of the market continues to point toward the increased imperative for deeper visibility into digital distribution than is available today, not only in the U.S. but globally," said NPD prez David McQuillan. Our waning shelf space agrees.
December NPD: MW3, Just Dance 3 and Skyrim lead an overall down month
The industry as a whole still managed to bang out $3.99 billion in combined new sales of hardware, physical software and accessories between November 27 and December 31, 2011. This is, however, a 21 percent drop year-over-year, as the industry pulled down a combined $5.07 billion during the same period in 2010. "Overall industry results are not entirely surprising given that we are on the back end of the current console lifecycle, combined with the continued digital evolution of gaming," said Anita Frazier, an analyst with The NPD Group. "Core gamers continue to be engaged and spend on established franchises across both the digital and physical format using multiple devices for different gaming occasions." A smooth $2.04 billion of that $3.99 billion total was caused entirely by new physical software sales, a dash for the cash that continues to be lead by Modern Warfare 3. The pseudo-medieval allure of November's second place podium finisher, Skyrim, was not enough to keep its throne for a second term; the Dovahkiin has been usurped by Ubisoft's compulsory neon-dancing simulator, Just Dance 3. Comparatively, Skyrim got off easy: Uncharted 3, Saints Row: The Third and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, are all absent from December's Top-10 list, just weeks after their respective releases. Skyward Sword wasn't Nintendo's only horse in this race, however, as Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land closed out December in fourth and ninth place, respectively. Overall, Nintendo, Ubisoft and Electronic Arts claimed more Top-10 real estate than their competitors, each publishing two of the month's best selling titles.
Skyrim, if it were set in 2012
The great secret Bethesda hasn't revealed to anyone yet is that citizens of Skyrim are actually learning, adapting and evolving. If you set your PC or console forward a couple thousand years, you'll be able to play Skyrim in a modern setting, as seen in this clip.
Skyrim's PS3 stuttering bug to be 'addressed' this month, Bethesda says
When Bethesda's Twitter account invited fans to "tune in tomorrow" (that's today) for a "Skyrim tweak guide livestream," one follower pointedly asked the question so many PlayStation 3 Skyrim players out there want to know about the upcoming 1.4 patch to the game: "What about PS3 lag?????" You see, the game has some major memory issues on the PS3, making the game chug as the player's save files weigh down the console. It appears that the next patch, 1.4, will correct this "lag" issue. "We're addressing that in the 1.4 update," Bethesda's Twitter account responded. The account also noted that the patch will be available at some point "this month." And though we imagine that folks waiting for the update would much prefer something more specific, that's the only launch window we've got for now, unfortunately. So you know, there are only 21 days left in January.
Snap into a Skyrim with the 'Macho Men' mod
We had to watch the above video a couple of times to make sure we weren't having some sort of fantastical dream, but we are apparently awake: the late "Macho Man" Randy Savage has made his way into Skyrim, and he's bringin' the pain. Ohhhhhh yeah!
Joystiq Top 10 of 2011: Skyrim
A mighty warrior stands in a frozen, Beowulfian wilderness, surrounded by traditional characters and archetypes: kings, damsels, wizards, trolls, dragons and, yes, a quest that promises both personal glory and salvation for the downtrodden. The reward at the end of the quest? Our hero gets to learn a new word. On paper, Skyrim sounds like your high school English teacher's ultimate fantasy. In practice, it is one of 2011's greatest adventures. That is, of course, assuming you can keep your mind on the quest at hand.
Steam has that game you didn't buy during the Holiday Sale on sale again
The final day of the Steam Holiday Sale has embraced us, our families and the sad pile of change left in our gift funds. Today is "Encore Day," where Steam offers the biggest deals of the entire sale one more time, including Skyrim at 33 percent off, Bastion at 66 percent off, Batman: Arkham City at 50 percent off, and tons more. This is really a very clever strategy. Face it -- you've been haunted by that one game you resisted buying over the past week; that one time you said, "No, Steam, this is my money!" has been burned into your psyche as you imagine the joy you could have had at a reasonable price during these cold winter months. And now it's back. You have a second chance to own that game. Go. Go, and be at peace with your Steam Sale. You are forgiven.
Synchronized Skyrim light show knows the reason for the season
We're rarely brought to tears by displays of holiday-themed lighting strewn across the face of a residential building. Then again, most holiday lights aren't synchronized to the totally radical theme to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Fortunately, some are -- like the one seen in the video above.
Skyrim PC mod claims to improve performance
No, it won't help you take down giants or snow trolls more easily, but a new Skyrim patch does purport to increase the game's performance with certain configurations. Bethesda forum user Arisu has created the Skyrim Acceleration Layer which, in his own words, "works mostly by rewriting some x87 FPU code and inlining a whole ton of useless getter functions along the critical paths because the developers at Bethesda, for some reason, compiled the game without using any of the optimization flags for release builds." You get all that?We're unable to test the mod ourselves, though forum users are reporting frame rate increases in more graphically intense areas (Markarth, in particular). Meanwhile, Rock, Paper, Shotgun seems to have noticed at least a slight improvement. The mod requires the Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE), which you can find here. Head over to the Bethesda forums for detailed installation instructions.
Feast of Fiction debuts with Skyrim's 'Sunlight Souffle'
We've already walked you through The Gourmet's signature dish, the Potage le Magnifique, but did you know there's another recipe found within his book, Uncommon Taste? A new show called Feast of Fiction has debuted on YouTube, and in its first episode the duo creates The Gourmet's other Skyrim dish, the Sunlight Souffle. They're hardly the first group to cook in-game dishes -- Gourmet Gaming has been around for a while now -- but it's still novel. The Sunlight Souffle doesn't look too difficult, and the video above does a pretty good job of breaking down the recipe into easy-to-follow steps. Based on the looks of the end product, it's also a tasty dish.
Skyrim PC patched, can now claim 4GB RAM
Skyrim has become just a little more cognizant of the money you spent on extra RAM, and the teeny bit of blood lost when you pushed the modules in with enough enthusiasm to cut your fingers. A new incremental patch, bringing the PC version of Skyrim up to 1.3.10, lets the game address up to 4 gigabytes of RAM. A similar performance fix was issued by the modding community shortly after the RPG's launch, but was rendered incompatible by an official patch. Now, modders and developers agree that Skyrim should take advantage of the extra space afforded on PC.
Portal 2 crowned best game of 2011 by the Associated Press
The AP has unleashed its list of top ten games this year and ... it's a pretty competent list. Not only did Bastion make the cut, but so did Rayman Origins and, as you may have guessed from the headline to this very post, Portal 2. Valve's game took top honors, followed by Skyrim and then Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Rounding out the top five are Bastion and Rocksteady's sequel, Batman: Arkham City. In a year so full of great games, we envy AP's finished list -- for us, the work of choosing our favorite games of 2011 is only about to begin.
It's a Skyrim Christmas on the UK charts
Skyrim rested high atop the UK charts last week, breaking an eight year stint by EA and Activision. Bethesda's massive RPG occupied the top spot during week 51 -- dubbed the "Christmas Chart" by Chart-Track. Take-Two's Grand Theft Auto: Vice City owned the chart in 2002, prior to EA's Medal of Honor: Rising Sun and Activision's Call of Duty franchise. Just Dance 3 came in about 15,000 units behind Skyrim. Followers of the charts can probably predict what's coming in the new year, as the Just Dance series has been a sleeping giant that rises once the holidays are over for the past two years. The rest of the top ten (after the break) consists of the usual suspects. When the UK charts return in the new year we'll find out how Star Wars: The Old Republic did during its Christmas week launch.
12 Days of Joyswag: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Collector's Edition (or: free dragons)
Another year, another 12 days of holiday giveaways! Between now and Christmas Day, we're doing the one thing that makes us feel truly alive: giving. Specifically, we're giving you fine folks some of the swag we've managed to collect in our cluttered home offices. And the good will and merriment doesn't stop here! Don't forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook for even more chances to win! Seeing as how the latest Elder Scrolls installment is a big game, both in terms of scope – our review called it "the deepest, loveliest world ever created for a single player to explore" – and sales – Bethesda's already shipped 10 million of the damn things – it only makes sense that the Collector's Edition of Skyrim would also be big. And by "big" we mean the box is seriously massive. And we've got two of them. So either we start charging them rent, or we give them away so two of you can deal with it. We're going with the latter option because we like making you happy ... also, we don't want to ask that plastic dragon for rent money. %Gallery-138017%
Skyrim Online mod aims to take the game, er, online
OK, stop me if you've heard this one before. "The Elder Scrolls is awesome, but I wish it was an MMO." Apparently some enterprising modders have similar designs, and if a full-blown massively multiplayer conversion seems unlikely, a small-scale online version of Skyrim looks very possible. GameFront is reporting on a new mod for the PC version of the game (you did buy the PC version, didn't you?) that takes the celebrated series into the online realm. According to the mod's author, it will allow you to "play with your friends, chat with people worldwide, [and] trade with other players." No word yet on lootstealing or ganking noobs. FPSWin has some early video footage of the Skyrim Online experiment which we've embedded for you after the cut. It's definitely not polished (the animations are poor and the player characters are glitchy), but there is a functioning chatbox. If nothing else, it's a start, amirite?
Zenimax: Skyrim ships 10 million copies, outsells other PC titles three to one
Zenimax has announced 10 million copies of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim have been shipped out to retailers since launch, which represents $650 million in potential sales so far. Keep in mind that those copies are shipped, not sold. Sales for the RPG are doing well so far, and odds are quite a few more of those shipped copies will find their way into homes and stockings this holiday. Zenimax also reports that Skyrim has outsold all other PC games by a factor of three to one in the month since its debut, and currently holds the title for the fastest-selling game in Steam's history. Star Wars: The Old Republic is set to officially arrive next week, so it's hard to see Skyrim holding up that ratio on PC for much longer. In summary: infinity times ten million equals a hell of a lot of dragons.
