15 people found this review helpful
8 people found this review funny
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 80.2 hrs on record (53.5 hrs at review time)
Posted: 22 Nov, 2018 @ 1:39pm
Updated: 26 Nov, 2021 @ 8:15am

Skyrim vs. Miasmata

Skyrim:
> Production costs: £70 million
> Massive development team behind it
> Uses an engine descended from Morrowind's engine
> Riddled with bugs, still unfixed after years of countless ports (some of them funny, most of them game-breaking)
> Some editions are hard-coded to 16:9, despite diversity (including different aspect ratios) being a huge part of PC gaming
> Apparently there's a story, but with so many scripting glitches, how would we know?
> "More white and grey environments. What else is new."

Miasmata:
> Production costs: hardly more than £4000~ (judging by Kickstarter)
> Made by two Minnesotan brothers, who previously made surprisingly fun Windows Mobile Pocket PC games[www.ionfx.com]
> Uses a proprietary engine built from scratch (albeit reliant on DirectX)
> Satisfyingly distinguishable from Skyrim, both gameplay-wise and visually; less white-and-grey, more nature colours (and plenty of bright-green!)
> Smoothly handles every aspect ratio I try, including 3:2; pretty good for a home-made engine!
> Still some technical quirks here and there, but nothing particularly game-breaking, and understandable considering the engine's in-house, from-scratch nature. (I personally find most of them charming!)
> Play as a plague-stricken scientist who washes up on the island of Eden looking for a cure
> You could immerse yourself in Eden's ambience (for which headphones are highly recommended) with no generic NPCs bothering you. Just you and the island. Until the creature finds you
> "Mmmmm! Who knew nature could be so relaxing? Wait, whawazzat??"

11/10; would happily plummet down a mountain again!
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2 Comments
BenM64 28 Dec, 2018 @ 7:26am 
It was either the trend of BIOSes (like Gigabyte's or Dell's) being hard-coded to 4:3, or my personal dislike for 16:9.
Either way, I'll tweak the wording. (I really should've done that ages ago, TBH.)

To answer your question, I play Skyrim on the PC. The original edition supports all of my monitors just fine, however when I tried the Special Edition during free weekends, it required editing configuration files to remove the massive black borders.

Man, all that money they put into the Creation engine, and its aspect ratio support is beaten not only by its own older version, but also a very-obviously-home-made engine by two brothers… Seems like too many cooks really do spoil the broth.
vulchor 27 Dec, 2018 @ 4:57pm 
The industry-standard for gaming hasn't been 4:3 since the days of the PS2 and OG XBox.

What system are you playing Skyrim on anyway that you would want to play at 4:3 aspect ratio anyway?