#Skyrim Legendary Collector's Edition Guide!

Soo, earlier this week Prima Games released it's Legendary Edition Guide for Skyrim (4th June 2013) three days ahead of the Legendary Edition of the game's release here in the UK.

I happened to be looking for some Skyrim merchandise or something physical i could display or use when the game isn't being played and was looking at the guides available, i like having guides for my favourite games, it seems a bit silly in one sense because usually i know a LOT about the games I like most. But i like reading different perspectives and seeing if there's anything i didn't know or hadn't thought of yet. Anyway after looking around, i found a few older versions of the guide & didn't know whether to bother with them or not. I sat there pondering it for a while, after a little while Danielle (my fiancé) started asking me about the Legendary Edition of the guide, so i had a look at it on Amazon & before i knew what had happened she told me that she'd got me the Hardback Collector's Edition!

I can't thank her enough!

This Guide is truly EPIC. It arrived this morning via Royal Mail & straight away i could tell it was huge. The package was very weighty & large in size.

The guide is very well put together & the hardcover looks fantastic, the only thing that very very slightly disappointed me was that from the pictures i thought it was a textured front & back cover but it's totally smooth, however it does look amazing & in a way i think it's quite cool that even now it can fool you into thinking it is textured when it isn't.

The guide itself is very, very thick. But then that is definitely expected considering the gigantic scale of the game. On the inside of the front & back covers you can find the extras such as the very large double sided map and the poster of Alduin's Wall and at the back of the guide (between the back cover and the shrink wrap) you can find your code to access the online guide & maps on the Prima Games website, found HERE.

It's too early for me to comment on the content of the guide but i have flicked through it & it looks EXTREMELY detailed, the index itself is about three pages long & there are extensive appendices at the back. I can't wait to sit and read some of the content in it, it's sure to be incredible. Put it this way, reading the guide is a daunting enough prospect so i can't imagine how much time and work went into making this!

Here is the amazon description for the guide i have:

COLLECTOR'S EDITION BONUSES INCLUDE-
EXCLUSIVE POSTER - 24" accordion style poster displaying Alduin’s Wall and signatures from Bethesda Game Studios!
RIBBON BOOKMARKS - Use premium ribbon bookmarks to keep your place in this massive guide!
HARDCOVER BOUND - This keepsake is protected by a stylized protective hardcover for collectors and fans.
UPDATED eGUIDE ACCESS – Use the interactive world map, which now includes Solstheim and additional Dragonborn™ content.


• MORE THAN 1,100 PAGES – Complete, accurate, and Bethesda approved content covering all game add-ons.
• LARGE 2-SIDED MAP POSTER – All Hold Capitals, Strongholds, and important locations labeled.
• MORE THAN 500 ENEMIES and 2,000 ITEMS DETAILED – Exhaustive Bestiary and Inventory chapters detail critical data.
• MORE THAN 350 QUESTS - All possible quests revealed with best outcomes highlighted.
• MORE THAN 250 COLLECTIBLES GATHERED – Explore the main and hidden locations across Skyrim and Solstheim.
• 3,000+ HOURS PLAYED – Expert advice on character creation and tactical knowledge for the most difficult battles. 

Here is the Bethesda Blog Entry interviewing the lead writer of the Guide David Hodgson which gives you a much clearer idea of how vast the guide is and the effort that went into it, i would highly suggest giving this a read, it's informative & funny too! Link: Writing the Skyrim Legendary Edition Guide on the Bethesda Blog

Anyway here are a few pictures of my Guide! I would definitely suggest buying this if you love Skyrim! Truly Epic!

Garden Photography... Again!

I'll keep this post short, the weather has been nice again today but a lot more cloudy, so spent more time indoors today, i popped out a short while ago there (around 8pm ish) and took a few more pictures out the back. If you read my previous post about the Great Tit that is nesting in our Bird House then i have a great update on that! If you haven't read it, check it out HERE, this time i managed to get the Great Tit whilst sitting on the fence so i didn't need to use motion capture, that means i was able to use a much higher picture size and quality. I'm very pleased, although i still worried it was going to fly off so i didn't take time to center all the pictures.

So here are some pictures i took out the back a little while ago today...

Top of the tree you see in the following bird pictures and a very grey, cloudy sky.

Cloudy Sky again, i like how the clouds look though in these pictures.

And here it is... The Coal/Great Tit that's living in our Bird House, perched on the fence!

I zoomed in on the previous picture so you can see it's cute fuzzy head!

Another picture of the Coal/Great Tit.

Nice wings in this one.

Is it a bird? No it's a plane! I couldn't resist it as it went overhead. See all the little bugs in the air too?

Lovely Weather Today **UPDATED**

Hello people!

Aside from dinner, Danielle & I have spent most of the day in the Garden with her father and our little Dog Cocoa. The weather has been amazing today and i think we've both been sunburnt. While we were out there i spent a while taking pictures of Cocoa, Danielle and some other random bits with my new-ish camera.

We've also got a little birdie nesting in our bird house attached to one of the sheds, so i set up the tripod in the hopes of catching the little cutie going in and out of it. I think i tried about 5 or 6 times to capture it going into or coming out of that bird house before i finally got results.

I used the motion capture setting on the camera, which takes around 30 pictures in total at the rate of 5 pictures per second! Which is bloomin quick (there's probably cameras a lot better than this but for me its great), but no matter how quick that camera takes the pictures, getting it to focus and start taking the pictures before the bird disappeared into or out of the house was very difficult. I found i had to try and see it a while before it enters the house and as for exiting, the second i saw its face i clicked the shutter down (it was already being held in focus)

After hours of sitting around i finally managed to get a half decent series of pictures showing it going in the house and another series of pictures showing it coming out. It was going in and out of the house every 15-30 minutes, most likely feeding it's young.

The only downside to using the Motion Capture setting on the camera however, is that the image size & quality is reduced. Most of my images are shot at 4608 x 3456 and are 16 mp. But the images from motion capture are only 640 x 480. (For the sake of putting tonnes of shots on here & to show you how well it works i turned the pictures into two seperate animated GIFs)

Other than the bird, i tried out my Super Macro function to take pictures of a couple of the plants that have flowered in our garden. We're needing more plants with colour but these came out quite nice i think.

Anyways take a look at a few of the many pictures i took today & let me know if you like them!

Hope you all had a great day too!

Note: You need to click the birdhouse pictures for the GIFs to play for some reason.

Cocoa Looking rather content in the Garden

Cocoa being playful (This picture was cropped, guess why lol)

Knackered Cocoa

Finally Realised that she can rest like the rest of us & not run around the whole time.

Tried using Super Macro on an Ant, showing you the original & zoomed in picture

One of the flowers in a small basket on our back steps

Flowers at the side of the Garden, i love the beauty of the flowers next to the bricks. Kinda works.

GIF 1 - Bird Entering the Bird House.

GIF 2 - Bird Leaving the Bird House 

**UPDATE** Thanks to Andy Moore on twitter, who left me a comment about the pictures above, i now know the type of bird nesting in that house. It's called a Great Tit. Just so that you can get a better idea of what this bird looks like standing still (which mine didn't seem to want to do) i found a picture on the web of one that looks almost exactly the same! (See below) 

**UPDATED AGAIN 03/06/13** Managed to get a picture of the actual Great Tit standing still on our fence, check HERE to see it!

Final Fantasy VII - Vincent Valentine - Play Arts Vol.2

At Last!!

I've been looking for Vincent for a while and kept coming across nothing but Advent Children Versions, don't get me wrong i like Advent Children but i would much prefer to get the original game versions of each character first, plus the packaging for the Advent Children characters is pretty poor looking. Anyway other than the versions i mentioned, the few times i did come across this figure, everyone always charged rediculous prices for him. So i either couldn't afford to get him or just refused to pay that much.

Anyway, i struck Gold the other day and found an amazing seller who sold me this figure for a mere £14 and that's incuding the cost of posting!

This has to be one of my favourite looking character figures. Just like the rest of the Play Arts series this is a vinyl figure & is fantastically detailed! I don't think i could fault it at all to be honest. Everything about the figure just looks stunning. It is highly accurate and replicates the game version of Vincent. As with the other figures made by Play Arts/Kotobukiya, he comes with a different hand & a gun. It has a good weight and feel to it & doesn't feel like it'll be easily broken (i wouldn't risk it however) this definitely feels like a quality figure. To be honest I think that all of the figures I have (with the exception of the smaller Bandai ones) are exceptionally beautifully detailed and well made.

He is around the same height as the other figures i have, which is probably around 8-9" and comes with a stand to be able to keep him in the pose of your choice. As i have mentioned in previous reviews about these figures, i love the stands that comes with the figures. It has an adjustable clip which slots into a black oval base, this holds the figure very securely and allows for you to pose the figure still, the only drawback is that if you want a more outlandish pose or something a bit more extreme looking, the base won't allow for a whole lot of movement in you're figure. I tend to use blu tac on the bottom of their feet to hold them in place, but this is mainly to save space on my shelves.

The packaging is very nice, it is a matt black colour and the lettering on the front is silver coloured and is reflective. It looks great. The box itself is quite sturdy & definately not cheap feeling. I wish they had kept this packaging for the advent children characters. It's a lot more professional, clean and sturdy looking. As with the other figures, there are pictures on the back of the box. Funnily enough the pictures on the back of this box are of the only 3 figures i need to complete my Vol.1 & 2 set. So if anyone is feeling generous.... haha.

Anyway as usual, words are one thing, seeing the figure is another.
(i think my picture taking is getting a little better with my fancy new camera, let me know!)