Elder Scrolls games, I can’t even count the hours of my life spent toiling through the lands of Tamriel fighting off imposter Mages and invading Daedra. Through the years I’ve escaped from more prisons and acted as the right hand of the chosen emperor through possibly hundreds of dungeons alone.

Though the game series began with the venerable Elder Scrolls Arena and gained a lot of attention with the latest iteration Oblivion, I have to admit I will never forget the time I spent playing Daggerfall and its wonderous and often humorously buggy random dungeon creation system. Each of the Elder Scrolls games are known for their expansive settings, if not for their 1st person action and RPG flavor but for some reason no other Elder Scroll game typifies the open exploration of a fantasy world quite like Daggerfall for me.

If you’re one of the players who came late to the scene, long after Daggerfall went out of print, then Bethesda has a special present for you. Today they released the game for free from their website, much as they did awhile back with the first Elder Scrolls title – Arena. I can’t recommend highly enough how foundational Daggerfall is to enjoying the modern Elder Scrolls games. Its great to watch the series evolve and see where the concept behind such a massive RPG has changed.

A word of warning for graphic purists – Daggerfall is almost 10 years old at this point and the graphics, while good then have no hope of standing next to a modern game. Additionally for XP and Vista users you will likely need Dosbox to play the game but Bethesda includes a link to a pretty thorough how-to that even neophyte gamers unused to the intricacies of classic PC game configuration can follow.

What are you waiting for? Head over to FileFront and get to downloading!

Not an RPG fan? Well check out the recently free release of MechWarrior 4…

Are you a huge Elder Scrolls fan? Did you ever want to know about the worlds surrounding games like Daggerfall, Arena, Morrowind, and Oblivion? If so, Bethesda is taking steps to give you exactly what you want.

In a press release, Bethesda announced today that they have reached an agreement with Del Ray Books to publish two novels based on the Elder Scrolls series. While two books doesn’t sound like a lot of room to detail the massive world and events of the Elder Scrolls series, you can bet that if these two sell well, there will be plenty more to follow.

I have to admit that I’m fairly interested by this idea. I enjoy reading fantasy novels, as my groaning bookshelves will attest. As I’ve always enjoyed Bethesda’s offerings, I will probably be first in line to pick up some of these as well.

Of course the big question is this: Who’s writing these novels? Find out, and get more details on the first of these two novels after the break.

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After a renewed start we had an interruption these last few weeks but rest assured Filefront is still hosting and promoting all the great user created and hosted content contributed to us. We return with a double length post highlighting some great mods and files for quite a few outstanding games including usual suspects like Half-Life 2, the Battlefield games and of course one of my favorite series “that I am really no good at yet still enjoy” – Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War

Highlights from this week’s column include mods for:

• Doom III – Wrathchild Act I (not ROE compatible), Revised Alphalabs
• Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion – A Provost of the Nine Divines, More Nord Beards
• Battlefield 2 – Operation Peacekeeper, Allies Intent Extended
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R – Ballistics Mod
• Far Cry 2 – new maps: MP_Surf & Gold Rush

There are also links to other maps, mods and patches for many of your favorite PC modifiable games. Be sure to check it all out after the jump.

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Gamers that can catch the January 9 performance of PLAY! A Video Game Symphony in Edmonton have a rare opportunity to meet Morrowind and Oblivion composer Jeremy Soule. A lucky 150 concert goers will be picked randomly to meet Soule according to Bethesda Blog.

As an avid fan of game music as well as a proud owner of soundtracks for Morrowind and Oblivion as well, I would jump at the chance to meet Jeremy Soule. Unfortunately Edmonton is a little out of my range, but any of you videogame music enthusiasts in the area can get your tickets to the Play! concert from ticketmaster Canada.

The Second Semi-Annual Great House Fliggerty Modding Invitational is on. All amateur Morrowind Modders are invited to try their hand at creating some fresh new content for this classic Elder Scrolls game.

The first GHF Invitational was a great success and yielded some great mods from fresh talent. You can find a list of winners on Great House Fliggerty including Moon Estate by Undeadnoob (aka Deathstalker13) pictured above.

The second GHF invitational lays down the same ground rules with new categories. Beginners can submit a tavern or travel inn. More advanced modders are challenged to create a H.E.L.L.U.V.A. (Hugely Expanded Leveled Lists Ultimate Version Addition) mod based on Sandman101’s H.E.L.L.U.V.A. Merchant Containers.

Entries must be submitted by Midnight, MST, January 5, 2009. get all the rules and regulations on the Bethesda Forums.

Here are some of the most memorable Oh. My. God!!! gaming moments gathered together by the Edge staff. The selections include the latest games back to videogames from the media’s infancy. Their picks include Final Fantasy VII Aeris’ death, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion The Dark Brotherhood beckons quest line, BioShock “Would you kindly” sequence and from Portal, The “Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device.”

I have to fully agree with most their choices; all ten pages of wow gaming moments. My own personal favorite is The Secret of Monkey Island training sequence when Guybrush Threepwood learns the art of Insult Sword Fighting. I have to warn gamers that some of these OMG moments are spoilers and there’s no warning as to which entries qualify.

Pete Hines, the vice president of Bethesda, was recently speaking with Videogamer in London recently and happened to mention that he personally felt that Fallout 3 was better than Bethesda best-seller and gamer darling The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

When asked if he felt the review scores for Fallout 3 would surpass the wonderful reviews of Oblivion, Hines seemed pretty confident with the company’s first foray into the world of Fallout:

“I don’t have any doubts that on the whole, and I think this is a belief universally shared on the team that Fallout is a better game, but we’re also not oblivious to the fact that we have a lot of extra baggage that we’re carrying, being the guys picking up this franchise, that are re-imagining this series from 10 years ago, and there’s something that comes along with that. We’re very well aware of what we’re up against.

have no doubts in my mind that, at its core and for everything that it provides that Fallout [3]is a better game than Oblivion was- for sure.”

That is saying a lot considering the fact that Oblivion was given the illustrious title of Game of the Year, and is always referenced as one of the best RPG titles to have come out in ages for the PC and Xbox 360. As a matter of fact, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion were the main reasons I purchased the original Xbox and an Xbox 360 to begin with.

Fallout 3 is scheduled for release on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 this autumn.

The World of Western RPGs is a new article exploring the evolution of the Western RPG. The piece is a companion to a previous article on Asian RPGs.

The author starts off by talking about how broad a term RPG is and how practically worthless it is for describing a game. He uses Bioware and Bethesda to make his point in that these developers are both know for their RPGs, but have very different styles. He then goes on at length defining what different concepts associated to the RPG mean to him personally so that the reader can be on the same page when he gets down to the meat of the piece.

Western RPGs were born from “numbers and dungeons” games inspired by pen and paper RPGs. Over the year they have added art and split into two basic types; world focused and story focused RPGs. The article will take from the infancy of the form to todays modern vastly differentiated RPGs. You find references to Wizardry, Ultima, Might and Magic and the Elder Scrolls as well as Fallout, Diablo, Gold Box and Mass Effect along the way. Just remember this one important piece of advice as you explore RPGs:

Keep in mind that the word “classic” is not a synonym for “good”.

I heartily recommend this work for gamers who are interested in game design or die hard RPG fans.

via Moby Games

It took much longer than some would have liked, but the first wave of Greatest Hits game for PlayStation 3 have finally arrived. Starting today, this line of budget games can be picked up in extremely ugly red boxes for the price of $30, which puts it $10 higher than the PS2’s Greatest Hits, but also $10 less than where Microsoft tends to discount its first-party 360 titles.

The nine games are Warhawk, Motorstorm, Resistance: Fall of Man, Call of Duty 3, Fight Night Round 3, Need for Speed Carbon, Rainbow Six Vegas, Assassin’s Creed, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Not a half-bad assortment, but which ones are worth buying?

PS3 Fanboy has assembled a buyer’s guide for the nine titles, giving you a quick rundown on what to expect from each game and which ones are worth buying. Unsurprisingly, Warhawk and Oblivion get a thumbs up, while Motorstorm should be avoided with the sequel, Pacific Rift, not that far off.

They do however refer to Ninja Gaiden Sigma as “THE definitive NG experience,” something that I think Itagaki-san would disagree with.