Now it’s time to dig deep and see what the web has to offer the Dragonborn. The following resources will aid you in clearing dungeons, navigating the province, mastering alchemy and a whole lot more.

I was going to put a joke here, but then I took an arrow to the knee.

Reference & Walkthrough

You can’t beat a well-maintained wiki when it comes to crowdsourcing information about video games, and Skyrim isn’t short on wikis. The two I would recommend are the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (UESP, established in 1995) and the Elder Scrolls at Wikia.

Both of these sites feature a healthy, constantly growing database of pretty much everything the game throws at you. Mission walkthroughs, character biographies, item locations – pretty much everything you need to know. Be warned though, it’s easy to spoil quests and developing storylines by spending too much time reading articles. Skyrim’s entry on GameFAQs also has a number of extremely detailed walkthroughs.

If it’s a giant annotated map you’re after then check out GameBanshee’s 9.34MB high-resolution .PNG which also comes in 9-page PDF form for easy printing as a 3×3 poster for your wall (you geek).

Alchemy & Ingredients

The simplest way of discovering an ingredient’s effect is by eating it and seeing what happens to you. If you’re not keen on poisoning yourself or would rather not waste your precious ingredients then one of the many alchemy guides is bound to suit.

There are two rather awesome tools for budding alchemists, the first being the Skyrim Alchemy Recipes Finder. Simply add a few ingredients (or all of them for the full list) and all possible potions will be revealed to you. This utility is useful for finding out what certain ingredients do without wasting anything.

You can also use Josh Blevins’ Alchemy Effects & Ingredients to reverse look-up an effect for a list of ingredients. Traditional types who like long plain text lists should take a look at Ahlyis’ Alchemy Guide on GameFAQs which has full potions, ingredients and effects lists.

Character Building

Building a character can present you with some of the toughest decisions in the game, so planning your perks is the best way to ensure your character blossoms into the dragon slaying hero you desire.

Thankfully it’s easy to do just that with the Skyrim Perk Calculator. Use it to go hog wild and build the character of your dreams then plan your path to power, save and start exploring the world. iOS and Android users can look forward to mobile apps soon.

There is also a fairly lengthy character development guide on GameFAQs as well as this more condensed version from SegmentNext.

PC Gamers & Modding

Those of you enjoying the PC version of the game are lucky enough to be able to modify it but also have the added obstacle of performance issues. If you are suffering from poor framerates or just think your game could run smoother then have a look at nVidia’s Skyrim tweak guide, it even comes with Bethesda’s approval.

As for mods then look no further than Skyrim Nexus. There really are quite a lot of mods on this site with new ones being released regularly. If you fancy modding your game but don’t know where to start then you could always take some inspiration from PC Gamer’s Top 25 Skyrim mods.

Conclusion

If you’ve not yet played Skyrim then you have a fantastic experience in store if beautiful open-world RPGs are your thing. Even if you’re a well-seasoned adventurer, hopefully some of these resources will help you out next time you decide to start a new character.

If you have any of your own recommendations, links or just an opinion then add a comment below.

It’s also a bit hard to look mature while tapping away in a game like N.O.V.A. 2. Let’s have a look at some strategy games for Android that can help whittle the away the hours, no matter where you are.

Townsmen 6 [Android 1.6+]

I have no idea why developer HandyGames decided to allege that Townsmen 6 occurs during the French Revolution. Far from a bloody title in which heads constantly roll and classes go to war, Townsmen 6 is a relaxing but complex strategy title that focuses on expanding your town and keeping peasants happy. Sure, there’s some French Revolution flavor added, but it’s cartoonish and mostly an excuse for game mechanics.

Perhaps the closest relative to this game is the Anno series of strategy titles for the PC, which also focuses on population happiness and expansion for expansion sake. SimCity fans might enjoy this title, as well, though it focuses more on micro-management than that franchise.

Townsmen 6 has been around for awhile, and seems relatively bug free. It’s available for $1.39 or can be played for free with ads. You’ll need Android version 1.6 or better to install it.

Battleheart [Android 2.0.1+]

My personal favorite, Battleheart is a popular game that blends an engaging graphical style similar to Castle Crashers with real-time strategy gameplay. You’ll find yourself in control of four characters, each with their own class, weapons, and powers. Mages, warriors, rogues, barbarians and more can be added to your party.

Battleheart is easy at first, but the difficulty begins to ramp up about an hour into the game. The game blends in RPG elements by offering a leveling system for your party members and equipment upgrade. You’ll have the opportunity to change character skills and weapons between levels.

Battleheart is priced at $2.99 and worth every penny. There is no free version. You’ll need Android 2.0.1 or better.

Majesty: Fantasy Kingdom [Android 1.6+]

In 2000, a game called Majesty debuted for the PC. Though it looked like many other fantasy strategy titles, it offered unique gameplay. Instead of directly controlling a kingdom, players manipulated the world by constructing buildings, hiring heroes and setting objectives for them.

In other words, this is a macro-management game that focuses on the big picture. By taking many direct control options away, players have to think creatively and plan well. Although the Android version is unique to the platform in many ways, the basic gameplay concepts are the same as the PC title that debuted years ago. Even the graphics, for better or worse, recall a bygone era of PC strategy.

Majesty: Fantasy Kingdom is $2.99, or you can try out the game by playing the Lite version. You’ll need Android 1.6 or newer to play.

Sentinel 3: Homeworld [Android 2.1+]

One of the newer tower defense games to hit the Android scene and take off, Sentinel 3: Homeworld is the latest game in a series that was originally developed for iOS (that’s why the Android Market has no Sentinel or Sentinel 2).

The gameplay is similar to many other tower defense games, but it adds a small twist – a command mech and a “sentinel” spaceship. Both can be upgraded with abilities and equipment, adding some excitement and providing you with more options for dealing with the creeps.

Also worth mentioning are the graphics, which are among the best in the strategy genre. The game looks particularly good on tablets with the HD pack installed.

Sentinel 3: Homeworld is $2.99 and there is no free version available. You’ll need Android version 2.1 or better to play.

Templar Assault [Android 1.6+]

By far the least well known game on this list, Templar Assault is the latest effort by the “the Trese bros”, who are also responsible for the immensely popular Star Traders RPG. Warhammer 40k fans are sure to love this title, as it is more or less an unofficial version of Space Hulk for your phone.

Graphically, this game doesn’t offer much, but it makes up for that with deep tactical gameplay. You command a squad of soldiers tasked to remove an alien presence, and as the game progresses, the means you have for doing so mount. There are times where this game can be difficult, but if you’ve ever been a fan of turn-based strategy, you won’t find this title too troublesome.

Templar Assault is free. There is also an Elite version available for $1.99.

Conclusion

Do you agree or disagree with my selections here? Did I miss a favorite Android strategy tile that you’ve been playing for hours? Let us know about your feelings and your favorite strategy games for Android in the comments.

Previously, Angry Birds worked along the movie Rio to add some characters from the movie into the game, but this is the first time they have fully branded a game to go along with an advertiser.

The game only works if you are using Google Chrome as your web browser (another bit of marketing perhaps). As long as you have Chrome installed, you just go to the website, and click “Play and Win now” to get started. It is a fully featured Angry Birds game that offers everything an Angry Birds fan would be looking for, just with a little more advertising than normal.

In addition to being a free game, you can also win prizes for playing. Prizes range from free pistachios all the way up to $25,000 in cash.

Source: Mashable

The patch also fixed all kinds of other bugs that players were encountering during the game such as small issues with the way dragon corpses behaved and dead bodies showing up to your wedding. However, those glitches are all minor compared to the game breaking glitch that the patch actually creates. People who have updated already are experiencing resistance to magical effects being non-existent. So if you are wearing a piece of armor that boosts your flame resistance it would be negated by this bug, and the flame would do full damage.

In some cases players have also reported weird behavior from dragons where they fly backwards and sometimes just fly around without showing any interest in engaging the player.

It is recommended that you do not update to this version for the time being. Disconnect your Xbox or PS3 from the Internet while playing Skyrim, and turn off any auto updates on the PC. The issues are being reported more heavily on the console versions, but there have been reports of PC players experiencing issues as well. Bethesda is aware of the problem.

Source: EuroGamer

However, the game is complicated. There is a lot to it, and I cannot tell you how many players I have seen completely whipped off the map because they didn’t think before they acted. It is easy to get over-excited and just want to jump in feet first, but this game is a marathon, not a sprint. You need to take everything slow and steady. Fear not, brave new soldier, armed with these tips, I will make sure you are ready to take on the world of Lord of Ultima.

Join A Good Alliance

This is crucial. As soon as you get to the part of the game where you are going to war, an alliance will help you in so many ways. Do not join just any alliance though – look around and find an organized alliance with leadership and a plan in place.

Not only will an alliance be able to lend support if you come under duress, but they will also be able to offer tips to help with developing your empire. The higher-level members of the alliance will have previously been in the position of a newer player, and they will be happy to offer you some tricks of the trade to speed up your advancement.

Being in an alliance will also make the game more fun once you are ready to start fighting because it will give you people to attack and a reason to attack them. The larger alliances are always at war with someone, and it is very satisfying to be able to take part in large battles.

Do Not Build A Castle Too Soon

This is the single most important tip that anyone can possibly give you while playing Lord of Ultima. Building your castle is what allows you to attack other players, but it also allows you to be attacked. I understand you want to get involved in the actual wars and battles, but if you castle before you have proper defenses in order, I can guarantee that you will be destroyed, and you will have to start over from square one. Either way, you can have your resources taken, whether you have a castle or not, so playing good defense is always wise.

It takes commitment; you are going to have to play for a long time, maybe more than a month. You should not castle any sooner than your third city. You will need to have at least ten thousand soldiers available for defense, and you really should make sure you are in a strong alliance that can lend support. It might seem crazy to play a game for over a month without engaging in combat, but I can promise one thing; if you castle a city too soon, starting over and doing it the right way a second time will take even longer.

Use A City Planner

Before you jump in and start building a city, take the time to use a city planner. You are only allowed a limited number of buildings, so you need make them count. A city planner allows you to accomplish this. With the city planner, you will know exactly how you are going to lay out your city before you even start.

Efficiency is paramount in this game, and having a good plan for your city will help a lot. In addition, if you are in an alliance you can ask one of the more experienced players to look at your plan and give you some tips and make some improvements. Overall, they are an incredibly valuable resource.

Check Out Some Lord Of Ultima Websites

Lord Of Ultima Wiki

This is a great resource with almost every piece of information on the game imaginable. They offer everything from the history of the game to recruitment time for units. They also have many useful tips and tricks to help get your city off the ground.

Lord Of Ultima Strategy

This is a fantastic Lord of Ultima site. They have a wealth of information for new players, and players who have been around for a while. Read their articles and become much more informed on how to play this massive game.

Lord Of Ultima Forums

The Lord of Ultima forums are a great place to interact with other players and learn what they do to improve. You can also use the forums to help find a solid alliance.

Conclusion

If you are just getting into Lord of Ultima, these tips will help you get your empire off the ground. Let me say this one more time; do not castle too soon. I cannot say that enough. Another last-minute tip is to have fun! This is a game, and the most important part of any game is to have lots of fun and enjoy!

As of November 18th, however, the beta officially ends and version 1.0 of the game becomes available. It will include completed versions of features that debuted in the Adventure Update and a huge variety of small enhancements such as new blocks, new monsters, and new achievements.

Perhaps the most important new feature, however, is an end to the game. A new dimension called The Ender, which was first added to beta in October, will be accessible by players. Inside it, players will find the Enderdragon, a mythical beast of great power. Players who manage to defeat it will be given “The End” achievement and be treated to an end-game sequence.

Although the official release of version 1.0 occurs on the 18th, to coincide with MineCon, players can already download the final pre-release beta, which has all the features of the full release.

If you’ve been on the fence about Minecraft, now would be a good time to buy it. The game is 25% off during beta, so you have only a few more days until that discount goes away.

Source: Rock Paper Shotgun

There’s a catch. You can’t be a month-to-month subscriber. Instead, you have to sign up for the “annual pass”, a twelve month subscription that can be billed monthly at $14.99. It seems that Blizzard is taking a page from the playbook of the world’s mobile data carriers, enticing players with freebies in exchange for a long-term commitment.

Players who sign up for the annual pass will receive the standard edition of Diablo III, not a limited or special edition. However, they’re not entirely left out when it comes to extra goodies. Annual pass subscribers will receive a special flying mount called Tyrael’s Charger and instant access to the beta test of the upcoming expansion Mists of Pandaria, which was also announced at BlizzCon.

It will be interesting to see how many players sign up. At a rate of $14.99 a month, the pass represents a total commitment of $179.88. If the Diablo III standard edition retails for $59.99 (and it probably will, as that’s what Starcraft 2 cost at launch), players who go for the long-term commitment will need to play at least eight of the twelve months to break even. That might not make sense to everyone, but diehard fans will surely jump on this bandwagon.

Source: Blizzard, Rock Paper Shotgun

After running a successful competition and reaching their desired download milestone, GOG decided to give away the first part of the Broken Sword series for free. It’s only available until October 1, at 7:59 a.m. EDT (11:59 a.m. GMT), so you need to act quickly to get your copy! If you’re not already a GOG user, you’ll need to create an account before downloading. However, this process is very quick.

The download includes both the director’s cut and the original game of Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars, known as Broken Sword: Circle of Blood, so you can enjoy both the retro edition and new feel of the game. The original hand-drawn graphics are enhanced to HD resolution and modern animation techniques in the director’s cut. The director’s cut also includes an extra chapter.

The Broken Sword series is a single-player point-and-click adventure game playable on most recent Windows computers.

As an added bonus, GOG also recently awarded the person who downloaded the 6 millionth download the staggering prize of the entire GOG.com games collection for free.

Source: GOG

The beta is set to run from yesterday until October 10th, with the games release following shortly after on October 25th. If you are looking to check the game out before the release date, the beta is the way to go.

Keep in mind that this is a beta, and not a demo. That means you should expect some odd bugs here and there and possible connectivity issues. The purpose of a beta for a game like Battlefield 3 is to fix little things that go wrong with the game and network code, so if you encounter a bug while playing, please make sure to report it so D.I.C.E can look into it and make sure it is not in the final release of the game.

The beta features one map and one mode; just enough to give everyone a small taste. The map is the one from many of the trailers, Operation Metro and the mode is a staple of a newer Battlefield game called Rush.

I played the beta last night and I was thoroughly impressed. I have been looking forward to Battlefield 3 more than any game this year, and to finally get my hands on it was incredible.

Source: Battlefield.com

What makes this year so great is that two out of the three on this list are games that you can easily spend hundreds of hours playing, and the other one is no short game either. This means that only these three games are going to be necessary to play because they will satisfy my gaming needs for the entire winter. All three of these games bring something a little different to the table, and they all look amazing.

Battlefield 3

BF3 is not only my most anticipated game of the 2011 holiday season, it just might be my most anticipated game of all time. I could not begin to imagine the amount of hours I spent playing Battlefield 2, and since then no other shooter has been nearly as satisfying.

The feature set in Battlefield 3 is awesome, and it looks like they are trying to capture the essence of what made the Battlefield games before the Bad Company series so great. It’s not that the Bad Company games were terrible, because they were perfectly competent shooters, they just didn’t capture the feel of a Battlefield game.

It seems like the people at Dice really remembered what made Battlefield 2 so great and they are trying to include that in 3. They even went as far as including some of my favorite maps from BF2 as a preorder bonus for BF3. Sharqi Peninsula and Strike at Karkand were the two maps I spent the most time in BF3.

I could easily write a whole article detailing the reasons I am excited for Battlefield 3, but I will just say, for me, October 25th cannot come soon enough.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

After a couple of weeks playing Battlefield 3 you might be ready for a little break from shooting people in the face, and if so, Skyrim is here for you. On November 11th 2011, Skyrim hits the market.

It’s been way too long since Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion came out, and while Bethesda has put out Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas, both of which play similarly to Elder Scrolls, it just isn’t the same.

Besides walking around a massive world and doing pretty much whatever your heart desires, which is standard for Bethesda RPGs, the feature that really got my attention are the free roaming dragons in Skyrim. Imagine walking around the game world and a giant dragon comes out of nowhere and decides he wants to make you his afternoon snack. What makes these dragons so amazing is that they are not running a predetermined path laid out by the developers. They are given some rules and limits to follow and then sent on their way.

Another feature of Skyrim that has been greatly improved from Oblivion is the third person camera. For anyone who spent time in the last installment of the Elder Scrolls series, you know what I mean. The third person camera looked like complete trash in the last Oblivion game, and thankfully, they are addressing that and making the game actually playable in the 3rd person. In Elder Scrolls IV, the third person view looked so disconnected from the world that it was essentially unplayable. Now, they are building the game with the third person in mind, so for those players who prefer their RPGs in the third person you will be good to go.

Assassins Creed: Revelations

Assassins Creed is, in my opinion, the most improved game franchise ever. I played through AC1 and thought it was a game with great potential that was incredibly poorly executed. Then, AC2 came out and fixed everything that was wrong with the first one. The changes from AC2 to Brotherhood were much smaller, but still brought the franchise to an even higher level.

They are promising some improvements to the multiplayer. They are bringing new modes and improved matchmaking. To me, the online play is an afterthought in Assassins Creed, because I come for the amazing open world and the well done (albeit somewhat confusing) story.

It looks like the core game play is going to stay much the same in Revelations so if you are familiar with Assassins Creed you know just what to expect. The controls will remain the same, and the main objective of the game is intact. That is just fine with me, because it didn’t need much work in the first place. Basically, I just want more Ezio running around the city stabbing people, and it looks like on November 15th, Ubisoft is happy to deliver.

Check out the trailer!

Honorable Mention

Here are a few games that didn’t make the top 3 list, but I am still looking forward to playing them this holiday season.

Modern Warfare 3 – More Call of Duty is never a bad thing.

Forza Motorsport 4 – Forza and Gran Turismo are back and forth for the number 1 and 2 racing games, and I can’t wait for the Forza to swing the pendulum back to Forza’s favor.

Star Wars: The Old Republic: A Star Wars MMO made by the RPG geniuses at BioWare? Sounds like a recipe for a winner! That is if it actually comes out this year; I’ll believe it when I see it.

Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception: Uncharted is known for a great story line, great game play and awesome visuals, and the third looks to be no exception.

Batman: Arkham City: If this is anywhere near as good as Arkham Asylum, we are in for a winner.

Conclusion

The holiday video game rush looks like it is going to be a good one this year, and I cannot wait. You really can’t go wrong with any of these games.

Check out some other gaming related articles on MakeUseOf:

3 Best Multiplayer First Person Shooters Of All Time
5 Reasons Why You Should Not Give Up On Pokemon Games Even As An Adult

What games are you looking forward to this holiday season? Let us know in the comments!