Reilly2040's Blog

Well, over the weekend, I completed the main quest for the Shivering Isles. Of course, there’s still a bunch of side quests I need to do, but completing it gave me itchy feet to play Morrowind again.

I bought Morrowind years ago, but missed out on the expansions. I’ve never played that deeply into it, so I’d never bothered buying them, however I decided I’d pick up the Game of the Year Edition so as to have all the expansions now.

So now I’m being a complete Elder Scrolls geek, and I’ve got the disc for both Oblivion and Morrowind sitting in the DVD drives on my main PC.

Playing Morrowind again is a bit of a wakeup call. With the compass, and fast travel system, Oblivion gives you a fair bit of hand-holding (partly, I suspect to entice console gamers), however Morrowind is far more about the immersion.

Sadly, my gaming session last night didn’t go as planned. I rolled my usual longsword/archer, started to find my way around the first town, and was promptly slaughtered by a bandit mage in the first dungeon. And I’d forgotten to save. Nuts.

However, I think restarting may be a blessing in disguise. I always tend to roll archer/swordsman characters, so I think I’ll be a bit different this time, and roll some sort of mage. I last did this ages ago for the Shadows of Undrentide expansion to Neverwinter, and it was a lot of fun. It should take me out of my gaming comfort zone, and force me to approach the game in a new way, which I figure can’t be a bad thing.

Well, I managed to get through a couple of bouts in the Arena, but it was tough going. Fortunately I had just enough money to get myself a “Summon Scamp” spell. Given how much grief those sods gave me in Kvatch, I’m hoping it’ll make things a bit easier. I definitely need to find myself some better ranged spells though…

Once I’ve got some more time I’m definitely going to invest some time in X3. Although at the moment, it looks like it might be easier playing it at the weekend, where I can devote some time to letting the freighter fly around.

I’m bouncing around between games a lot at the moment. I’ve been enjoying X3, but getting into it is slow going (I’ve done the first couple of missions, but I’m wanting to try and get into the trade aspect of the game, which is much slower. Partly because its got a larger learning curve, and partly because freighters are physically slow moving when compared to a basic fighter craft). So last night I fancied having another crack at Oblivion. I’ve got my main character, who’s currently tooling around the Shivering Isles, having racked up 140 hours of gameplay, so I thought I’d roll someone new.

So, I’ve created a pure mage character to try playing through as. My previous character was handy with a sword and bow, so I’m finding this character a lot tougher to play. I managed to get past Kvatch last night, but it took a lot of swearing to do so. My initial spells got me through the very early parts of the game, but the Scamps running around Oblivion and Kvatch soon made mincemeat of both me, and my summoned Skeleton.

Part of the thing, is that my main character is now so advanced, and has got such good equipment, I’d forgotten what a struggle it was starting out. I tend to have enough cash to keep my armour in repair, but that’s about it, practically. I kicked off the Arena quest last night to try and make some extra cash, but the initial fight knocked me down to half-health, while my ranger had sailed though, so clearly some new strategy is required. I think I’ll have to work on my Guild entrance, and try and scrounge up enough cash for a couple of slightly better spells (I’m thinking a better summoning for a start). If it comes to it, I can always join the fighter’s guild to make some extra loot.

Of course, one of my early considerations is always to try and get myself that first house. So once I’ve got a few better spells, I’m going to have to try and bolster my cash to get myself the shack in the Imperial City’s waterfront.

Ran the latest bunch of Ubuntu updates last night, which nicely killed my installation. Fortunately I eventually twigged that the updates had included a new kernel image, and was able to reboot off the old one. Fiesty Fawn (Ubuntu 7.04) was released yesterday, so that’ll be the weekend’s project.

Finished replaying Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic again the other night. I do love those games. Work’s been quite busy lately, so I’ve been tired at night, so not really in the mood for anything real time. So the turn-based combat of KotOR was pretty appealing. I’ve played through it and its sequel loads of times now. I really do wish they’d get round to making KotOR3. I’ve been quite dissappointed that Bioware seem to have started favouring consoles over PCs for their games. Admittedly, its where the money is these days, but as a PC gamer, I do miss having good, new Bioware games to play.

With it finished though, I do need to try and play through the new Oblivion expansion: The Shivering Isles. I’ve started playing it, although so far I’m not sold on the new area. When it comes to RPGs, I tend to prefer running around woods and grasslands, bumping into towns and such on the way, which is probably why I liked Oblivion so much. However, the new area is designed to be a bit weirder. Still, I imagine once I start finding my way around it, I’ll get settled in.

Will this one end up as ignored as my last one? Probably, but what the heck. I need to try and get some use out of this webspace

Roll on the Easter holidays. Things are nuts in work at the moment, so I’m looking forward to the long weekend starting tomorrow. From a gaming point of view, I’ve recently rediscovered my love of Oblivion. I’d bought the Knights of the Nine expansion a while back, but when I got my new PC, it fell by the wayside. I just got the new expansion, The Shivering Isles, so I finally went back and finished Knights of the Nine and started the new one.

I’d forgotten just how engrossing the game can be. And while it looked pretty spectactular on my old PC it looks even better on my new one. Its a game where you really can spend time just wandering round enjoying the view.

I’ve also picked up Star Trek: Legacy. I know the reviews (and most of the player feedback) was bad, but I’m a sucker for anything with those two words on the box.

Its not great. The ship models are stunning to look at, but the lack of a locking camera viewpoint is a glaring omission. Plus the tendancy of your helmsman to start piloting the ship while you’re trying to steer it as well really causes you grief when you’re trying to do a strafing run on a starbase.

Saying that, it could be a lot worse. I picked it up cheap in the Play sale, and for the tenner I paid, I’d say its worth it. However, as a much-hyped, 40th anniversary, franchise re-launching game, its definitely not up to par.

Its a pity Bethesda didn’t throw as much hype at Tactical Assault on the DS. The Starfleet Command games have long been a personal favourite, and this cutdown version from the guys who made the original is great fun.