PC News and Game Reviews

Hi there,

I’ve been meaning to put together a small running Oblivion journal for some time now…..so here it is. Please do share your experiences on Cryodill! So I choose to play a Breathon, not really sure why but there you are. I played through the opening sequence and was rather surprised to fine myself (a classless prisoner) thrust straight into the defence of the most powerful man on Crodill. I imagine it would be like the Whitehouse janitor being held responsible for the safely of “W�.

So with the emperor dead on the ground…I like many, I would imagine, set off to the Imperial City. I must admit I spent the first 3-4 hours just walking around admiring the fantastic detail the developers managed to get into the game…..Cryodill is ALIVE! As I wandered near the imperial city I found the first of many victims…..a herd of deer grazed near by. I took out my bow and slew the beast but many more……..took my prise back to the Imperial City!

Once in the city I went straight for the markets….but soon realized that I would need far more gold to get the few bits and pieces I required. I did two quests from the Market district that got me on my way to stardom. The copious coin purse quest saw me defeat a grave robber, and take everything he had leaving him to rot in a tomb. I got a nice little magic sword off him that I still have now! Debaser!
Having done a few more quests in the Imperial City I more or less jumped straight onto the main quest…and went to Kavatch. I found it tough to close the Oblivion Gate as I was such a low level, but with a bit of stealth and a bit of magic I cleared it! At this stage I was approaching level 2.

That done I took Martin Septim (or Sean Bean) back to the Cloud Ruler Temple (another gem for the designers….I must admit I spent a while gazing out over Cryodill). From here I left the quest again and Went to Bruma and did some quests. I managed to join the thieves guild and the mages guild….however I am not a very powerful mage or thief! I am a bit of a jack of all trades!

At the moment I am on the quest to gather support for Bruma. I must admit I am having a serious case of Deja Vu as I travel from town to town closing Oblivion Gates. I got so bored doing it that I am considering just running past all the monsters to the Stone at the top of the towers and removing it to shut the gate. I think I’ve closed 5 in a row and I have more to get! And each gate is only slightly different.

Another major gripe I have is the lock picking. I’ve posted on another blog about this…I really hate it. I usually just auto attempt as it makes me so angry breaking picks. I’ve heard talk of a quest for a skeleton key…has anyone heard of this one. I don’t want a spoiler….just where I can find out more about the quest and start it………

Well that’s it for now. Its time for “The Sword of Death� to claim another victim!!!!!

The good thing about these games is that they just get better and better. I remember playing Legends of Valor and Seasons of the Abyss where you could travel from town to town or venture out into the wild and explore dungeons. Visit craftsmen and guilds, learn spells, buy armour weapons and trade etc. Even in Legends of Valor you could be turned into vampire.

Morrowind is where I picked up on the Eldar Scrolls series. It’s a well made game. If you owned a hog of a machine and cranked up the graphics, you could fully enjoy the beauty of them. There was so much to do. When you started a game and opened up the map screen you could see the whole unexplored fog of war. The whole world where, if you follow the steps of the story you will pretty much explore it all. I was too tempted just to run aimlessly around, killing things for a time. We have game catagories nowadays like Shoot em up and RPG, but to be honest Morrowind is like GTA game in a fantasy world.

And now Oblivion although something similar is a fresh take on the Cyrodil world. The amount of quests is just plain ludicrous. The graphics have been redone and look marvellous! Although it really helps if you have a beast of a machine. I think the game is great, they really have brought a good variety to the game, in terms of races, characters, locations items etc. And the main story line, although I’m only a short time playing, is compelling.

Each quest can have twists and turns and the many guilds you can be a part of will keep you interested. There are guilds to become assassins, thieves or you can just hack people to bits in the Arena. A game this size however cannot escape from the occasional glitch. The game is not riddled with them, but they are there. But you will overlook them as you are in the prescence of greatness!

The NPCs are so autonomous that the game could nearly pass as a mmorpg.

To sum up…

It’s Grand Theft Auto with Swords and Sorcery
It’s huge
It’s a mmorpg without the lag and the spammers

Hi there,

Well its been a while since I posted….better get my posting skates back on

Far Cry 2, or Crysis as its been called is back in the gamer news. More screenshots have been leaked. Unfortunatly this looks like the end for many a computer out there, as I imagine all but the most powerful P.C’s will be able to run this game like it appears in the screen shots below.

Apart from the visuals it looks very “Far Cryish”. the setting of course being the most obvious comparison. I must say it does look super. Truck the Crytek boys to come alng again and knock the socks off one of the bigger players. I’ve looked at screenshots of the Unreal 3 engine, and I think these look better. I also thought that Far Cry looked nicer than the Half Life 2 source engine………have a look and see:

New Crysis Screenshots.