Dragon Age: Origins is a glorious amalgamation of every RPG I’ve ever played. I mean, really — all of them.

Of course it’s taking things right back to Baldur’s Gate with the party control and the pausing, and then putting the Neverwinter Nights direct movement control and pulling the camera around with the mouse, just like Drakensang. Also like Drakensang is the infinite plot-items inventory, that is apart from the main inventory. A part of me really likes this; it means you don’t have to worry about dropping loot for quest items, you don’t have to worry about them being too heavy, you don’t have to worry about them generally cluttering the place up. But another part of me is railing against having an infinite inventory, which goes completely against my realism sense. Yes, yes, it’s not meant to be real, but… It’s a tough one. I think the majority of players will call me nuts for saying that.

The plot is laid out just like Mass Effect. You do a little bit of starting quest (your chosen “origin”, and then some other stuff), then you get given four missions to complete in an order of your choosing. Once those are done, you lock back into one big mission to catch up with and kill Sovereign– Hurrrrrr.

The origin stuff is relatively slick, but by the time I’d chosen “Human” and “Warrior” I only had one option to pick from. Robe Cousland was born — looking absolutely nothing at all like his parents or his sibling(s?), indeed, hardly even dressed for his station. He’s bald and has a small beard (delightfully similar to my real beard, no less), but I’d have thought even worse for a noble,  a huge face-tattoo. To quote Paul Denton of Deus Ex, “I’m pretty certain we don’t have a stitch of DNA in common with either of our supposed parents.” Couldn’t they at least have modified their facial features to match me just a little bit? I’m quite sure such dynamism is possible.

Isn't he sexy?

The conversation system is pretty much Mass Effect too; people pace about occasionally, lips are synched (but nobody has yet solved the shouting issue — there are plenty of shouting moments where the serene face is warped into a grimace but the mouth remains moving calmly), responses can be chosen (though the radial menu is exchanged for a classic list of responses). Very Deus Ex, really. All dialogue is voice-acted except your character’s lines, which I find somewhat annoying — you go through the entire game never once being addressed by name, by anyone. My noble father called me “pup”, Shale from the DLC (we’ll get to that later) called me “it”, but that’s the best you get. Even after sleeping with Leliana (we’ll get to that later), she never called me by name. Yes, yes, voice acting increases immersion and whatever, but they could at least have given me a fixed nickname to go by. Insert rant about the need for quality speech synthesis in games to replace real actors.

The world map reminded me a lot of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, with the little “clay” tiles to represent places. One thing that really got me about the map, though, was the presence of large sub-world-maps; upon entering Denerim, for example, you get another world map with more little tiles floating about on it. Slick.

There are more little things, that have jumped out at me along the way as being from other RPGs, but those are the main ones.

I should remark that it took me a good thirty hours to complete the game. Dragon Age is fucking massive. To compare, a super-completist run of Mass Effect at a reasonable difficulty level takes about 20 hours (including Bring Down the Sky and Pinnacle Station). The game claims that Robe has only experienced under 50% of the game’s content. Since I’m an achievement-whore (and I’ve been told that achievement-points can be turned into DLC-buying points), there will be repeated playthroughs. Value-for-money ho!

Yes, downloadable content. Chicks seem to dig that shit these days; right out of the box (yes, apparently DA was delayed so much that two DLC packs were ready to go at release time rather than afterwards), I got The Stone Prisoner and the Blood Dragon Plate (which will come with me to Mass Effect 2 when that rears its beautiful head). The Stone Prisoner introduces a bonus party member, Shale, who is a golem that is generally quite fun to have around. Complete with weapon and armour crystals that only he can use, plus gifts and banter. The second DLC, Warden’s Keep, is hard-wired into the game but not present — it, and The Stone Prisoner, add achievements. But the worst thing is that after a while a little bastard quest-given for the Warden’s Keep story crops up in your party camp with a glaring exclamation “take my quest” mark over his head, and of course, I can’t take the quest without buying the DLC. As I mentioned earlier, achievement points can apparently be exchanged for DLC, so this mitigates the annoyance somewhat — but it’s still just a little bit underhanded. I wonder if people that didn’t get The Stone Prisoner out of the box have a similarly niggling prop slotted in?

The Blood Dragon plate is pretty useless. I spent the first ten hours frantically trying to get the 38 strength required to equip the breastplate, by which point the rest of the armour (which can be bought from your portable merchant) had been completely superseded. The breastplate was pretty bitchin’, though, and remained better than most stuff until level 17 or 18.

I want to complain about variety. There’s basically only one set of ruins props; green lighting and some tree roots, and you have the elven ruins in the forest. Blue lighting and some snow-drifts, and you have the Andrastean ruins in the mountain. There aren’t particularly many types of enemy either (I remember how Drakensang boasted that it had 70 enemies… I pulled more than that out of my buttocks for This Wreckage; maybe I’m just spoiled by Warcraft III, or is it a symptom of increased detail meaning there just isn’t development time to produce a lot of models?) — you get darkspawn, a few demons and undead, some spiders… Though I did thoroughly enjoy the little velociraptor-like dragon kiddies.

I said “want” to complain because I actually can’t — they’ve followed my value-for-money-squeeze-every-drop-out-of-every-resource philosophy to the letter. The behemoth that they have achieved is truly immense — I haven’t played a game this big since Morrowind. I am extremely satisfied with what I’ve been given for my hard-earned (heu heu) cash. I’ve paid £34.99 for far worse games.

Uni might not be so satisfied, since I basically spent my every waking moment playing Dragon Age since I bought it last thursday. I’m also proud that it’s an 18 and I didn’t get ID’d — remember how I got ID’d when I bought Loki, Tomb Raider: the Angel of Darkness and Sonic Heroes (a 16, a 12 and a 3 respectively)? The shop assistant tried to sell me a strategy guide, which I scoffed at, then a games controller. I told him I was a mouse-and-keyboard man.

Yeah, we need to talk about DA being an 18. The game is covered in blood. I mean, it’s everywhere. It’s on the loading screens, spreading everywhere while you wait. It’s on the map, dribbles of it marking your path as you travel (to be waylaid by quests, Baldur’s Gate II style). And, if you’ve even looked like you might have entered combat, it’s all over your party too. Persistent blood splatters on characters are hilarious, yes, but when it’s a uniform speckle all around (shouldn’t my front be dripping and the rest be relatively clean? Do rats even have that much blood in them? Shouldn’t spider blood green or something?) it’s a little bit silly. Not to mention nobody remarks on it when you walk up to them absolutely sopping wet with the stuff.

So it has bad (but really, what doesn’t?), and it has good. But the good massively out-weighs any niggling little complaints. This is what the PC gaming industry needed so badly — a massive shot in the arm that just couldn’t work on a console (apparently the XBox version is absolutely dreadful. I’ve got a full mouse and keyboard and I don’t know what’s going on half the time, though playing with a rumble-pack would be cool). It’s Baldur’s Gate, it’s Mass Effect, it’s Morrowind and Oblivion. It’s Deus Ex and it’s Drakensang and it’s Neverwinter Nights. It is a masterwork.

I think I’ve said everything I want to say.

The verdict: Dragon Age: Origins is fucking awesome. Buy it now… Unless you’ve got a lot of work to do.

The real test comes next: the editor.

I’m ready, sir.

Yes. Yes, you are.

This article will show you step by step how to install The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, Tribunal and Bloodmoon under Linux for running with WINE.
I have tested this with Ubuntu 9.04 and WINE-1.1.33.

This process is much more involved than normal as newer versions of WINE have broken MP3 playback support, so you will need to recompile WINE.

Cleaning up

First you will need to remove any old versions of WINE and libmpg123, how you go about doing this depends on what package management tool you use, I will be giving the below instruction specifically for Ubuntu Linux 9.04, but may also work on other Debian based distributions.

• Open the terminal

• Type ’sudo apt-get remove wine mpg123 libmpg123-0 libmpg123-dev’

Getting the needed stuff

You will be needing quite a bit of stuff before you can begin compiling, first you need the latest WINE source and libmpg123.

• Get WINE from here

• Get the latest version of libmpg123 from here

Also get the needed compiler tools, this is ‘build-essential’ on Ubuntu. There may be other packages you will need but you will find out what they are when you get to configuring WINE.

Compiling and installing libmpg123

This step should be pretty simple to manage and it should not require anything besides the compile tools.

• Extract the source of mpg123 you downloaded and stick it in a folder

• ‘cd’ to that folder and type ./configure –enable-static –prefix=’/usr/’
• If configure went well type the following
• ‘make’
• ’sudo make install’

libmpg123 should now be installed.

Compiling and installing WINE

• Extract WINE into a folder and cd to it.

• run ./configure –with-mpg123 –prefix=’/usr/’
• Configure will warn you about any missing libraries, you should install these using your systems package manager unless you do not need the features they provide.
• If your happy type ‘make depend’ then ‘make’
• Wait for WINE to compile, this will take about half an hour on a average system
• Once the compile is complete type ’sudo make install’
• Now test out wine !

Installing Morrowind, Tribunal and Bloodmoon

• Insert the disk or mount the disk image for Morrowind

• Go to the disk directory and type ‘wine Setup.exe’
• Install Morrowind
• Repeat this same process for Tribunal then Bloodmoon, do not do in any other order.
• Get the latest Bloodmoon patch here
• Mount the Morrowind image or disk and play

I said I was going to replay Morrowind.

I lied : /

However, I’m *actually* playing through Diablo II, lan-style, with some friends of mine.

Assassins ftw. Muh-muh-muh MIND BLAST.

Får köpa Morrowind igen men då får det vara PC-versionen Game of the Year eftersom Xbox-versionen buggade för mig i slutet av spelet.

Morrowind är kärlek!!!

Vvardenfell är kärlek!!

Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

The Witcher has sold over 1.2 million copies as a PC only game, which isn’t the best I know, but it’s not bad either. It’s one of the best games out there that has been severely overlooked. If any of you people out there are RPG fans you owe it to yourself to go pick this one up. It’s only 20 bucks on steam right now.

Some game footage has been leaked for the game’s sequel Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. Witcher 2 has a chance to be like Half-Life 2. Half-life was a good game. Half-Life 2 was an awesome, genre changing game. The Witcher was a good game. Can it’s sequel be ground breaking?

The current generation of RPGs was birthed with Morrowind, Dungeon Siege, and Knights of the Old Republic, among other titles and perfected in Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Mass Effect. I think it’s time for some fresh ideas on the genre.

Witcher 2 has some interesting concepts from what we’ve seen of it so far. Dynamic NPCs that have things to do, innovative combat with finishing moves, a high end graphics engine, and a unique dark world for the story to develop in. None of this means “earth-shattering”, but it’s a good step towards something great.

Keep on gaming people!

Don’t ask me why, but this little video (it’s only a minute, take a peek) made me laugh uncontrollably.

The creator took the original audio clips and edited them up with some paper-like imagery to an amusing result.  Of course, you may have had to play Morrowind for it to be so.

Ich habe jetzt die Übersetzung zum Großteil beendet und baue gerade die Gegenstände ein.

This mod takes my Calvus and Rerlas companion mod, changes Calvus to female, and updates the dialogue accordingly.

(Adds modern ‘companion’ functions based on Grumpy et al’s scripts to Calvus Horatius (the companion in Tribunal), plus warping to the pets sold by Rerlas in the Great Bazaar in Mournhold. Calvus has more functions, more features and more personality.  The pets can be retrieved if lost and resurrected if killed.)

DOWNLOAD from ElricM

DOWNLOAD from Planet Elder Scrolls

This is a really quick mod – a request by Enzo Dragon to rename the cell “Balmora, Caius Cosades’ House” to “Balmora, My House”.

Unlike Oblivion or Fallout 3, you can’t change cellnames mid-game, so you just have to plug this in when you’re ready and clean the save with Mash. If it doesn’t show up right away, try changing your load order.

DOWNLOAD from ElricM

When we last left our intrepid hero, Lady Gaga, arrived fresh off the prison boat and thrust into the world of Morrowind thanks to some shady pulling-of-strings by the emperor who rules the land. Taking his time in the settlement, Seyda Neen, he finds the death of a taxman… and is hired to investigate!

Being thrust into the free world is a little weird and makes me wonder what kind of law and order system they’re running in Morrowind. You know, the kind of system where certain criminals are let free for no apparent reason, really. So here I am, in this little settlement called Seyda Neen and everyone here’s not friendly at all. Well, I was a convicted criminal so I guess that doesn’t help my case. Walking around the place, people also seem to be a little paranoid. Walk up behind someone and they think I want to have a conversation with them. Not that their comments help either. They’re along the lines of:

• “My time is precious, so make it quick.”
• “Anytime now.” (Mind you, that’s spoken in a condescending tone.)
• “Speak quickly outlander, or go away.”

And my personal favourite: “You like to dance close to the fire, don’t you?” Well, actually , I could really walk onto the fire and not get burnt, amazingly. Such are the amazing wonders of Morrowind. Who knew? I’ve spent so much little time here, yet I know more than the common folk do. Am I a god or what?

Not to mention, some of them like to mumble and grumble… maybe they’re the ones who haven’t had their daily dose of moon sugar yet. But hey, everybody loves moon sugar in Morrowind!

The little village here is a little strange as well. Many of the commoners like to spend their time inside their huts, and there are four too many guards here. For reals, there are about four heavily armed guards in this little village. Maybe this is a result of their fucked up law and order in Morrowind? I was starting to worry – perhaps the other folk of Morrowind are like this too? Good people who seem a little out of their minds thanks to their apparent lobotomies.

The village of Seyda Neen. Lobotomised much?

As much as they dislike outlanders like me, I ask them what the local happenings are in this village. Apparently, a tax collector has been missing for quite some time now. A tax collector missing? Hmm, my Spidey-senses were tingling. I believe this is a case for… LADY GAGA!

A disliked tax collector? Hey, tell me something I don't know.

My hunch being that the tax collector made his way into town when doing his deed, he had to be around the village here. After much searching [oh, who am I kidding, I looked it up on the internet as to where his body was] using my superior detective skills because apparently, all four guards are too busy looking tough.

Won't somebody think of the children?!

So I find the dead tax collector. Dead? Yes. A case of murder? Quite possibly. After stripping him of his dignity AND his clothes, I make my way back to the guy who had the weird name. Remember him? I also consult to townsfolk of the village and I’m told he had a girlfriend who lived in the lighthouse. As usual, she’s devastated by his death and asks me to return his ring to her, for something for her to remember him by.

A ring, you say? Hmm...

And here I am stuck with a moral dilemma. I’ll no doubt get the reward if I find the murderer, but what about the ring? It was the ring of a tax collector after all, so there would be a nice re-sale value… but then again, her girlfriend is emotionally suffering from the death of her boyfriend… Being the nice guy that I am, I give her the ring. Or am I really the nice guy? If anything, I should’ve sold the ring and forced her to move on find someone new to have a relationship with. Hey, I’ve got some friends in the cell who dig chicks with blue skin! So I guess in the end, I end up being the bastard and give her the ring. You know, you’ll never live your life unless you throw that ring into the sea! In return she gives me health potions. At this point, I feel like murdering her as well, just so she can join her boyfriend in Morrowind heaven, because I’m finding this reward absolutely shit. Thanks for that. No, really, thanks for that. Maybe you need a lobotomy on your lobotomy. Frickin’ frack.

You're not that grateful, you know that...?

So now it time to turn myself efforts to the murderer. Who could possibly be the murderer? I look into the scroll entitled “Tax Records” and find that someone by the name of Foryn Gilnith has the highest unpaid amount in taxes. I so righteously burst into his little shack like I own the place – well I do goddammit! – and ask him about the murder. He admits to it. What a fool! Still angry from the last reward regarding the two health potions, he now seems like the perfect target to let out my rage. He gives me the option of hiding his dirty little secret. Or I can kill him and grab my reward for his bounty. I choose the latter.

If you had only paid your taxes, fool!

With my anger now gone, I get a sick feeling. Maybe I shouldn’t have killed this guy just for a bounty-reward. But then again, now that he’s dead, I can claim this shack as my home and look, it’s even got a hammock. Woohoo!

A dead man in my own newly-owned shack. Ugh, here’s that sick feeling again. I can tell this is going to be a grand adventure.

Vår egen Jostein driver med mods til både Oblivion og Morrowind, på zaldir.co.uk kan du laste ned forkjellige versjoner han har satt sammen, se screenshots, lese nyheter og registrere deg til å hjelpe til selv.

Sjekk det ut, anbefales!

I’m going to do a set of “game diaries”, that is, I play a game and I document my aimless exploits, and I’m doing it through the game The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. And so we begin!

I wake up at the back of a ship that stinks of moldy wood. There’s some shirtless elf standing there. And apparently I was stuck in prison too. Maybe this elf was my gay lover? I’m not sure. He asks me my name, which I find a bit odd, seeing as we’ve been on this ship for a while together. Being stuck at the back of a ship that stinks of moldy wood, I’m not too keen on answering him, so I give him the smart answer.

You're ugly.

He seemed content enough, even though he kept staring at me. Awkward… maybe I shouldn’t have lead him on that night… Thankfully, the guard comes by and calls me up onto deck, where they thought I was important enough to be greeted by Morgan Freeman.

Hey, nice to see ya Morg.

Hell yeahs, this is what I call travelling in style.

After being asked to be go into another room where I finally tell a strange bald man where he asks me what my skills are, what my profession is and what my star-sign is. Oh jeez, this isn’t speed dating. I tell him my name is… LADY GAGA!

What kind of name is that? You need to get out more.

Once I take my papers to finally get permission to the dangerous world of Morrowind, I get escorted through a door to a small room, where they have a table set out for me and everything. Aw, how sweet! Or… I had other ideas. You just have to love how the law works here. Here I am, a convicted criminal being released into the world, and they put me in a room full of loose valuables, like silver plating, this strange liquid that is worth quite a lot. I even steal the piece of paper on the table. Ah, sweet loot.

Mmm, my precious

So I’ve finally made my way out towards the world, where I am finally free. I sell all my loot at the local trader and make my way out of here. Upon travelling, I stumble across some nekkid guy lying on the floor. I poke him with my short dagger which I stole from the previous room. He’s not moving. Yeah, okay, I lied. This is the true story, as farfetched as it sounds: while walking along, a wizard falls out of the sky. His hat looks intriguing to me, so I steal it from him. And I thought I may as well take his robe and his fancy shoes as well. What? He’s not going to be wearing it any time soon. I put it on, and miraculously, it fits me perfectly!

Nekkid face plant.

The blue in the robe brings out my eyes.

I look happy, don’t I?

Filesize: 45 Mb
Download link : TES Morrowind.zip

With the onset of the fall semester, there’s been a definite decrease in my gaming hours. Nevertheless, having just recently conquered Half-Life 2 (and its various episodes) and Oblivion (for a second time), I’ve decided to step a few years back in RPG history to replay a classic: Morrowind. I’m stoked for another chance to explore the outskirts of Balmora, rob helpless Bosmer for skooma at knifepoint, and fend off hordes of vicious mud crabs. Updates to follow.

Also, I don’t know if anyone else follows SuperDanielMan (the professional Starcraft commentator), but he recently predicted the demise of GomTV via Twitter. If he’s telling the truth (which I assume he is), it’s a sad day for the pro SC scene. Here’s the speculation thread on Team Liquid:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=101934.

Morrowind, c’est un peu comme le tournedos Rossini, ça fait claquer les poussins dans ta bouche. Bref, du beau, du grand, du reviens-y un petit peu. Le machin tourne-t-il sous Vista ? Oui, à la base. Mais mal.

Je mets donc en place un petit plan, histoire de voir s’il y a moyen d’améliorer les choses et de stopper le saignement de mes yeux causé par des graphismes vieillissants et saccadants. Voici ce que j’ai testé.

1. Tout d’abord, un topic intéressant
http://forum.canardpc.com/showthread.php?t=24153

2. Une adresse non moins intéressante
http://wiwiki.wiwiland.net/index.php/Morrowind_:_Aide_technique

3. Tant qu’on y est
http://forum.wiwiland.net/

4. Installer Wrye Mash qui va vous aider à gérer vos mods et à les rendre compatible (attention à votre version de Python)
http://wiwiki.wiwiland.net/index.php/Morrowind_:_Wrye_Mash

5. Mise à jour du bidule en suivant la méthode conseillée ici
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article186

6. Jouabilité - permet de créer son personnage et de sauvegarder dès le début de partie
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article649

7. Esthétique – des corps plus jolis (better bodies)
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article504

8. Esthétique - des vêtements plus jolis (compatible avec better bodies)
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article936

9. Esthétique – rendre votre personnage plus beau (beauty pack)
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article502

10. Esthétique – des visages plus jolis (belles gueules)
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article510

11. Esthétique – les races non humaines plus belles (belles bêtes compatible better bodies)
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article815

12. Esthétique – amélioration des textures de créatures
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article952

13. Esthétique – des capes flottantes
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article476

14. Esthétiques – deux packs de textures
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article519
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article518

15. Correctif – pour mieux gérer les transitions entre les textures
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article923

16. Jouabilité – la discrétion de votre personnage est mieux gérée, 2 mods :
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article362
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article360
Fonctionne mal sur ma config, je ne le mets donc pas.

17. Ambiance – comportement plus réaliste des animaux
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article363

18. Ambiance – pour rendre les journées plus longues (normalement, une journée dure moins d’une heure en temps réel)
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article356

19. Jouabilité – adapte la portée des armes
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article359

20. Ambiance – des nouvelles musiques
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article678

21. Ambiance – plein de nouveaux son (modification du fichier ini. nécessaire
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article458

22. Correctif – utilitaire censé améliorer la fluidité
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article982

23. Jouabilité - améliore le système de cueillette des plantes
http://morromods.wiwiland.net/spip.php?article15

23. Correctif –  Pour ceux qui ont un soleil noir sous Vista, voici les textures de remplacement à placer dans le dossier “textures”.

24. Astuce fluidité - Morrowind ne gère pas les processeurs multicoeurs et rame beaucoup plus que sur un PC simple coeur. Pour remédier au problème, voici une méthode, un peu violente certes, mais efficace. 
a/ lancer le jeu
b/ en cours de jeu, retournez sur votre bureau avec les touches ALT + TAB
c/ sur le bureau, faites CTRL+ALT+SUPPR
d/ dans la liste des processus, faites un clic droit sur morrowind.exe et choisissez “définir l’affinité”
e/ dans la liste des processeurs, ne laissez qu’un seul processeurs coché
f/ revenez sous Morrowind avec ALT + TAB et profitez d’un jeu plus fluide

Note : sous Vista, il est impossible de décompressez un fichier dans le dossier « programme », vous êtes obligés de faire du copier-coller manuel de vos fichiers et supporter les (insupportables) messages d’avertissement de Windows. Une autre solution, consiste à installer votre jeu dans une zone non protégée comme un deuxième disque dur par exemple.

Note bis : certains fichiers esp ne peuvent être modifiés par Wrye Mash. Il faut regarder si les fichiers ne sont pas en lecture seule. En général, cela résout le problème.

Note ter : je pourrai également tester le « morrowind graphics extender » ( http://timeslip.chorrol.com/ ) permettant de gérer les effets DirectX10. Les résultats semblent saisissants, mais pour l’instant j’ai la flemme de me lancer dans ces bidouillages. D’autant plus, qu’il faut posséder l’add-on Bloodmoon (que je n’ai pas) ou patcher malgré tout son Morrowind avec un patch pour Bloodmoon (l’auteur dit que cela fonctionne). Ici ( http://forum.wiwiland.net/index.php?showtopic=39851 ), une explication en français de l’installation et du fonctionnement (sur une ancienne version).

Note quarto : vous aurez sans doute remarqué que les mods sont tous issus de Wiwiland, tout simplement car il s’agit d’un excellent site pour trouver des fichiers et des informations de qualité sur la série des Elders Scroll. J’en profite pour les remercier de leur travail (même si je me doute qu’ils ont autre chose à faire que de lire ce blog).

Getting Stuck Sucks:

OXCGN’s Games That Frustrate

Games should be fun.

But sometimes they get to a point where the challenge simply becomes beyond frustrating and makes you feel like an incompetent, so you don’t finish.  Sometimes maybe it is your lack of skill, but other times it is just poor game design.

Or maybe the game becomes so boring that it becomes too frustrating to even bother finishing.  After all, every second is a second lost of your life you’ll never get back, and who wants to be stuck playing a game that’s no longer fun?

Here are some of the games that have got under the skin of our staff.

Please let us know what games have pissed you off in the past (or present) in the comment section below.

Axis of Reality:

THE ELDER SCROLLS III: MORROWIND (Xbox, PC)

I was excited about getting Morrowind – after all, the Lord of the Rings movies were fresh in my mind and I couldn’t wait to enter a full, completely open world to make my own path through. My journey lasted 2 hours. Unfortunately it was just too open, putting it on the player to provide their own motivation and in the end it just felt pointless playing like I wasn’t achieving anything or going anywhere with it. I was bored with freedom.

GRAND THEFT AUTO IV (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)

I was so excited for GTA IV, still having not finished San Andreas but loving every minute of it. While previous GTAs actively encouraged mayhem and going off the beaten track, GTA IV seemed determined to do everything in its power to stop me: irritating phone calls from contacts wanting to be taken everywhere and the punishment of removing bonuses for ignoring them, not to mention overly bouncy driving controls that destroyed any fun in police chases when every corner sent me sliding into a wall. I stopped playing when I realized that this GTA didn’t want me to have fun anymore.

Shadow Wave:

GRAND THEFT AUTO IV (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)

I wasn’t very excited going into the GTA universe once again, but judging from all the hype and the very impressive reviews I thought maybe its improved a lot since San Andreas, a game I never beat. But sadly GTA4 was just as frustrating as its processor. Phone calls, realism and annoying side missions made this very frustrating for me. But I soldiered on through to about 30% of the game when main missions went from lasting around 5 minutes to being a full 30 minutes, with no checkpoint system. I eventually walked away from this game. There are only so many times I can sit are repeat what I just did over and over.

BLUE DRAGON (Xbox 360)

Blue Dragon was a great game until the last disc. It was easy, fun, and just a great game to play when you wanted to enjoy a story and not really worry about that dreaded game over screen. As it was a very ‘beginner’ RPG, long time RPG players such as myself found it pretty easy. But then suddenly at the climax of the story the game suddenly takes a huge turn for the worst and becomes quite difficult, forcing you to spend hours of grinding to strengthen your characters. But I guess as a long time RPG player I’m quite sick of grinding and when I realized I needed to grind, I turned the game off with the intention of coming back to it, but sadly it has been sitting on my shelf for about 2 years now untouched.

Betheo:

SPORE (PC)

I know, I’m probably going to be shot for this, but after evolving to a space faring civilization, I just got over it. It started to feel repetitive once I got into space and really, I just didn’t feel like going anywhere.  So, I guess it was with some regret over the loss of creature customization after spending so long in it, that I basically stopped playing Spore altogether.

That and I seemed to be the universes bitch due to my weakness…

GHOST RECON: ISLAND THUNDER (Xbox, PC)

I know it’s an older game, but it still sticks out in my mind as one of the few militaristic games that I just could not get into. I guess it was the AI that did it for me, both allied and enemy. That, and I really didn’t enjoy the missions all that much, give me urban, or… well, just give me urban. The jungle scene was a pain in the arse.

Lame360Gamer:

TOO HUMAN (Xbox 360)

It was a grind to get all the way to the end with the CONSTANT death sequence that you couldn’t avoid, but I stuck with it all the way up to the end. However, as I had pretty much ignored all the leveling up and building of items, by the time I got to the end the final encounter proved too difficult and almost had me in tears having to go through the sequence again and again and again as I hadn’t powered up enough.

There are other games I have probably given up on out of lack of interest but the above was pure frustration.

ChiefJimbolaya:

ZELDA: PHANTOM HOURGLASS (Nintendo DS)

I’m a huge Zelda fan, so naturally I was super excited when Phantom Hourglass came out. But by the third trip to that stealth palace I was ready to throw my DS through the window. I hate timed levels & missions in video games. And I don’t really like stealth levels. So this double-whammy had me seeing red.

NINJA GAIDEN 2 (NES)

I could never beat the second level. The one where you had to time your jumps with the wind. The few times I did make it to the boss, he killed me so fast I never had a chance to figure out his patterns.

BATTLETOADS (NES, Amiga, SEGA Megadrive, Gameboy)

The bike level has to be one of the most frustrating in history. I don’t think I ever passed that point, which is a shame since the first two levels were so awesome.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (NES)

The underwater level was a killer was the source of much frustration in my childhood.

dkpatriarch:

SONIC UNLEASHED (Xbox 360)

Though I loved the visuals and concept, having to repeat certain races with perfectly timed jumps or boosts just drove me and my poor low-attention-span kids nuts!  Just let us get to the next section already!!!

FROGGER (Arcade and handheld)

Being un-co is annoying at the best of times. It means I’m not co-ordinated enough to quickly process that I’ve seen an enemy player on Live and then aim and shoot quickly enough before he kills me.  It means that games that require perfect hand-eye reaction times inevitably frustrate me…when I was young it was Frogger.  I paid lots of coin at the arcade to have people watch me die in a few seconds. Q: Why did the frog cross the road?  A: Mine didn’t…he just got hit and ‘croaked’.  Groan.

FORZA 2 (Xbox 360)

Forza 2 and in fact most racing games frustrate me because I suck and lose all the time. That is, unless there is a “L” driver mode and stupid bots that let me win…(L is for loser, not learner…) and then you just feel like you are a loser anyway for choosing that easy mode.  Plus I think going round and round the same track is boring, unless there is pretty scenery.  Yes I’m a lost cause when it comes to driving sims…I keep trying but, sorry.

OBLIVION (Xbox 360, PC, PS3)

I love this game and have played more hours on it than any other this gen, but when a glitch (maybe I killed someone I shouldn’t have?) caused a guy to fail to show for a meet for a Dark Brotherhood quest that prevented me from continuing until I restarted the game with a new character…I was beside myself with fury.

GAMES WITH IMPOSSIBLE BOSS FIGHTS (All consoles)

Any boss fight that take perfect knowledge of pattern make me throw my controller out the back deck door.  My memory is like my co-ordination: poor.  I’ve erased said games from my mind due to post traumatic stress and poor recall, but I know there are a lot of them.

darkmurder:

ARMA 2   (PC)

It’s great fun to play Arma 2 (Armed Assault 2) but sometimes building up a great ambush only to have it go horridly wrong can just become too frustrating. You spend ages getting into position only to have your cover foiled by an enemy who hits you with one hit. It’s annoying but so realistic which is also why I love it!

Please share us around

Princess Stomper’s version of Simbelmyne’s version of Beardo’s classic Morrowind house mod. Requires Bloodmoon & Tribunal. Location: Solstheim, near Raven Rock. Sleeps 9.

14.7MB 7zip

Takes Simbelmyne’s Zelda Estate Renovation and transports it to Solstheim, customizing it for a mage character, per the request from FabledWaltz.

New mod comprises:

• Renamed cell ‘Solstheim, Zelda Estate’ at -24,16 (on coast, halfway between Fort Frostmoth and Raven Rock)
• Tower in the Raven Rock style with minor landscaping and decoration
• New ‘Upper Level’ at ground level – Raven Rock-style tower interior with a multilevel layout featuring bathroom (bath restores health) and two small study areas
• ‘Lower Level’ mostly unchanged as Zelda Estate main level: display hall, bedroom, small study-lounge
• Kitchen-dining room mostly unchanged. A barrel scripted for NOM has been added, and the food hutch is respawning
• Alchemy lab enlarged
• Study furnished with sofas for reading area; bookshelves added to form library
• New ‘cellar’ for hot spring swimming pool. Note: collisionboxes stop the player trying to swim out of the ice-pool
• ‘Hidden Rooms’ comprising 3 more bedrooms
• Fast travel via ‘enchanted bottle’ doors to/from Fort Frostmoth docks
• Total house sleeping capacity: 9 people inc hammock on Upper Level

For some reason, when I started working on the mod I noticed it had no path grids or custom lighting. I’ve put both in, and the lighting is green or purple tinged (depending on room) to look more “magical”.

Simbelmyne’s notes:

Several years ago, (10/5/02) Beardo released his classic house mod Zelda Estate, which added a very cozy cottage directly behind the Mages Guild in Caldera. Between its sheer convenience, only a few steps away from the Mages Guild and Folms Mirel (the Master Index npc) and it’s charm it was immediately (and still is) my favorite house mod.

Recently I returned to Morrowind after taking a long break away from the game. I was very impressed with the quality of the modders resources that had been released in my absence and before too long decided to give my favorite home a major renovation.

Beardo has been gracious enough to allow me to release it so I present it to you. The entire house has been given a major overhaul, all of the furniture/shelves have been replaced with rich swirlwood furniture, the bed has been upgraded to a luxurious canopy bed. Numerous upgrades in rugs and tapestries have been made. Version 2.0 also Adds a Kitchen, and a Study.

A host of knick knacks have been added. I’ve left some areas nearly furnished while leaving some open to allow for personalization. Every item has been left “pick up-able” where possible (with a few exceptions) to further allow anyone to make the house their home.

Plenty of storage space is available, and while weapon racks or armor mannequins have not been included (I thought this would be best as everyone has their own taste in these anyway) logical areas have been left open so they can be placed to your liking. (For example, the walls to the left in the new Study.)

(I personally recomend Grumblepunk’s House of Mannequins (link below)

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=939

and Cydine, Maboroshi Daikon and Erstam’s Weapon Rotate (link below)

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=2509

and Book Rotate (link below)

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=1230

A fully functioning Alchemy lab, with sorter capabilities for Morrowind, Tribunal and Bloodmoon) has been hand placed in the downstairs area.(Version 2.0 has moved the Lab to its own Interior Cell to prevent high item count performance issues)

One fireplace was replaced, three were added downstairs. Additionally, several swirlwood display cases were added downstairs.

A friendly cat, Beruthiel can be found lounging about in the bedroom.

Several beautifully modeled weapons have found a home downstairs. All are in usable form, two are simply for decoration (the two rather strong Long Blades) and are marked in Script as NoPickUp by default (these weapons could of course be moved/altered in the CS further to your liking)

I hope you will find the home a pleasant stopping point in your travels, and perhaps even come to enjoy it as much as I always have.

———————————————————————————–

See readme for further notes, installation and credit information.

DOWNLOAD from ElricM

DOWNLOAD from Planet Elder Scrolls

I woke up at 9.00 today, realised I needed to do some laundry. So around 9.10 I had gathered up some clothes and made my way to the laundry room. Sun was shining, and I thought it was gonna be a good day. My access card even worked today, and that doesnt happen every day. So, I make my way in there – I prefer going in the morning; Less people, and I get to choose my fav machines (12 and 13…) – and as I use my laundry card, the machine goes “Cannot read this card, try flipping it over.” That was a stupid idea, cause I know which way it goes. Kept trying a few more times, and it changed its message to “This is not a laundry card.” Standing there with a massive sighface I whisper through my teeth to it “what do you bloody call this then, you noob?!” And magically, that worked. All of the sudden the machine accepted my card.

As I make my way outside again, its raining heavily. So by the time I’ve walked the 50 meters I have to, I’m soaked. And I can see now that it has stopped raining. I just happened to be outside just in time for a local shower. Anyways, now I’ve gotta sit here and wait to go back down to the laundry room, so I’m really just killing time by writing a post. If I boot Oblivion I’ll forget about the whole thing. And that’s not good, wouldn’t want someone else to touch my laundry. <_< I’ve started playing Oblivion again recently, to keep my mind of certain other things. Trying to do most of the quests and keep myself busy. It’s such a huge world, and I really love some of the quests and stories. Done all the expansions too, and they were pretty good. I hadn’t done them before. I remember things from Morrowind that I wished was in Oblivion though, keep mixing fun quests up. Like the Bloodmoon expansion for Morrowind.

I think Morrowind is probably my boyfriends favourite game of all time. I didn’t discover Morrowind when it was released, I wasn’t much into PC games back then. Played Zelda: Ocarina of Time over and over. The water temple is still pretty tricky… Anyways, I haven’t even finished Morrowind yet. I’m sure I will one day… I just tend to start all sorts of games, then I loose interest after a while. The character animation is pretty dodgy in Morrowind, which can be forgiven. Cause it’s an old game that was miles ahead of lots of others back then. But then they actually kept the dodgy animation in Oblivion – and in Fallout 3! I’m not saying anything against the creativity or the brilliance of Bethesda, but when it comes to character animation, they are not in the lead. Anyone who’s played their games will know what I’m talking about. I know it’s risky criticising them, and that you’ll go “Oh yeh?! YOU TRY MAKING A BETTER GAME THEN!!” cause thats what some of you people do. But I know I’m on to something here. Truely beautiful graphics, fantastic stories and quests, awesome ideas, some of my favourite games. But the horse still looks like it’s floating through an area with no gravity when you jump.

We were getting nostalgic yesterday, me and David. Mostly him, but then I followed. We talked about the cartoons we watched while growing up. They were so much better than the stuff people watch today… My favourites were the Animals of Farthing Woods, Noah’s Island, the Forgotten Toys, the Magic Adventures of Mumfie, Tintin, the World of Peter Rabbit and Friends. Stories with soul and hidden messages. Today people watch Spongebob and Ed Edd & Eddy. And I must say, I hate Spongebob. He’s so annoying. Maybe I’m getting too old. Or maybe I’m grumpy. But he’s annoying regardless of that.

Okay, I’ve killed the time I need! Yay!