Yeah, sorry about that...

Looks like I haven't updated ye olde blog for quite some time! I'm really sorry about that, I've been up to my eyeballs in college stuff and all this business for quite a while. I have a pod cast recorded, just not uploaded yet. Me and Rachel get quite drunk toward the end, and the entire topic we talk about has nothing to do with games- but it was fun to record none the less. I got kinda sick of my Oblivion LP, so I'm going to give that a little more of a break before I pick up again.

Also,Deus ex: Human revolution. Get it.

The sheer incomparable rage

After at least an hour of searching, I managed to rediscover my long lost age of empires III CD. Yeah, you read that right- CD.

I'll just let that sink in.

We've got about 3gig of data spread between these 3 CD's, a DVD would of been nice. It's been such a long time that I've even used a CD or a DVD to install a game that this came as a huge shock. The sort of shock that rivals the "HOLY SHIT SAMUS WAS A CHICK THIS WHOLE TIME?" kind of intensity.

The first time I tried to install this game, it hung on the last MP3 of the last disc- so I had to re-install. However, I stand triumphant on my second attempt- discs everywhere and a nearly broken spirit, but I made it. Time for some AoEIII I hear you cry? Well, no as a matter of fact. It turns out that I've got to patch the game, now I can't really complain here if I didn't have to patch this game it would of shown a tremendous lack of care for the online community. Sort of what happened to TF2 on the consoles, but that doesn't matter IT DIDN'T BELONG ON CONSOLES ANYWAY!

So after the patch, myself and a friend of mine were eager to start (finally) playing. We create the game lobby, tweak the options exactly how we like them. Then boom. Something called a CRC mismatch. After a little digging it turns out this error rears its ugly head when two or more people try to play a game together and they don't have the same version. It would of been prudent to mention that we both installed this game TODAY, no mods, no editing the config files or anything. Ergo, we've both got exactly the same version of this game. Yet, it decides not to work regardless of this fact. A few VERY old forum posts suggest that we re-install.

As it goes, I'm currently doing exactly that. I'll edit this post to tell everyone exactly how it goes down. Or out the window depending on the result.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Part Sixteen- Martin got his wish.

After I eventually found myself talking to the countess (again) to inform her of our brilliant plan that makes sense and should never be questioned, she responds in a way I'm sure all of you could never of guessed- it's almost as if this particular quest was wrote by M. Night. Shyamalan himself.


The countess tells us that she hates the plan and would never endanger the lives of her people to obtain a relic that may not even- Oh? She wants to do it?! Oh God damn it Bethesda. This is painful, it's so stupid it's painful. The countess and I head over to the chapel to speak to Martin- who is still set on trying to get himself killed. We're given 3 choices in terms of dialogue here, we can either gather more allies, charge in as we are or claim we're not ready yet (a lot like gathering more allies isn't it?) In the interest of time, I decide not to gather any more allies- I can totally Rambo this thing anyway. As we leave Bruma to enter the Oblivion gate, we're once again greeted by a very Bethesda cheer. I speed off to the quest marker, it's taking these guys as long as it took me to summon up the will to write part 16 to walk. Once there, I'm told by the quest log I need to protect Martin until the great gate opens up. My mission appears to be protect Martin from his own stupidity until enough normal Oblivion gates open up to spawn the big bad gate.


I do exactly that, Ramboing through everything the first gate throws at me. Then accidentally killing Martin with an over powered AOE spell I created.


Whoops.


Time for round 2 then, I don't think I'll be using that spell again. This is exactly why Martin shouldn't come along here, there's no need for it what so ever. If the wanted to turn this entire quest into an escort quest then fine, but why Martin? Simply from a plot standpoint it makes no sense at all to bring him along.


After protecting lord idiot for what felt like forever, the final gate opens up- it's worth noting that I've never got this far in the game before, so I'm calling it right now. I think this last gate will be exactly like the other planes of Oblivion I've been into, but longer. The final gate opens, I step inside and I'm somewhat surprised, it's not exactly the same- and it even looks shorter. It's not unique by any means though. It's more of a gauntlet than anything else, a free XP slalom.


Before I get into what goes down in the Oblivion gate (BET YOU CAN'T GUESS) there's something I wanted to say about the defending Martin quest. I would of found it easier if it was just me, with all these mooks running round getting in my way, I think I may of even killed Jauffre- I guess the plot doesn't need him now. I find this happens in pretty much every Bethesda game I've played, I end up hating most of the companions and laugh when they die.


Next episode- What I hope is the games last fetch quest.

Don't drink the T

Today, instead of writing more parts for my Oblivion LP me & my friend Rachel decided to record a podcast- one we've been planning for quite some time. It covers all the important issues, you know- the name of Albert Wesker's cat, the difference between a janitors penis collection and broom collection- all the important stuff.

It does have some kind of structure, but that's a super secret and you'll have to listen to find out!

Hope you guys enjoy, here it is.


Don't drink the T by CombatCow

Madonna reference

Hey everyone, I'm back from my holiday- it was fantastic!

New Oblivion parts will be up as soon as they're finished, if ya'll interested in where I went- I went to Bloodstock Open Air. I shan't bore you with the details but, I did meet a Scout, Spy and Medic.

I miss the internet.

You may recall me talking about the best piece of graffiti ever in the last video, well we've been playing some more L4D2 and as it turns out, one of the LFD1 maps you can play on it happens to have it. Enjoy

I think I'd miss the youtubes the most.

Left 4 dead 2- Game night

So, here's the second video. My mic is way too loud for a lot of this, it doesn't help that I get a bit over-excited and start shouting like a mad man, L4D2 does that to me. I suppose that is the structure of the game nights. It's not planned, we just talk and play. I promise you, when I start my video LP's I'll be far more coherent (and no where near as loud)

I think this video does the game justice, it really is as hectic as you'll see here. Anyway I'm going away for 5 days this coming Thursday, so I'm afraid I won't be posting anything until I get back. That's everything, I think. Well, one more thing.

I love me some zombies.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Part Fifteen- From those guys that brought you that stuff, it's more of the same.

Hello and welcome to- OH GOD I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE PLEASE NO MORE FETCH QUESTS MARTIN. Okay, fine. After finding Mankrik's wife we've gotta run back through the Barrens and give him the bad news- she's nothing but a corpse.

Alright, for real now no more fake-outs I promise.

Martin wants me to find something else for him, this time it's a Welkynd stone, it's some rare stone or whatever. I'm not really sure what it does, there's no real information on them in game- that I've found- and I refuse to have to read a wiki to understand plot details. They should be made clear in the game. So, off I go again. For another “mystical” item that I'm told we need. Around here, if you had not guessed is where I start to get a little sick of playing Oblivion. It's not that It's bad, it's just monotonous.

I get to “ruin 31b” otherwise known as Miscarcand it's- once inside it looks just like every other Alyeid ruin in the game- but bigger. This is the exact reason I've never got further than this in the main quest line. It's so powerfully dull. Nothing of interest happens in these ruins, other than it's obnoxiously designed, extremely maze like classic Bethesda interior.

I killed the big bad here, an enemy I've been warned about, I'm told he's really powerful and guarding this stone with his life. However, he's an enemy I've been fighting for about 5 levels now- a lich- the only thing that's different about him is the name. I pick up the stone and leave as quickly as possible.

Martin tells me he needs one more thing, a great sigil stone. Getting this one won't be as easy (and hopefully as boring) as the last 3 items. As it turns out, to get one of these- I need to take it from an entrance to Oblivion- not any gate though, a great gate. The kind that the Mythic Dawn tried to open outside Bruma, the plan I've been working toward stopping. Ugh. The plan is to tell the countess we're going to let the Mythic Dawn Kvatch their town, so we can get a magick stone to open a portal to get a necklace. Oh yeah, she'll take it well.

Martin also wants to lead the attack on the great gate, so he's going to enter a pissing contest with me out of some misplaced sense of honour. It's a terrible idea, what if he bloody dies?!

Just as planned the countess takes it like a pro, at least I assumed she would of if I wasn't arrested the moment I went into Bruma... I don't even remember doing anything wrong, I'm like 70k deep in gold so I don't need to steal, I haven't murdered any innocent bystanders because they looked at me wrong. I'M INNOCENT.

After that little distraction, it's time to speak to the countess- for real this time.

The current contents of my coin purse.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Part Fourteen- Fetch quests, Fuuuuuuuu

After a short horse journey from Cloud Ruler temple, I arrive at Bruma- an oblivion gate has spawned outside and they need me- the hero of Kvatch- to shut it down. Despite how god damned easy it is. Burd (stupid name, I know) asks me if I'm ready to solve all their problems without any pay what so ever. I begrudgingly tell him that I'll “help” them and tell all the NPC's to wait right at the entrance of the gate, they do nothing to draw the attention of enemies. Time start the Oblivion gate dance.

Turns out Bethesda is trolling me “No CombatCow, you can't close this oblivion gate without our piss poor programmed NPC's looks like you're walking all the way back to the start of the level then” So, after doing THAT- I can close the gate. Apparently, the whole point of bringing Burd along with me was to show him how to turn off one of these gates. That just simply isn't enough justification, the first time I ran into one of these things I killed everything that looked at me, and broke everything that looked important. It's not like I had a plan or anything, I refuse to believe that the Bruma guard isn't able to figure out that the HUGE GLOWING STONE at the top of the MASSIVE TOWER isn't important.

Back to Cloud Ruler temple then, Martin seems to have some more information for me.

He's figured out the 2^nd item I need to open Mankar's portal, the blood of a God- turns out that this blood is inside the armour of Tiber Septim. It's just dawned on me now, these Martin quests are all god damned fetch quests. Jauffre also gave me a quest, this quest is where I normally give up on the main story line. It's pretty much “close X Oblivion gates” the reason behind having to do it is pretty flimsy, Bruma is going to be attacked soon, turned into the new Kvatch, so I need to gather up a bunch of guys to help them out. Each city has a couple to offer, but only when I've closed an Oblivion gate for them. Screw that quest, I'm not doing it until I absolutely have to.

Let's go find this armour.

I get to Sancre Tor- the amours resting place- and it looks exactly like every other god damn castle ruin you go into. I can understand having to copy paste level design for side quests (doesn't mean I have to like it though) but ctrl-Ving something for the main quests? That's just damn lazy. After walking around for a while, I kill a skeleton dressed in blades gear, easy enough fight. However, killing this particular mob spawns his ghost. His ghost tells us that he can finally complete his masters last request, that last request happens to be ridding the evil that has corrupted this place. Turns out that there's some more of these guys milling about, once I free them I guess I can get the amour? I have no idea, but it's what the quest marker is saying.

After killing, rather saving all of the blades guys I'm told it's time to cleanse the evil from the shrine. Onward to the only unique bit of level design in this ruin, and the amour. Having fetched this McGuffin for Martin, it's time to throw it in his stupid World of warcraft quest giver face.

Run shadowmere, show us the meaning of haste!

Schedule

I've been talking with a friend of mine today, and she's into being a guest blogger for me now & again. We sat around today chatting about possible ideas for the blog and it's made me consider creating a bit more of a solid schedule. So far I've got 3 projects in mind, two of them we've seen a little of. The first would be the written LP I'm doing of oblivion, in it's current state I'm not 100% happy with it. I haven't quite got my writing style down and it tends to be a bit long in places, hopefully over time I'll perfect my art. Next up on my written LP list is most likely going to be Alan Wake, a game I quite enjoyed- but haven't met many people that agreed with me.

I've also got the "Game nights" series that I've got a video for. It was more of a test than anything else. I was, however, pleasantly surprised about how it turned out. I've not that much experience in creating videos, later installments should be on the way soon.

Next up is more or less of a mix of my other two projects. I'll be doing a LP of a single player game, I'm thinking the original Paper Mario and commenting on the games with a few friends, hopefully ones that haven't played the game before. This series, when it starts, will be a lot more organised than the "Game night" segments, for example- we'll be talking about the game and not the difference between terrorists and freedom fighters.

Also, I've created a gmail for any questions, requests or love letters. You'll see it floating above the most recent post.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Part Thirteen- If you can't show it off, why keep it?

We arrive at cloud ruler temple, and Jauffre has dressed himself in something a little less priest like, and a lot more "I'll fuck your shit up". He's after the amulet he sent us to get, sadly we don't have it. However, we've got an awesome consolation prize. A book! Wow, that's the 2nd McGuffin that's been a book- and we're only 4 or 5 quests into the main story. He only seems slightly peeved that we didn't manage to get the amulet, good news there I suppose. We inform him that we've got Mankar's book and we're told to go visit Maritn, let's hope he can help.

Apparently the book is dangerous to even handle, and Martin knows how to protect himself from it. That would of been nice to know when I was lugging it around for one and half in game months! So, after succumbing to the power of evil and bringing about the destruction of the world we- oh, you mean it was just a plot line that doesn't go anywhere? Martin tells me that he may be able to learn how to open the same portal Mankar used, so we can reclaim the amulet. Sadly, we need to play some of the games padding before "a few days" pass and Martin can help. 

It appears Jauffre is having some trouble with spies in Bruma, so I guess we're off to sort that out for him. It's not like he's got the entire blades at his disposal. I've spoken to the captain of the Bruma guard, he doesn't seem worried about the spies- the only event that seems to remotely concern him is the holiday plans of a person called Jearl. I break into Jearls house, screw waiting for her to come out. And oh no. She's one of the spies. What a huge twist. In all honesty though, I was more or less surprised when I first did this quest. So, I kill her to death and sort of  killed the other spy that was also in the same room, I didn't even notice her. The wonders of AOE's hey? We pick up a key, and enter the not so hidden basement pick up the spies plans, that weren't in code or hidden somewhere that wasn't in a basement barely hidden by a rug. It turns out Jauffre wants to see them.

So, nothing really comes of that quest line, bar that Martin has made some progress deciphering that evil book of ours. Turns out that one of the four steps to open this portal is the blood of a Deadric lord. Say, don't the Deadric artifacts have blood in them? I've only got all 15 of them though, it's going to be tough choosing one that I don't want anymore. Looks like it's going to have to be the Ebony blade- it didn't fit in my display case.

Now, before Martin can figure out the next part of the book- Jauffre has more filler for me to complete. And it's the worst kind of filler, Oblivion gates...

Counter Strike Source: The experiment.

So, as one of my last posts said. I didn't have any sleep, and decided to  mess with Fraps. This is the result, once I've finished my Oblivion LP I've decided I'm going to do a video LP, I'll still be doing written ones- but not as often. Until the Oblivion LP is over, I'm just going post some of my gaming nights with my friends, and hope they end up being funny.

So with no more gilding the lily here it is! Whatever it is...

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Part Twelve- Alas, poor adoring fan! I knew him, Bethesda

I've completed countless side quests at this point, mainly to get enough cash to buy loads of alchemy related business. Once you get that to level 100, you can make a potion out of one ingredient. This pretty much gives you the ability to have infinite money forever. There's two reasons why I'm writing about very few of the side quests, whilst they are fun they're not particularly interesting in any way- from a writing stand point. Also, if I were to write about all my quests. This LP would go on a lot longer than it already will.

I've got about 2 side quests I want to write about before we get locked into the main story line. One of them is more of a situation I ran into whilst on a side quest, not the quest itself. Now, we all remember the adoring fan- the best character in the entire game. I normally use him to help all my loot whilst exploring, I ran into a particularly nasty cave when playing though another side quest, full of spriggans. My adoring fan was following me carrying a vast amount of loot, and we ran into one of the aforementioned beasts and it seemed VERY interested in my fan, and not the guy shooting lightning out of his eyes. The spriggan struck him down with one blow, and I finished it off. After a moment of reflection, I realised I didn't even know this kids name. He's dead. He had a family, maybe and girlfriend and looked about 12. He's been helping me for quite a long time and now he's gone forev- oh, I get another one? Sweet. Guess it doesn't matter that I left his clone rotting inside a random cave then.

I believe I've said before, the Dark Brotherhood quest line is my favourite in the entire game. In interest of time (again) I'm only going to gloss over one of them. I wouldn't necessarily call this my favourite part of the quest line- but it's the most interesting to write about. If you're curious, my favourite part of the quest line is “The assassinated man” where you need to help someone fake their own death to escape some unsavoury characters. It's just a very interesting and fun quest to play, unique in comparison to every other “go here, do this” quest you pick up.

The quest I'm going to write about however, in more detail at least, is “Whodunit?” It is, of course as awesome as it sounds.

Before I get into the meat of the quest, there's one point about the Dark Brotherhood storyline that could be slightly improved, just with dialogue- Bethesda dialogue at that.

You've got no real reason to assassinate your targets, bar just being told to do it. Quest rewards, in the form of money or items simply isn't enough if you wish to role play a character. If there were just a few extra dialogue options, telling me what they had done and why our client wanted them assassinated. Adding something as simple as this could greatly increase the depth of the world.

Now, onto the quest itself. We're tasked with assassinating the entire contents of a mansion in Skingrad, a man greets us outside- called Fafnir. He tells us we have the same mother, a not so subtle hint that he knows we're here to kill everyone. Obviously Bethesda assumed we wouldn't of got that very well hidden clue as to Fafnir's allegiance we loudly states that we're here to kill everyone. Smooth, I know. The house party has 5 members, not including myself. Each of them have preferences toward another, for example Dovesi Dran has got the hots for Primo and this can be used to the player advantage, getting Dovesi in a room alone for example. This, to my knowledge is the only quest that offers such a large array of dispatching your targets. I won't get into detail about how I did it, because of time constraints. I will however, write about how I killed one of the party goers- just to give you a general idea of how the quest works.

The first person you run into is a old lady named Matilde Petit, I fill her pockets full of coin until she is ready to tell me what she really thinks about the other people at the party. It turns out she likes Primo & Neville dislikes Dovesi & nels. I can't really do that much with this information at the minute, so I decide to throw more gold at the dark elf- Dovesi. As we know, she likes Primo- so we tell her that he likes her too and that she should wait in his room. Giving us the perfect opportunity to kill her, without any witnesses. There is of course no “right” way to do this quest, but I favour manipulating the guests based on their views of the other people in the house. Simply put, this quest is fun, funny, creative, interesting and more or less unique.

Alas, I shan't be completing any more side quests. It's the main story from here on out.

Sleep deprivation = Counter strike?

I've just finished up a bit of a session of "gun games" on Counter-Strike source. I've been a bit busy recently, and haven't slept for 30 something hours. It seemed like a good idea at the time, tomorrow I'll sift through the recordings and post anything that isn't terrible or complete nonsense. Then you can all hear my luuuvvly voice. Wait, I sound odd on these recordings. You mean I don't have an incredible sexy voice?


Least I've still got my abs and long flowing locks of golden hair.

I swear, it's a work in progress.

Hey ya'll, as I'm sure you might of guessed I've pretty much slapped a default theme on this blog and left it at that. I'm trying to make it look a little more attractive, so the post rate is going to slow down for a little while. The page is going to be very much a cluster fuck of ideas I have until I can finalize a design I'm happy with.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Part eleven- I don't want to live in this kingdom anymore.

I wait around in the book store for Gwinas, the poor sod I nicked the pre-order from. If this guy was looking for the 3^rd volume, it's logical to assume he's into this whole demon worship thing. So I bully him into telling me where I can get the 4^th edition.

Time for a shady meeting. In the sewer. For a book.

I head into the sewer, and claim the book- after some murder, of course. Barus, much to my frustration survives and leaves for cloud ruler temple. The 4 books lead me to a grave in the Imperial city, that at a certain time lights up and reveals their secret base. Yeah, you read that right. No one, at all, has ever mentioned this. The Emperor never knew, neither did the guards, beggars, that guy from the quest I forget that only comes out AT NIGHT when the secret base map is revealed! Christ, if anyone paid the slightest bit of attention I could be happily rotting in my jail cell.

I get to the not so secret base, and I'm faced with a choice. Disarm, disrobe and give them everything I have that's awesome. Or, murder spree. So yeah, it's murderin' time Isrisuir is totally getting his kill on, also these guys killed the Emperor I guess they should die, or whatever. To provide you guys with a better idea of the quest, I'll describe what you're meant to do- opposed to what I did because it'll be more in line with cannon and it'll give me something to write about that isn't along the lines of “Everyone died, the end”

So, the player character is supposed to is enter the secret base under of the guise of wanting to join the Mythic Dawn. To do so, we have to hand in all our equipment and put on an Mythic Dawn robe. Now, if the player is a mage- this matters very little as they don't cut off your hands or cut out your tongue. We're lead further into the cave as we're told that Mankar Camoran, the leader of the cult, is here. A perfect opportunity to kill him off no? Well, sort of. You can attack him, but you can't kill him. So, we stand around and listen to him speech, after this he leaves. Leaving behind the “Mysterium Xarxes” our next McGuffin. Before I can get that though, the player is faced with another choice. We're tasked with killing- what we can assume is an innocent- as an initiation into the Mythic Dawn. However, this is a fake choice. Either way you'll be incurring the wrath of the Mythic Dawn, on a first play though this could come as quite a shock- on a second? Killing the sacrifice makes no sense what so ever.

However, my aforementioned plan of action was to kill absolutely everyone in the cave. No one was spared, not even the sacrifice. We can't read the book, it's full of funky symbols and the like. So the plan of action is to take it to cloud ruler temple, maybe martin can help. Before we do that though, there a few things I want to touch on. The first few brotherhood quests, the recommendation mage quests and a poor soul I met in my travels.

To unlock the ability to enchant my weapons, clothes and create my own spells I've taken up the mage guild recommendation quests. Something that I've been up to but haven't been writing about is the mage guild quests. In favour of time I've abstained from saying anything about them, I think. At this point I'm so far into the review that I may repeat some things I've said before. Even if I wasn't trying to keep this LP shortish I would still gloss over them, they're simply underwhelming. There's one quest that I will talk about, and that's the Bravil mage recommendation. I can't remember doing it before now, although I have. The quest marker lead me to another lizard lady, her friend is trapped in a dream. I need to break into his dream with a team of attractive people, namely Leonardo Dicaprio and rescue him. You're forced to go through a couple tests they're all very dull. One however, is very broken. You're tasked with walking over a path, certain parts of the path will do huge damage if you step on them- others will allow you safe passage. You need to do this 3 times, so it's pretty much like that scene in the last crusade times three. However, due to inexplicable distance you can jump it's stupidly easy to skip.

But that's not the mage quest. I don't know if this is a bug, or a requirement. But I wasn't allowed to ask for a recommendation until I did this quest. Once again, the recommendation itself was once again dull. Something about a staff, I really didn't care after I figured it was a fetch quest. After a couple pointless recommendation quest, I'm now tasked with heading to the arcane university to become a fully fledged mage, for, uh training? Despite the fact I could single handily kill everyone in there.

I can't remember any of this quest line, but for the sake of time I'm going to skip them all- I may not even play them. As a matter of fact, I'm most certainly not going to play any more of them and here's why.

I had just crafted my own spell & enchanted up the rest of my gear, I decided to loot the entire room for junk to sell (for some reason joining the guild entitles you to all their stuff) and I managed to pick up the ONE god damn item that they didn't want me to take, so I've accidentally stole from mages guild and now I have to collect 20 dragon tongues and Redwart flowers. Screw that, despite the bug that allows only one set of 20 to be turned in for the quest to be completed.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Part Ten- Money makes the world go round.

Martin is a bit overwhelmed about being Picard's next of Kin, understandably of course. He directs us to Jauffre, who first asks us to join up with the blades. I was kind of shocked here, you do get a choice. You don't have to join up. This epic, powerful club that can give us access to weapons, maybe training? The protectors of the Emperor himself! Nah, I'll pass.

Next order of business, that Muppet Barus is still kicking and we're told he may of learnt something about the assassins, so off we go to see him. I dabbled in a few side quests before I got there, most importantly I saved Kvatch. I also killed an innocent, accidentally of course. Lord Voldemort's clan seemed like to this, and want to invite me into their awesome club. I'll accept the quest, it's my absolute favourite quest line- I'll get round to that. For know, time to speak to Barus.

In true oblivion fashion, I've been completely derailed from the plot because of my (what can only be described as) addiction to complete side quests. Seeing as the dark brotherhood quest line is my favourite one in the entire game, at least it's my favourite one I've came across before. I won't be spending that much time talking about it after these few paragraphs, but I will include my thoughts of some the best & worst aspects of it as they come to light. As I've mentioned before, to get the dark brotherhood to contact you, you'll need to kill an innocent person. Accidental or otherwise. In playing Oblivion I often find it hard to not accidentally kill someone, the AI isn't exactly fantastic. Consequently, I nearly always end up with this quest.

The next time you sleep you'll be confronted by a speaker of the dark brotherhood, they're pretty much recruitment agents. He'll give a “virgin blade” as a gift, and ask of you a fairly simple task. You need to travel to the inn of ill omen and kill a man. This, although simple, is one of the best parts of the quest line for me. More often or not it'll be a mistake when you kill someone innocent, but this quest asks the player to make a choice. To choose to kill an innocent. That's a powerful choice, even more so if you're role playing.

If the player does decide to kill this man, a whole set of very interesting assassination missions open up. Using mechanics that I haven't seen anywhere else in the game, for example rigging certain parts of the environment to fall and crush a man in his sleep. Each contract that you get has extra requirements, that make the assassination attempt a little harder, whilst these aren't necessary I'll often reload my save if I don't complete them. Completing these quests feel important to me, something that a lot of Bethesda's games can't seem to replicate. Feeling like the world is happening around you, like you're effecting it and what you do really matters.

Anyway, I suppose Barus has waited long enough.

So I approach Barus, and he decides to be all black ops about this meeting. He asks me to follow him when he gets up, because one of the guys in the tavern is part of the Mystic Dawn- Christ these guys are everywhere. I glare at Barus sardonically and agree, despite how I could totally murder the crap out of this guy right now and get away with it. Believe it or not this man is a member of the Mystic Dawn, I know right? I'm just as surprised as you.

So we murder him in the basement, obviously the barkeep doesn't think it strange that 3 men just walked into his basement, he also doesn't find it strange that only 2 left. After our basement shenanigans Barus informs me that someone at the arcane university can help me with this whole Mythic Dawn thing. Tar-Meena. Or lizard lady if you're struggling to pronounce that. Lizard lady tells me that if I'm to find the Mythic Dawn I need to find 4 of these books, together they reveal the location of their super secret base. I found the first of the nameless basement murder drone, I've “borrowed” the arcane university's second book. I'm told the third may be at the book store, and the fourth? It's a mystery, I'm told. I head on over to the book store, and as luck would have it- he's got one copy of the 3^rd volume left! However, someone else has pre-ordered it. After a fist full of gold and one persuasion spell he decides to give it to me. Yeah, screw that guy- money can get you EVERYWHERE.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Part Nine- 0/1 Illegitimate future Emperors saved.

I've completed a lot more side quests that I've listed, mainly to keep this thing as short as possible it's already at like 6 pages. However, it's partly to do the fact that a lot of the side quests are just variations on get this, go there, kill him. I won't be leaving out any of the story missions, I will however do my best to sum them up instead of running though all of them. Story elements that I love/hate will be given a lot of attention though.

On a lighter note, I found a nice little surprise I've never come across. A unicorn! Now before I crack it open like piñata and drink it's blood, I'm riding this bad ass all the way to the next shrine in the distance, this particular prince is called Hircine. Before I get his quest I need to do two things, the first one is hit level 17- the second? Kill myself a bear or wolf for its pelt. Soon as I got off the unicorn, the bloody thing bolted. So I sent a firebolt its way, and ground up its horn stuffed it in a bottle and sold it. That's how I roll.

Up until now I've been treating the side quests like the main quest and avoiding the main quests like the plague, but now I'm going to try and finish off a few of the main story line quests. So, I believe I left the main plot alone after I was asked to head to Kvatch, I suppose that's my next destination.

Ah, Kvatch a beautiful town filled with vibrant plant life and a bustling economy. Oh. Guess not any more. Silly me for expecting something to work out in my favour for once! Hirtel tells me to run, run for the hills- Kvatch has been over run, turns out that a oblivion gate has opened right on its door step. I suppose I'm the only one that close it? Yeah, thought so.

The gate itself looks great, it's one of the most aesthetically pleasing parts of the game to me. However, stepping inside is a completely different matter. So much so that it's almost offensive. I find these parts of the game dull and repetitive, more so than the same copy pasted caves I trek through. Nothing interesting ever seems to happen in these zones. You go in, press the self destruct button/take the orb. Whatever. You place collapses and you get a free enchantment, two if you smash the action button enough. I would describe what transpires when I enter this first gate, but I pretty much just did.

Perfect, that gate is destroyed- I managed to find myself 3 enchantment stones- must have been smashing the action button pretty hard. I bind the first enchantment to the shackles you get at the beginning of the game, I like having my character wear them to remind him of his crimes. The other two, to random weapons so I can sell them for more. I'll tell the captain of the guard the way is clear, and before I can go looking for Martin I'll need to make a quick stop at the shop.

I clear out of the courtyard of Kvatch, and enter the chapel. Who do I find? The one, the only the illegitimate son of Captain Picard. Martin! Before I get into what I did next, I wanted to personally scold Bethesda for adding great voice actors in their game, and hardly using them. Patrick Stewart died in the first 15 minutes. Liam Neeson, disappears for most of fallout 3, and when you find him commits suicide for what has to be the most stupid sacrifice of all time. Sean Bean sticks around for most of the main plot in oblivion, so he pretty much isn't in it for me. Malcolm McDowell gets blown up by circular logic in fallout 3, after a couple of lines (unless you put up with the radio that is) Ron Perlman gives one speech at the start of fallout 1 through to new Vegas. Matt Perry plays a complete asshole in new Vegas, it's practically law to kill him as soon as you can, and of course Felicia Day voices a character I didn't run into until my 3^rd playthrough. I could go on, my point is- stop getting awesome people to do bit parts. ALL YOUR OTHER VOICE ACTORS CAN'T POSSIBELY BE HUMAN.

Anyway, I meet Martin inside the chapel, and he rather quickly accepts the fact he's going to be the Emperor now. There is another part of the quest to finish here, sorting out the rest of Kvatch. However, that can be taken care of after Martin is safe. Off to Weynon priory, the place where I got loads of free loot. In a non sarcastic way, after the mess at Kvatch I really thought this place would be in good shape when I get there. Obviously I'm wrong, it seems to be overrun by those pesky Mythic Dawn again. Those bastards that killed the Emperor and his sons! It seems that the plot demands the amulet of kings had to left with the dolts in Weynon priory instead of me, the wizard that can pretty much kill everything. Due to that powerfully stupid oversight, it's been stolen!

The bad guys don't seem to know about Martins existence, but we're informed they soon will- somehow. We have to take him somewhere safer than the last safe house, so as long as it has a few people defending it it'll probably do better. The game developers don't seem to want us to see any of their world, so we're given the ability to fast travel their from the get go- and that's exactly what I did. Once there we get a very Bethesda style rally, for those of you not yet used to the voice acting provided by Bethesda we get a very bland “yaay hail”

The icy cold, vacant, stare of an oblivion character model.

Oblivion: The Elder Scrolls. Part Eight- Dear Diary

At this point in the game, I'm level 10 and nothing has happened plot wise I can't be dealing with this “plot” people keep telling me about, I've just picked up one of the “almost there” quests I've ran into in previous playthroughs. I believe it's called “A brotherhood betrayed” It's about some poor bloke that's been killed by a vampire hunter, because he thinks he's a vampire. The circumstances surrounding his death are strange at best. I'm tasked with having stunted awkward conversations with various NPC's around town until I find the whereabouts of this so called vampire hunter. I'm lead to a tavern where people have seen him, and I ask the owner where he's got to.

Apparently he won't share that information with me until I'm his friend, to avoid the terrible, terrible mini game that is speechcraft I throw bribes at his face until his disposition is maxed out. It hits 68 and that's that. No higher. I guess it's time to go learn a couple of spells to persuade him further, and I wish that included shooting lightning out of my eyes. Spoiler warning, it doesn't.

So, I use “seductive charm” on a man I really wouldn't want to seduce and he tells me where the vampire hunter is staying. He also gives me the key to his room, I guess a back rub does go a long way. I've managed a find a very badly hidden dairy in the vampire hunters room, it speaks of a adventure club he used to be part of. They found this item and each of them took a key, the idea being the last person alive would have all the keys and could obtain the item. Like that one Simpson’s episode.

At this point, it starts to look very shaking that the man accused of being a vampire was a vampire at all. It turns out that the other members of this club has been hunted down as vampires too. The city watch saw the vampire hunter heading into a cave called Boreal stone cave. Before I make the 5 or so minute journey to that cave, I wanted to bitch about something I've already complained about once before. The world is so god damn empty. I think this is why I find it so hard to role play in this game. There's no interesting character interaction, no random events (that I've seen) and the environment, as pretty as it is, repeats itself over and over again.

I'm here at the cave, surprisingly it looks just like every other cave. This orc bastard tells me he was an idiot for leaving that journal around- and I agree with a fireball to the face. Why he wrote down his master plan in the first place is beyond me. I can only imagine it went something like this.

Sundas, heartfire 16, 3E433

Oh. My. Gosh. I've got this totally awesome plan, you're NOT going to believe it journal. Me and my EX-best friends hid this super cute locket in a chest a few years back. We locked it up tight with 3 separate locks. The game is that after one of us dies, that lock gets unlocked. The last person alive gets the treasure! It's the most morbid fun I can think of.

Anyway, I can't write much more. I have to go pretend to be a vampire hunter and kill my friends- claiming they're vampires so I can get their keys! I guess I could just break the chest open, but I've already bought my fake ID. Murder it is.

Gee, I sure hope no one finds this. TTL journal.

XXX

Here's the quest really takes a turn for the worst, you open the chest and the contents is rather disappointing, it's just some crappy necklace. If the quest ended there it would have been perfect. 2 innocent people and one not so innocent person died for this measly locket. That is a good story, but sadly it's not the case. The game feels it has to reward you in some way, so you take the locket to the dead guys wife and she claims it has hidden powers that only she can invoke. Hey presto the locket did secretly have magick powers! If Bethesda just cut out this last part to the quest it would have been a personal favourite of mine.

I know a few paragraphs ago I sort of called this game shit, just without those exact words. That is most definitely not the case. Those things only become apparent to me when I'm exploring. The city’s do feel as alive as anywhere populated by Bethesda voice actors could be. For me, the good outweighs the bad here.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Part Seven- Specialized animations? In my Bethesda game?

I did discover one interesting thing though, one of the Daedric shrines. I believe there is 15 of them. These are interesting little side quests that often provide fun little assignments to do, one that I will always remember is the quest you get given by the prince named Sanguine, he asks you to crash at party and cast a spell that removes everyone’s clothes. The shrine I came across was Namiras- I needed to be level 5 to start the quest. It did however, get an entry in my log- apparently I need to be less attractive for her to want to speak to me, I'm told I do that by getting my personality down to at least 20, I know exactly how I plan to achieve that- cheap wine- but for now everything is on hold until I get my 50k or something more interesting happens along the way.

Upon my many returns to the market place I've managed to accidentally pick up a quest, one of my least favourite of all time “unfriendly competition” It's not that it's that stupid, or long- nothing like that. I've just done it countless times as it's so easy to pick up just wandering around the marketplace. I don't want to describe it in great deal because it doesn't showcase any great or terrible points about this game, I will however sum it up.

The quest starts when you talk to one of the many traders in the market district, they've got a little club going on that one particular person- the owner of the copious coin purse- doesn't want to play ball with everyone else. He's selling goods way cheaper than the “agreed terms” of the super secret best friends club and they're pissed. The leader of the club asks you to talk to him about joining, and guess how that turns out? You follow him around for reasons I don't care to remember and he meets with a character with a slightly shady disposition. You then have to follow this dubious fellow, find out where he lives. He leads to evidence that shows he's been stealing clothes from graves, you kill him- tell the owners and the super best friends club is complete.

After that sidetrack from my sidetrack, I'm back to searching more caves, forts and ruins. My very own coin purse is getting close to 10k now and I've also hit level 5, that means I can do a quest that I've never done before. The Daedric shrine. I need to bring my personality down to at least 20 points, mine is currently 40- so chug two bottles of cheap wine and I'm sorted.

So. Namiras has asked me to aid a group of followers she has “The Forgotten” they’ve been worshipping her in their way, in the dark covered in filth and the like. Until recently they've been left undisturbed, but now she's asked me to aid them. To stop a certain bunch of pesky priests from showing them the light. I've been given a spell to cast on the priests, and The Forgotten will “finish them off”, now this is exactly why I like these quests so much. A lot of the quests you'll find yourself doing seem like nothing but random acts of kindness, but you still feel compelled to do them. They're quests, and I hate having a quest log filled with incomplete quests. Not only are these quests a nice change of pace, they're a little stranger than what's normally asked of you.

I enter Anga, and I'm greeted by nothing but darkness. All 4 of the priests and wandering the ruins holding torches that keep The Forgotten away from then, each reciting passages from what I assume is their holy text. My spell I've been giving puts out their lights and lets the forgotten kill them. I thought this was a fantastic side quest, it didn't over stay its welcome. The chanting of the priests was a brilliant touch, and surprisingly they were all voiced by different people. However, the forgotten were not. They were all voiced by the same 2-3 people, and seeing as there were roughly 10 of them you heard the same line over and over. Talking to any one of them warranted the same response, one line of dialogue and they walked away. They didn't look filthy, or malnourished- just pale. The only thing that singled them out from the priests was the fact they crouched and wore different clothes.

Back to Namiras to claim my reward, and it's a bloody good one. I'm given a ring that reflects 10% of spell damage and 12% of all physical damage. Well worth the quest, seeing as I always enjoy these little distractions.

To elaborate on a previous point, when I mentioned newer Bethesda games front loading all of their cool stuff in the first few hours of the game. I've been walking around, in the ass end of nowhere. I've discovered a ruin called Belda. The centrepiece of this place is this fantastic statue, of some kind of angel or winged creature. It's obviously weathered, falling apart and covered in moss. I think it's brilliant, and if this was fallout 3- Bethesda would of built a city around it.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Part Six- The finest green tights around.

I head to the market place, and fantastic it's raining! I offload a whole load of crap in the mystic emporium and purchase myself the ability to cast “heal major wounds” Then I move on down to the next shop to adorn myself in the finest green tights and shirt you can imagine. Another of my annoyances reared its ugly head here, I tried to speak to the shop keeper, to get myself some gold trimmed shoes (they're all the rage these days) and I accidentally pinched something she had on her desk, she calls the guards from inside her shop and they spring into action and arrest me, I didn't get a chance to calm her down, speech check her or even murder her before she called the guards and they hauled me away for the ONE GOLD fine I had to pay.

After getting out of jail, buying a few sets of clothes and making some gold via smashing bread and tobacco together to make some kind of potion I start to fall into the trap I always do, my own agenda. First things first on my list, I need a house. To get a house I need gold, and I've a few ways of obtaining it. I could fight in the arena, but then I'd need to wear that god awful battle dress. I could start a couple of guild quests and slowly work my way up the ranks, but I think pillaging old caves and ruins is my best bet for now. So, time to find some free stuff.

On my travels I met an old man that needed some help defeating fish, I laughed in his face and moved on. After making a choice like that, to berate the old man, I thought he'd still offer me his quest if I asked him again. Kudos to Bethesda though, he refused to talk to me. If it had been the other way round, this would of certainly been an immersion breaker for me.

No sooner than exploring Fort Nikel & Ash, plus a few unlucky farmers harvests I've accidentally stumbled upon the plot. A nice stable hand named Eronor informs me that if Jauffre isn't complaining, sleeping or eating that he'll be in Weynon house, he's also the 5^th bloody person to recommend the fighters guild to me. After telling Jauffre what's what, he tells me the man I'm looking for is in Kvatch. Well, I'm sure that it'll be in perfect condition and not destroyed or anything. Before I leave, I ask for more “assistance” he unlocks a chest and tells me I can take anything I need, that'll be everything then. Thanks bro. After using Jauffre's chest to store some items I plan to sell after I sell its prior occupants I make my way to the city.

I plan to buy the most expensive house in the game, coming in at around 50k for the house + all upgrades. The main reason for this pricey choice Is because of the servant you can buy, and she'll bring you food and drink if you ask, another quest is also linked to this house. I can't recall the name of it now, but I do know it has something to do with treasure. So yeah, I pretty much need this place. I expect the plot will have a few more developments before I can afford this house, so don't expect it to be the next thing I write about, if I write about it at all.

But for now, more money making- most likely in the form of alchemy.

After pillaging the Pillaged mine, I make a rather interesting discovery, I've not slept once yet. I haven't levelled once yet. Yet I've got my alchemy skill at around 50. God damn it. I make a quick stop in a little inn at Bruma, I'm told there's a wonderful room for 25 gold a night. I take it. Hopefully I'll wake up a couple of levels higher.

After reaching level 3, hitting just under 70 intelligence I continue with my grand money making scheme, heading into the snow covered peaks near Bruma for some quick gold. I found very little in the short time I spent in the mountains, one or two bandits and a couple of wolfs and herbs. It brings me to another complaint I have about this game, at times the world can seem completely barren. Devoid of all life, and that is certainly not a quality any good RPG should have.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Part Five- Screw it. Willpower.

This character build isn't going to be one of those mega custom builds, but it should be fun- and with that in mind for my major skills I choose all the schools of magic for being a bad ass wizard, and alchemy so I can make an insane amount of gold. So, it's exactly the default mage build they offer you, but I made it- so it's better. Yeah.

After setting my skeleton minion on a few hapless rats, and draining the very life out out a couple of goblins I see the exit to the sewer. Activate retcon mode, at this point in the game Bethesda gives you chance to change anything and everything that you might not like about your character. I, of course have created the most bad ass wizard in all of history so such a function is useless to me.

I haven't played a default build since I first played this game on release, but I've got to say so far I'm really enjoying the mage. Some of spells seem a bit superfluous, but I really do get the sense that my character is quite powerful already.

Before I start getting into why I'm not going to do the main storyline for at least 4-5 hours I wanted to briefly touch on the levelling system. Personally, I used to be on other side of the fence than I am now. Consequently I can see where the complaints for the system come from. If you dive into this game without knowing how it works, you can get yourself stuck in some rather hard battles. Before I picked this game up I wanted to do a little bit of research into the best builds, I did that and there are pages and pages of how to create the perfect character. This can be very daunting for a new player, even if you choose a basic build like I did. You've got to decide how you're going to play the rest of the game, after the first 20 minutes of it, and I've spoken to a couple of friends and they've all ran into the same situation as me. They never got far with their first build. They either choose the wrong perk, or a slapdash attempt at a custom class, tagged terrible skills like speech craft or mercantile. The levelling system is very involved, and the player pretty much needs to do research before they can choose a build that will work for them and that isn't fair on gamers new to RPG's. I would love to go into this further, and have this current paragraph to be more than rambling but this is a lets play. So lets play.

I step outside and I'm greeted by a sprawling landscape, a tutorial tool tip pops up and obscures my view, I can't help but think that this moment could have been so much more than it was. To compare this introduction to stepping outside the vault for the first time in Fallout 3, it just doesn't have the same dramatic effect. It looks lovely, a nice green meadow, flowing river, ruined temple a forest off in the distance and a little boat in the foreground. However, it's just dumped in your lap. “Here's your world, go do whatever.”

Anyway, I've been tasked with saving the world or whatever- but screw that. I can fast travel to major city’s without having to visit them and I've got a bunch of junk I need to get rid of in the market district.

I think I'll set some mud crabs on fire before that though, then we'll see if they're more fierce than I am...

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Part Four- In your secret passage way, killing your Emperors.

Skipping the tutorials and giant rats, that can destroy huge stone walls we reach the point where the Emperor asks us about our star sign, or rather what perk we want to take. For my star sign I'll choose the lady, a ten point increase in both willpower & endurance. On an unrelated note, this opening act is where most of problems with the game come to light. A huge immersion breaker for me here is how forced the dialogue is, say I want to role play a bad ass that doesn't care about anything but his escape, I can't. I'm forced to ask the Emperor “Aren't you afraid to die” my character doesn't care at all, or at least I don't want him to care.

Skip a few more rushes by those pesky Mystic dawn fellows and myself and the Emperor and left in a room together. For some reason the guards thought it would be a good idea to leave the Emperor with the person they wanted to kill 5 minutes ago under suspicion working with the assassins. The player is glued to spot whilst they helplessly watch the best voice actor, and Emperor in the game assassinated.

Barus checks the Emperor's foot and confirms the worst. He's dead.

Just before Picard passed away he gave us our first MacGuffin- the amulet of kings, and after rubbing the Emperor's foot Barus knows that he doesn't have it any more. Instead of doing the logical thing and accusing THE MAN THAT WAS IN PRISON of stealing it, he simply asks us where it is. I calmly explain to him that the Emperor gave it to us because I have to take it to his illegitimate son, by way of Jauffre. Barus believes everything I say hook line and sinker, it's not like I'm a prisoner and would say anything to be let off Scott free.

An interesting part of this game is that you don't get to decide your class up until now, they give you a taste of the main classes, mage, archer, thief and boring- I mean melee but you don't have to commit until say the 15-20 minute mark. I pretty much hate all the default cookie cutter classes and always build my own and it nearly always turns out exactly like a default class.

I choose magic as my combat specialization partly because of how over powered and fun it is, but mainly because the picture is freaking awesome.

For my first favored attribute I choose intelligence, due to the boost in total magicka and spell skills but for my second choice I was stuck between willpower or endurance. Willpower would be useful as I would be able to cast more spells, and regenerate my magicka faster. However more endurance will increase my health, and how much my health increases as I level up. More health means I can take more of a beating, and judging by how much of an ass I normally am in Bethesda games- it should prove very useful. That being said, I do plan to make a mage that could go firebolt to firebolt with Gandalf himself... Also, I feel bad for the post name too- dirty even.

Guess who's the Wizard?

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Part three- Adventure plunging

Time to plunge into our adventure!

My character wakes up/spawns in a jail cell, you're given no plot exposition as to how that came to be, now already we're thrust into a situation that I've seen both praise and criticism for. Personally, I like this- it provides the player a lot of wiggle room in terms of role playing, you get to set up your own back story. Why are you in jail? How long have you been in jail? What did your character do that was so bad that you ended up pissing off enough people to end up in the prison of the biggest most important city in the game? Answering these questions yourself and devising your own little back story as to why, can be very time consuming- but at the same time very rewarding. However, if you don't want to role play or aren't a fan of role playing then it can easily seem like lazy writing on Bethesda’s part. Bethesda's could easily be found guilty of being lazy with their writing, but here I feel it would be smarter to accuse them of alienating part of their audience, not being lazy. In their defense though, I can't think of way to please both groups of people with once choice.

I don't want to waste time talking about the extent of the back story I created, but the jist of it is that my character is a mage, and he may of dabbled in some less than legal magick to further his own personal wealth. It doesn't sound terribly interesting as a foot note, but hopefully it'll explain some of the choices I'm going to make.

So, I'm in jail and some prick decides it's high time the entire Breton race got what’s coming to them. I'm not going to quote everything he says to me but apparently we're notorious for our pale skin. I'm not that well versed in the lore of the series, but based on just looks Breton's should be mocked for their striking resemblance to, say a tangerine. After the extreme verbal beat down and death threats, this bastard informs me the guards are coming- for me!

Picard (despite the protests of his guards) loudly states, in what I'm sure is a completely gossip-less prison, that his sons have been killed. Septim steals my camera away from me as I'm told how I've been in this old chaps dreams, the guards and Septim leave via a secret passageway in my cell and leave it open. However, they do tell me not to leave! Totally quelled any escape plans I may have had.