Nutty about games!

After being an avid gamer since I was around 8 years old, I am finally bored of gaming. Nerd rant alert!

I have no interest in any of the many games sitting on our shelves, no games that are out at the moment appeal, and no future games excite me. Nothing. Not the imminent arrival of Fable 2 and Fallout 3. Nor the announcement of Diablo 3 and a new Star Wars MMO based on Knights of the Old Republic. Not even Warhammer Online (which I had been playing rather a lot of), or Wrath of the Lich King for wow which is due out in a couple of weeks.

I can’t be arsed any more. Games aren’t what they used to be.

I don’t think I am alone in this - just the other day my sister messaged me as she just couldn’t find a game worth playing. Modern games suck.

Nothing can compare to the decade or so that produced masterpieces such as Unreal, Diablo 2, Deus Ex, Planescape Torment, Baldurs Gate 2, the Thief series, and many more. More recently, Divine Divinity and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic were absolute corkers.  How can I forget true oldies such as Duke Nukem and Doom too, just awesome fun, and such replayability!

Innovation and originality is seriously lacking in games these days, and the sterility of the Xbox port doesn’t help matters. I was seriously pissed off and disappointed with the Deus Ex followup - what a joke that was. The storyline sucked, it was very linear, bugged to death, and you felt like you were playing in a cardboard box (thanks to the game being created for the Xbox). Thief 3 wasn’t much better. I did enjoy Mass Effect and Bioshock but I never did complete the latter.

I always completed my old faves. Many times over in some cases. I completed Deus Ex some 15+ times before it got a little tedious, and I have completed Thief 3 at least 10 times on Expert mode. Fabulous game! But then, I have just played it too many times now, I need something completely new.

I think partly it may be because games simply are too realistic, which leaves no scope for the imagination. I am a game nerd and freely admit it. Back when I was playing on the Acorn Electron and Spectrum, I would daydream about games of the future being more realistic. I never imagined it would happen for real. After we got our first P100 PC and discovered the joys of Doom and Heretic, I asked my Dad if one day processors would get faster and he said no, they could never possibly cool anything near a gigabyte. Now look what has happened!

When I played Elite, I would daydream about actually being in the game for real. The same with Unreal and Thief. They kickstarted my (often wild and frequently completely bizarre) imagination. Not one modern game has managed that. I know I am older now and have more to think about and I am more often than not simply too tired or harrassed to daydream, but my imagination remains unchanged!

Another gripe is that many of them look the same. The graphics are similar, because they are made for the same platform ( we all know which that is, grr), there are no large landscapes like in Deus Ex and true non-linear games are no longer in existence. I imagine Diablo 3 will be like living in a box/dungeon/sewer, with crappy console-ported controls, a linear storyline without much deviation, and it will look exactly the same as the dozens of other games that come out at the same time.

Finally, maybe - just maybe - it’s the fact that I can no longer sit gaming all night long whilst chain smoking and drinking huge amounts of alcohol! I have kids to care for and a man who won’t get up to them, I don’t smoke any more because I’m scared of cancer and smelling like an old dog-end, and I am drunk off 2 small glasses of wine these days! Hmm…

Anyway, rant over. Honest. I’m tired now and it’s not 9pm yet!

But PLEASE make some decent games, dammit!

Well, perhaps a  little fib there. Ok, so maybe it’s quite a big lie!

In actual fact I admit that this stupid game has yet again got me in its grasp! So much in fact, that I am thinking of joining a raiding guild. Yes, me, raiding! I think I will need a good supply of valium to do this though, seeing as I am so scared of anything involving the slightest chance of messing up and being thoroughly embarrassed!

I am thoroughly enjoying playing, and if I could I would spend every waking moment ingame, which is not a good thing.  Anyway, I have decided to hit a goal of reaching exalted with the Shattered Sun faction (I only just started doing those quests), then I will use up all the rested xp on my two alts. After that I am going to spend my time writing/reading and playing other games until I hit maximum rested on my alts, then rinse and repeat, etc. 

You see, this morning I got such a fantastic response to some writing I did (for children) that I’m going to give it one last try.  I have absolutely no confidence in anything I do any more, and it puts me off doing them. From WoW raiding, to writing, to studying - if I think I am going to waste time and make a fool of myself, I give up. Comes from being isolated for far too long I guess (having a man who sits at his Mac 24/7 doesn’t help matters). I have planned to go out at the end of May to a Burlesque evening, as it’s something I would like to try myself, but as I haven’t been out for years really I am worried I will make a fool of myself - drink too much, come dressed wrong, get ID’d as usual and forget my passport, seem like a boring old fart who normally sits indoors playing WoW or watching her other half play WoW.

Paranoid or perfectionist? I’d like to think the latter but these days I am not so sure!

Steve quit his guild last night and joined another pretty much out of the blue, so I had to leave the guild myself pronto before getting the boot. I joined a ’social guild’ and if you are a WoW player you will know what that means! Let’s say it is just a temporary thing! I would need to find a guild which doesn’t raid too early, so I can get the kids to bed first; I might be hunting around for a while yet!

On another note, we went to see Nicholas’s school today and loved it! Just as well as I had already accepted a place! Long story, maybe ask me about it some time

Better go and prepare our delicious feast of…soup and bread! Er, yes…

As it is nearing the 10th anniversary of the death of my gaming Grandma, Dorothy ‘Dot’ Beesley, I have decided a little retrogaming is in order in her memory.

Grandma loved her games, and was a big fan of the ZX Spectrum from the late 80s right up until her death. She even got the Spectrum before us, and once I had seen the games she could play I was hooked!

We never ran out of games because Grandma would copy them for us, and we would never get stuck on a game for long with her countless gaming tips, and ‘pokes’ (cheats) when it all got too difficult!

I feel sad that she could not stay with us for longer as I am sure she would have loved the games of today, and also been an avid fan of the internet, especially enjoying sites like YouTube. I think she would have played an MMORPG with me for sure! Who knows, maybe Battlefield 2142 would have been her cup of tea!

Anyway, more about the games.

 Dizzy Series


Dizzy was one of my fave games ever, and I never managed to finish the early ones - but I believe Grandma finished them all! I remember her talking a lot about Treasure Island Dizzy and I believe she found every last coin too. So, first order of the day is a proper go at a number of episodes from the Dizzy series - although these days I am glad there is a save function as I don’t have the patience to complete them without it!

Slightly Magic


I loved this game but every time I got near to the end I would die horribly. I used to cry and scream at the damn annoying thing! It was a very short game but you had one life, and if you made a single mistake that was it, game over. Cue Grandma to the rescue! Although I wanted to complete this one legitimately it wasn’t to be, so Grandma found me a poke and I got to see the ending. Hooray Grandma!

Bubble Bobble and Bubble Dizzy


I have to admit that after 20 years or so I can no longer remember which of these Grandma played or liked the best, but I suspect it was both. I never got into it either of them, but I am going to have a go anyway.

Chuckie Egg


Oh, what a game, I loved it! I never did finish it but I got pretty close; not bad for a kid sharing with an obsessed Dad and younger sister!

Werewolves of London


Looking back at this game I see it wasn’t actually all that exciting. I only think I enjoyed it because you could eat people! I think they should make a modern game with a werewolf going round biting people’s head off - it would be awesome!

There are more that she used to play such as Repton and Saracen, but I will stick to these few. I don’t know how long my limited attention span can cope with such classics…

Last night I logged into BF2142 with my other half Steve, and had rather a lot of fun!  We played on Northern Strike servers, large and small. One titan server was tiny but most enjoyable - shooting Steve’s char in the face with my Clark shotgun a few times was quite theraputic after the day I’d had! Was awarded a Gold Star for coming top; only out of 5 people but it didn’t matter to me, I was waaaaay ahead on points to boot. Unlocked frag grenades at last too! Of course Steve played great as usual and was awarded a number of badges and pins. We both especially enjoyed driving around in the Goliath - a great way to gain points and rack up a few kills too (especially as a support character reloading it).

Now, I am not great at this game - far from it (check out my rubbish stats), but it really doesn’t matter to me. I have played far too many RPGs in the last six years to be as hot as most people with a rifle. Many point out my kill/death ratio and laugh, but I’m not that intent on killing people in this game. I much prefer to run around with my ammo hub! I have now found that if I join a squad and follow them with my hub out I gain more points than if I try to kill people. Of course Titan defense is now great with my Clark shotgun, as I can just hang around waiting for them to drop in, holding my shotgun with my turret aimed on them - great fun!

If you’re not sure what I am talking about as you do not have this game I recommend you try it - it can be bought for a tenner now at Game and the Northern Strike expansion pack is about a fiver (you can get these even cheaper ifyou shop around online). It costs nothing to play online and there are countless servers for you to choose from with full-on action; well worth the money. Try reading the reviews here and here. As long as you are playing with friends you will likely never get bored of this game; I often try to avoid playing as it is so addictive!

If you log on to the game look out for Melindi or Bymz0r and we will show you the ropes. Well, I will probably show you how to play very badly…but I’ll try my best anyway! We could always have a laugh on Ventrilo whatever happens, especially when I have been on the vino!

Yes, I’m fretting again. Although not about Nanowrimo. Well, sort of.

I’m in a panic because I know I am not going to be able to finish the Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion ‘Mask of the Betrayer‘ before Nano starts! Not unless I drop all notion of figuring out a plot and characters for my novel before the Nano start date anyway. I’m not quite sure why I started the expansion having only just got around to finishing vanilla NwN2 after the third time through (I have said it before, but my attention span can be bad unless I find something very interesting or really immerse myself in the storyline). I think it was partly due to my upset at the ending of NwN2 and my hope of finding out what happened to all my comrades, but all I have learned is that the expansion is as brilliant and addictive as the original game - which is a bummer when you are about to write a novel and have no plot to speak of!

I’ve stuck to the advice ‘plan one week before Nano’ like glue, and my time is up tomorrow. Meaning tonight may in fact be my last night of gaming for a whole five weeks! Never in history - alright, since I was around eight years old and Dad purchased our lovely Acorn Electron - have I refrained from playing a game for such a long period! 

How will I cope? Do gaming withdrawal symptoms exist? Am I really going to be able to concentrate soley on my Nano storyline for the next five weeks or so?

I know what you are going to say - get a life! Well, gaming is a lifestyle. I have grown up with games, watched the technology develop, and have seen them evolve into something I could never have imagined possible. I still remember the time I would dream of games being ‘realistic’; literally, at night I would lie in bed and visualise myself living in a game of the future. Playing Unreal for the very first time was a dream come true, it was everything I imagined and more. To this day I am still in awe of modern games.

Would I like to do what many Brits do and waste money going ‘out on the lash’ on a Friday and Saturday night, dressed in a ridiculously short skirt, smothered in makeup and stinking of cheap perfume, surrounded by kebab-reeking letches who accuse you of being a lesbian or insult your appearance when you turn them down? Or crouched in a bunker in the middle of a firefight, explosions sounding all around me, waiting to snipe the enemy when they try to capture my point; going on an epic journey to cure the world of some evil, smiting enemies and hurling fireballs at my foes; navigating the depths of the universe in a spaceship entirely at my command - all from the safety of my own home? I’ll settle for the latter.

Don’t get me wrong - I do go out. I do have some form of social life even if, having had two children in a rather short period, it is at an amoebic stage. In future I will go out more (as long as we can afford the babysitter), but I will make sure that my repertoire of friends consists mainly of avid gamers, those who play games quite often, people who occasionally game, and those who have gamed, in that order.

Okay, so I jest - but it sure would be nice to meet more gamers genuinely interested in friendship once in a while! Also, I have trouble socialising with those of my own age, especially women. I do think I am meeting the wrong people, because I find that I have almost nothing in common with the majority of my acquaintances. They are generally people who, when faced with an adult female who likes nothing more than to climb to the top of a huge climbing frame on a visit to Monkey World and make monkey sounds (pics will be here as soon as my Dad pulls his finger out and sends them), would immediately summon the ‘men in white coats’ to remove me to a padded cell.

Perhaps it is simply time I grew up and started to enjoy talking about the latest anti-wrinkle product, mulling over which curtain patterns go with teracotta furniture, and discussing the finer points of cake decorating?

Anyway, I don’t care if you think I am a gaming geek. I wear the title with pride, and hope to still be ‘geeking it up’ when I am old and grey.

Now, on with the fun…

I did once play a lot of Oblivion through with just a couple of mods installed - one to make stealth a little better, and one to improve damage from arrows, I believe. I have to say that since playing from scratch again - not really out of choice since I forgot to back up my save games during a system reload - I have been experimenting with rather a lot of mods and am enjoying the game even more.

Firstly, we had better start with the ‘official’ mods, which can easily be downloaded here. A word of warning for Vista users - do not download these, as they will not install. An all-round better option anyway is to purchase the Knights of the Nine compilation, which includes all official plugins to date.

Basically for £15-ish you get a large quest giving new armour at the end of it, a huge dungeon with a dagger reward, horse armour, tomes with new spells, a magical ‘orrery’ giving spells linked to ingame lunar cycles, your very own pirate cove for thieves, a lair for evil characters (especially useful for vampires) and an impressive looking mage tower. Worth it, I think, although many beg to differ.

Ok, now, on to the free mods - I have the greatest respect for the wonderful people working on these creations; I have started to learn to use the contruction set, and it is taking me quite a while! Anyway, I digress; here are the mods I am currently using, with links to download locations and in some instances their official forum post location.

Most of these mods have been updated to work with the new v1.2 patch. Do not install them without it!

Unofficial Oblivion Patch
Does what it says on the tin! Forum thread is here.

Francesco’s Levelled Creatures/Item mod
Fantastic mod, do not miss out on this! Tons of new items, creatures, bandits no longer with stupidly rare armour, rare drops rarer, skills level more slowly, more enemies, increases difficulty (so, for example, you can’t beat the arena at level 5!)….I could go on. Fully customisable too; forum thread here.

To get this working since the patch (until version 4.3 is out), try this out:

Edit the oblivion.ini file. Go to
My Computer
Your documents (named after your computer)
My Games
Oblivion
Oblivion.ini
Once in the oblivion.ini so a search for “SArchiveList” (leave out the ” and then add to the end of the list:

Francesco’s optional new items add-on.bsa, Francesco’s optional new creatures add-on.bsa

Don’t forget the comma after the previous item in the list or you will crash to desktop!

Quest Award Leveller
Annoyed that you can no longer use that level 8 quest reward now that you are level 30 and the stats are useless? Grab this handy little mod, which ensures that as your level increases, your quest reward items level alongside you, so you don’t have to wait until higher levels to get that better quest reward.

Official Mods Unofficial Patch
Fixes little bugs in the official plugin content, that Bethesda don’t see to want to fix. Forum thread here.

Mart’s Monster Mod
Tons of new creatures, npc’s, and more! Upgrade Patch is here. Forum thread here.

Dark IU
Excellent darker version of Oblivion UI.

Dude, Where’s My Horse
Never lose your horse again!

Natural Wildlife v1.3
Sick of being attacked by Mudcrabs and rats? This mod is the perfect solution! Mod for Mart’s Monster Mod compatibility is here.

Atmospheric Weather System
A very large weather addon, with 5 times the weather types of standard oblivion.

DarNified BTMod
Excellent looking interface. You must have Oblivion Mod Manager installed to run this. Install AFTER Dark UI.

Reneers Guard Overhaul
Changes guard behaviour, making them more realistic. Thread is here.

Rens Beauty Pack
Another must-have. More options for your characters, and a new race.

Artifacts of Tamriel
New weapons and armour that are a challenge to obtain! Read all about it in the mod description.

Stealth Overhaul
Make stealthing more worthwhile. Requires OBSE (see below).

Thievery in the Imperial City
A mod especially fot thieves, including a new fence and quests!

OBSE - Oblivion Script Extender
Needed for a few addons, including Decorator Assistant (below).

Decorator Assistant
A handly tool for decorating your home. I am still rubbish at it though. Requires OBSE.

Bookplacing
Again, for decorating purposes.

Better Gold
Erm….better looking gold.

Short Grass v2
Can make systems run faster - I just think it looks better.

Right, that’s all for now! I haven’t included housing mods because I am going to write a little ‘review’ of them later. I love my houses!

We recently started playing Battlefield 2142, and the change from the ‘quest/raiding’ of WoW to ’shoot-em and scream at the screen’ awakened a longing for another online shooter we used to play a few years ago - Planetside.

When we first started out we played for hours every evening and weekend - having no children back then did wonders for our gaming time - and we had our own outfit. Friends also used to play and we would shout and scream into voice comms into the wee hours.  Back then I had a stealthy character who used to sneak into bases and hack consoles. I was pretty poor at it, but I had fun trying! Next I changed to a combat engineering class - my fave - where I would lay turrets and mines to kill unsuspecting troops. Oh how I love my AMS too.

The game has come a long way since that and not only is there a whole new area with new vehicles through the Core Combat expansion, but can you now command giant mechs or BFR’s and they changed the layout of the world.

What did it for us though was the prospect of a whole new expanded engineering skill system, which now boasts Fortification, Assault and Advanced Engineering (a combination of the two), with new flying and stealthed turrets to boot.

Get the game downloaded, join Vanu Sovereignty, and message N1GHTSH4D3 in game (yeh, stoopid name I know) - you’ll have great fun, I promise.

I’m guessing the former…

So, on the launch of the Playstation 3, the Oxford Street branch of Virgin Megastore gave out 100 HD TV’s worth £2,500 to the insane people who had queued outside the store for the past 2 days (as well as keeping them tanked up on coffee and coke).

I’m not jealous. Honest.

To be honest I am not entirely excited about the PS3. I am able to play on a still-reasonable PC, and Xbox 360 and Wii, and have access to a PSP. I can even play on my little DS if I am truly bored. I have enough games right now to last me months and months, so I don’t really need yet another platform with yet another batch of games that I have no time to play.

Anyway, I digress…check out a ‘microsoft biased’ review here which is actually quite surprising…

I used to play Morrowind quite a long time ago, before the expansions, but I completely ruined it when I started to cheat - summoning up Azura’s Star multiple times using the console and selling them to Scamp the Creeper, then spending the money on training to ridiculous levels!

This time, however, having learned the error of my cheating ways, I am going to play properly - however, mods are another thing entirely…

It’s safe to say I am using quite a number of mods, and I thought I should ‘come clean’ and list them all here before play commences, with links in case you want to get them yourselves.  Most are listed in my Links list to the right under Telesphoros’ Mod List.

Better Heads

Morrowind Comes Alive
Fantastic mod which basically inserts new non-static npc’s into the game world, and also locks doors at night.

Tamriel Rebuilt
A project to rebuild the world The Elder Scrolls is set in. Some good work here, and downloadable work in progress

Less Generic NPCs
This is really good work, hats off to these people - no more generic conversation, this mod inserts whole new scripts into many towns.

Khalazza Productions (face mods from here)
I grabbed quite a few face/body mods from here

Atmospheric Sound Effects
Another interesting mod which inserts background sounds into Morrowind.

Avenger’s Female Armor Pack 2.0

Avenger’s Female Shirt Pack 2.0

Sell & Sail Galleon
Sail off around the world with your very own boat!

Better Bodies
Much improved bodies, highly recommended.

Delayed Dark Brotherhood Attack
If you don’t want to be attacked straight away, if you are a wimp like me for example!

Morrowind Enhanced
If you go to the website there are other addons to use with it such as stealth/crime and combat.

All Silt Strider Ports
Allows you to travel to any silt strider port instead of having to go through many ports to get to a destination.

Slof’s Better Beasts
Take a peek.

The Latest Greatest Housing Mod Gold
Really good fun, houses to rent!

Potion Upgrade 1.3
Better bottles!

Better Books
Make books look lovely with this one.

Ashlander Tent
A tent you can pack up and take along with you on your travels, looks nice too.

Hendalf Gold
Better looking coins

Pearl Palace
This housing mod is an underground palace with pretty much everything you need in it (including anchemy jars, a fave of mine)

New Argonian Bodies

Better Clothes 1.0

Fast Travel
More for fun, not something I plan on using much really. I don’t have the time to explore that I used to. 

Ultimate Textures
A MUST HAVE. Really improves the game; absolutely beautiful.

Morrowind FPS Optimizer
Another must have.

and if you have Windows with Direct X 9.0c or later get this:

Morrowind Graphics Extender
Unfortuntely I cannot use this as I am running Windows Vista

All the above mods have been created by others with time and patience I do not possess. They are links to other websites beyond my control. Please don’t use their work as your own. Use at your own risk, and back up your save games before installing them!

This is my Morrowind character, Dhania Moonseed.

Profile
Class:            Callidus  (sneaky backstabber)
Sign:              The Thief

Major skills:    Security, Marksman, Light Armour, Speechcraft, Mercantile
Minor skills:    Sneak, Short Blade, Block, Alchemy, Athletics

Guilds

None as yet

It should be noted that I have chosen those skills to level her more slowly, which is a better idea in Morrowind which does not have level scaling. She is going to be less of a ‘charmer’ than Adelea, preferring the stealth/backstab approach. I think this is how she will develop anyway.