Nope, it's not. I've bought the core game 3 years ago, pre-order, and then realized I can't play it on the rig I had at the time... lol.

Insult to injury, I did not get any damn discount on the add-on, "Horisons", which allows a person to land on lunar bodies and then drive a buggy around, explore for resources, etc.

p.s.: There is a docking computer which takes up one of the optional component slots, the stations still orbit and it can be hazardous to dock without shields on your ship, at high speeds, but it's loads of fun - especially when you're trying to make a shipment in crunchtime for bonus cash. Downside of not having a docking computer is no "Blue Danube" tune on docking. I have to hum it manually to myself.

Only wimps use the docking computer. That was a feature of the original, too, but docking was the fun part of travel on many trips.

Welp, I finished Psychonauts and now I want the soundtrack.

I've since jumped into Nehrim instead of playing Oblivion like i said I was and I realized that SureAI total conversions are closer to Arena than Daggerfall in terms of gameplay. Maybe I'll play Oblivon instead, but for now I'm content with the low RP of Nehrim, even if that means no inns and no storage outside the safe chest.

(Honestly though, Enderal was even worse about this since waiting was disabled by default. Wtf am I supposed to do during downtime? Sit there and watch my character relax in real time?)

I'm bouncing back and forth between Oblivion and Elder Scrolls Legends, so I'm pretty well set for Elder Scrolls at the moment.

My Oblivion character might only be level 3, but he seems pretty promising so far. Then again he is a Breton, so it's kind of hard to go wrong there.

Not doing as well in Legends, but I've not been playing long so it's to be expected. Still having fun with it though.

As soon as I get my PS4 out this Friday I'm getting Ys VIII, I might also get Ys Seven and Origins for Steam.

Tem!

So I think I'm going to give Nehrim a rest even though I was starting to get into it. I may like it now, but the endless cycle of Dungeon Crawl, Dungeon Crawl, Main Quest, Dungeon Crawl, Bounty, SIDE QUEST!, Dungeon Crawl will have me burn out by the end of the week. There's little freedom, since everything has set levels.

So instead I'm back in Oblivion. Woo!

Played a bit more of Mount & Blade and Unreal 2 yesterday. M & B had a really annoying and practically impossible quest to go find and kill looters in the surrounding countryside, which I did for the past few play sessions. I was told I would be paid for each band of looters I killed, so I was under the impression that I didn't need to kill every single one of them in order to complete the quest. It was definitely impossible to find all of them without using a cheat that let you see all of the groups that run around on the map, yet even with that on I failed the quest. That was definitely a bit aggravating. Still, M & B is fairly fun.

It's either going to be BOTW or Metroid Samus Returns. Today's the day I get a Switch again!!!

So since I have not played any TES games besides ESO for a long while (and TESA: Redguard at the beginning of the year), I decided to take a look at just how long it's been since I played Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim. And holy crap, it's been long. I haven't played Skyrim or Morrowind since December of last year, and Oblivion since this past New Year's Day. That was a little before I got the computer I have now.

Thus, I decided to play a bit of Skyrim. I had no clue where I would be. Turns out I was chilling at Breezehome with my wife Lydia and two kids Sissel and Sofie. Didn't play for very long, but had a neat little moment that I will detail later (even took some screenshots, which come to think of it I never actually did before for whatever reason).

I still really want to trigger the Taren Dreth encounter, but it just hasn't happened in my meanderings about. I don't have much desire to level up until I get to the Ebony Warrior and I don't want to cheaply level through the console, so I will probably forgo that. Otherwise, the only thing I want to do with this character is build the other manors (Lakeview is already made). My character is going to make to donate them to the needy, while he spends the rest of his time with his family in Breezehome.

And this is with my first ever Elder Scrolls character I ever made, my Dragonborn (well, technically not, but I'll save that story for the next post here). But since the last time I played this game was on my previous laptop, I could not run the game at its best. Seeing the gameplay so smooth and fluid with the graphics set ultra high was incredible.

Reposting from what I just put in the Skyrim subforum, if that is alright.

Long post incoming:

So a couple nights ago I went to check out how long it has been since the TES games in my Steam catalogue had been played. And holy crap, with the exception of ESO it has been a long while. In Skyrim's case, I hadn't played it since last December. I had the urge to dust it off so I booted it up, although I had no clue where I would be.

This little story I am going to tell here is with my first ever character in Skyrim, and by extension my first ever character in a TES game (well, I had first played Skyrim on my friend's Xbox 360 in late 2013, but that doesn't count), my Dragonborn. Turns out I had been chilling at Breezehome with my lovely wife Lydia and my two adorable daughters Sissel and Sofie, and Serana had been hanging out with us.

My primary task (now complete as of yesterday) was to build the rest of Heljarchen Hall and Windstad Manor. Lakeview Manor was already finished quite a while ago. My Dragonborn wants to use them for housing to get people down on their luck back on their feet, as he is quite content with his family back in Whiterun. I am hoping to run into Taren Dreth soon, and I am likely not going to try to get to the Ebony Warrior. I might console command him in, although that would feel pretty cheap.

My character, whose name I am retconning to Cincinnatus (the name in-game that I actually have is a bit of a long story), has seen enough adventures for a score of mere mortals. And while he has amassed much wealth, renown, and had loads of fun he has grown weary of the life of adventuring. He's become highly proficient in a lot of skills (he decided to take up two-handed weaponry recently). But he also has a family to go home to. He is extremely close to finally calling it a career.

But Cincinnatus has decided to go on one last trek around the province on a personal farewell tour of sorts to adventuring. Part of it is, again, to try to get that Taren Dreth encounter to happen. But it is also to see just how far he has come since he almost got his head cut off by the Imperials.

The first destination of the tour was to revisit where this all began: Helgen. Serana and Cincinnatus dispatched some bandits there with ease, and had a look around. He had been back to Helgen several times, but this time in particular held deep meaning for him with his impending retirement. After killing the bandits, Tundra played in the background, a fitting tune.

Here's a few pictures of Cincinnatus checking the place out (It occurred to me that I never actually took screenshots before. What the hell is wrong with me? ):
Overlooking Helgen
Having flashback to the beginning of his escape from Helgen

And some other pictures:
Out for a stroll
Looking north across the Padomaic Ocean

After revisiting a couple smaller places on the map leaving Helgen, Cincinnatus made his way to Dawnstar. He is currently in Winterhold about to go to Windhelm.

Kind of bittersweet to be finally concluding the story of my first-ever TES character. It's cool looking back on how I first got into the series and after putting a huge portion of it under my belt, though.

Yes, it's always a bit sad when it's time to quit a character. One of Khajiit's problems has always been having an idea for a new character and losing focus with the previous character and then deleting that character (restartitus).

Playing Breath of the Wild...I love this game .

Khajiit might look into getting a Switch next year if the price drops a little.

Breath of the Wild has become my favorite Zelda and no matter how many time I play it I'm either discovering stuff I've either missed or just haven't seen before. The Graphics are also amazing and the opening never get old.

Now that I fired up Skyrim for some play sessions this week after a long hiatus, I played a bit of Morrowind last night. Goodness, I had to get used to the controls again.

Other games that saw some playtime this past week:

Unreal 2: I am about 5 hours into this game. I like it for what it is. A change from the original Unreal that I did like is the greater focus on story and characters, which I think has been done alright so far. But the actual gameplay itself, while solid when you increase the speed in the console, pales compared to the first, IMO.

Clive Barker's Undying: I had gotten a bit frustrated last time I had played it a few weeks ago, so I took a break from it. I'm enjoying it again and made some good progress. It's a very intriguing setting and story.

Rocket League: Getting some rounds in here again.

Got back to playing Ys Seven. I have it on the Vita but since I don't have a Vita I got it off of Steam. Since I've been using Steam for a lot of my gaming I've become very hesitant on buying another PS4.

Yeah, Khajiit hardly turns on his PS4 anymore.

Unreal 2 is now in the books. I thought it was a solid game, but the original was better by a wide margin. Some of the things Unreal 2 actually did do better, IMO, were more emphasis on story, made actual characters to get invested in with some actually decent character development, and more in-depth lore of the Unreal universe.

Progressing more through Clive Barker's Undying is next. I'm also thinking of starting up S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl as well.

Listen lady the only reason I play these swords bullshit games is so I can make mental fireworks to kill people with also cook food sometimes

So I wanted to give my Oblivion character a little more time to develop which means i've been in Nehrim for a while and boy, the mod sure is a goddang mess. You go from your usual heroic ambient music to this twee medieval stuff then suddenly this loud magical fantasia-flute-jamboree it's like they couldn't' decide what they wanted to do with the game. Some of it is so loud it drowns out the (German) dialogue.

The above also applies to the aesthetic. Is it low-fantasy Germany or is it crazy MMO high-fantasy eye-burn. They also threw a bunch of concept and unrelated art as loading screens and paintings lol

I've been awake for 29+ hours ignore me

Anyways, this is my second time playing it and yeah, it's pretty amateurish for something of this scope. There's a lot of unfinished quests and dungeons still, and even some untranslated dialogue/books. Then again, Sure AI has REALLY improved over the years and Enderal is proof of that. Geeze. Gameplay's still not that great though What I'm getting at is giving this another go really makes me appreciate the work put into Enderal. Especially considering neither one was done for profit.

A Hat in Time apparently released a few days ago but tbh I'm going to be giving that one a pass, at least for now. After my recent playthrough of Psychonauts, I'm giving platformers a break for a while. Maybe next month.

Till then, Fable 2. Been missing this game a lot. It was my introduction to Western RPGs and it's still one of my favorites today because of all the crazy roleplaying things you can do outside of combat.

For example, the moment I was unleashed on Bowerstone my character began his climb for the title of Albion's most ruthless entrepreneur and so started working at the Smith's while flipping gemstones and gifts bought in the Market and Old town up in Fairfax Gardens. One in-game week of smithing and he's already at the highest position. On week 2, he gained ownership of smithy with the gold he made from the above AND from income made by the other stalls and bookstore he bought.

It took an NPC assuring him that one day he'll be a great adventurer to remind me that this was also a combat RPG.

Also, he accidentally made the jewelry stall owner fall in love with him. She's married. Her husband and son saw me dance at her to gain her approval. Neither one is happy.
She wants a ring.

To say nothing of the allegedly prudish alchemist who walked up to my character and asked if he could show him how he swings his sword. He seems to be receptive to flirting, but actually attempting to take up the alchemist's offer leads to offending him because he's saving himself for marriage. Hey, discounted potions, at least, and once he saves up enough money, he'll be able to buy the store for cheap.

In the end my character may or may not lose his virginity to a swarthy island hick with the "unchaste" trait perfectly willing to hit on him on sight. He, too, is married.

I flipping love Fable 2.

Dammit, now you're making me want to fire that game up again. The story might be(well, actually it is) atrocious, but everything else about the game is just brilliant.

I've fired up my 3DS again to play Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright. I've not gotten around to completing this one yet, but I really want to to get onto Conquest, which has the better gameplay.

Lol, Khajiit also enjoyed Fable 2. Always liked playing a rifle lady with mad cutlass skills.

I had been intending to go back to playing Oblivion, but in response to all the serious and grim news popping up at the moment, I've decided to fire up Fable 2 instead. Been a while since I've played, so I'm starting over. Already loving the dog(which reminds me, I need to give him a name) for all the goodies he's found for me so far.

There are a few things in particular I'm looking forward to, one of which is getting hold of the weapon The Hammerthyst, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's not a great weapon, but I just love the look of it

I played a similar character that can be described as "a steampunk realtor with a rifle and an attitude". You mess with her dog, you get the gun.

But yeah, I think the dog was one of my absolute favorite features of the game to the point where I didn't hesitate making a choice at the end



Also, I thought the story started out okay but after Oakfield it took a nosedive and started going WAY too fast for my liking.

That said, I'm still upset over the closure of Lionhead Studios, especially after learning that if Fable: Legends, failed, they could easily reuse those assets for Fable 4. Unfortunately, Microsoft forced them into a failed venture (they even had to abandon another game idea where the entire game took place in Bowerstone) and in the end they got the shaft. Also Microsoft refuses to sell the franchise. Ugh. Fable 3 may have been kind of crap and The Journey may have been really crap, but Fable was my [censored], y'know?

At the very least, I would have liked an Annivesary-style remaster for 2 so it could finally make its way on PC.

Khajiit would totally buy a remaster of Fable 2.

Started up another session of Star Wars: Rebellion a few weeks back. Haven't played since then though but I hope to soon.

So I'm still playing Fable 2 with plans of moving on to Fable 3 after, but I've also been thinking about my promised return to Oblivion. Mostly, what mods I'll be using. I already have an existing character started, but he hasn't gone far.

I'm set on some landscape overhauls, particularly those that turn Cyrodiil back to its original state before Oblivion came and retconned everything which...honesty probably doesn't fix much. It's not the jungle I'm upset with, it's the neutering of Cyordiil's established lore and culture, turning it into High Rock -1. Even with jungles everywhere, I'm still going to run into cheesy Knight stories straight from a Breton bard and I'm not going to find any meaningful differences between Colovians and Nibeneans.

Gonna need a bigger overhaul...or maybe I should settle for a more jungle-fied Blackwood.

Khajiit would've liked to have seen a Mesoamerican inspired Cyrodiil; certainly felt like a missed opportunity to this one. Honestly, Khajiit can't really blame them though, as "Ren. Fair" Cyrodiil was a safer choice financially, if not artistically, given the popularity of Lord of the Rings at the time (gotta cash in on the medieval fantasy bandwagon).

Yeah, it's why I eventually ditched the idea of using landscape replacers, but tbh no matter how hard I try and how many times I tell myself I'm over it, it's something I'll always be bitter about. Surprising, considering the kind of game i was looking for when I got into TES (Oblivion was "officially" my first).

At least there's an attempt to "fix" it in recent games? ???? Honestly though, I should really just let that go already it's been over ten years since the game was released.

Anyways, I find it amazing how in Fable 2 I went from Opportunist (neutral/neutral) and was so dangerously close to going to Saint (Good/Pure) until I knocked the purity down to get into a demon door, then I fell straight into Ghoul (Evil/Corrupt) within five minutes of being in Bloodstone.

Thanks to how games with moral choices work, I always seem to end up with super-good characters because of how petty and illogical evil options tend to be even though I'm playing a more greyish character. The fact that I ended up on the other side is...pretty great, even if I was working hard to stay neutral. Now I'm trying to figure out how to at least go back to neutral Purity.

Eat tofu, lol
If Khajiit remembers correctly, tofu increases your purity.

I was gonna say that it primarily increases goodness, but it looks like Purity is it's main modifier. Still, gotta be careful with morality improvements. (Also I seem to be gaining corruption out of nowhere. Maybe the reason you get stuck in one side is because eventually it starts generating the points on its own?)

Anyways, as I think more about my Oblivion install, I realize that I sort of want to play a pure mage or at least a character that uses a bunch of spells. Nehrim's thing was primarily magic, so I sort of wasted that opportunity with a pure Destruction character (and Alchemy I guess). But the character I started and put on hold is more of a jack of all stats (he was a travelling Reachman merchant) and his only magical skill is Alteration so. Hm...

If I weren't running Integration: The Stranded Light, I'd be able to play him alongside my "main" Champion of Cyrodiil, who is an Atronach Mage. Ah well, we'll see.

Still playing Fable2.

Conjurer now owns Oakfield and Bowerstone(so he now has more money than he can spend), and is approaching the incredibly bad section set in The Spire.
But at least there'll be some fun stuff once he gets back

Yeah Khajiit hated that part in The Spire.

Pretty much everything in the game that's part of the main quest is just junk.

But everything else is so good

It's really kind of amazing, the contrast between the crappiness of the main story and the brilliance of the other stuff is just so stark!

So Thorns, what is your favorite area of the game?

Heh, the contrast is amazing, I just hope it wasn't intentional

To be honest, there's a lot of the game I don't remember as well as I'd like. So far though, I'd probably have to go with Oakfield.

Khajiit liked Oakfield. This one thinks his favorite areas were Wraithmarsh and Bloodstone (despite the horrible main story elements that took place there). Khajiit liked how Wraithmarsh was tied into the first Fable and the darkness of the area. As for Bloodstone, the atmosphere was more to this ones liking, as far as settlements went.

I've been busy, but I've managed to get some gaming time in.

As of a few minutes ago, I just wrapped up Clive Barker's Undying! Great game, but the sequel hook (not really a cliffhanger) is a bit frustrating because the game sold so poorly and (I assume from the logo when you boot up the game) that EA owns the license, and so I doubt we will ever get a sequel. Sad, because I think the game deserves one.

Very well written and a great atmosphere, although you get very well equipped towards the end which takes away from the atmosphere. There were some legitimate scares, although at times the game could be frustrating towards the beginning. The pacing of the bosses could have been better, too. It takes a while to build up to the first one, and then the rest come in relatively rapid succession afterwards. Overall, though, I definitely recommend picking this game up.

Also started up S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl this past week too. Only 1.5 hours in, but it is interesting so far.

I really loved the monastery in Undying. How you visit in in the present and learn that a terrible monster killed the monks in the past. Then you go in the past and learn who that monster really was! And that scythe was like the BFG of the game.

I think there's actually a good case to be made about the story having much less importance than everything else, or at the very least just cobbled together at the last second. Apparently some of the earlier builds had it so that your children (if you had any) took your place as the playable Hero if you died, so you wouldn't even see the end with the character you started out with. 'Course, I haven't found any evidence as to how early in the game's development that was, but apparently it was far enough for testers to play it.

That aside, with how quickly you can breeze through the main story (it not even being half of the game) and how little you interact with the characters, and how much the side features were hyped, I wouldn't be surprised if the story was just an excuse plot from the beginning. There's quite a bit of wasted potential otherwise. Besides, every game past TLC is basically just Theresa's story and her path towards creating a world where Heroes are made instead of being born from the Archon Bloodline.

That said, it works for me just fine. Having gotten the main story out of the way, I can enjoy everything else uninterrupted. I DO wish I didn't leave early adulthood as quickly as I did, though. I ALSO wish I had saved the "Become King Through Real Estate" thing until now because the moment the Castle was buyable, I not only had 1 million gold to buy it, I also had enough gold in real estate to become King. Ah well. That just means I don't have to go around buying every building out there. I already have every business bough though...

Yeah Khajiit read that one of the reasons the "kids taking your place after you died" thing was scrapped was because the testers started reproducing like rabbits in order to farm extra lives.

This reminds of the monastery in VtM:B. Loved sneaking through that place

It was cool indeed. I really liked the Irish setting of the game as a whole, but that setting was particularly enjoyable. The apparently infinitely-spawning Howlers at a couple parts and the couple of times where they were in way too close-quarters were annoying as hell though (so satisfying to eviscerate them with the Scythe afterwards).

After literally around 3 years or so of not legitimately playing it, I finally restarted System Shock 2. I've been wanting to get back to it but I had left it on the backburner while I got to other stuff. I think now is the time to start actually playing it again. I have a better sense of what the hell I'm doing this time. And ain't no spookiness gonna scare me away!

I'm just about finishing my current run of Fable 2 and I wish it lasted a little longer, but the upside is that it's finishing just in time for the Clockwork City DLC for ESO. Then again, I think I should give that a little time for the....chusma....to leave, so maybe I'll move on to Fable 3 in the meantime.

Anyways, I decided to play the Colosseum this time and aim for the special dye (that I'll never use because I'm done) and teddy bear trophies (ditto). Just as security, I used the exploit to get the Teddy that need you to get exactly 1985 points at some point in case it was too frustrating. It took only 3 tries to accomplish that and get the third Teddy legitimately, but I happened to noticed something...odd.

My Corruption is suddenly really high.

I heard that the Fable 2 Pub Games side game actually added corruption to your current character every time you played it, and that using an exploit in THAT game really corrupted you, so I wonder...was that intentional? Did the devs decide to not fix that and instead give you a ton of corruption if you used the exploit, like with the side game? If it is, then that's pretty clever game design, even though it's right at the end of the game. 'Course, it could be that participating in the Colosseum matches themselves slowly corrupt you the more you do it, considering I played at least like ten of them.

Anyways, time to wrap things up.

Corruption---uh-oh !

That sounds weird. Khajiit doesn't remember it being hard to keep your corruption down.

All this talk of corruption has me thinking about Metroid Prime 3 Corruption. That was a fun game and the corruption aspect of it didn't really come into play unless you purposelessly did it to yourself. That's the one thing I missed about the Wii U, being able to play old Wii games.

I think it might be something I'm doing, like maybe a building somewhere that I forgot to switch back to 0% price change during the period where I wanted my corruption to increase. But it's weird how no matter how much purity I gain, I always have about a hundred more corruption somehow. At least, that's what the horribly disorganized Logbook says.

Khajiit never got into Metroid, which has always struck this one as weird given how much he liked similar games growing up.


How much Khajiit has forgotten about many of Fable 2's systems is seriously disturbing this one.