Back to Rapture

Another late night blorg from moi, and now I've found the setting that changes the time format so it no longer says I've been writing these in the early afternoon.

Crysis (yes that dreaded word again) has been completed, t'was very good, it does what it says on the proverbial, but that's all I'm writing about it. I've now moved back to BioShock. I did complete this within a week or two of it's release but was left somewhat underwhelmed by the whole affair. The reason for this I couldn't quite explain, so I put it down to the crashes I suffered every half an hour whilst playing the game. I then updated my video card drivers to stop the crashing, which worked, but still felt mildly unsatisfied by it. I then came across this blorg post, written in essay format, describing the inner workings of BioShock and it's story in great detail (please do read it if you have an hour spare). It was written by someone who also felt slightly disappointed come the end of the game, and made me realise that many more people were feeling that way upon completion. Maybe that's the way it was meant to be?

So I decided to give it another go.

One thing I've always loved about the game is the way it looks, the shaders being the distinguishing factor, when light shines onto a tiled floor the gold shimmers in an awesome way. As you can see I've started taking some shots of the game and I will continue to do so until the end (and thanks to tweakguides.com for showing me how to remove the HUD).

I've just arrived at the Medical Pavilion (I took that earlier, bloody love it), which leads me on to an anecdote from my first play through of the game. This was the first part of the game that scared the crap out of me. Half way through the Medical Pavilion level I ventured into Dandy Dental, this is around the first time you meet the Houdini Splicers, and I was having a good old snoop around and went into the dental surgery, only for my vision to go cloudy. Mildly disoriented I turned around a full 360 degrees and stumbled forward, my vision cleared again and I was greeted with a dentist's chair. This room had an air of ambivalence about it, so I thought I'd quickly check the table in the corner and get out of there. As soon as I got to the table my vision clouded over again so I hastily turned around to find the door, it was at that point that my vision cleared and standing right in my face was a masked Houdini Splicer. I panicked, but luckily I had my trusty wrench to hand and gave him a swift whack around the chops. He then disappeared into a flutter of red ashes and appeared outside the door whilst shouting some random abuse at me, I managed to catch up with him and proceeded to beat his head in a panicked rage a few more times before he finally fell silent to the floor.

Spoons of the Ages

Quite a fitting title for what I am about to write about, since I've not wrote anything for a while because of what I'm about to write about...errr

So then, without further ado, I present "Spoons of the Ages - One Argonian and a Silver Spoon" which will not be in story format, but rather a tale of what happened and why it ultimately ended the life of a poor Argonian. By the way, this is about The Elder Scrolls 4 - Oblivion, just had to make that clear as my rambling may have missed that completely.

It all started in the town of Bravil, a run down dump, it was ideal for my Argonian due to the amount of water and people to steal from, rather it was until I murdered everyone I could lay my dagger into, still, that left a lot of empty, locked houses to case which is where the true story begins - How much do the Guards care?

I decided to test this theory, since there was no one to beat up bar punching rats in their stupid furry faces, I broke into one house and stole one item, a silver spoon, I then took it across the world to Chorrol and spoke to a guard.

Completely ignoring the fact that I had my dagger out and all the corpses around me, the guy took the logical step of trying to arrest me for stealing a spoon, now, I'm not sure how far telepathy goes, but I'm pretty sure none of the murdered people told them of my glorious deed and I'm sure the guards didn't send out a signal to alert everyone in the world of said deed. Perhaps everyone in Tamriel have their belongings electronically tagged for safety and convenience, yet they don't care when I stab them multiple times in the face.

I decide to go to jail and see what all the fuss is about, it seems a quite cosy place, no one else around though, I seem to have a lockpick that I decide to not use as it is late and my murdering has made me tired.

I get out and seem to have suffered some ability changes, it's hard to care though, a bit of anger rises in me so I stab a few rats to vent it out, which brings up another point, I was arrested, thrown in jail for a few days (spoon crime is a growing threat in a world where people cant use their mouths anymore) yet I get released with all my armor and the blood covered dagger I used to kill everyone with, not that I mind, saves me time looking for another.

I enter the Imperial City and see that there is one man walking around (not a clone guard) and I come to the conclusion that he was the one who squealed, I follow him for 13 days, learning his route, finding his house and taking on his habits. I break into his house one day while he is doing his daily wall staring exercises, and steal all of his belongings, right down to the blueberries he had on the table and the raw meat on the plates. I leave to punch some deer in the forests and return 3 days later, the guy isn't at his usual places so I go to his house. It seems that taking everything he had was just too costly and the urge to feed had came over him, his tables were full of fruit and meat, just lying there, uncooked and without a plate with just a spoon to eat with. I go outside and wait, his misery shall end tonight, the last man in the province and he has to use a spoon to eat raw meat with, it's a pitiful life. Being kind (heh) I go back in and steal what he has replaced and place one poisoned apple on his table, I go out and wait again, 2 days pass and the apple is still there, the man is nowhere to be found until by a freak chance I find him in a bush, dead, with 9 arrows in him, he was a hunter, and judging by the corpse of the forester near him, they had an epic battle, each was pierced with arrows, each left for the wilds...

I am now the last person alive (and this being the 360 version I can't use the mods that allows you to kill quest people) it's a lonely life so I head to his house, I leave a parchment and quill on his desk after pretending to write my confession and proceed to eat the poisoned apple, the effect takes hold, I fall back over the stool, dead.

This Argonians tale is over, next time they will all die by the warhammer of a frosty Nord named Alfred Bestlo...

All in all, that seems pretty crap now I'm looking at it, but I'm not bothered.

Short and greasy

I can't stop adding bloody useless crap to the side of the blorg.

You now have an option to subscribe to the blorg, and though it says we have 2 readers, one of them is indeed myself.

I also added a little bugger that plays my last.fm playlist, so if you want to hear what The Wombat listens to, click the big play button over there. A few songs I'm thinking are a tad heavy to listen to whilst you're reading this fine blorg. So I may amend it so it plays just Biosphere and Bohren und der Club of Gore (German doom jazz, if there is such a genre. Well, nothing else seems to fit them so that will do), and any other quiet electronic musics or 'post rock'. Everyone likes post rock so can't go wrong with that.

Edit: Now less Rocket From The Crypt, more wootin' ambience!

I was half way through writing more about Crysis, but got kinda bored with that idea, so yes I'm still playing it. I'll leave it at that.