A Not So Quick Update - Oblivion, Rock Band, DS Love and more

So it's been a while since I've posted. To be honest, not a lot of new stuff's been going on that is worthy of posting. Also, I've been doing more stuff with my Twitter feed, which I guess takes away from blogging because I don't feel like writing things out twice. But I don't want to completely neglect this blog, so here's a quick update.

The skin for my kick drum broke last week, and since I've been without a drum kit for that time the closest thing I could get was spending some more time with Rock Band. I've kinda neglected the game for the past couple of months, for unknown reasons, but I still really like it. It's amazing how close to the actual experience playing drums in Rock Band actually is, and playing guitar is a lot of fun as well. I also enjoyed singing, until my mic broke. It's still not as much fun when playing alone, and I haven't got into any of the online stuff yet, but I'm digging it. And it's helping me forget about my poor broken drum.

My biggest gaming obsession recently, however, has been my return to the glorious world of Cyrodiil, and another playthrough of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. In my last update, when I was a few hours in, I said I was going to try and play the game in a completely different style to ways I've played previously. 75 hours later, and that has held true, to a certain extent. I've fast travelled less, spent more time investing in my magic skills rather than just tanking it with heavy armour and blades, and I decided that I was going to go the whole game without looting armour from dead bandits and marauders. The logic was that while it is perfectly fine to take the fallen shield and weapon from an enemy, no honourable warrior would strip a corpse naked in order to sell their armour. Of course, I make an exception if I find armour that's better than my current armour. It does make the experience a little different; I'm not downing feather potions at every opportunity, still don't own every house in the game and such.

Of course some things have stayed the same, such as my reliance on the skill of alchemy. I still did a fair bit of grinding in order to get my skill up and make better lethal poisons and useful potions. I'm also now master rank in a handful of skills - I got to 100 in alchemy first, then blade, then armoror, and I'm very close to 100 in block as well - and some other skills have been well developed, such as destruction, restoration, heavy armour and light armour. I actually started the game in just light armour, which I'd never done before, but not too long into the game I realised there was a reason I'd never played through relying on light armour - it sucks. So I switched back to the heavy stuff, but still trained up to expert level in light armour.

To be honest I could probably talk about the game for hours, but I won't. What I will say is that according to my last save I've played for 82 hours. I can't think of too many other games which can be so entertaining, engrossing and rewarding over that amount of time. But the most amazing thing about that, is that today I closed my first Oblivion Gate. It took 80 hours for me to even start the main quest. I'm also only halfway through the Thieves Guild quest, have only done a couple of Daedric Shrines, and haven't even touched the Dark Brotherhood or Knights of the Nine quests. I feel bad about neglecting the Dark Brotherhood, because it's probably the best questline in the game. But I guess having done it like 10 times that initial drama and thrill is gone. Regardless, the game is still amazing, and I've sunk a lot of time into it, and I'm still probably just over halfway.

According to my profile at Xbox.com, I have played a few other Xbox games since my last update, but mostly arcade stuff. I played a bit more Geometry Wars 2, and that game is still fantastic. Played some more Uno and Uno Rush, both of which are a lot of fun in completely different ways. I also played a little more FIFA 09, but I think I might be done with that game for a while. It was a blast, but I've played it a lot since I got it in January. A thought crossed my mind yesterday as to whether or not I'd get FIFA 10. It'll probably be worth a rent at least to see how they've upgraded it, but I've found that after spending a lot of time with one game, it takes a while before I can move on just for the sake of updated rosters. I played a ton of Madden 03, then virtually nothing of Madden 04, and then a ton of Madden 05. I guess I just have off-years. Maybe this year I should try and get into Madden 10, so I'll at least have one EA Sports game to enjoy annually.

So I guess the biggest difference between now and last month is that I've started spending a lot more time with my Nintendo DS. I bought it from my sister in November, and barely used it for the first few months. It even went to Egypt with me, and even despite having no other way of playing games, it didn't get used for the entire break. But that's all changed now. I think in the past month I've worn out the battery like 10 times, compared to just once in all previous months.

The DS games I've spent the most time with include Pokemon Pearl. I'm probably about or just over half way, and it's pretty damn cool. I didn't really get into Ruby/Sapphire, but loved the first two games in the series. Pearl is an improvement over the GBA iteration, but perhaps not enough of an upgrade. Sometimes I feel they tried too hard to move the game away from its roots. I couldn't count the number of Pokemon I found along my way that are just cheap new versions of old established Pokemon. Maybe this is just me being an old Poke nerd, waving my Poke stick at the new Pokemon and shouting at them to get off my lawn, but it's certainly not the game I remember. I'd also forgotten just how dumb all the stories in the Pokemon games are; this is perhaps the worst offender yet. That being said, the battle stuff is still fun, the upgrades they made to the contests are pretty cool, especially since they were perhaps my biggest problem with Ruby/Sapphire - they were ass in those games - and it's still just as rewarding to grind up from a useless Level 5 Magikarp to a kickass Level 40 Gyarados.

Other DS games I've played include Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure. My first impressions were phenomenal; the key gameplay mechanic, the story, the game universe and everything presented in the first hour or so of the game is mindblowing awesome. But it has sort of started to run out of steam. Once you get past the first few worlds, the game's charm starts to wear off a bit, and although the gameplay is still fun, the platforming gets a bit frustrating in the later levels. I still really like it, though, and want to play more. I've also been playing a fair bit of Mario Kart DS, which may be the best version of Mario Kart ever. It's not as feature complete as previous games, but it looks really good, plays really well, and does have quite a few cool features. I've won every cup, so I guess I'm pretty much done, but I may play a bit more for kicks. Mario Kart has always had a fundamental balance flaw, but this may be the most balanced version yet. They didn't rewrite the rule book, so it's still Mario Kart (you still gotta bring those blue sparks), but it's really cool to have a handheld version of the game with good graphics, solid controls and a nice variety of features.

I've still got a few DS games I bought when I got my DS, namely Phantom Hourglass, The World Ends With You, Final Fantasy IV and Harvest Moon DS, and I don't know when I'll get to any of them. I've also got Ninjatown on order from Amazon for the low price of £10, and I'd also like to check out Professor Layton and Chrono Trigger at some point. There's not much else right now, as the release schedule is a little thin. There's quite a few games I'd like to rent, like Halo Wars, Resident Evil 5, Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection and Colin McRae's Dirt, but few that I actually feel like laying down some money for. I'm stoked that Tales of Vesperia is finally coming out here in June, and look forward to playing that greatly, especially since it's been so long since I really got absorbed in a good JRPG.

So it's been a while since I've posted. To be honest, not a lot of new stuff's been going on that is worthy of posting. Also, I've been doing more stuff with my Twitter feed, which I guess takes away from blogging because I don't feel like writing things out twice. But I don't want to completely neglect this blog, so here's a quick update.

The skin for my kick drum broke last week, and since I've been without a drum kit for that time the closest thing I could get was spending some more time with Rock Band. I've kinda neglected the game for the past couple of months, for unknown reasons, but I still really like it. It's amazing how close to the actual experience playing drums in Rock Band actually is, and playing guitar is a lot of fun as well. I also enjoyed singing, until my mic broke. It's still not as much fun when playing alone, and I haven't got into any of the online stuff yet, but I'm digging it. And it's helping me forget about my poor broken drum.

My biggest gaming obsession recently, however, has been my return to the glorious world of Cyrodiil, and another playthrough of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. In my last update, when I was a few hours in, I said I was going to try and play the game in a completely different style to ways I've played previously. 75 hours later, and that has held true, to a certain extent. I've fast travelled less, spent more time investing in my magic skills rather than just tanking it with heavy armour and blades, and I decided that I was going to go the whole game without looting armour from dead bandits and marauders. The logic was that while it is perfectly fine to take the fallen shield and weapon from an enemy, no honourable warrior would strip a corpse naked in order to sell their armour. Of course, I make an exception if I find armour that's better than my current armour. It does make the experience a little different; I'm not downing feather potions at every opportunity, still don't own every house in the game and such.

Of course some things have stayed the same, such as my reliance on the skill of alchemy. I still did a fair bit of grinding in order to get my skill up and make better lethal poisons and useful potions. I'm also now master rank in a handful of skills - I got to 100 in alchemy first, then blade, then armoror, and I'm very close to 100 in block as well - and some other skills have been well developed, such as destruction, restoration, heavy armour and light armour. I actually started the game in just light armour, which I'd never done before, but not too long into the game I realised there was a reason I'd never played through relying on light armour - it sucks. So I switched back to the heavy stuff, but still trained up to expert level in light armour.

To be honest I could probably talk about the game for hours, but I won't. What I will say is that according to my last save I've played for 82 hours. I can't think of too many other games which can be so entertaining, engrossing and rewarding over that amount of time. But the most amazing thing about that, is that today I closed my first Oblivion Gate. It took 80 hours for me to even start the main quest. I'm also only halfway through the Thieves Guild quest, have only done a couple of Daedric Shrines, and haven't even touched the Dark Brotherhood or Knights of the Nine quests. I feel bad about neglecting the Dark Brotherhood, because it's probably the best questline in the game. But I guess having done it like 10 times that initial drama and thrill is gone. Regardless, the game is still amazing, and I've sunk a lot of time into it, and I'm still probably just over halfway.

According to my profile at Xbox.com, I have played a few other Xbox games since my last update, but mostly arcade stuff. I played a bit more Geometry Wars 2, and that game is still fantastic. Played some more Uno and Uno Rush, both of which are a lot of fun in completely different ways. I also played a little more FIFA 09, but I think I might be done with that game for a while. It was a blast, but I've played it a lot since I got it in January. A thought crossed my mind yesterday as to whether or not I'd get FIFA 10. It'll probably be worth a rent at least to see how they've upgraded it, but I've found that after spending a lot of time with one game, it takes a while before I can move on just for the sake of updated rosters. I played a ton of Madden 03, then virtually nothing of Madden 04, and then a ton of Madden 05. I guess I just have off-years. Maybe this year I should try and get into Madden 10, so I'll at least have one EA Sports game to enjoy annually.

So I guess the biggest difference between now and last month is that I've started spending a lot more time with my Nintendo DS. I bought it from my sister in November, and barely used it for the first few months. It even went to Egypt with me, and even despite having no other way of playing games, it didn't get used for the entire break. But that's all changed now. I think in the past month I've worn out the battery like 10 times, compared to just once in all previous months.

The DS games I've spent the most time with include Pokemon Pearl. I'm probably about or just over half way, and it's pretty damn cool. I didn't really get into Ruby/Sapphire, but loved the first two games in the series. Pearl is an improvement over the GBA iteration, but perhaps not enough of an upgrade. Sometimes I feel they tried too hard to move the game away from its roots. I couldn't count the number of Pokemon I found along my way that are just cheap new versions of old established Pokemon. Maybe this is just me being an old Poke nerd, waving my Poke stick at the new Pokemon and shouting at them to get off my lawn, but it's certainly not the game I remember. I'd also forgotten just how dumb all the stories in the Pokemon games are; this is perhaps the worst offender yet. That being said, the battle stuff is still fun, the upgrades they made to the contests are pretty cool, especially since they were perhaps my biggest problem with Ruby/Sapphire - they were ass in those games - and it's still just as rewarding to grind up from a useless Level 5 Magikarp to a kickass Level 40 Gyarados.

Other DS games I've played include Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure. My first impressions were phenomenal; the key gameplay mechanic, the story, the game universe and everything presented in the first hour or so of the game is mindblowing awesome. But it has sort of started to run out of steam. Once you get past the first few worlds, the game's charm starts to wear off a bit, and although the gameplay is still fun, the platforming gets a bit frustrating in the later levels. I still really like it, though, and want to play more. I've also been playing a fair bit of Mario Kart DS, which may be the best version of Mario Kart ever. It's not as feature complete as previous games, but it looks really good, plays really well, and does have quite a few cool features. I've won every cup, so I guess I'm pretty much done, but I may play a bit more for kicks. Mario Kart has always had a fundamental balance flaw, but this may be the most balanced version yet. They didn't rewrite the rule book, so it's still Mario Kart (you still gotta bring those blue sparks), but it's really cool to have a handheld version of the game with good graphics, solid controls and a nice variety of features.

I've still got a few DS games I bought when I got my DS, namely Phantom Hourglass, The World Ends With You, Final Fantasy IV and Harvest Moon DS, and I don't know when I'll get to any of them. I've also got Ninjatown on order from Amazon for the low price of £10, and I'd also like to check out Professor Layton and Chrono Trigger at some point. There's not much else right now, as the release schedule is a little thin. There's quite a few games I'd like to rent, like Halo Wars, Resident Evil 5, Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection and Colin McRae's Dirt, but few that I actually feel like laying down some money for. I'm stoked that Tales of Vesperia is finally coming out here in June, and look forward to playing that greatly, especially since it's been so long since I really got absorbed in a good JRPG.