Games of any sort

The Adventures of Petty Tyrant Would-be Dragon Slayer and his 'Companion' Lydia as they try to find somewhere nice, but reasonably priced, in Skyrim for their honeymoon.

Ahh Married on the river bank at dawn. How lovely.
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Now where shall we go for our honeymoon dear? You want to go somewhere warm? Cryodil? We are not going to the Imperial City, its a rip off. Yes, dear. Whatever dear, put down the sword dear. Ok, south it is.
Or maybe not two bottles of buckie they want for the toll road! Two! I don't care I am not giving away two bottles of buckie Lydia. No, of course I don't love buckie more than you. But two bottles, come on! Bugger 'em in their fancy fort, we'll just have to honeymoon in Skyrim.
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Now this looks nice. Should be a good hotel here. Look they even have their own dead dragon, so it must be good. 10 Gold for the Honeymoon suite! They must have seen us coming Lydia.
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Ok admitedly that is quite some ensuite running water they lay on.
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How about we go on a Honeymoon safari instead? Yes that'll be good. Nice open plains.
Um, dear, you probably don't want to turn round.
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Several bottles of buckie later.....

No, no, no! Its goes dum-de-dum-de-DUM. Get it right you three or we'll never win Skyrim's Got Talent!
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Ah a romantic night fire, well bonfire. Yes dear it is a bit large for a campfire. You call it someone's house I call it firewood. Have some more roast dog and stop complaining.
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Ok why don't we try this Horn of the World Hotel. Its meant to have spectacular views.
Yup that's pretty spectacular, but its a bit, high. No I'm not scared Lydia, hey don't push! I mean it. That is NOT funny.
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The facilities up here are terrible. Why does no one ever complain? Well I am, where's the manager.
Ah, you're the manager then are you?
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Um, no, nohing to say at all. Certainly no complaints of any sort what so ever, No siree. We'll just be off then.
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Ah at last. Somehwere cheap. Somewhere beautiful and romantic. What's that Lydia dear. Oh its only about -10 stop complaining woman. You should have worn a jumper. Why did I get married in the first place?
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The game looks great *envious smiley needed here*

Can't give it enough praise Ringdrotten. If you liked Oblivion or Fallout this is them a hundred times improved, and not just in looks. Its all much more immersive, it no longer seems that everyone is voiced by the same two actors, or repeating the same stuff- you actually stop to listen to people now! Its worth hanging about inns just for the gossip. Magic has had an overhaul and is way more fun too. Just great stuff- but it is life consuming.

Life consuming - could be a problem, given the fact that I have no life these days to begin with! But then again, I could use something to fill the weekends with - good thinking, Ringdrotten

Let me guess, Petty. You're the one wearing nothing but the bearskin loincloth and moccasins, right?

And Ringdrotten's right, it does look like a pretty awesome game.

Inbetween slaying dragons I've been having a go at the new Lord of the Rings game War in the North.
It is a weird thing. The gameplay is by the book button mashing hack and slash with rpg style levelling up and equipment sorting. But its both licensed by New Line Cinema so its authentic PJ in looks and sounds (except the voice acting which are impressions, made all the weirder by the characters lookinig like the film actors), and Tolkien Enterprises, so its also got all the books to draw on. The result is rather odd.
One the one hand the general story takes liberates the size of King Kongs bollocks with Tolkien. Elves chuck magic about left right and centre and all sorts of liberties are taken with locations, turning a few ruins into sprawling fortresses (the Barrow downs ar ein there and for the first time I found myself rather glad PJ didn't go there as the visual look of it was way off for my liking with huge weird stones everywhere) yet in the more rpg bits when say you are wandering around Bree or Rivendell chatting to folks there is a wealth of genuine Tolkien stuff in there.
The plot concerns a Black Numerorean taking over places like Fornost at the beset of Sauron (he looks pretty much like the Mouth of Sauron). But interestingly there is an eagle in it. You can order it at key points to attack targets. And as this is a New Line licensed thing one has to wonder if there has been any sharing of visuals and ideas. And this eagle talks giving me some hope the eagles of TH films will too and not be the mute birds of PJ's Lotr's.
The animation for a talking bird works for mine me too, I'd be quite happy if the films were not to disimilar in their treatment of the eagles.



Jump to 7mins for a talking eagle.

Heres the games intro sequence- it sort of shows whats good and bad about whattheyve done with the source.

war in the north review

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-24-the-lord-of-the-rings-war-in-the-north-review

Sounds about right to my own experience playing it Chris. I couldn't recommend it. Even less so if your an actual Tolkien fan sadly. There's a lot in there will set off the crabbit meter. However as a game of PJ's creation of ME its probably about right, lots of fak drama and excitment and things exploding and looking epic but no content and like the films worth about a 4/10, although obviously I'd mark lower.

Two great free Staw Wars based games. Battle of Yavin and the Battle of Endor. If you'v a half decent pc you might always want to get the sound and graphics mod fromthe link at the bottom of the page and if your also a Star Trek fan the DS9 mod (also a link at bootom of the page) is excellent too.

http://www.bruneras.com/

I have to say, Skyrim looks intense. Was a little disappointed with LOTR: WitN though. I was pretty excited for Halo CEA though.

I'm still a bit unclear about Halo: CEA. Is it literally the same game with improved graphics? As in, same maps, same enemies, etc.? I feel like there has to be more to it than that but I've been told otherwise. The original Halo: CE was pretty awesome but just remaking it with fancier graphics (if that is all they're doing) seems kinda pointless.

I'm not a Halo fan so can't help you there I'm afraid Eldo.

But for your entertainment heres Zero Punctuation (my favourite online games reviewer-for an englishman he must have some Scots in him to be so crabbit) review of Skyrim- I'd also recommend any of his other reviews as they are often very funny as well as accurate.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/5020-The-Elder-Scrolls-V-Skyrim

That's all it really is Eldo, they have added Easter eggs, terminals, and skull to the campaign though. After watching YouTube videos of it, it hardly feels different even with the new graphics. The biggest reason To buy it was for the included Reach multiplayer maps, including a firefight map. I was hoping for campaign theatre mode, but it did not make it in.

Based on what you've said and a few conversations I've had with other people, it sounds like the only real attraction for Anniversary is getting to play the first game on Xbox Live. I guess if I was into being virtually teabagged by people that'd be cool, but...

Have you played LOTR Conquest?

I have not. I really wanted it when it came out but then I read a bunch of reviews by people who said it was just a lesser knockoff of Battlefront. Since we didn't even have a 360 back then (just our original Xbox that we got in 2003 or 2004) I ended up never getting to play the game. Did you, and if so, what did you think of it? I've remained mildly curious to this day and glance for it in bargain bins when I happen to be in game stores.

I own it, and it isn't the greatest. It can be fun at times but it had a really weak story and really was just a failed sequel to Battlefront (which is one of the best games ever in my opinion). The only reason I found it fun was because it was LOTR. Certain units, such as the Mage and warrior, were extremely overpowered. The maps were poorly constructed, terrible voice acting because, unlike most LOTR games, they were unanle to get the real actors of each character beside Elrond. The replacement actors did a terrible job of sounding like the character.

If I were you, I'd buy it simply because of how cheap it is now. Had it been when it came out, I would definitely pass.

I'm still waiting on a good LoTR based game sadly. Last decent one I played was the text adventure of FoTR by Melbourne house about 1986!!

I'll definitely keep an eye pealed for a bargain bin copy of Conquest somewhere. I'm afraid I haven't played many LOTR games in general, but the movie-based games for The Two Towers and The Return of the King remain very enjoyable for me even after all these years. Sure, they're dated, but I have a lot of fond memories hack-and-slash battling my way across Middle-earth hasn't lost any of its appeal.

There really hasn't been a decent one. I was really hoping for War in the North, byt I heard it got bad reviews. Conquest had decent visuals, but not much else. The adaptions of the films were ok, but more fun to just mess around in, I didn't like the hallway style. Third age sounded kind of stupid. I heard that Battle for Middle Earth was pretty good though.

I thought the amount of hype around War in the North would make it an inevitable disappointment, but the reviews I've read here and elsewhere make it sound like it's just a plain bad game. In any event, I don't think I'll be picking it up any time soon. I have been curious about Battle for Middle-earth for a while, though. I really enjoyed strategy games like Civilization and Age of Empires/Mythology when I was younger, and while I'm sure BFME is more war-oriented than either of those, I think it would still be a fun change of pace from the RPG style LOTR games.

I definitely want to pick it up sometime.

Eldorion wrote: The Two Towers and The Return of the King remain very enjoyable for me even after all these years. Sure, they're dated, but I have a lot of fond memories hack-and-slash battling my way across Middle-earth hasn't lost any of its appeal.

So I got LOTR: War in the North, and I must say it is MUCH better than reviews made It sound!
(the voice actors for the movie/book characters leave much to be desired though )

Was playing Skyrim and had a Hobbit moment. Spookily like being in Laketown. Fortunetly I had fraps running at the time to capture it.



Shame it was only a Blood Dragon and not an Elder Dragon which would have been more impressive (and probably have fried my ass off)