For a while now I’ve felt an urge to revisit Morrowind. It must be, oh, eight or so years since I last wandered the swamps and ashlands of Vvardenfall, exploring ruins and running errands for various guilds. In particular, I was interested to see how the game looks these days. Over the years fans have created a whole host of graphical upgrades  – features like higher resolution textures, new character models, improved lighting.

Problem is, though, the overhead in time and effort to get a modded Morrowind up and running. There are hundreds of mods out there to sift through and choose from. Then you have to be sure they’re all co-operating with each other without any compatibility issues. So the idea got put on the back burner – which was probably a good thing as the last thing I need to do with my time is revisit a massive RPG I’ve already completed several times. Unfortunately for my productivity, though, I was reminded about the Morrowind Overhaul.

This project is a collation of masses of mods, all packaged together in one neat installer. The amount of faffing around is minimal – just set it going, make a few aesthetic choices, then sit back for a few minutes whilst various archives are unpacked. It’s perfect for players like me – nostalgic but too lazy to go reading through lists of mods for ourselves.

I’ve only played for a few hours so far, wandering riverbanks bashing rats to death, but my first impressions are good. The game still shows its age in some ways – even with nicer models, character still have rather stiff poses and animation. It does however look a lot smarter than the original we were playing back in 2003. The improvements are quite comprehensive. Swamps and grasslands benefit from more plentiful and organic looking vegetation. Cities boast crisper textures for their flagstones, crabshell walls and decorations in the fine manors. New character faces are way ahead of the awfulness of the lumpen, blocky originals. Oh, and you can reduce the amount of fogging, so you can climb a hill and enjoy the view way off into the distance. So the mysterious Dunmer homeland is even more compelling a place to explore. I was a bit worried about changes being too extensive – turning wastelands too lush and fertile, say, but so far it all seems quite true to the spirit of the original game. (or at least gives you that option).

Only problem I’ve had some far are a few huge yellow warning signs in some houses where tables are meant to be. oops. Either someone forgot an asset or one mod isn’t talking to another, or a wandering wizard just cast Summon Big Exclamation Mark. But as long as it’s not too pervasive I can forgive, as there must have been a massive amount of work here just collating all the mods and writing such an idiot-proof installer.

Just to be clear, what this mod isn’t doing is altering the gameplay.  Everything that was broken or annoying, still is. So the combat is still pretty crappy and level 2 characters will still flail around uselessly as invisible dice-rolls declare their sword swing missed. And Cliff Racers are still hateful. If you do want to try and fix that side to the game, there are plenty of mods for that too, just a separate department, and not one I’m really interested in right now. I love the Morrowind experience, for all its flaws, and am just happy too see the visuals get such an extensive upgrade.

There’s always a new one coming out. The promise of something different is exciting. If you enjoyed last year’s effort, then perhaps the new one will be even better. If you didn’t, then perhaps they’ve fixed all of the terrible problems it had.

You can’t trust the demo. One match on standard difficulty is never enough, no matter how many times you play it. The promise of a full season or tournament ultimately proves too much to resist. Any niggles or queries are brushed aside – it’s probably just you that can’t get the hang of the shooting, it’s not the game’s fault; and that bug where the goalkeeper flaps every shot into his own net will probably be fixed in the full version.

You can’t trust the reviews. Because whoever gets tasked with covering a football game will never have long enough to play it. Certainly not as long as you’d want or expect your own enjoyment of the game to last. Positive (and ultimately, incorrect) remarks about last season’s travesty are glossed over or ignored, and writers are rotated in order to avoid having to contradict themselves.

You can’t trust yourself. You can’t be too harsh on the professionals. Because we often can’t decide either. What kind of person puts 25+ hours into a game without being able to tell whether that game is good, or if they even enjoyed playing it?

Emmanuel Adebayor: Also rubbish.

Me. Because I’m an idiot, who is pretty sure that PES 2011 (yes, I know it’s not the latest one, but with my track record, I consider this a sign of strength) is rubbish, but keeps playing it anyway, despite a desperate lack of fun (a low point was reached when failing to score in 10 successive games, and at 4am, that most ridiculous of self-imposed challenges – “don’t go to bed until you win” – was reluctantly abandoned).

I gave away one of my favourite football games (PES 2008, later retrieved) because I was brainwashed by the demo of a terrible one (PES 2010, sold on eBay) which later sent me scrabbling for a second hand copy of an interim title (PES 2009, disc a bit knackered, festering in cupboard) which I already knew to be rubbish.

I buy old versions of FIFA (they’re not very good). I buy new versions of FIFA (I don’t like them).

I’ve only myself to blame. But it’s also their fault, and they’re all stupid and I hate them.

(p.s. Can someone buy me PES 2014 for Christmas? Thanks.)

Hello there.

Tonight’s review is of FlatOut 2 from Bugbear. Spoiler: we quite liked it.

If you want more by way of an introduction, here’s a nice picture, in which your reviewer considers exchanging his ‘Sparrowhawk’ for a ‘Road King’:

Now if that kind of talk doesn’t get you going, I don’t know what will.

Hello.

In response to a couple of requests, I’ve added some more music from Puma World Football ’98 to the site.

To be honest, none of the tracks are that noteworthy, and are certainly without the significant comedy value of the mighty PES 2008 soundtrack, but clearly, they’re of interest to someone.

You can find them at the bottom of our ‘looking back’ feature here.

Meanwhile, work on ‘proper’ content continues, and we hope to have more here soon.

Hello everyone. Tonight we have another guest piece from the J-Man, all about the exciting world of driving lorries. Or trucks, if you prefer. So go have a read about Euro Truck Simulator.

Then when you’re done have a look around his own site, the rather fantastic Just Games Retro, which is stacked full of reviews of oldies, and kind of like what this blog would be if we updated about ten times more often.

Hello there!

Well, we have another review for you today. It’s Test Drive III: The Passion.

Ahem. I’m sure I used to have more interesting stuff to say in these newsposts. Oh, hang on, I forgot we can add pictures now:

Yeeeeaaaaaahhhh! *sets off fireworks*

I was rooting around my big folder of game screenshots and extracted graphics files, and came across this pic from 1994 strategy classic, UFO: Enemy Unknown. It shows the “equipment screen” graphics for your soldiers in personal armour.

You know what I find quite interesting? This amour has a very stylised, comic-book look to it. Form-fitting, showing off their muscles and big shoulder pads. Yet it’s not gendered. We’ve gotten used to scifi or fantasy warrior women in gaming showing lots of cleavage, or having boob-shaped chest armour. But here guys and gals are dressed exactly the same.

Ok, everyone here also look really 90s. They’ve got hoods with a hole in the top to let hair through, which instantly makes me think of Gambit out of X-men. Wouldn’t a helmet be a good idea? And I think that’s Guile from Streetfighter 2 on the far left. But still, it’s good to know X-com is above objectifying women and treats all its troops equally.

Hi there!

I’ve been on holiday, but I managed to do a little retro-gaming while I was away.

Here’s a review of an old racer called Crazy Cars III.

I was vaguely interested in giving Diablo 3 a try, but Blizzard are still asking £45 for it. These action RPGs are something I approach pretty casually – I’m not going to play solidly for weeks finding the optimum DPS builds for different classes, I’m just happy to charge through the game once or twice on Regular difficulty. So I’m not willing to commit that much cash. I went for Torchlight 2 instead, for a mere £15 on steam.

While I was rummaging around the Battle.net site, however, I was reminded of the selection of Blizzard’s other games you can buy and download there. There are their two other major current titles, of course, WoW and Starcraft 2. Also you can also buy some older titles: Warcraft 3, Diablo 2 and Starcraft, plus expansion packs. Of that set I think these days I’d most enjoy replaying Warcraft 3, which had one of the best story-driven campaigns I’ve seen in a realtime strategy.

Also if you already own an old CD copy of any of those, you can enter the CD-key and it registers with battle.net, letting you download the game at leisure. A useful backup feature then. I stumbled across an extra bonus though: since Starcraft is now packaged with its expansion as a single Anthology item, when I entered the key for just the vanilla game, Battle.net decided I now own the anthology!

Sadly though you can’t go further back into Blizzard’s history. I’d have thought that, say, bundling the first two warcraft games together for a few quid would gain a bit of interest. The first suffers from an early, frustrating interface but the second is a much slicker example of mid-90s RTS. Also the early games establish the world later used by the MMO, and the battles that occur make up Wow’s immediate past. So for example, if you’ve been questing in the ruins of Stromgarde, you can go back to Warcraft 2 and see how it got ruined in the first place.

Some might enjoy the original Diablo also. Its spell system predates the current trend for finely tuned Talent Trees and as I recall your character was stuck at a movement speed of “steady march”. which was annoying as hell when chasing fleeing enemies. Still it managed to feel quite dark and forboding, as you descended through a massive complex of creepy crypts, ever further underground.

It’s the usual argument in favour of making oldies available – sure they’re not going to generate enormous revenue, but the costs won’t be much, either. Fix whatever compatibility issues you need for modern windows (iirc the only one of these to predate win95 is the original Warcraft), wrap up in a battle.net installer. Sounds like a month’s work for a couple of eager interns to me. (he says, knowing nothing about programming). Then sit back and enjoy the run of impulse nostalgia buys from people who, ahem, already have like 24 unplayed oldies sat on their GOG.com shelf…

A while back I mentioned the Wizardry 6+7 bundle on Gog. This has enabled me to finally own a legal copy of Crusaders of the Dark Savant (wiz 7), about 20 years late. I thought I’d allow myself a replay, even tho I have about 394 games awaiting my attention, none getting any attention because of Fallout New Vegas, and I have no time for nostalgia like this. Instead of the MS Dos original though, I felt like trying the re-release for win95 known as Wizardry Gold.

At heart it’s more or less the same game , so mostly not a lot of changes to comment on. The mini-map is always active, which is handy. The interface feels slower to respond, which is mildly irritating. Most significantly though, there’s voice acting. Which is utterly godawful.

Ok, let me retract that slightly. The guy voicing the ever-present narration is pretty good. He has a bit of gravitas, which is essential given the way his script frequenly meanders off from simple descriptions of locations and events, onto philosophical musings on a range of topics.

Everyone else tho is voiced in an incredibly amateurish manner. I wasn’t at all surprised to find, when I looked up the credits, that the Sir-Tech guys did most of the voice acting themselves. They did try for various distinctive voices, but not once could I buy into the illusion I was listening to a burly soldier or haughty mystics. In each case, characters sound like exactly what they really are, which is a guy in an office haltingly reading aloud and doing a silly voice.

My other rant for the day applies to both old and new version of the game. Every time I start anew I realise, good lord, I hate the character creation.

So, when drawing up a new hero you have to allocate points to stats like and strength, agility. That’s quite common for RPGs, for example still seen in the Fallout games. Here though, the number of points available is randomised. Of course, you want the most possible. So, just keep trying until you get a max roll of the virtual dice, right?

Except, if you get a crappy roll you can’t immediately try again, you have to complete the rest of the character creation. Allocate skills, choose a character portrait, choose spells. A minute’s clicking for a character you will then immediately delete as junk.

To make matters worse, I’m sure the roll is skewed somehow. As in, the results don’t seem fairly distributed between max and min; rolls in the upper range are too rare. It’s possible to have to go through 20 or thirty times to get something above “mediocre”. Oh and then once you have a character you’re happy with, do it all five more times to make a full team.

Okay, so, just suck it up and march out with sub-optimal characters? Don’t be too fussy, you say? Character’s stats go up as you level anyway. Sure, but this is a challenging game and you might miss still those extra points. What’s more, some elite classes such as the Lord or Ninja aren’t even available without a good roll.

tl;dr the game punishes you with an inferior team, for being unwilling to sit through an hour’s boredom before commencing play.

So, yes, ranting today. I still think that Crusaders is great if you want a truly beardy, old school RPG with some good old fashioned dungeon crawling, and nail-biting combat. But accessibility was never its strong spot.