I replayed The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Tfw I realize that this is my third time playing through Oblivion but it doesn't have a dedicated post on this blog. 

First time I played Oblivion was in 2013 and I was pretty confused a lot of the time. I remember being annoyed by all the Oblivion gates popping up everywhere (now I've learned there's a set amount which gives me an incentive to do them. I used to think they were random spawns), and I remember being terrified of Ayleid ruins, and I remember laughing my ass off at the blue-skinned Dunmer because they looked like smurfs. 

Second time I played Oblivion was in 2016. I got to level 30, hadn't completed the main quest yet, got bored and dropped the game indefinitely. 

Then we got to this year and there's been so many Oblivion references this year. From lots of Oblivion talk on the r/Skyrim Discord server, to the Oblivion chapter in ESO, to Oblivion clips in almost every single Game Fails video from GameSprout on Youtube recently. Then I joined the r/Oblivion Discord server for basically the same reason I joined r/Skyrim - I like the game. Didn't have any plans to replay the game when I joined, but that ended up being the final nudge I needed and I reinstalled the game and started playing. 

And it seems to have been the perfect time because I'm enjoying it a hell of a lot more than I did on the previous two playthroughs. 

This time I decided to try to do everything the game had to offer. Complete every quest. Explore every location. All the hidden content, and non-journal quests, and actually complete every single Oblivion gate. I had done a lot of it on my first playthrough back in 2013. But I discovered a bunch of daedric quests that I hadn't done that first time. 

So basically what I did was I did the main quest up until I got the quest called Paradise. I knew some side quests and what not would become unavailable after I completed the main quest so I stopped there. After that I completed the Fighters Guild and the Mages Guild. Then I did the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood. Then I did all the town quests and wilderness quests and addon quests and non-journal stuff and daedric quests. Finally I did the Knights of the Nine DLC, and then I completed the main quest. After the main quest I went on the addon quest to find Mehrunes' Razor and then I went to do Master Training quests. My proudest achievement is that I managed to complete Seeking Your Roots completely without help. 

I still love the Thieves Guild questline in Oblivion and the Dark Brotherhood questline completely broke my heart all over again. According to my memory of my first playthrough it was a hassle to be a vampire but this time around I actually kind of liked it, but I still completed the Vampire Cure quest before I did the Purification quest (why you gotta keep hurting me like this?). Mainly because vampirism turned my cute little Bosmer into a very masculine-looking old woman ._.

After I had done all the stuff I had planned on 100%-ing Shivering Isles and then go back to the base game and discover all the places and do all the Oblivion Gates. But after completing all the side quests of Shivering Isles and getting halfway through the main quest I suddenly lost interest in the game again and I didn't finish it. I remember I loved Shivering Isles in my first playthrough, but also that I became bored with the game when I started Shivering Isles on my second playthrough. This time I can safely say that the sidequest Taxonomy of Obsession killed my vibe. Because I always do Shivering Isles as the last thing I'm always level 30 or more when I get there, and all the creatures she asks for are way over-levelled for the Calm spells she provides for the quest. So after struggling with it for way too many hours I finally resorted to summoning low-levelled variants through console commands to finish the goddamn quest, but it had killed my vibe. 

Several of the quests in Shivering Isles are annoying one way or another. Ghosts of Vitharn is pretty unique but also so annoying. Work is Never Done was another one I started to do the way it was intended but then I gave up and just added everything the quest asked for via console and handed it in, because my god, dude. Addiction was annoying on a whole different level. Get addicted to this substance on purpose and then suffer withdrawal effects from hell after just a couple minutes. Doesn't help that you go from base game where everything is fairly simple after level 30 and get to Shivering Isles where suddenly every enemy is a bulletsponge that hits like a truck. It just made the whole experience annoying. 

In this playthrough I adored everything about the game until I got to Shivering Isles, and at this point I'm wondering if my good memories of Shivering Isles isn't just the nostalgia talking. 

Game completed: Grim Legends

This is a trilogy of point-and-click, hidden object games by Artifex Mundi. I picked these up when I was angry with AC Odyssey for something nice and simple to take my mind off it. I played through the first two in pretty quick succession and immediately started on the third which took me forever to complete because I started playing AC Valhalla, ESO and Oblivion before I actually went about finishing it. Which is rather dumb because each game in this trilogy is like four hours long :P

Each game has a separate story. The first one is a classic story of a wronged bride and a curse, lots of dark magic and demons. It was quite fun, but nothing special. 

The second game had a bit more story to stand on. It tells the story of two kingdoms who were once on friendly terms. But one kingdom delved deep into magic which plunged the kingdom into darkness and left it in ruin. The other kingdom graciously accepted their refugees and banned all magic so as to prevent their kingdom to go the same route. Swans play a big role, as do fairies and nettles. This is the most memorable entry and the only one I played through twice.

The third game is Victorian era and has monsters and legends appropriate for that time-period. This game features rune-casting battles. The story features a protag with amnesia, resurrection magic and a world literally falling to pieces due to misuse of magic. This game was honestly pretty cool and with the added rune-casting battles it had a lot more action than I'm used to in hidden object games. This story would've worked as a full-blown RPG. I'm impressed.

Artifex Mundi never disappoints with their hidden object games and I'll be sure to pick up more in the years to come. They're relaxing and easy to play and often surprise you with how good they are.

Summer Movies

We watched a bunch of movies this summer just like last year and most of them were horror related.

1. Choose or Die (2022). This is a horror movie about a computer game from the 80s, that's basically coded into being an AI. It was fun to watch it get increasingly more horrifying. That scene where a character is literally throwing up video tape was terrifying. It wasn't a bad movie, but also not one of the best we've seen. I did enjoy it, though.

2. ARQ (2016). This is a sci-fi post-apoc movie about a couple who gets stuck in a time-loop and have to figure their way out of it. I was kind of disappointed at the ending, because it was so open-ended. I just spent 1½ hours watching a story that doesn't have an end. Not a proper one at least. I guess I enjoyed the suspension of the ambivalent ending, and the action was good. But all in all a pretty meh experience. I was hoping for something more. 

3. The Cabin in the Woods (2011). Toni had seen this movie before and he wanted me to see it because he remembered that there was a twist he really didn't see coming and he thought it was so good. Imagine his disappointment when I had figured out the twist less than halfway through the movie? xD They kept dropping hints and my brain put them together. Anyway it was a very enjoyable film and I could easily watch it again. It's a horror movie, but it definitely has a twist. 

4. The Adam Project (2022). We had both heard a lot of good about this Ryan Reynolds movie and from the trailer it looked fun so we decided to watch it. It was a pretty classic time-travelling sci-fi flick and Ryan Reynolds was Ryan Reynolds. It was alright. Nothing new. 

5. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022). This is marketed as a sequel to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre from the 70s and they actually work on that story. The survivor from the original is back (not the same actress though). The town where everything happened is all but abandoned and a ghost town. A group of idealistic young people buy the town to create a green community. Leatherface is not impressed. The rest of the movie is classic slasher and we enjoyed it. I really liked Lila. 

6. Malevolent (2018). Classis ghost story horror movie, but THAT twist! I really didn't see the twist coming until just before it happened, so well done writers. A group of young people pretend to be ghosthunters with a psychic that can cleanse houses of spirits. Except the psychic figures out along the way that oopsie they're the real deal. And this house they're contracted to do is really, really haunted. But not in the way they think. I had a good time with this one. 

7. The Cleanse (2016). This was marketed as a horror comedy on Netflix and we usually enjoy that so we decided to watch it. Not a Netflix movie so didn't have a trailer. Turned out be something completely different and it was the most awkward movie we've watched all year. It wasn't scary. It wasn't funny. There was nothing horror about it. The whole thing was just unbelievably awkward. No. Just no.

8. Das schaurige Haus/The Scary House (2020). I wanted to see something with a classic haunted house so we ended up with this Austrian teen horror movie. It was pretty amusing and better than I expected. The whole family mystery thing added to the suspense. Definitely recommend. 

9. Metal Lords (2022). As metalheads we had a lot of fun with this movie. It's a teen movie, but so good and funny and heart-warming and the soundtrack is amazing. It's a coming of age story and the characters do a lot of growing up. The trailer says it all. Just watch it. 

10. Come Play (2020). A monster called Larry wants a friend. And he has decided that friend will be the autistic boy Oliver. Oliver's parents don't like the idea. This is a horror movie and it was pretty chilling at times. I had a good time with it. What bothered me most about this whole movie was the parents trying to force Oliver to learn to talk rather than having the entire family learn sign-language. But other than that this was a solid horror movie. 

11. The Whole Truth (2021). This is the first movie either of us have ever watched in Thai, and probably the first movie we've watched that neither of us could understand a word of, but slap some subtitles on and it's no big deal. This is a solid ghost story with lots of family drama and secrets and mystery and even at the end when you think every secret has come out it's evident that the whole story still hasn't been told. I enjoyed every single thing about this movie and how chilling it was. The only thing we both deemed ridiculous was how grey and animatronic the ghost looked. 

12. The Visit (2015). M. Night Shyamalan movie without a trailer, but we decided to give it a go. Shyamalan is either really good or just falls flat on its face. There's no in-between. This movie however was thoroughly chilling and unpleasant and absolutely perfect. There isn't a lot of action, but the suspense just keeps building up until the very end. Where it starts out slow, it ends up super intense.