Gaming

A while ago I tried to walk to Markarth but failed to get through the mountains and bandit camps, and after that I was resigned to not visiting the distant places for the time being. And then I discovered/remembered carriages!
You don't have to WALK halfway round the world, you can just give the guy at the stables a few coins and he'll take you to all the hold capitals.
So I've been journeying around all the cities, again in a non-saving way just to have a looky-loo.

Markarth is indeed lovely with those waterfalls, Riften was bleak and swampy but with nice trees, a lot of the northern ones are very blizzardy and harsh, although Dawnstar had a lovely sky! I really liked Solitude too! That's what I expect a big castle settlement to be like. (Better than the one at Sadrith Mora in Morrowind. I always get lost there and can't even understand the map!)

So I had a good long wander around Solitude while I was there, up the towers, through the arches, along the walkways etc. Then I went into one building and found a long dark corridor with light glaring up from a room to the right. I suddenly felt like I wasn't supposed to be there as I heard distant voices talking about the war and the Stormcloaks. Now definitely feeling I shouldn't be there, I obviously crept further in!
I looked round the corner into the glare, through the HDR gimmick, and then heard the voices more clearly. It was General Tullius! (The guy from the execution at the start!) If there was a mod for pooping your pants it would have happened right there!
I suddenly got the urge to go in and confront him. I wonder if he'd even recognise me now? I wanted to put on my Stormcloak armour, march right in there and give him the full, "Fus Ro Dah!" just to show him who I am! But in reality I.... chickened out and retreated.
I do like the encounters with General Tullius, mainly because he's played by the actor who was Colonel Tigh in Battlestar Galactica and I loved his voice with it's old-fashioned, angry weariness. Can't wait to go back in a less cowardly way. But not yet.

I had another game of Torchlight too. It is a fun game but it is rather linear and I still feel like I'm just button-bashing and that my cat is doing all the work as I follow on. I did get to the end of a quest... but then died. The cat didn't though!

You can immediately fast travel to any place you've already been to (I still think that's a bit of a cheat and I really try not to use it as it makes the world seem smaller than it is) but if it's a new place you want to go to then it's a long walk OR... carriage to the nearest capital!


Planting brains?!? Did I read that right?

There are things I cannot kill in Skyrim.
Giants and Mammoths are the obvious ones but let's add spriggans to that list too!

I stumbled across them early on in the game and thought, "Oooh look, some nice peaceful tree-people. They're probably like Treebeard in Lord Of The Rings. I'll go and have a chat with them." INSTANT DEATH!
Now that I'm at a better level I thought I'd go back and test out my improved skills. INSTANT DEATH!
The really annoying thing is that if you see one spriggan there are probably another five that you CAN'T see thanks to their invisible, camoflage tricks. If I manage to get one of them in my sights I suddenly feel like that guy hunting raptors in Jurassic Park. I'm just about to fire, I hear a sound, look to the side and before I can say, "Clever girl!" I'm attacked by three more spriggans that I didn't even know were there. And they seem to command all the insects in the world to get me too.


EDIT: Must remember to get Fez later.
And next week's freebie is Limbo follow-up, Inside. Despite Kaz's recommendation I resisted buying it due to the minimum specs being confusingly high, but as with Alan Wake, free is always worth a try!

Got Fez and had a quick play.
All those deliberate glitches were a bit scary. Don't do that to me! I thought my poor PC had crashed a couple of times.
Fun little game but I do think they overdo the old-fashioned pixel aesthetic.

And of course, couldn't resist a bit of Skyrim. And there was another dragon!
Just a random one (I'd better get used to them now) but it landed in Falkreath! It's one thing battling them in the open plains by a watchtower but fighting it through the closed-in spaces of a town is a different experience entirely.
I'd just come out of one of the shops after flogging some loot and was greeted with the terrifying sound of its wings as it landed right on the building above me! Then it started stalking between the houses and farms. It was super exciting!



Killed it, got the soul, did a celebratory "Fus!" and hit the local goat.
Had to pay a fine for that. Promise I won't do it again, Mister Angry Guard.
I do hope the dragon skeleton goes away soon though. It's kind of in the way.