Two Down, 8142 To Go

Well I’ve finally managed to finish Knights Of The Old Republic and Morrowind: Tribunal and knocked them off the pile.

KotOR’s storyline might not be great literature, but it was still fun and well-executed. The underlying engine is hidden very well under a nice interface for better immersion, the graphics are great on the PC version, the voice acting was excellent, and so on. I’ll definitely be picking up KotOR2.

Tribunal was largely more-of-the-same of Morrowind, which is pretty much expected of an expansion pack, but it did get a few things right where the original game was a bit lacking. The challenge level was reasonable for a character nearing completion of the main quest, so it wasn’t just a cakewalk even if you had all the best items already. The ability to list quests in progress was also extremely welcome — all too often you’d be on multiple quests simultaneously but your progress on some of them would get buried dozens of pages back in the journal, making it hard to tell what you need to do next.

I think they also did a much better job of city and dungeon design in Tribunal. The original game has a ton of dungeons, which helps promote the feeling that you’re in a vast world open for exploration, but far too many of them were way too similar in layout and style, even along the main quest. In Tribunal they are for the most part more distinctive and sensibly laid out.

Now to finish off Icewind Dale and start Morrowind: Bloodmoon…

(though I’m tempted to just abandon IWD; the story is kind of dull, and for combat and such it’s just not as impressive post-BG2)