[[RELz] Wickwood: TES Alliance's 2012 Halloween Challenge]

Note for the moderator: you have my permission to fix any mistakes I make with the Spoiler tag.

Just completed this excellent compilation

There's a very good mix of everything in here! Definitely some understated moments mixed in with some rather bigger horrors.

I will say that a few of these were not exactly my cup of tea, but I think every contributor deserves a huge round of applause.

Now I'm going to slip into some more specific notes here. Please, DO NOT read these until you've had a chance to play through this quite frankly amazing treat!

Entry 02:

I liked this one! It was a very solid way to introduce the set. I "unfortunately" forgot to turn ASIS off, so I encountered 2-3 times the number of ghouls as was probably intended. Still, very enjoyable. The final section was very well set up for an acrobatic assassin - plenty of room to jump around and shoot from. And dat armor!

Entry 03:

Undoubtedly my favorite! I went in thinking I was going to get ambushed like before. Lo and behold - ! Nothing. Disappointed, I took my key fragment and turned to leave, when something caught my eye. There were boots in the big cast iron pot. Boots. In the pot. Then I noticed all of the empty clothes, and the book, which opens with a very poor Symmachus. I realized that whoever had lived here had starved, likely to death; forced to eat the tough leather of his shoes, and maybe whatever other... meat he could find. Somehow, this quiet realization disturbed me more profoundly than any single other thing in this compilation. Hats off to this great storyteller. They've caught what Bethesda themselves do so well - tell a story through a carefully placed pot and its contents, and let the player fill in all the details. All the horrifying, lovely details.

Entry 04:

Honestly, I could have voted for this one or 03 and been perfectly satisfied. Both were exceptionally well done. This one... I was reminded why I hate Necromancers in TES all over again. The maze was the perfect blend of frustrating and thrilling. The beast's cries and grunts managed to echo just perfectly throughout the whole labyrinth, and there were plenty of surprisingly difficult situations. I'd forgotten all about those poisonous gasses that used to pervade those Ayleid ruins in Oblivion. Honestly, I felt that this wonderful house had the most heart put into it, and certainly the best atmosphere. Kudos for taking time on all the custom textures and meshes, and the unique items!

Entry 05

I'll admit that this one just didn't quite catch me like the last two. There were plenty of lovely surprises - who doesn't love a Draugr Deathlord popping out of Oblivion two inches in front of you, it's ethereally blue eyes matching your widening ones? Even so, I just... wasn't scared in the right way for me to really enjoy this one. The fireplace did give me a good bit of queasiness, though.

Entry 06

Holy crap, this one freaked me the heck out when stuff started moving around on me! Bad enough that the dang specters were twice as tough as normal, but the shuffling bookcase just threw me way off! The effect shader or whatever in the basement was perfect - I could have been inches, truly inches from a corpse staring me in the eye, and I wouldn't have been able to tell.

And then, leaving, all of a sudden there's a room, with spacer walls that most certainly weren't there before! I slept in the bed, hoping for something interesting to happen, but no dice. Still; extremely well done!

Entry 07

Ughh... There were some legitimately terrifying points to this one, but honestly it just dragged on a few rooms too long. There was one point when I was unlocking a door, thinking there was probably a chest on the other side. There were a few red specks that I could see just above the lockpicking UI, but I brushed them off as particles in the air or a reflection. Then, just so soon as I get the lock, they start moving. A Vampire had been standing there, watching me, unblinking, while I opened his cage.

That got me pretty good.

It was a pity that the rest of it was just wave after wave of Vampire, then wave after wave of Draugr. The Void section was pretty cool. The character I took out was my assassin, so she just stuck to oh-so-plentiful shadows until the Dragon Priest at the end decided he was having nothing of that.

Don't get me wrong - I liked this one! If the author had stuck to one or the other (Vampires or Draugr in supreme dark), I think the entry would have benefited.

Entry 08

I hate to say that I went into this one with 07 still a bit too much on my mind, and I don't think I enjoyed the first bit as much as I would have otherwise. Once I got into the last area, where the things began just fading in, I was genuinely surprised by the Dragon Priest that materialized almost in me! Made me feel more than a little creeped out, thinking of the un-dead flesh nearly merging with mine....

The Treasury room as I was leaving was just a moment of pure wonder. Have you ever played Batman: Arkham Asylum? Great game. There's a point, near the very end, where the largest number of guys that you ever see in one places are gathered in a very narrow hallway, greeting you as you head in to face the last boss. They don't attack you - they'll just mock-cheer you on. If you attack them, it's completely optional - but it's also one of the most satisfying moments in the entire game, as you rip into the mooks.

That was what this room felt like. Too small to really maneuver, and a few of the Vampires decided to oblige my already cramped circumstances by summoning another couple Frost Atronachs. Yipes. This was a hairy one, and by far the closest to death I came in the entire compilation. It was also by far the most sheer fun I had in the entire compilation. Thank you, author, for a very enjoyable, and quite shocking, stroll in darkness.

And now, for the big 01:

That guy was big. Very big. It's too bad he wasn't immune to poison. Or health-scaled to the Player level. Even so, seeing that flaming brand at his side (literally flaming - I though the place was going to burn down from the heat that thing had to be generating) and his visage was enough to make me prep for a much bigger fight than I got.