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07 Jan 2009 at 13:16:33 by Spanner Spencer

Haunted House

http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=838536&hl=

It's always a good sign when a mod is hosted on the forums of the official game or, as in the case of Haunted House, on the developer's forums. It's not a flawless rule, but it's good advice to pay close attention to mods that have become closely associated with the original game.

This horror mod aims to present a game that's less focused on combat – as Oblivion was – and recapture the psychological atmosphere that forms the essential nucleus of a well told tale of terror. It begins, as such stories do, with a simple conceit – the unexplained death of a rich man at his mansion. Reading about his last moments in a diary you've picked up, you embark on a quest to find out what happened, and get drawn in to a tense, dangerous adventure.

As this is a relatively small (yet complete) mod, weighing in at around three gaming hours, it'd spoil Haunted House to go into further detail regarding the storyline, but checking out the trailer ought to encourage any Oblivion fans looking for a bit of tense, exploratory mystery gaming to get involved.

Tamriel Rebuilt

http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/

Developers pour millions into their games then all too quickly lose interest in them (other than the occasional official fix) once they hit the shelves. One of the most important aspects of taking an active interest in the modding community means your favourite games continue to grow despite the lack of interest from official sources.

The team behind Tamriel Rebuilt are clearly as educated about the Elder Scrolls series as they are astute, since they’ve notice a lot of locations about the Oblivion map with little or no lore attached to them and, in some cases, almost no development in their environments. Their task is to flesh out these yawning gaps in Bethesda’s efforts and bring the full map of Tamriel to life.

The project is progressing on a location-by-location basis, with the team fully developing each new region before moving on to the next. Clearly, this is a monumental task, but taking a look at the work they’ve done so far on Hammerfell, the Isle of Stirk, Goldmoor and Rihad (featured in the attached video) it’s easy to see haw vital Tamriel Rebuilt will become to the Elder Scrolls player.

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