Return of the Postings

Internet is still up and down. I called 2 days ago and they said it was an outage in the area and they are working on fixing it. We'll see.

Today I watched a 55 minute speed run for Super Metriod. I never had a chance to play that game. Watching someone else makes me feel like I missed out. Playing games when they first come out is when you can have the maximum fun. Unfortunately picking up a 14 year old game like this one, while it might be interesting, won't have the same excitement as say Fallout 3. It is just so dated.

Anyway, one thing I was impressed with this run was all the hidden items. In the Metriod series there is a number of power ups that you have to collect to progress in the game. But there are even more, such as extra missiles, that are not required. Almost always the ones you don't need are hidden and you have to find them. Some are easy to stumble upon while others can be absurdly difficult. To the point where you would have to read a guide to find.

Ultima Online certainly has its share of secret areas. Early on there was hidden valley that could be accessed by a false mountain door (which is actually broken and you see the entrance clearly now). There was the underground mage laboratories and tower in the Hedge Maze (which was completely removed due to Kingdom Reborn client limitations). Hmm, maybe I should mention something still in the game. The door into the inner Khaldun chamber works on most shards. On the one I play Atlantic, it was stuck open for the longest time so you could just walk inside.

Actually it seems a lot of UO's secret stuff has just become broken or obsolete. The Terathan Keep levers don't work anymore. The Despise lever area doesn't appear to do anything. The door into the Doom mage shop was sealed accidentally at one point. A gate was added so you could just walk into the star room instead of clicking the brazier.

When you have a good train of thought it is terrible for something to interrupt it, such as my persistent connection issues. I had lots of good ideas for this post but they seemed to have whittled away. Something much better tomorrow I hope.