Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

The game wants to install a chunk of data to give me an enhanced audio experience.

I start the campaign, I am given the usual three choices of difficulty. I choose veteran which I assume is the equivalent of medium.

Controls

Left analogue stick        Move Character
Right Analogue stick        Move Camera
Left trigger            Aim   
Right trigger            Shoot
Left bumper            Use Items
Right bumper       
Y                Switch primary and secondary weapons
X                Reload
B                crouch/Prone
A                Run
dpad    up           
    down            change to night/magnetic vision
    left            select next item
    right            select next item
Start           
Select
Clicking right stick
Clicking left stick

Mission 1
Nicaragua
The game starts with our character riding in a jeep with a few other soldiers through slum type areas. We move out into dirt roads in an almost desert like region. The jeep is part of a convoy. There is an explosion and the driver of the vehicle is shot, the vehicle then appears to flip.
The view shifts and it seems that we are not the characters in the jeeps, we are Ghosts about to attack this convoy.
We see crosshairs draw a bead on a group of enemies then we are prompted to fire by pressing the right trigger. Our group then abseil down a cliff above the road and we are moving towards the downed convoy. we get control and have to take out the enemies.
Once done a cut scene starts. We get into the back of the  truck and find something that looks to me like a nuclear bomb. The team are happy to find it, though that does not last long as the bomb starts making noises. The handler tells us to run for it and the bomb goes off. This is devastating for the team and it looks like they are all done for.
Have to comment on what looked like some Unreal engine type lack of textures in the cut scene.
Then the game appears to have crashed with a black screen, this isn't impressing me much.
It's crashed, I have to reboot and repeat the mission from the point where we rappelled down the cliff.

Mission 2
North America Fort Bragg.
A Ghost team is boarding a plane, we can see the coffins of the dead team being unloaded from a plane nearby.
A briefing type video plays. The bomb passed through many hands to get to where it did. Once of those hands is a man named Gabriel Paez. He claims not to have known what the bomb's target was. The ghost team are to contact Paez and help him defect.
Our team arrive at the rendezvous and it seems that unfriendly attention has been beaten the team to the location.
Paez is reached on his cell phone and will guide us to where he is hiding out.
We move out into the street and scatter the civilians with our tooled up military appearance. Further down the street we find some armed men, we throw a sensor grenade, which tags all the men on our hud display, making them visible as yellow outlines even when they are behind cover. We have to take out the group, then move on.
We come to a market square and find Paez, he is attacked by enemies and we have to take them out.
A helicopter comes in to try and pick up Paez, though it is shooed away by enemies trying to fire rockets at it. We then have another set of enemies to keep away from Paez in the streets. He escapes into a bus and we move on. we come to a room where we have to breach in a Rainbow six Vegas style. We then fight some more and move up the hill passing a lot of civilians. We have to take on a truck with a mounted gun then a man with a rocket launcher.
We then have to sneak past a group of enemies, we can take them out if none of the others can see, through we raise the alarm if we are seen or a body is found.
We then come to Paez's safe house and find that men have found him. We have to breach in and kill them. Paez is now taken out of the house in a diamond formation.
We now have what amounts to an on rails section where we move through the market being attacked and have to get Paez to Safety.
Eventually we do and the mission ends..

Mission 3
We now find our three heroes, 30, pepper and Kozak on a destroyer having some down time. They are getting their gear on and we see their stealth suits in action for the first time. These are light refracting suits that make the person almost invisible when standing still.
We are now in Africa, in Zambia, a warlord named Macaba has been implicated by Paez and we need to find out where he is getting his weapons from, this will help us find the nuke's source.
We are told about magnetic view which will show up enemy guns, mines and hidden weapons caches.
A cut scene shows some of Macaba's men attacking civilians, we prevent a rape by melee killing the rapist. We are now ready to move into this desert like environment.
We move towards a village that is burning and find some men holding villagers at gunpoint. We can tag them and stealth kill to make sure that no civilians are hurt.
We move on to the next outpost and have to go prone as three emplaced gun trucks go past dangerously close. We move into another village and repeat the same procedure. We now move to a ridge and find a huge refugee camp.
We ask for a sat scan and it find Macaba in the camp. We have a contact who can help us in the camp. When I find him he is being hassled by four thugs. We have to line up a sync shot, which means we assign our three team members a thug by hitting right bumper when they are in our sights. When we take the shot on the remaining one the others do also.
We then get into a truck and we take a ride into the camp. We are told this will be a stealth mission. We have to move through the aid camp setting up sync shots to kill the guards. We then find Macaba, we are told to follow him to his HQ. I now have to follow Macaba, and take out his soldiers as they leave his company. It is quite fun to watch him send someone to do something, then send your team to take them out silently as soon as he turns the corner.
Macaba talks on the phone in cut scene, we hear that he is angry about a delay, his next weapon shipment is coming in by air and has been delayed. We are  told to take out Macaba.
We then head for the airstrip, the plan is to take the plane and pull it's data recorder. That way we will know where it came from.
We now have to approach the plane, This seems quite easy at first, picking off the stragglers, however as I get closer to the plane it seems harder to not be seen. I am not sure if it's possible to pull it off. Anyway, the plane starts to move when you are seen and you have to shoot at it's engines while avoiding being shot by the men left on the ground. The plane seems to be getting away, when I am told that it is going down. It has crashed close to the refugee camp. We now have to go back, as we do a sandstorm which has been threatened hits and we have to use the magnetic vision to see what is happening. We move back to the camp and have to move through it in full open firefight, which is aided by the enemies not being able to see much and us being able to see everything in shades of black and blue. We get through the camp and come to the crash site. Here we have to take out some enemies who have came from the camp. we then move into the crash site. We have to hold it until the cavalry can come in helicopters. Enemies on foot and in vehicles attack from all sides.
Once we have survived long enough the mission ends.

Mission 4
Gulf of Guinea, Kings mountain destroyer.
The data from the black box has led back to Nigeria, a private military company called Watchgate security has been providing security for oil companies in the area. It seems they are up to more than that. They appear to be running missions to destabilize the region.
We are to meet up with a CIA operative called Daniel Sykes in the area.
Our new gadget on this mission is a UAV and a bipod for our gun.
We start in a river near a shack, some PMC men are killing villagers.
We have to use the UAV to scout inside the shack and find out the enemy position. We then get ready to breach. Inside we shoot most of the men and grab one, he is interrogated for the position of the CIA agent. He tells us and then we knock him out.
We move through the village in open firefight taking out PMC soldiers.
We come to a large refinery and ask for a sat map. The exact location of the CIA agent can't be found. We must go in blind and find him. There is an enemy gunship on radar and we are given a jet as backup.
I move up and have to use the drone to target a squad of enemies. Then move into the camp. There are an awful lot of men in the compound. I am not sure if I need to sneak or just go in guns blazing. I target four men playing football, then take out the rest in an open firefight.
We now move up to the container which is being used as a makeshift cell for the agent. We go inside it and make sure the tied up and hooded prisoner is our man. It is and we leave the container with him. This leads to an on rails section where we escort the vip as we are swamped by enemies. A gunship arrives and we must call in the jet to give an airstrike. This clears the area of remaining enemies and the gunship, we then get inside a hangar and take stock. We are to move to the extraction point. On the way the agent tells us that he has Intel stashed in a car in the north part of the village. The Intel is of significant importance that we need to go and fetch it. We get to the extraction point where a helicopter takes away the agent, we are to go back for the Intel. We now have to move through a heavily enemy populated area. I try and take out as many as possible using the drone to mark the targets and the team to snipe them. However, I am seen and it turns into a firefight. We now traverse the bombed town looking for the car. We have a firefight with enemies and a helicopter. Then find the car. As we wait for extraction the helicopter comes back and we have to take it down with an emplaced gun. We are then extracted.

Mission 5
Back on the destroyer we see our guys have an angry spat with grunts.
We are going to Peshwar in Pakistan, to grab an arms dealer implicated by the CIA agent Sykes. The new toys for this mission is a drone that can land and become a remote controlled car and also emit a sonic pulse that can stun enemies for a few seconds.
We also gain Flash-bangs.
We start on the rooftops and have to move in on the house where the arms deal is taking place. we are to grab only the seller, the buyer is to be left to the Pakistani forces who are helping us. We move forward and take out all the rooftop guards. We come to a skylight above the room where the deal is going down. We have to fly the drone in, land it and drive it into the meeting. We then set off the sonic pulse and breach inside. Once we have the buyer we find that the seller has not turned up. The cell-phone of the buyer is used to trace the seller. We find that he is being chased by the Pakistani forces. We have to go and grab him out from under their nose without being seen. Complication matters is the fact the the Pakistani and the enemies forces are involved in a gun battle in the crowded streets. we move up the street and find heavy enemy resistance and some rocket fire from a nearby building. Eventually we reach the vehicle and breach it. The seller is gone and a bomb is waiting for us. Narrowly escaping with their lives the gang are picked up for extraction.
The dealer has been traced, she is a Russian named Katya Prugova. we are sent  to her location as she flees the scene for the border to Afghanistan.
This starts as and emplaced gun section from a helicopter. we have to shoot escort vehicles and not engage the target vehicle. Once the escorts are down an enemy helicopter arrives to cause trouble. when it is downed, we focus on the dealer, bringing the helicopter in close makes her crash her car. We then get out of the helicopter and try and find her. Enemies flood the area quickly making a difficult fight. Once we have cleared the enemies we can go in and grab Katya.

Mission 6
The trail leads to Russia, we are heading to a derelict weather station in he Arctic, which has been appropriated for use by the bad guys.
We see the ghosts identifying themselves to a robot walker type thing, which seems to use an a.i. The warhound is it's name, we also get EMP grenades.
We find ourselves in the snow, with almost zero visibility, this means we are to switch to magnetics again. I come across a small camp and take out the group of enemies. We move onwards and find a motor pool, they have a tank here, which we must take out. We have to use the warhound, which makes short work of the tank. We now are in a fight with the hornets nest that is stirred up. I use the warhound to take out vehicles that arrive and shoot the men who swarm out to engage us. We move down into the camp and through it.
We have to target an antenna with the warhound and blow it up.
We then encounter another outpost and fight the enemies here. The warhound makes it a fairly one sided fight.
We come to a larger base and another one sided fight. We have to kill everyone and then get into a boat which is used to travel to the next location.

The game crashed here and I had to reboot twice. I realized that I was downloading a trailer. The game seems to have issues with background downloading and connecting to the severs for the DRM. Poor show Ubisoft.
Eventually I get the boat ride to the next area over with, after about an hour.
we come to an underground complex, there is a large nuclear submarine docked here. We have to complete the mission in nine minutes before the base can be put on lockdown.
We have to rush along the dockside and kill lots of enemies. Eventually reaching a computer room where data is hacked and uploaded to the handlers. We then have to progress into a cavern type area that is revealed to be up ahead. We take the elevator.
We have to fight some men, then some helicopters using the warhound on the surface. We come to the entrance of a complex. Inside we find a large hanger filled with large rockets. We place a c4 charge and then have to get out in under three minutes. As we leave a helicopter and enemies make it hard. Once we get to the safe distance the complex blows and the mission ends.

Mission 7
The CIA NSA and DEA have all pooled their data on this and we are led to a Russian airfield where the missile guidance system is due to be transported.
A group called Raven's rock Dhrugiva are in charge of the weapons deals and they must be shut down, since they appear to be as well armed as a large country.
We get night vision goggles as our new gadget.
We start in trees and have to sneak in using out night vision. Tanks and soldiers pass, I try and clear them, though it seems the key to this part of the mission is to just sneak past them. Inside the base we find a group of men in a square area, we must kill them without being seen. This takes some timing to avoid any of the six or so men seeing the others falling as you snipe them. The drone comes in  handy.
We enter a tunnel and find large fans, we have to use the drone to get to control panels and fry them with it's sonic pulse.
We now come out onto an airfield and have to cross it. Then take on some more enemies without raising the alarm. This goes on for around five groups of enemies.
We have to use the drone to get through some more big fans.
We now have to plant a bomb on a plane, then fight some enemies in a hangar. We meet some shield carrying enemies here.
we now come to an emplaced gun section on top of a jeep as we run around aimlessly on the runway, nearly getting hit by the plane we just planted a bomb on.
We pass through the wreckage of the plane and into another area, which turns out to be a sewer we sneak through.
We come out into a large area where we meet waves of enemies, then a tank. It's fairly confused and a bit glitched.
Eventually we are allowed to airstrike the tank and the mission ends.

Mission 7
A bomb detonates over London, we see the incident from the point of view of tourists caught in a storm of broken glass. It seems that this was actually a nuclear strike, though an anti-missile system managed to disable the nuke, but not the delivery system, which is what we saw exploding.
The Ghost team is being sent to Dagestan to find out what has happened to a Georgian special forces team that has went missing in the area. This is believed to be something to do with the rogue nuke launch.
We start in a woodland, logging camp type area, moving towards the last know location of the Georgian team. we encounter resistance in some bombed out buildings and kill them.
We move onwards and make contact with the last remaining man from the Georgian team. He is pinned down and enemies are getting close to him. We have to fight through a small town like area, taking on waves of enemies. There is some kind of interference going on and the electronics are going a bit crazy at times. Someone is hacking the system and ghost images of fictional enemy targets start appearing. We progress through the area and find some more enemies to fight on the way to a large church with a circular fountain outside it's main doors. We go inside the church and have to breach a room, we save the Georgian soldier inside this room, he joins us as we leave the church, we come under heavy attack inside the church and outside. Rocket launchers are used enthusiastically by the enemies.
We have to move through the streets under heavy fire and eventually get to a quieter part of the town.
We then move back into a square type area where we killed some enemies earlier. We are going to wait for a helicopter to extract us here. As we wait we come under heavy attack, the helicopter is shot down and we are attacked by a tank as well. The Georgian soldier is hit during the battle and we have to go to his aid. The tank shoots in cut scene and we see the men diving off a bridge to escape the tanks fire.

Mission 8
We see the Ghosts limping back to base, wounded and demoralized. Things are happening, one of the Ghosts asks a grunt and is told that there is some kind of coup going on in Moscow. Raven's rock have staged a coup and taken the Kremlin. A general named Bukarov is in charge of the military side of the coup. The ghost team is to secure drilling ships in the Norweigan sea to aid the Russian forces in taking back the Kremlin.
The boats are to be found on ice flows and we have to sneak into the back end of one of them. This is a really annoying sneaking section, with an awful lot of enemies in one complicated area. Alerts seem to come from nowhere and it takes me an awful lot of swearing and retries to get into the boat. Once in the boat we can shoot as much as we like. Which makes it more annoying that we couldn't before. I think the doors being closed is the reason, though it is a poor one. We then have to move through the ship fighting. At one point a lockdown procedure is started and we have three minutes to stop it. This means we have to storm our way through groups of enemies up many flights of stairs.
We then hack the controls and stop the lockdown.
We come to a large open area and clear it of enemies, then we enter a basin type bay on the ship and are ambushed. This is a hard fight as we are surrounded from higher ground and there are a lot of enemies. I then fight through more of the ship until we reach the helipad. We get picked up and we have some emplaced gun fun taking out a convoy on the way to the next ship. This ship is attacked using helicopters, we simply have to shoot a lot of men and then a helicopter to end the mission.
We see a captured prisoner being interrogated by one of the Ghosts. He does not talk, though tattoos he has betray his origins.

Mission 9
We are to ambush Raven's rock forces to ease the pressure on resistance general Alexei Douka. We start in a wooded area and move through shacks and logging areas killing enemies.
The general is being harassed by artillery, we are hoping to find the locations of the artillery guns and take them out. We reach a compound and attack, inside we find some artillery documents. We are then attacked by a BTR and have to use turrets nearby to take it out.
The Ghosts contact the general and tell him that they will take care of the artillery.
we now progress through a village fighting and plant C4 on an artillery gun.
Then rinse and repeat. We then have to reach the extraction point.
We tell the general that he is clear to attack. We then have to move through a graveyard where we encounter snipers and another fight near a church. we move into a river and follow it, some enemy trucks pass overhead as we hide under a bridge in cut scene.
We then have to fight through some more areas. we come under attack from a tank. a glitch here sees one of the a.i helpers getting stuck in scenery and halting the mission, needing a restart from last checkpoint. We are pinned down by the tank and many enemies in a small building. we have to survive for a minute and then guide an airstrike down on the tank.

Mission 10
Christ this game is full of glitches, another blank screen crash between missions.
I can't get past it, seems to be a recurring game breaking fucking glitch.
Again it seems to be to do with background downloading.
We see a cut scene of one of the faceless drones in some kind of space ship being dropped from the atmosphere. We are off to extract the Russian president form the black prison.
We must make our way through what looks like a construction site using stealth alone. Then inside the building we have to use the drone to deactivate a security drone.
We then have to sneak around the complex a bit more and then back outside. We come to a door with a retina scanner and in cut scene grab a guard to make him open it for us.
We then hack a computer and have to place four beacons. The need to be stealthy is gone now and we can shoot the place up to our hearts content.
I fight my way into the cell blocks and have to search cells using the drone. Eventually finding the cell with the president inside and then getting him out.
We then have to fight our way back to a lift to the exit. In the lift the bombardment starts and we come out onto a surface that has been bombed.
We move through the bombed base killing stragglers who have survived and then head to the extraction point. We have to stand and wait for the copter and fight until it arrives. We then are extracted.

Mission 11
We are attacking along with the Russian resistance in Moscow, in a support role. We move along a street and have to clear a square that is guarded by a tank, any bodies found while taking out the groups will alert the tank and get the team killed. Once done we enter a building then climb to the top. Here we have to counter snipe enemy snipers who are waiting for the president to come out and address the rally. We now have to proceed to Bhukarov's headquarters. We fight across a rooftop which fills with troops from a helicopter. We then have to work our way along an enemy filled street. We then have to use a grenade launcher to blow up an armored vehicle. A convoy is being sent to intercept the crowd of demonstrators and we have to engage it. several Armored vehicles and troop transports arrive and we have to kill them all.
we then enter an office building and have a shoot out in the offices.
We then go down a lift shaft and sneak into the area where Bhukarov is.
We breach in using C4 and then have to kill Bhukarov. The mission ends with a newscaster telling us that the general was killed by his own men.

On the destroyer the Ghosts are celebrating. The next mission is to go after the leadership of Raven's rock.
They are meeting in a countryside compound, we are to go in and clean them out.
We start on approach to the compound and make our way in shooting the guards at the gates.
We then have two groups of hostiles to take out, some them are the high value targets.
We then move to a larger house where there is a helicopter. we have to kill the HVT's before they can escape on the helicopter. We are then ambushed and have to clear a wave of enemies also equipped with invisibility suits. We then have to go after the last few enemies.
This becomes a headlong chase filled with enemies to get the last two targets. If you don't move quickly they get away, if you do move quickly they get away. Fucking hell this game is bad. I forget all pretence at playing as a human being in a firefight and just run for it.
Eventually I reach the final scene which is a kind of on rails sequence like the earlier bit where we were escorting people. We storm into a rail yard, killing everyone and eventually reaching the last target, who we haven't seen before, yet are supposed to hate.
He seems to think we won't kill him, despite already shooting and wounding him badly. The handler calls telling the ghosts to stand down. They argue, it's cliché. We are told to take him alive and not kill him. The wounded man is left on a train track, he can't get up. A train comes and kills him. The Ghosts have followed orders and done the right thing.

Game over at last. The credits roll.
310 achievement points for one play-through on medium.
Around 15 hours playtime.

The game decided to install the enhanced audio experience again for some reason after and update patch. I couldn't stop it from doing it and eventually had to relent and let it install it again rather than have to skip past it every time I played the game.
At one point starting from saved all I got was a blank screen, I had to turn off the Xbox.

Spec Ops The line Notes

I chose medium difficulty.

Controls

Left analogue stick        Move character
Right Analogue stick        Move camera
Left trigger            Aim
Right trigger            Fire
Left bumper       
Right bumper       
Y                Switch weapons           
X           
B                Vault over cover/Melee attack
A                Run/cover           
dpad           
Start           
Select
Clicking right stick
Clicking left stick        Toggle crouch

We start in a helicopter, flying over Dubai which looks ruined and hit by a major sandstorm. Many helicopters are attacking and we have to shoot them with our emplaced gun.
Eventually we are shot down and crash. This leads to a flashback.

Huge sand storms have hit Dubai. American units leaving Afghanistan were sent to help with the evacuation of the city. John Konrad was the leader and he volunteered for the evacuation detail. The storms got a lot worse and contact with the city was lost. A transmission from the city came two weeks later from Konrad. The team of three we comprise of has been sent to investigate what is happening in the city and whether anyone has survived the freak sandstorms.

Mission 1
We start on the edge of the city in dunes heading towards the silent ruined city.
I find some abandoned military equipment and use some ropes to rappel down a cliff.
we progress through abandoned cars on a road. We find the distress beacon which has been broadcasting the signal, it is cobbled together from spare parts. There is a freshly dead American soldier in a jeep near it. We are approached by a bunch of Arab men, they have guns and appear to be hostile. They ask if we are there to kill them as well.
Things go pear shaped quickly and we are told to shoot a bus window which pours tons of sand on the men. We then have to fight and kill more who appear.
We can give orders to the squad to target certain enemies. We move onwards along the road moving in and out of abandoned trucks and buses. We hear a distress call from an Alpha team, which sounds American. They are under attack from people they describe as insurgents.

Mission 2
We contact alpha squad, there are four of them left and they are running low on ammunition.
We head towards a downed plane, this is a huge fight to get into the  plane, many enemies outside and on the fuselage. Inside we fight our way up the inside of the plane and find the American squad being executed. We shoot our way in and manage only to get to one of the men as he lies dying. He tells us that they have taken other men to their base.

Mission 3
We are moving on, coming to the edge of the city now. We enter a building and get some grenades, it appears to be a television studio. There appears to be a broadcast by an American voice, talking about processing. There is also some fairly weird art on a wall of skeleton film crews with smiley hand puppets. One of the squad voices the opinion that things are getting weird. We fight through the building and out the other side.
I find out that turret guns can be flipped so that guns that you have to attack can then be used to attack the enemy if you get close to them.
we are ambushed in the open by many enemies. We fight until a sandstorm starts and we are caught by a shift in the sand which causes the whole area we are in to destabilize. We are knocked out and come to in a hotel like area.

Mission 4
We find that we are stuck in the hotel like fish in a barrel. Enemies begin to flood into the area and we must defend. Once done they drop c4 in and we have to run for it.
We come into a small area and encounter and Arab man and an American talking. It appears that the Arab is taking orders from the American. They talk about torturing the soldier form the plane, making him talk. We fight some more enemies and end up running from one hotel in the storm into another. We go down a lift shaft.

Mission 5
Here we find evidence of survivors of the storms living rough the only way they can. There are paintings on the walls of devils shrouded in American flags. We find some soldiers who have obviously been lined up against a wall and shot, around ten of them. We come to a doorway and find the American from earlier beating up the captured soldier. He is asking for answers. The rogue American is about to shoot the soldier and we intervene. This causes a distraction and the soldier grabs the man's gun and shoots him. We are now in a standoff with the prisoner. He won't tell us what is going on and wants to know who we are. He tells us that he will go and get his superior officer and disappears down a rappel line.
we move through and examine the dead American, he is a CIA agent. We follow the soldier down the line. I find a Dictaphone with the CIA agent's voice. He is basically saying that since the storms hit the citizen have been rioting and the Americans trying to impose martial law has only made things worse.
We come under firer from American soldiers who don't seem to want to stop shooting at us despite the friendly fire warnings and desperate calls that we are on the same side. We have to kill many soldiers.
walker thinks that the 33rd may have gone rogue, though he does not believe that Conrad is still in charge of them. Walker wants to find Conrad.
we enter a large hotel like area and find that the 33rd are rounding up civilians, and not for a party. We enter the fight and have to work our way down through many floors of fighting. It's fun, with good gunplay. Eventually we reach the bottom and an emplaced gun is pinning us down. We are shown a route to flank it and take it over. We are attacked by many soldiers as we use the emplaced gun. We are going to be overrun and are shown that we should shoot the windows. This lets in a huge weight of sand which almost fills the place, killing the remaining enemies. We see the people, who are anguished and still angry at us, even though we just saved them.

mission 6
We come out onto dunes again, a signal is received, it comes from a CIA agent who appears to be being tortured by someone. It may be a trap designed to lure us in. We go anyway.
We fight through a gym area, again fighting Americans.
We come out through a window and a crane has been used to make a bridge between two skyscrapers. We have to get across, however there are snipers here we have to take out with a handy sniper rifle. Across the crane we meet heavy resistance and fight through it.
We then enter a hotel area and have to fight waves of enemies. Crazy knife guys are a new type of enemy here. Basically charging at you waving a knife.
We zip line to another building.
Walker tells us of a reporter who was a friend of Conrad. It seems from a piece of Intel we find that certain Arab authorities knew the storms were coming and hid the news from the populace.
We open a door and find it is a room filled with sand, we are pushed back over the edge of a drop and fall tumbling wildly out of control for quite a distance. I am fairly sure survival of this kind of punishment would be impossible, though it's a game, let's give it some leeway for dramatic license. Walker is separated from the others and finds himself with enemies approaching.
It just asked me to change the difficulty, I hate that.
This is a survival box with around five minutes time on the clock. It is quite a hard one.
We then move on in search of the signal. We fight through a junkyard type area and come to a locked door. We have to use a turret to defend while our helpers open the door.
Once inside we find an area filled with rotting corpses. We come into lobby of what looks like a bank, filled with sand. At the top of the escalators is a body hanging by it's feet.
It turns out to be the CIA agent Daniels who we have been heading towards. It seems that the screams of torture being broadcast were recorded, as this man has been dead for a while. It is a trap, soldiers pour in and voice comes over the radio. It seems that the trap was indeed baited for other CIA agents. However it has caught us and we now have to escape. It seems that the actual target is going to be our savior. Gould Appears with some C4 and blows things to bit, we now have to fight our way out. We progress until cut scene shows a helicopter appear and start shooting. We have to run until a cut scene shows us nearly being blown to bits.

Mission 7
We see the gang patching themselves up and licking their wounds in a broken down building. They move into a new area, which seems to be a very aquatic themed hotel. The CIA agent comes over the radio and tells us that he was sent into Dubai in the aftermath of the storms to find out what the situation was, just like our team was. He found the 33rd fighting amongst themselves and the civilians. Gould doesn't know where Conrad is, he has no knowledge of him. We come back out into the city streets. There is the sounds of fighting.
We find the CIA led civilians fighting the 33rd. We also see a lot of soldiers hanging from lamp posts. The radio chatterbox who seems to be in charge of the 33rd tells us that he remembers us now. He also tells us that he isn't the only one.
We have to fight through some heavy enemy held positions. We find that Gould has been leading the refugees into battle with the 33rd and they have been coming off worse. We walk through an area knee deep in dead rotting corpses. We then find that the 33rd are using a napalm like weapon on the refugees.
we come to a cut scene, one of the 33rd's officers is questioning Gould who has been captured. The officer thinks that Gould is providing a distraction for Riggs.
He begins  killing civilians to make Gould talk. We appear to be getting a choice here. To save Gould or help the civilians, only I can't see how to make the choice.
I blunder in anyway, I can't even see where the civilians have went. I kill the 33rd men and then more pour in. We have to hold against them until we are the last ones standing. A handy emplaced gun is my friend here.

Mission 8
Once done Gould dies in cut scene without telling us anything more. We find a map on his body indicating the CIA and refugees thought the city gate was of significance, worth dying for. In cut scene the two grunts have an argument about how screwed things are. Walker has to intervene to break them up.
We come to a balcony and find we can use the white phosphorous mortar on the massed 33rd troops below. There is some doubt in the men, Walker overrides them.
We use a camera system to bomb the troops, it is like shooting fish in a barrel.
We move down through the carnage, badly burnt troops struggle to crawl in the flames and we shoot them to put them out of their misery.
One of the men asks us why, he tells us that they were helping. Inside a tent we find the bodies of a large group of burnt civilians. The civilians that were being herded earlier. The grunts argue again, it seems we have killed just as many civilians as the 33rd right here, right now. We move on and fight our way up a hill and into a base of the 33rd. We clear the room then go up some stairs. The stairs a lined with pictures of people.
In the room we find some soldiers tied to chairs, they have also been burned alive. The voice of Konrad comes over the radio, he remembers walker. It seems that Konrad might be behind all of this and may even be as mad as a bag of ferrets that have been shaken and set on fire. To be honest, this isn't a big surprise. I kind of expected Conrad to have went all Apocalypse now.

Mission 9
We are given a choice, Under a bridge two men are hanging by their wrists. A civilian who stole water. The soldier sent to catch him who in the process killed his family of five. Konrad has judged them both guilty. Both are to be killed. He asks us to choose which one committed the worst crime. It seems we can either kill the civilian, or the soldier or choose to ignore the test and fight through the gauntlet of snipers. I don't think I can save the prisoners, but I do manage to kill the snipers. Konrad isn't pleased and it seems we are back on the death list. We move forward and are ambushed by a large group of soldiers. We fight through them and then a sandstorm starts, complicating the issue. we move on until we find a tanker and hide inside it until the storm is over.
walker tells Konrad that Dubai will be evacuated and he will be relieved of command.

Mission 10
Walker thinks that Konrad will have set up his base in the tallest tower in Dubai. That appears to be the destination. we find Riggs and his civilian militia fighting with the 33rd. I intervene and save him. We then see a cut scene where Riggs and Walker chat.
It seems that Rigg's plan was to get in and cut off the 33rd's water supply. The other assault was a diversion, with Gould trying to make sure that enough of the 33rd attention was taken up to give Riggs a chance.
We are now going to help Riggs, though we are attacked again fairly quickly by the 33rd.
we move through an office type building fighting.
Riggs reveals that there is a building called the aquatic coliseum, which has a large quantity of water. We have fend off an ambush in the office building, then fight through a parking garage.
We are now in the aquatic centre, Konrad tells us that Riggs isn't here to save anyone, he is there to bury the truth along with the bodies.
We fight through many levels of a square building with the trucks that are our objective at the bottom. We spiral down through the levels fighting the entire way. This is fund and there really needs to be more of this.
We reach the bottom and take the trucks. Riggs appears and drives off with one, saying he will see us when he sees us.

Mission 11
We are now riding on the side of the truck, defending it from attack by the 33rd, trying to get them out of the city. We have a grenade launcher, and this is an on rails sequence.
Eventually it is over and the truck are knocked off the road and blown up. Walker is hurled into the wreckage and sees Konrad approaching him. Konrad tells him that the city will begin to die of thirst in four days and it's all our doing, not his.
Walker wakes up and frees himself from the rubble. We find civilians trying to grab as much water as they can from the wrecks. In cut scene we find Riggs trapped under the cab of the truck. He is in a bad way, and likely to die even if he were in the best hospital in the world. He tells walker that he did this to erase the problem, just as Konrad suggested. That if the world found out what the 33rd had done here, then the Middle east would have went to war with America. He did this to kill everyone and make sure that when the rest of the world does get into the city there is nothing but dead bodies left over. Riggs asks Walker to put him out of his misery. I shoot him, he deserves it and it's putting him out of his misery.

Mission 12
We are alone and have too find a weapon. Soldiers are dropped from a helicopter and we have to kill one for his gun then kill the rest. We then come into a shopping mall. We find Lugo held at gunpoint and have to save him by sniping the enemy. we then have to make our way through the mall. We are separated by the balcony style environment. Sometime we are helping Adam's and Lugo, at others they are helping us. We get trapped in a room with a juggernaut, which isn't fun. The lights keep going out and the game uses the darkness to move the juggernaut's position. Which is cool and edgy, but also a cheat and annoying.
Once through Walker reveal that he plans to use the broadcast system that Konrad is using to tell the civilians to evacuate the city. We now a long sequence where we protect Adam's and Lugo from enemies from across the balcony. They have to reach the top of the area to zip line across to us. Once done a cut scenes shows Walker interrogating a captured soldier and finding out where the radio is being broadcast from. It is coming from the top of the Trans Emirates building.

Mission 13
We move across rooftops using zip lines and fight enemies and snipers along the way. At the end of a zip line it appears that Walker meets a man he knows, and then has to kill him.
We then come out onto a rooftop and have to snipe men on the other side before zip lining over. We are now on the right building and near the broadcast station. We move up to the rooftop penthouse and find a journalist named Darden, who is running the radio. He let's us use it, Lugo kills him in cold blood without our orders after he turns the radio over to us. Walker begins to ask the population to prepare to leave the city. Konrad tells us that he has already tried and half the cities population are dead because of the attempt. He sends a helicopter in to attack. Lugo remain in the penthouse to cover us and we go to get the helicopter for ourselves. We have to go back the way we came, and get back out to the helicopter, fighting the whole way. We then get aboard and have to use the emplaced gun to cover Lugo as he makes his way to us. We then take off in the helicopter once he reaches us. We then hover around the rooftop which is filling with 33rd reinforcements. We blow the place to bits, bringing down the top of the glass tower on the enemies.

Mission 14
We are now back at the start of the game, we repeat the helicopter emplaced guns section.
Walker wakes from the crash and hears music. He appears to be dreaming, a flaming tower is ahead and he is marching through a red hot desert with dead and dying people sticking up out of the ground. Konrad tells him that there were 5,000 people left alive in Dubai that morning, how many are alive now? How many will be alive the next day.
Walker awakes and finds himself in a sandy crater with wrecked yachts in the distance. Adams is trying to get him on the radio, there is no sign of Lugo. We have to fight to save Lugo who is surrounded by enemies at the crashed helicopter. Once we have saved Adams, we have to go after Lugo, we fight our way through some boats that are grounded in the sand.
We have to survive in a sandstorm again and then make our way through to the other side of the boats. Lugo is sounding distressed, we have to race to his position. We find him hanging by the neck, with a group of civilians chanting around him. we cut him down and try and save him. He dies and we have a choice, take revenge or not. I tried to be good and not shoot the civilians. They punch or stone you to death. Maybe if I had actually had more bullets I could have shot over their heads or something. I didn't, so I had to kill one of them to get any progress. we are now one down and coming for Konrad. We are fighting through heavy forces now. There is a section where a bomb comes in and we have a vision type sequence. The line between reality and madness seems to be getting thin for Walker.
We are fighting into heavily militarized and well defended territory now. This isn't streets and hotels. It's a well built fortress. We are entering the armory of the 33rd.
It takes me quite a few attempts to get into the building. A heavy guard appears at the door as we do. We move inside the bunker and fight our way up onto the rooftop.
Here a cut scene starts, we are surrounded by reinforcements and helicopter gunship arrives. Adams is ready to fight on, Walker suddenly want to surrender. Adams knocks Walker off the roof and starts fighting. We are told to run and we hear lots of explosions behind us. Walker is knocked off his feet and unconscious.

Mission 15
We start walking towards the tower. Entering the sumptuous lobby, filled with aquariums, filled with sharks. Up the stairs a group of the 33rd handover the city to our control.
We are to meet with Konrad upstairs. I go up in an elevator and enter a penthouse suite fit for a king. Inside we see Konrad, he is painting a huge canvas of the woman and child burned earlier by Walker.
Konrad goes behind the picture, and we follow. Here we find an old and dead Konrad, in uniform and shot by his own hand it seems. The younger Konrad appears behind us.
It seems that The voice of Konrad has been a voice in Walker's head alone. The radio with which he has been hearing him has no battery. The choice of two people in the desert was between two corpses. Walker has been hallucinating. It seems that the 33rd let him up to see Konrad in order to stop him killing even more of them. Maybe all the soldiers were hallucinations also. The spectral Konrad appears again and it appears we are given a choice between shooting ourselves or shooting Konrad. I accidently shoot myself. The game is over and Dubai is left to rot with no water.
The credits roll.

10 hours
515 Achievement points

Max Payne 3 Notes

Controls

Left analogue stick        Move character
Right Analogue stick        Move camera
Left trigger            Aim
Right trigger            Shoot
Left bumper            Bring up weapon wheel
Right bumper            Bullet time dive.
Y                Interact with objects, pick up guns.
X                Cover
B               
A                Run, double click equals dive
dpad                Up take painkiller
Start                Pause/menu
Select                   
Clicking right stick        Bullet time on or off.
Clicking left stick

I chose the medium difficulty level.
There is an option to turn off the aim assistance as well, I chose to turn it fully of, I am not a lover of the increasing auto-aim going on in console games.

We see Max in a seedy hotel, holding a bottle of alcohol. This segues into Max standing on a burning runway by a hangar. There is a man lying on the ground severely injured. Max is walking towards him with the intent of killing him.

Chapter 1 Something rotten in the air.
Sao Palo Brazil.
Max is at a party, a rich penthouse and glamorous guests. Max speaks to a friend here and they talk about their client and the guests disparagingly.
Max is working for someone named Rodrigo Blanca. his wife is Fabiana, a pretty but vacant girl. Fabiana spends a lot of her time with Marcel the playboy younger brother of Rodrigo. It is implied that there may be an affair going on. Victor is Rodrigo's politician older brother.
Armed and masked men burst in and begin shooting guards and warning shots into the air to makes the party goers cower. The gunmen kidnap Fabiana and Rodrigo, leaving in an elevator. Max and his friend go down the stairs after them.

We get control and are introduced to bullet time, clicking in the right stick slows time giving us an edge against the enemies. we are then told how to press right bumper to jump and roll, this happens in slow time also giving us a chance to kill enemies while we move through the air.
Pressing up on the d-pad makes Max take a painkiller, this restores his health.
We move through the penthouse fighting and the only option seems to be to go out onto the balcony. A cut scene kicks in showing that Fabiana is being held by a gunman on the balcony, cornered by security. We see Max take a huge risk, diving off the balcony, landing on a roof and sliding down it towards the gunman and Fabiana. In bullet time we can shoot the gunman in the head. This sets a cut scene in motion where we see the gunman drop, Fabiana is ok and Max lands in an ornamental pool, which somewhat cushions his fall.
We are now going after the men who have Rodrigo.
I chase them down through more of the building and then into the parking garage.
We need to open a gate to progress here.
Following the course of the parking garage we find a picture dropped by the kidnappers, it was obviously designed to show them who to kidnap and shows Rodrigo and Fabiana.
we find more kidnappers and shoot it out, we have to shoot the tire on the van to prevent it escaping, causing it to crash into a pillar.
After killing all the gunmen we free Rodrigo from the back of the van and then have to prevent him from being shot by gunmen who appear in bullet time.
A bunch of swat team like men appear, one of them shoots a wounded gunman lying on the ground. Another bunch of police appear also and it appears that there is some friction between the two. A conversation takes place in presumably Portuguese which we are not supposed to understand it seems. Max's friend arrives and congratulates Max on a job well done.
Max goes home and takes a cocktail of drink and painkillers before passing out.

Chapter 2
Nothing but the second best.
We find Max on a helicopter a few days later, taking Fabiana, her sister and Marcelo to a nightclub. Marcelo is seemingly a dopey idle rich brat, Fabiana seems to have a little more brains. The sister is introduced at the good girl, it seems she does charity work in the city slums. She talks of murders there and Marcel accuses her of killing the buzz. The group decant from the helicopter on the roof of a skyscraper and take an elevator down into an enormous nightclub. Max seems grumpy in this security guards nightmare.
We enter the VIP area and Marcel is peeved to find that someone called Claudio has booked the prime spot. Marcel tries a spot of bonding with Max, which only makes Max want to shoot him himself. Other forces are in the club, it seems they may be about to make their move. A group of men suddenly appear with masks, making a play to grab each of our charges. Max Grabs one and jumps through a glass balcony window to bullet time kill as many as we can on the way down. I am left to mop up the remainder.
The way forwards is blocked by a chained door, we have to go another way around.
I move back up through the club fighting as we go.
There are more clues around the club to examine, essentially collectibles.
I find a happy ex cop, a dead footballer and a piece of Fabiana's dress.
We fight through the club, into the kitchen and then into a restaurant in the same building. we see the kidnappers in a lift, though we can't get to them. They are heading for the roof, likely to their own helicopter or to steal ours.
Max makes a dangerous trip in cut scene to an external window cleaner platform and makes it up to the roof using it. We then see him get into the helicopter piloted by his friend, Marcel somehow has got into the helicopter also. Now in the copter we are looking to see what is going on. The kidnappers can be seen loading the girls into their helicopter.
We are now into emplaced gun type section where the sister can be seen below. We have to shoot the surrounding enemies which frees her to move on. We follow her all over the roof shooting at men, saving her repeatedly until she finds her way inside the building. we then have to fend off rocket attacks on our helicopter by shooting at the incoming rockets in bullet time. Max then is dumped out of the helicopter onto the roof and we have to fight our way across it again. The check pointing here is very poor, which is a bad sign for later on in the game.
I find Fabiana's necklace on the stairs, then we find Giovanna in cut scene hiding in a bar terrace. The helicopter comes around and Marcel appears. It also appears that Giovanna is having a relationship with Max's friend who it seems is called Passos.

Chapter 3 Just another day at the office.
The three Branco brothers, Max and Passos meet to discuss the ransom demands that have been made. The brothers try and work out who may be doing this. They have no alternative but to pay the ransom. The hope is that afterwards they can find out who did this and take revenge. Max and Passos are to deliver the money.
They arrive by helicopter at a stadium owned by the Galatian's, the meet is to take place on the pitch. Max and Passos are approached by a group of around six armed men and told to open the money bags for inspection. As we do a laser dot appears from the top of the stadium and begins shooting at everyone involved. Max is hit and starts running for cover. We take over and have to guide him into the tunnel of the stadium. max is wounded and he wobbles around only slightly under our control, the screen is wobbling and flickering alarmingly. Passos gets a gun from one of the enemies, he then fights through some more as we follow. Eventually we reach a medical room and get patched up. Max wonders who has gate-crashed the party and why? I am beginning to wonder if Passos is trying to rob his boss. We now have to fight our way to an elevator, then we find one of the injured enemies. He doesn't tell us much, other than that he doesn't know who the snipers are either. We fight on, for a few more rooms. A cut scene shows the ambushed kidnappers being chased by the snipers. The new group seem more organized than the first, with much better guns and body armor. The first group make a run for it, being chased by the snipers and their friends. We have to make a break into the open past the sniper and then take on some more of the second group. We fight through until we reach the sniper's position and kill him. We steal their headsets and Passos stays in the box to cover us with the sniper rifle. The man with the bag from the first group can be seen below in the stadium being chased by the second. Max goes after them both. we fight on the steps of the stadium and then in a VIP box lounge area. Max takes an elevator and we have to fight a large amount of bad guys on the stadium standing area. another sniper is nearby and we take him out while Passos keeps him pinned in cover. We now have the snipers rifle. Passos is swamped at his box and the roles are reversed, we are now protecting him as he runs for cover. After Passos gets to cover Max is attacked by another sniper, in cut scene we see him moving towards his position. Max enters a control room of sorts and can see Passos on a security monitor. We see the last remaining man of the first group being cornered by the second. Passos describes them as paramilitaries. The paramilitaries shoot the bagman and take the 3 million dollars. It seems odd that after killing an platoon of these guys that three of them should make Max and Passos stop and give up. Max now goes after the sniper, climbing a tower to get above his box and crash through the window. They now meet up and leave in the helicopter.
We see two men with a rocket launcher decide not to bother killing our heroes as they leave.

Chapter four, anyone can buy me a drink.
This is a flashback, Max is in New Jersey drinking in a bar. A bunch of local hoods son's are causing trouble. One of them pulls a gun on Max, Passos comes in behind them and pulls a gun on them. They leave, threatening retribution. Max and Passos know each other and they drink together, obviously presuming that the pretend hoods won't come back. They do and a gunfight erupts. We have to move through the bar fighting and come out into the back alley, where we meet some more bad guys.
Max takes Passos home to hideout, Passos isn't impressed with how Max is living and tells him that he has work for him. The father of the dead mobster arrives and isn't very happy, he seems to have brought the entire Mafia with him to kill Max.
I go out into the corridor and have to fight some enemies, also avoid snipers at the windows. I see a mad war veteran type guy emerge from an apartment and save Max, he then blows himself up and a bunch of the enemies with him in cut scene. We go into Brewers apartment and find that he seems to have been making bombs. I then escape the building out onto the rooftops. A gunfight across the roofs ends with us falling off a collapsing water tower into a bunch of mobsters in bullet time. Paso meets us and we move on back down into apartments and fight some more mobsters. We then end up breaking into a garage where some shady car thieves are operating. The mobsters arrive and we are back into a gunfight. Eventually we escape back into the safer streets, less filled with mobsters and Paso Offers Max a job.

Chapter 5
Paso and Max are in a speedboat, the Comando Sombra or CS have kidnapped Fabiana, the paramilitaries were just being opportunistic. We are now out in the wilds looking for the location where the CS gang have been keeping Fabiana.
We find the helicopter that was used at the club, which is promising. I work my way through some rusted broken down old buildings and eventually find some of the CS. Serrano is their boss, it seems that Fabiana is here. We see a television monitor which shows that Fabiana is in the building. We progress through shooting enemies as usual.
Eventually we come to the room where Fabiana was seen on the monitor. She is gone, the room only recently vacated. Of course storming in like a one man army wasn't really conducive to not tipping off the bad guys that we were on the way. We fight through an awful lot more enemies before having to raise a bridge out to the docks. He we have a long weave through jetties and enemies, with the odd gunboat for good measure.
Eventually we catch up the the guys who have Fabiana and are in time to see her get into a boat. Max has to jump into the water as the petrol ignites and the jetties are blown to smithereens. Passos comes by and we get into the boat. We then have an on rails boat ride. Passos drives and we have to shoot at smaller and larger boats. We also have to contend with people on the banks of the river and in cars on the side of the river as well.
we eventually catch up with the boat that has Fabiana in it. We get to shoot an awful lot of the guys on board before a bullet time boat crash sees us shoot almost all the men on board her boat. It isn't enough though, our boat is disabled and the bad guys get away with the girl.

Chapter 6
Max goes back to the hotel and does what he does best, drink heavily while taking painkillers. Pasos arrives and takes him to meet the Branco's, here we are introduced to a cop named Becker who is urging the brothers to let the police handle the situation from now on. Pasos and the two Branco brothers leave to take the helicopter to the police station. Leaving Max and the senior Branco behind. He blames himself and analyses his choices, then suddenly there is an alarm and armed men can be seen on the security monitors entering the building. The security system has been compromised and the tech needs to be escorted to the server room to make the building lockdown system work.
These men are the cacha Preto, the Black badge, the paramilitaries who attacked at the stadium. We fight through the offices killing as we go.
We have to clear the offices and eventually reach the server room, where the guy we are escorting reboots the system and large metal shutters come down all over the building.
We move through into the buildings main entrance, finding the secretary dead. A vehicle crashes through the doors and we have to shoot the driver in bullet time, before jumping over the crashing vehicle and shooting a lot of enemies behind in bullet time.
A boss type enemy then appears, heavily armored and using a heavy machine gun.
We go back up using the lift and try and speak to Rodrigo Branco, who is now locked in his panic room of an office. Max knows there is another way in from the helipad, he uses that entrance to go in and find Branco dead at his desk, shot through the head.
As Max investigates he finds a bomb, he throws himself off the balcony of the office just in time to avoid being blown to bits.
The building is now in flames and we must try and get out. I find the body of the i.t. guy who helped us earlier and kill the paramilitary who shot him. we then make our way through the burning collapsing building. In the lobby we find a badly injured cacha Preto soldier. He tells us that they were there to kill Max, not Branco. Seemingly in retaliation for the amount of them that he killed in the stadium. Seems that someone was opportunistic in their killing of Rodrigo. The CS have Fabiana, not them.
Max goes to a hotel and decides it's time to find out who is behind all this. He shaves his head and leaves his beard, drastically changing his appearance.

This is the end of disc one, we must now put in the second disc.

chapter 7 A hangover sent direct from mother nature.
Max has gone to the nova esperanca district of Sao Paulo, a lead from the dying Cacha Preto soldier. Max calls the remaining brothers, who I still think are dodgy. Marcel accuses Max of killing Rodrigo. They quiet down when Max tells them he is on his way to find Fabiana. Max enters the slum or Favela, he is soon accosted by a child who offers him the sins of the world. Max shows him the picture of Fabiana and the child leads him down a dangerous looking back alley. Max enters a street party and is soon herded off at gun point by gang members. They take his stuff and throw him over the edge of a broken down building.
We walk through the Favela, nobody wants to help a lost looking American, though he is a fairly intimidating lost looking American. I find the ex cop from the club we met earlier, when Fabiana was first kidnapped. He is working for a charity, it may be the same one that Fabiana's sister is working for. Max goes into a bar looking for a phone, and finds it is a stripper bar. Where there is more than just stripping going on in public. A man named Wilson Da Silva seems to know Max, though Max can't remember ever meeting him. Da Silva buys Max a drink and explains that he knows what is going on. He shows him pictures of the leader of the CS, a man named Serrano, he is one of the men we saw on the boat that Fabiana was last seen on. Da Silva tells us that Serrano is small fry, he is interested in the leaders of the Cacha Preto, a man named Neves and his seconds in command, Rego. Da Silva asks what happened at the stadium, he tells Max that the Cacha Preto let them go. Da Silva has a theory that Victor Blanco cleared land for Rodrigo, by doing some fairly illegal stuff. He thinks a group called the UFE are involved, I am not sure if he means the police here. Da Silva tells Max that Fabiana is "up the hill". He wishes him good luck, and if he survives he suggests he comes back and sees him.
After Da Silva leaves a bunch of locals appear looking for trouble, which is exactly what they get. After shooting up the bar I find a tourist who was enjoying the brothel.
I am now into an all out fight through the Favela streets. We meet up with the guys who mugged us earlier and get our revenge. I move on through the CS controlled slums and find a drug factory for a drug called oxidado. Max blows up the drug factory in cut scene.
We are now deep in to the CS territory.
We eventually come to Serrano's home, atop the highest hill in the Favela. It is heavily guarded. After killing what seems to be the entire male population of the Favela we reach a cut scene at the door of the house. Inside it appears that Marcelo and Fabiana's sister have been forced into making another money drop. This it seems  has only given Serrano some cash and two more hostages. Max goes in, strangely enough, without guns blazing, this leads to him being held at gunpoint by Serrano's men. Things go very quickly very very wrong. Fabiana is executed, Marcelo shot in the leg, the gang take Giovanna and Marcelo away, it seems that there is some more shooting going on outside, apart from the carnage that Max has caused. Max is left standing over the body of Fabiana, a situation he has been in before.

Chapter 8
Max and Passos are in New York again, Max is in Golgotha cemetery in New Jersey, paying his respects. While Max visits the grave he is attacked again by the mobsters.
We progress through this large cemetery shooting hordes of mobsters. Passos is captured and held at gunpoint, we have to save him from a Mexican standoff situation.
We then have a difficult shootout in a circular portion of the graveyard.
A worker is shot in cut scene by a sniper and we must now approach a large tower and take out the sniper in the tower. In cut scene max and Passos enter a mausoleum, they are ambushed inside and held at gunpoint, disarmed they are led out to the mob boss. He hits Passos with a shovel and makes Max dig both of their graves. Left to the task we get a chance to press a button to trigger a cut scene where Max throws dirt at one guard and smacks the other with a shovel. Passos then produces a gun and shoots them. We are back to fighting again. We move though more graveyard and enter a building which turns out to be the morgue. Moving thorough the morgue we come to a chapel type area and have a stand off. we have to kill lots of men then move up some stairs and kill a sniper. We then have to use the snipers vantage point to protect Passos. In cut scene Passos calls a friend and organizes some help on getting out of the area. Max finishes his flashback and is back with Fabiana's corpse. He knocks out the enemy left with him and then goes out onto the streets.

Chapter 9
The Sao Paulo police seem to have taken objection to Max's one man army attack on the CS, it seems they have tired of the troubles and decided it's time to teach the CS a lesson, which basically means entering the Favella and shooting up the place.
max notices that these men who seem to be police are actually the ones who showed up at the party early on in the game.
We fight through more Favella against these swat type enemies, which due to their body armor take a bit more killing than the usual enemies. We have a bullet time sequence sliding down a roof and shooting at a helicopter which we manage to disable by shooting a rocket just as it is fired knocking the helicopter out of the sky.
We move through the Favella some more fighting, little snippets of cut scene show that the cops are killing lots of people and arresting lots of them also.
We fight on for a while, Max is lost and needs a plan, he decides to follow the swat guys, they at least seem to know the area and have a plan.
Max witnesses in cut scene a meeting between the swat team and the cacha preto, they appear to be giving money to the swat guys in return for prisoners from the van. Max follows their leader, we find him around the back of a house with another thug and Giovana and Marcelo. Marcelo has been put inside a pile of tires up to his neck and obviously doused in something flammable, he is set on fire. Max piles in and knocks out the thug. He is left facing the leader who wields a machete. we have an annoying quick-time struggle and kill the leader. Giovanna is rescued, we watch as the cacha preto men find their dead boss.

Chapter 10
Max and Giovanna get back into the more metropolitan area of the city and call Passos. They go to a place where he has told them to meet up. Giovanna reveals that she is pregnant, Passos is the father. armed men arrive, they look like the Cacha Preto.
We have to fight them in what appears to be a scrap-yard for old buses. We then move on into what might be a bus depot. There is a big firefight in the courtyard. Giovanna sees a ladder and asks to be boosted up to it. we are chased inside by gunfire and max swings down to the ground on a hook in bullet time for some slaughter. This leaves Giovanna up high with no safe way down. We must move through the building looking for a way down for her. 
We have to fight some more enemies then save Giovanna as some come at her. She then lets a stair down and we can get up to her. we move on through some more enemies. Max then lets Giovanna in through a window of another nearby building. Inside voices can be heard, the pair sneak up to see who is speaking. A poster for a rival of Victor Branco is seen on the wall, a Camilla Machado, is she the cause of all the trouble?
We leave the bus depot and get in a bus, Max makes Giovanna drive. we have an on rails sequence as we crash and bash our way out of the bus depot and then crash. Passos arrives in the helicopter and we send Giovannna to the roof of a building in cut scene. Max tells her to get Passos to wait for him. We then have a stand against rushes of enemies in jeeps and cars. Passos leaves with Giovanna and we are left to fend for ourselves.
Da silva arrives in a car and beckons Max to get in. Da silva listens to Max's story since their last meeting. It seems that Max is ready to hear what Da Silva knows about Passos. It seems that while Max was hired by Victor, Passos was also being paid by Victor for certain jobs. One of which was to come to New York.
Da Silva seems to believe the max was brought in to take the fall, a trigger happy drunk who was being placed in the right place at the right time. Da silva asks what was happening in Panama. We are sent into flashback.

Chapter 11
Max is in Panama, on a yacht with Marcello. A huge party is going on and everyone is drinking, dancing and taking cocaine. Marcello is incredibly insensitive towards everyone. max has too much to drink and goes for a lie down in one of the cabins. He wakes from his stupor to noises nearby. There are men in military gear searching the boat from room to room.
I fight through the dining area and kitchen to the radio where we send out an SOS. We then work through the boats engine room. Stray bullets set the engines on fire and we have to turn two wheels to stop the fuel feed before a door will open. If we don't do it in time Max dies from the fumes. We come out into a dock for jet ski's and then up onto deck. More enemies then into a gym area and back inside the upper deck of the boat. We find some enemies breaking into a door, which seems especially tough, a panic room of some kind maybe. It appears that this is a hidden smugglers safe, which seems empty. further on we find that jewelry has been left untouched, these enemies are not here to rob the boat of it's luxury goods. We make our way through the rest of the boat, fighting for every inch. Enemies come from the canal at either side and a small army fills the boat. I get to the bridge and see Passos and Marcello on the canal side, safe and well. They are loading a jeep with something. Max goes over to them and Passos covers well, Marcello is more dismissive, as if they expected Max to have been killed with the rest of the crew and partygoers. Max wants to go and help the survivors and Passos reluctantly agrees and comes to help. we now have to fight our way up a dockside building filled with enemies and then zip line in bullet time across to the other side of the canal. Here we enter what seems to be a tourist visitor centre and fight through it. On the rooftop balcony viewing area we find the crew and partygoers have all been slaughtered by the bad guys.

Chapter 12
Back with Da Silva, Max realizes that Passos and Marcello were smuggling. Da Silva believes that Rodrigo as the elder brother had the control of the family money purse. It appears that Victor and Marcello wanted more control. Marcello was stupid and a pawn for Victor's games. It now seems that victor has got everything his own way, running for political office on a law and order ticket. He has gunfights and gangs, his brothers murdered. Most importantly he now is the sole air and owner of the Blanco money.
Da Silva tells us that the UFE are the gun toting police types who have been selling people to the gangs for the slave trade. He takes us to their base and basically lets Max Payne do what he does best, go in and kill lots of people.
Max makes a makeshift silencer out of a bottle. We see some enemies loading body bags into a furnace. Max continues through the derelict hotel and takes a lift up higher into the building.
We fight through the building now, I find a photocopy of Passos' id card, revealing that he is Columbian.
We move on through the building, Max finds some evidence linking the Cacha Preto to the UFE. We find a bunch of imprisoned people, including Serrano the leader of the Commando sombra. Max sees that he has been badly beaten and tortured, he lets him go.
We fight on through a rooftop area with swimming pool and then find a morgue / operating theatre. We find a doctor who it seems has been taking blood and organs to sell from the kidnapped victims. Serrano appears and Max let's him have his revenge on the doctor who pleads for his life to no avail.
It appears that the UFE are running a trade in organs. Max decides to blow up the building using a cache of C4 he finds. We have to plant the explosive, then fight our way out.
We go to another floor and once the enemies are cleared we can plant more c4.
We  go out onto a roof in cut scene and find lots of enemies. Max holds up his remote and shouts until the leader of the UFE Neves appears. He is dismissive of Max, telling him that he is a poor bodyguard and defender of the poor as almost everything he touches turns to shit. Max reminds him that he is insane and carving up people to sell in bits.
Max triggers the C4 and the building rocks.
I must now shoot my way past the enemies as the building shudders and rocks. Fighting my way up onto the roof towards the helicopter we kill many enemies and then meet a mini-gunner who takes some pounding.
In cut scene Neves has Max at gunpoint, he is about to be killed when Passos appears and shoots Neves. Max and Passos argue, Passos tells Max that he was involved with Marcello trying to loosen the family purse strings, not Neves and the organ trade. Max can't argue for too long as the building is coming down, he gets in the helicopter with Passos.

Chapter 13
Max forgives Passos and Giovana, they leave town.
Da Silva tells Max that he did not know that the UFE were in the organ trade. Their leader Becker can't be touched through normal channels,  no court will convict him. Da Silva suggests Max gets creative.
Max goes to a police station and turns himself in, he is led at gunpoint through cells and into an interrogation room. Two police officers beat Max, asking him what he is doing here, Max appears to be waiting for a specified time. Max attacks the two cops and overpowers them, we are now out into the corridor ready to fight.
Da Silva has been up to something as other criminals are loose in the building and gun fights are going on with criminals and cops. I have to fight my way through some cells then into the more businesslike area of the police station. We come outside and find a large armored truck. A criminal has been trying to shoot it with a rocket launcher and has died in the attempt. We have to take up his cause. I grab the launcher and blow up the apc. Then go back inside and take on the entire police station single handed. We fight through lots of different areas inside the police station and find more evidence of Victor and Becker's plans.
We see the police officer who shot Victor in his office on a security feed. We then have to face him as a minor boss battle. Shooting the ceiling above him to knock him into the open.
Eventually we reach the office of Becker, inside, in cut scene Max starts to throttle the life out of Becker. Victor appears and holds a gun to Max's head. Victor tells Becker to get Max's gun, Max makes a play for Victor's gun and grabs it, however, Becker tazes Max. The pair run for it and Max finds that they have escaped. He guesses that they will be heading for the airport.

Chapter 14
At the airport Max walks in and is almost instantly chased by police. He runs through the busy crowded space taking advantage of the fact that the police just can't shoot into the crowds. He makes it through the baggage check in into the behind the scenes of the luggage handling area, where we are fighting cops through the conveyors etc.
We fight through the back area and then back out into the customer toilets and out into the departure lounges.
We fight along the duty free and waiting area, filled with many enemies, this is a hard section. We then descend some escalators fighting and fight in a subway station. The power is cut here making it hard to see in the dark.
We enter an office and restore the power. We then fight on into another train station area.
Max now gets on a train to his destination, the private jet bay where victor's plane is. We have to fight some enemies who chase us in another train, then fight them as they board our train. we then avoid a dead end by jumping into the other train. Max then sneaks to the hangar. We now have a fight with lots of enemies, a kind of boss battle. Someone, it may be Becker uses grenades from a plane staircase and we have an awful lot of enemies in close proximity to deal with.
Once done we blow up the boss's grenade as he shoots in cut scene and his is badly injured in the blast. We are back at the start of the game, with Max approaching the badly injured man. We are given the opportunity to shoot him, it does not look he has long to live. The decision seems to be made for me and I get the cut scene where I am, i suppose lenient.
We are met by Da Silva and now have to chase the plane which is taxiing for the runway.
We have the grenade launcher and have to take out some jeeps and trucks on the way, then shoot at the plane.
In cut scene the plane crashes and Max jumps out to confront Victor who stumbles from the wreckage. Max is about to shoot him, Da Silva pleads to let him stand trial. max agrees and Victor laughs, saying he will walk. Max breaks his leg and tells him that he will walk with a limp.
The scene shifts to a beach bar in Bahia a week later. Max is watching the news which shows the the corrupt police force have been disbanded and Victor has been found hanging in his cell. The bartender tells Max that it is local justice, Max smiles, pays his bill and walks off into the sunset.

15 hours.
190 achievement points for one play-through on medium.

Skyrim Notes

I choose to start a new game and am instantly into a game-play cut scene. No difficulty choices here.
I am riding in the back of a horse drawn cart. There are three other prisoners tied up with me. One has his mouth bound. One of the prisoners is chatty, he informs us that we have been caught crossing the border. The other two are Stormcloak's which seem to be a rebel group. The man with the mouth binding is Ulfric Stormcloak, the leader of the rebellion. It seems that we are to be executed. We are taken into a village and the carts are stopped. The prisoners are herded out into a line.
I am asked my name and sent to the character creation screens.
Once done I am herded to the block and watch as another man is executed. I am next, and am forced down onto the block. As I am about to be decapitated a roar sounds.
A dragon lands on the tower above us and start blasting with flame and shockwaves of sound.
In the chaos I am now able to move and told to head to the keep. Inside we climb up the tower and the dragon blasts a hole in the wall. After it leaves we jump through the hole it made into the next house. Running on following the map marker brings us to the guard captain. I follow him through the assaulted town, the dragon blasting everything in sight.
I come to a place where one of the rebels confronts the captain. In the confusion the prisoners are escaping. We are given a choice, go with the rebels or the imperial captain into a keep.
I choose to go with the imperial captain.

Inside my hand bindings are cut and I can now get some weapons and armor from a chest.
I move into the next room and have to fight some Stormcloak rebels.
Next we are shown to search barrels for potions.
In the next room we find a torturer, we have to kill some more Stormcloaks. Here we get some lock picks and have to pick a lock to gain some magical items.
I move on through the cavern, enemies with bow and arrows are introduced.
I have to pull a lever to make a drawbridge come down over a gap.
In the next room we have to fight some spiders.
Then we are shown how to sneak, by trying to sneak past a bear.
The exit to the cavern is next and we move out into Skyrim's open world now.

Hadvar leaves to go on his way, suggesting we go to Riverwood next.
He tells us that Ulfric Stormcloak wants to rule Skyrim for himself. He murdered the high king of Skyrim.

I follow the quest marker through the countryside, encountering a hunter who ignores me entirely. I arrive at a small town called Riverwood. Here I find the quest marker takes me to a blacksmith named Alvor. Hadvar is there when I get there, we go inside his house.
Hadvar tells Alvor about the dragon attack, he suggests we go to Whiterun and tell the Jarl there of what has happened.
On the way to Whiterun I meet some wildlife, some types attack, others flee.
I find some people called companions fighting a giant, it is dead before I get close.
I reach Whiterun and have to persuade the guard to let me in.
Inside this large town I head to the main castle. Here an elf called Irileth stops me before I can approach the Jarl's throne. When I tell her about Helgen's destruction by the dragon I am told to approach the Jarl's throne.
Jarl Balgruff asks us about the dragon and pledges to send troops to Riverwood. His advisor does not seem pleased about this. The Jarl asks us another favor, seeing as we are handy with a blade.
We have to follow the Jarl to his mage, who has been investigating the dragons. The mage is named Farengar. In bleak falls Barrow there is a tablet that has more information on the dragons, we are to retrieve it.
I find Bleak falls Barrow, high in the mountains.
Some bandits outside it cause trouble.
Inside the barrow there are more bandits to take care of.
I progress through the one way tunnels of the barrow.
I come to a puzzle, there is a set of revolving stones. I have to make the pictures on them match the ones above the door, then pull a lever. Get it wrong and you are hurt.
The stone from the middle has fell off, though it can be seen on the ground.
I go down a spiral staircase and fight some large rat type enemies called skeevers.
I find a large spider and kill it.
A man named Arvel the swift is trapped in the webs, he talks of a claw and asks to be freed. He runs when I free him, though he runs straight into some new enemies called draugrs, and is killed, they are zombies.
There are some traps here, swinging axes and a pressure plate which swings a spiked frame at us.
I move on and find a door to the sanctum of bleak falls.
Inside I find another door, this is the one which we need the claw for. Looking at the claw in my inventory I see the pattern of the symbols which I need to reproduce on the combination lock door.
Inside here we find a wall with a word of power.
As we look at it a draugur overlord appears and I have to fight and kill it.
It gives me the tablet we need to take back to Farengar.

I head back to Whiterun and Farengar, I find him speaking to a woman, he seems surprised that I am back, as if he expected me to die in the Barrow. It turns out that the woman was the one who told him to look in the barrow for the tablet.

The elf Irileth comes in and tells us that a dragon has been sighted, we go to meet the Jarl and find a guard who has spotted the dragon at a watchtower. He tells his story and the Jarl asks that Irileth and I go and see what is happening.
I then have to follow Irileth down into Whiterun, where she gives a pep talk to the guards then out onto the plains.
I find the tower and there are fires burning all around it.
As I investigate the tower the dragon returns and we have to kill it.
After doing so our character absorbs power from it and we can now shout.
The guards talk and tell us about the myth of the Dragonborn, who can absorb the power of the dragons. We now have to go back to Whiterun.

I fast travel using my map to go back to the Jarl. The jarl tells us that the greybeards who live in the mountains will want to see us. He makes us thane of Whiterun and assigns us a companion called Lydia. I now have to find my way up the mountain to the greybeards.
Which is a long process, and I have to say not much fun. Finding a way up the mountain is a trial and error process of jumping around until I eventually find the right path.
I am also instantly killed a few times by hugely overpowered enemies like frost trolls and bears.
I find a man named Arngeir who asks that I demonstrate a shout for him. I do and then he asks why I have come, wasn't it them who summoned me?
I am then shown a word of power and asked to use the three times on conjured up ghostly targets.
I then have to follow another monk called Borri out onto the surface again. Here we learn the word of power "wolf", which allows us to sprint forwards fast. I have to demonstrate the power then go back and speak to Arngeir. He now gives us a task, we have to recover a horn from a tomb and bring it back to him.
I travel to Ustengrav and find a dungeon, inside mages and bandits are fighting each other and the draugrs.
I traverse the dungeon, which is filled with skeletons, spiders and draugrs.
Eventually I come to a room in which statues rise from pools at either side of an altar. Where the horn should be is a note. It tells us to meet someone who calls themselves a friend in the attic room at an inn in Riverwood. I leave the Ustengrav dungeon and fast travel back to Riverwood.
Inside a woman named Delphine seems to be in charge of the Inn. I ask to rent the attic room, she tells me that there isn't one, though I can have another room. when I go inside the room she comes in and tells me that I must be the Dragonborn. She give me the horn, and asks me to follow her. She takes us into a secret room inside a wardrobe in one of the inn's rooms. She tells us that she is part of a group that has been searching for a Dragonborn for a long time. She tells us that her predecessors killed the dragons long ago. The only real way for a dragon to die for good is for a Dragonborn to devour their soul. The dragons have only been kept at bay all these years. Something is allowing them to come back and Delphine wants us to help her find out what it is. She wants us to go to a dragon burial site and kill another dragon, so she can see what is going on.
I tell her to wait, I think I should take the horn back to Arngeir first. I travel to high Hrothgar and Arngeir teaches us the final word of the Fus Roh Dah shout.
I travel to the location of the dragon burial mound. When I get there I meet Delphine, a villager appears and tells us that a dragon was seen flying over the village and heading towards the burial mound. Delphine urges us to hurry and follow her up the mountain side. I find a large dragon, the same one that attacked at the start of the game. It appears to be carrying out some kind of ritual and it raises the other dragon from the mound. It's skeleton appears and the other dragons magic restores it to full fleshy normality. The dragon talks to us, it's name is Alduin, it tells the other dragon to kill us and leaves.
I take on the dragon and win, with the help of Lydia and Delphine.
Delphine now believes that I am Dragonborn, now she has seen us absorb the dragons soul firsthand. She tells us that she is a member of the blades, a group of dragon slayers that serves the Dragonborn in times past. Delphine thinks that the Thalmor are behind the dragons coming back. Delphine thinks we should get into the Thalmor embassy to find out more. She tells us to meet her back at Riverwood when she will hava a plan.
Back in her secret room she tells us about a party that is going to occur at the Thalmor embassy. She knows a wood elf who can get us an invite to the party. We are to go and meet Malborn at a place called Solitude.
I travel to the town of Solitude, I meet Malborn in the inn, he asks that we give him what we need inside, as we must dress as a guest and be unarmed when we go to the party. I have to go and meet Delphine at a nearby stable and give her my gear, she gives us the party clothes to wear. I then have to board the carriage. At the Thalmor embassy we have to give our invitation to a guard at the door. Inside we meet the elf like Thalmor, a woman called Elenwen greets us and we can mingle with the various guests who are a bunch of colorful characters.
I have to create a distraction so that Malborn can let us down into the embassy proper away from the party.
There is a drunk named Razelan who is cut off and can't get any service at the bar. I take bottle of brandy from a serving girl and can give it to him. This causes the distraction when he makes a speech. I am shown into the embassy proper by Malborn.
We now have to make our way through the embassy, which seems to be a kill only affair as my sneak levels seem woeful. I kill around six guards and mages and find my way into the offices of Elenwen, here I find some dossiers which show that Ulfric is conditioned by the Thalmor, but not directly controlled by them at present. His rebellion suits the Thalmor in their goals, but they are not behind it. The dragons are also not their doing either, they have a prisoner in the dungeon which they are interrogating to find out more about what is going on. I find the prisoner after killing some guards. His name is Etienne, he doesn't know what is going on, though he knows about a Blade scholar named Esbern who does. I am attacked by two guards who are bringing Malborn into the prison, once I kill them I get a key which opens to a cave and an exit. I can now return to Delphine and get my gear back from her.
I tell her what I have found out and she urges us to go to Riften and find Esbern.
Sometimes the a.i. is really terrible, it either hunts you mercilessly and the creatures or enemies are on your tail like flies on shit, or the a.i. is dumb and gets stuck behind a low wall, sometimes there is no reason for the enemies to back off or occasionally just stand still and ignore you in the middle of a fight.
In Riften I speak to Brynjolf, he wants us to do something for him in return for the information. We have to steal a ring and put it in someone's pocket. Brynjolf creates a distraction and we can go over to Madesi's stall and steal his ring. Then place it in someone called Band-Shei's pocket. I can now go into the Ratway looking for Esbren.
This is a typical dungeon, filled with bandits and thieves. I come to an underground bar, the hideout of the thieves guild. Brynjolf gives us another job to do. I can move on and enter the ratway depths to find Esbern.
I eventually find him hiding behind a door with many locks.
Esbren talks to us about Alduin, the dragon that devours the souls of the dead. We have to take Esbren to meet Delphine at Riverwood.
As we leave the Ratways there are Thalmor soldiers in the way.
Back at Riverwood we meet Delphine in her hideout. Esbren tells us of Alduin's wall, which is a record of the ancient's knowledge about Alduin. we must go there and see if any of the knowledge helps us in our fight. I come to a camp where people called Forsworn live, they seem more barbaric than the usual types we have met so far. A dragon attacks and all hell breaks loose. After killing the dragon, there isn't much left of the village's population.
I find a cave which leads to Skyhaven temple. Inside we have to use the Dragonborns blood to open a face shaped door deeper into the temple.
Inside we find Alduin's wall, which shows that a specific shout is needed to del with Alduin. We have to go back to the greybeards at High Hrothgar to find out if they know of it.
At High Hrothgar, Arngeir is dismissive, he suggests that the blades are using us and turning us away from our true destiny. He seems to be suggesting that the cycle repeats, and if we continue it we are not really helping. Using the shout to defeat Alduin merely postpones his eventually destruction of the world. As he is about to tell us to leave a voice which shakes the walls talks to Arngeir in the dragon tongue. He changes his mind and tells us about the shout. The shout is bad because it will introduce evil into the heart of whoever learns it. The leader of the greybeard order is revealed to be someone named Paarthurnax. To meet him we must learn a new shout called Clear skies which makes winds that are impassable go away. Now we can climb to the top of the mountain where we have to fight ice wraiths. Eventually we meet Paarthurnax and he is a dragon. He teaches us a fire breathing shout and talks about Alduin and why we should defeat him. The ancient Nords used Dragonrend to cripple Alduin, though it could not kill him. They used one of the elder scrolls to cast Alduin into time. They didn't actually get rid of him or defeat him, merely send him into the future, which is why he has appeared now. For Alduin only days have passed since the battle with the ancient Nords. This rip in time is still present, and we can use it to go back in time and learn Dragonrend, nobody alive now knows what it is and Paarthurnax can't learn it. To do this we will need the Elder scroll to travel back in time to learn the shout.
We have to talk to either Arngeir or Esbren about finding the elder scroll.
I find Esbren who tells me to go to the other side of the map, we are getting to stretch our legs. The destination is the college of Winterhold.
When I eventually get to the college we have to speak to Faralda, the doorkeeper. I show her that I am Dragonborn and she lets us in.
I meet Savos Aren, the Archmage of the college. We have to speak to someone called Mirabelle next, she inducts us as a student. First we are shown our room. We then have to go to the hall of the elements and listen to Tolfdir's lecture. He teaches us a ward spell, which is a magical shield.
I find Urag gro-shub in the Arcaneum, he is a fairly grumpy Orc, though he will assist us in finding the elder scroll. He gives us some books to read, which essentially tell us that the scrolls are dangerous, most educated people who read them become blind. There are monks who  study them their whole life until they finally go blind.  A man named Septimus Signus may be able to help, he is away in some Dwemer ruins to the north. We have to go and find him.
I traverse the ice flows and find Septimus, he appears fairly mad. He has found that the Dwemer, who are extinct could read the elder scrolls. we have to enter a Dwemer ruin named Blackreach. He gives us some  devices to help us when we get there.
I now have to go to Aftland, which is more Dwemer ruins. Inside we find that the Dwemer may be gone, but their machines are not. Mechanical spiders attack in the ruins, which show signs of machines and pipes. I am attacked by a Dwarven sphere, which is a humanoid enemy which unfurls from a sphere.
I progress through the Dwemer tunnels and eventually it opens out into a large industrial cavern, filled with pipes and moving cogs. I start to find new enemies here, named the Falmer, they are elf like, though blind, they seem primitive. I move through the dwarf city fighting Falmer. It seems as if they have colonized the Dwemer city, maybe driving the Dwemer out, or just coming in after they had gone.
I find a cathedral at the bottom of the city. Inside I have to fight a large boss type Dwarven centurion. This is made easy by dumb a.i. that means it can't get out of an area. Meaning I can retire to a safe distance and pepper it with arrows until it dies. I get a key from it. This key opens a chamber where I find two humans fighting, they are the expeditionary band that I have been seeing evidence of all along. They fight each other over the spoils and I am able to take care of the survivor easily. I trigger a dwarf symbol and it opens a secret door. This leads to an area called Blackreach. Blackreach is weird, there are huge jellyfish like creatures floating around in a large dark space.
There is a Dwarven sphere here which is fairly lethal.
It appears that Blackreach is the true Dawrven city.
There appears to be more normal Skyrim dwellers here, as servants of the Falmer.
New enemies called wisps appear, trailing balls of light.
I make my way to a large tower called Mzark. Inside I find a large Dwemer artifact. A huge orb with staircases surrounding it. There are controls at the top.
I pressed buttons at random and within a few seconds the wheels had spun and the cube I placed automatically in the slot is filled with the translated knowledge of the elder scroll. I can now grab the scroll and the cube and leave.
On the way out a giant gives me trouble, there is no chance of me killing him at the present level so I simply avoid him and run for the large lift that takes me back to the surface.
Now it is time to go back to Septimus Signus's outpost. He wants to opens the Dwemer artefact lodged in the ice. It turns out that Septimus is working for a Daedric lord, the lord of the unknown. I give him the translated lexicon and leave.
It seems we must go back to the throat of the world and speak with Paarthurnax.
At the throat of the world, we have to read the scroll, which appears to be a complex set of symbols and pictograms. We are thrown back through time  and witness incidents of the past.
We see the old heroes fighting a dragon and slaying it. Then Alduin appears and they use the Dragonrend shout on him, this allows us to learn it. We then see them fight and the fight isn't going well. The leader uses the elder scroll in desperation and Alduin vanishes. They think he has been banished from the world forever. We return to our own time and find that Alduin has arrived at the throat of the world to confront us.
This is a hard boss fight. The Dragonrend shout will ground Alduin for a while allowing you to do some damage. This is still a long fight of attrition. Paarthurnax helps, but while he  breathes fire on Alduin he does no damage.
I eventually win and as we defeat Alduin he flees. I have to speak to Paarthurnax. He tells us that we need to capture a dragon and find out where Alduin has retreated to lick his wounds.
There is a place in Whiterun where a dragon trap exists, we are to go there and make our attempt at dragon capture.
I go to the jarl of Whiterun and ask him about trapping the dragon in his palace. He thinks we are crazy, I eventually persuade him to help, however, he won't as long as the Stormcloaks and Imperials are fighting. The Jarl thinks that the greybeards could broker a peace. I agree to ask the greybeards to help.
I go to Arngeir and ask for his intervention, he agrees to host a peace conference. I have to find the leaders of both sides and ask them to come to it. First I go to Windhelm, to speak to Ulfric Stormcloak. This is the first time I have met Ulfric, the leader of the rebellion. He has killed the previous high king of Skyrim because he feels that he was nothing but a puppet of the Imperials. The imperials do everything to appease the elves, with no thought for Skyrim. Especially annoying to the Nords is the elves insistence on stamping out the belief in Talos in Skyrim. A great many Nords worship the man, not god that was Talos. Ulfric believes that the Nords of skyrim won the war for the imperialsa, yet the Imperials want to hand Skyrim over to the elves in order to keep them off their back. Ulfric intends Skyrim to be it's own country again and stand up to the elves. I ask him to attend the peace summit held by the Greybeards, and after some persuasion he agrees.
Now I must go to see general Tullius and get him to do the same. Tullius is fairly negative until I mention the Ulfric will attend. He now feels that Ulfric will use his non attendance as a slur on the empires willingness to negotiate.
I go back to high Hrothgar and join the summit. Everyone sits around a large conference table. We are given a choice straight away. Ulfric won't sit because a Thalmor representative is at the table. We have to decide to let her stay or risk Ulfric not even sitting down. I hedge with offending the elves, but asking Ulfric to let them stay. He agrees and sits. The arguments proceed, Ulfric tries to get something in return for the truce, he asks that Markath be turned over to him. There is outrage, just for sake of argument we are asked what Ulfric should give up in return. The choice is between Riften and Dawnguard. I suggest the rift, to which Ulfric throws a fit and threatens to leave. Esbren gives them the, Alduin is about to kill everyone speech and they all calm down. I am asked if we should give up one more piece of territory to Ulfric. I get the impression that he won't stand for not getting his way. I agree and he now gets two areas and gives up Riften. The truce is agreed. Ulfric leaves and we discuss the next move. Esbren suggests that we need to gain a way to lure a dragon to the trap. A dragon's name, shouted will bring them running. We need to learn a dragon name, other than Alduin's.
I go back to Whiterun, and Dragonreach, with it's dragon trap. We need to use the shout to trap it. I shout the name and the dragon shows up a few seconds later. We have to wear it's health down then lead it inside the large open area at the top of the castle. A trap is then sprung and we have it prisoner. I speak to Odahviing, it seems that even the dragons don't all like Alduin's rule, this one seems to be keen to help. The dragon tells us the Alduin is holed up at a place called Skuldafn, the catch is that you need a dragon, or at least an aircraft to get there. I agree to let Odahviing free as long as he takes us to Skuldafn. I let the dragon free and it does not betray us. I get on the dragon's back and it takes us high into the air.
We land in a mountainous area, the top  of the mountain is covered by a craggy castle. I am attacked almost immediately by dragons and Draugur Deathlord's and wights. This is serious stuff, I need to pull it out of the bag to survive.
There is a puzzle here, two gates with symbols above them. There are three turning stones with three sides and three symbols on each. There are symbols on faces at the sides of the turn stones. If you match each of the two outer turn stones with the face symbols. Then the middle one to each gate and pull the levers it opens the respective gates. Then we have yet more Draugrs and another puzzle door, this one is easy it's just hard to find the third part of it, hint it's below you when you are near the lever, yet more symbol matching.
we have a draugr lord boss battle in a corridor and then enter a large chamber where we learn a new word of power.
We now come out onto the top of the temple. It is getting to be annoying there are many high powered Draugr's here. It  is satisfying to Fus Roh dah them off the top of the tower. There is a dragon priest to deal with at the actual gateway to Sovengarde. You need to use his staff as a key to open the portal.
On the other side, in what is considered Nord heaven we find a similar world with just enough ethereal touches to make it feel different. I encounter a Stormcloak soldier who died in an Imperial ambush. Alduin is here, eating the souls of the dead. He tells us of Shor's hall, which now seems to be a destination. I move to the map marker through the fog shrouded landscape. I come to a bridge made out of the spine and ribs of some gigantic monster. I meet Tsun, who wants to fight us to check we are valorous enough for the house of Valour. I am and he moves aside. Inside the hall, which looks like a viking ideal of heaven, lots of gold, huge feasts and mead aplenty. I am met by Ysgramor who tells us that some of the Nords here will help us in our mission to slay Alduin. The three we meet are the three we saw when we travelled back in time, the ones who fought Alduin in the past and sent him into the future. We meet up then head back out over the bridge. we are told to combine all four of our voices into the clear skies shout, in order to dispel the mist.
We can hear Alduin shouting to bring it back and have to do it about four times before it sticks. Alduin then attacks, this fight is like any other dragon fight. Use Dragonrend to bring him onto the ground, then wail on him. I have three allies and the fight is only long because Alduin has a lot of health. Alduin dies and explodes in a dazzling display of pyrotechnics. We are congratulated by the dead Nords and Tsun can send us back to Tamriel with a shout.
We appear on the throat of  the world, a lot of the dragons are present, perched around us. Paarthurnax gives us a nice speech and suggest that he will keep the dragons on a better path from now on. Then I am left there, with no real idea of what to do next, don't I get a prize or a party or something?

Mages Questline
I appear to have caught some diseases from various creature bites that have been giving me status de-buffs. I have to find a shrine to cure myself of these things. I go to Markath and heal at a shrine of Talos. As I enter Markath there is an attempted murder, a man goes to attack an innocent looking woman right in front of us in the market area. I stop him and kill him. The guard doesn't arrest me, though he seems grumpy about any questions. A man speaks to me and give me a note to meet him later. It seems that the more primitive tribal forsworn are involved.
I meet the man who is called Eltrys in the shrine, it seems that there has been trouble in the town before regarding the forsworn, Eltrys does not know why, the guards are involved and won't help him. He asks that we investigate, both Margret, the intended victim and Weylin the killer. The forsworn were followers of old ways, driven out of Markath by Ulfric Stormcloak twenty years ago. I go out into the city and start asking questions.
I find an Orc called Mulush who tells us that Weylin was handed a note with his last pay packet from the mine. I find Margret in the Silverblood inn, it seems the Silverblood family owns most of Markath and runs the silver mine. Margret after some persuasion tells us that she is working for the Imperials. She was sent to get the deeds to the Silverblood mine, seems someone does not like her activities. Margret tells me about a man named Thonar, a Silverblood she was involved with. To speak with him I have to bribe a clerk in the treasury. On speaking to Thonar he is less than helpful, during our chat some forsworn attack and kill his wife. He is slightly more chatty now. It seems that he has the forsworn leader prisoner in the mine. I enter the warrens and find the keeper of the keys, he gives me the key to Weyln's room when I use persuade. I find a note in his chest that tells me he was chosen by someone called N to strike fear into the Nord's hearts. As I leave the warrens a man attacks me, we have to fight with fists only. Once he is bested I am told that Nephos sent him. It seems that N is someone called Nephos. I go to Nephos and confront him, he is following the orders of Madanach. The Forsworn used to live in Markarth, and they want the land back. Nephos also tries to kill us and we have a fight with him and around three servants in his house. I kill them and then have to return to Eltrys. I find Eltrys dead at the hand of the guards. I kill the three guards, though I am not sure that I should have. If I had come quietly I was to be imprisoned in the mine. Anyway, it's done now. Or not as the case may be, As I leave the shrine more guards are there to arrest me. I go quietly this time.
I am imprisoned in the mine, Orcs are the guards, we meet someone called Uraccen. To get to speak to Madanach we need to get a shiv to get past his Orc guard, Borkul the beast.
I have to speak to a Grisvar, who needs some skooma before he will give me a shiv. I find a prisoner who can supply it and persuade him. Now back to Grisvar who gives me the shiv. Giving the Shiv to Borkul gets me in to see Madanach. He is unrepentant about what is going on and determined that the Nords leave Markath or die. He asks us to speak to someone called Braig. I find braig and tells us about the Nords killing his daughter, who sacrificed herself to save him, though he was imprisoned anyway. I go back to Madanach and he will now help us escape, to prove our loyalty we must kill Grisvar. Which I do, I can't be arsed with being ethical, I just want out of prison. Now Madanach speaks to the group and announces it's time to leave the prison. He has a secret tunnel dug into the dwemer ruins under Markath. The group of prisoners all head for the tunnel and into the dwemer ruins. There are a few spiders and dwemer machines to deal with then we meet a bunch of Forsworn and get my gear back. Outside Thonar and Madanach come face to face, there is a fight. I leave them to it. I buy a war dog from a man in the stables, I was after a horse, though a dog will do for a while.
I meet a man Named Tyranus, he wants us to help him enter a house in Markath, which may have been involved in daedric worship. Inside we find a fairly normal looking house, Tyranus wanders around and then asks us to try a door. as we do a voice can be heard, deep and booming it talks about someone being weak and appears to be asking us to crush him. Objects start moving and we cannot leave the house. The Deadra tells us that we must fight or die, the only way out it to kill the other. Tyranus attacks us and we have to fight, I kill him without a seconds hesitation. The Daedra tells us to come further into the house to collect our reward. I come to it's altar and am trapped in a cage. The Daedra is named Molag Bal, the lord of domination. It's altar here has been defiled by another Daedra named Boethiah. A priest comes here and performs Boethiah's rites instead of Molag Bal's. He wants us to go and find the priest who has been captured and then bring him back to perform the rite, we are to only then kill him. I go to the quest marker and find a cave. Inside is a forsworn camp, they attack without provocation and I  kill them all. The man we need is in a cage, I free him by giving him money,  all the other conversation options are fruitless. we now have to go back to the house, where we have to beat the priest to death a few times, each time Molag Bal brings him back to life. Once the priest swears allegiance to Molag Bal instead of Boethiah, we have to kill him a final time. we are rewarded with the mace of Molag Bal, a fairy decent heavy weapon.
I find an Orc settlement, to be entitled to return, I have to fetch them some blacksmith gloves. I go to a dungeon and find it filled with spiders. It seems a mage has been experimenting on them down there. I clear out the dungeon and find the gloves. Taking them back to the Orc village now allows us entry to all Orc settlements without a fight.
Septimus Signus sends us a note, he has done something with the dwemer artifact, and wants us to come and visit. His box in which he thinks a gods heart is kept, can be opened by Dwemer blood. He thinks he can synthesize it from samples of blood from all races. As I leave the way is blocked by a whirling vortex. This thing is called the wretched abyss, it asks that we help and gives us the promise that once the box is opened we will become it's emissary. I don't think that is a good idea, I play along for now.
I go an find Tolfdir, from the Winterhold school of Magic, he wants us to investigate the ruins at Saarthal, which is reputed to have magic sealed tombs inside. The whole class is here and we are entering the archaeological dig. I am told to go and find someone named Arniel once inside, to help him catalogue their finds. He asks that we collect magical object inside the tombs. I find three rings to collect, then I have to activate an ancient amulet. This activates a trap, Tolfdir arrives and tells us to wear the amulet. This cause a door to start glowing. Tolfdir tells us to fire a spell at the door, I use fire on it and it explodes. we can now move forward again. Tolfdir follows us into a room with darkened doorways leading off of it. I am spoken to by a mage called Nerian, who tells us that the Psijic order are interested in us and we are going to be tested. As we move into the next few chambers draugrs attack. I am told to progress further on my own.
I move through some Draugr infested corridors then find a puzzle, the usual stones with symbols that need to be turned to the correct combination. The symbols are hidden above the actual stones. Now we meet a draugr boss of sorts and have to kill him. Then another puzzle, the key is present and easily visible, however, the stones turn the others stones when you turn them, necessitating some juggling to get the combination entered.
We now find a large room with a Draugr boss. There is a large orb like floating structure, which Tolfdir thinks is fascinating. He asks that we go back to the college and bring the mage leader to see it. Tolfdir is going to stay and try and find out more. Back the the college I tell Savos about the orb, he asks that we research it for ourselves. We get a staff as a reward. I have to go and speak with the librarian Urag again, he tells us that the books we need were stolen by a mage who left the college. Looks like we need to go and get them back. I go to Fellglow keep, where the missing books are supposed to be located. Here I find a dungeon filled with mages. Further in I find some vampires who are trapped in cages, it seems silly to let them out, though it aids my lockpicking skill to do so.
I find the mage in a cage and let him out. The leader of the evil mages has the books we need, so we need to clear out every last one of them as usual. At the end of the dungeon we meet a woman named the caller, I have to kill her to get the books back. Back at the college I give the books back to Urag the librarian. He tells us to speak with Tolfdir again, who has managed to bring the orb back to the college hall. I speak to Tolfdir and he starts talking about the orb, Ancano the elf interrupts and tells us that someone from the Psijic order is at the college, wanting to speak with us. Ancano seems upset, he feels that the psijic order are criminals of some kind, at least enemies of the elves.
I arrive at Savos's chambers and find Quaranir waiting. As we approach he stops time to speak with us privately. The eye of magnus, which is the orb, seems to be the cause of his concern. The Psijic order believe that the world isn't ready for it's power. They believe it will be misused. He tells us to find someone called the Augur to help us in the college.
I speak to a few people who don't seem keen to tell me about the Augur. Mirabelle can be persuaded to speak of it, it seems that it is below the college in the caves under it.
I find the Augur, which is a glowing light and disembodied voice.
The Augur tells us the Ancano has also been down here seeking knowledge. The eye tells us that we need the staff of Magnus to use the eye of Magnus. We are to go back to Savos on the Augur's instruction. Savos tells us that Mirabelle might be able to help. Mirabelle tells us that the synod had been at the college asking about the staff. The synod went to the ruins of Mzulft looking for the staff, seems we are too.
I find Mzulft, it is a dwemer ruin, there is a dying synod member at the doorway, which does not bode well. The usual dwemer spiders and some chaurus attack us in the ruins and caves. I move on through the dungeon and begin to find dead Falmer. The ruins are very disturbed here, as if everything has been thrown around and damaged.
I move on through this long dungeon and eventually find a locked door, the key isn't far away, guarded by a large dwemer machine. I meet Paratus, one of the surviving synod members. He needs a crystal to focus a machine up ahead. I get the crystal from a dead Falmer's body and give it to Paratus. Here we have another of the large dwarf spheres that we used to transcribe the elder scroll. This time we have to use the controls to line up light beams and then heat and chill the crystal. Once done we see a map with the college lit up like a star. Paratus is not happy. He obviously hoped that the map would show a large collection of magic objects around the world. Instead it shows only one, and one at our base. He becomes paranoid and won't help us anymore. He does tell us that the staff should be at a place called Labyrinthian. On the way out of Mzulft we see Quaranir appears and tells us that we are doing well. He tells us t go back to the college and help out, he predicts that we will find trouble.
Inside the hall of the college we find a wall blocking the main entrance, Ancano is inside the hall doing something to the eye of Magnus. Savos and Mirabelle ask us to help in breaking the magic wall. I do and we go inside, as we approach Anacano a white light envelopes us all. I find myself beside Mirabelle, she is hurt, Ancano now has a wall surrounding the eye and himself. Mirabelle asks us to find Savos, it appears that he is dead. I am told to go down to the town and defend it against an assault of magical creatures. There are ten flying orbs that leave trailing streamers behind them flying around the town. I have to kill them all. Then go back to Mirabelle, she tells us that we need to go get the staff from Labyrinthian.
At Labyrinthian we find trolls, lots of them to fight. I find the entrance, and it appears that we are seeing ghostly echoes of the past. A bunch of mages, including Savos enter, looking for something in Labyrinthian. I enter a large hall, filled with a skeletal dragon and some skeleton warriors. Then we find a door which needs to be opened by using flame magic on it. There are a bunch of new enemies down here, blue energy versions  of draugrs, wisps and wispmothers, which split into shades as they get low on health. I come to a word wall and  learn a new shout, which slows down time. The end of the dungeon comes when I find a large room with two mages seemingly keeping a creature prisoner. I am attacked by the ghostly mage when I try and talk to him, this frees the creature, which is fairly powerful. The creature has the staff of magnus, which it gives up when it dies.
Savos's ghostly image can be seen leaving his friends to rot in the caves while he escapes.
Back at the college, we enter the hall using the staff to destroy magical barriers. We now fight Ancano, using the staff makes him vulnerable to harm. Once he is dead Quaranir turns up. We become the arch mage, the Psijic order take the eye back to their island.
I speak to the barmaid in the bannered mare in Whiterun. She tells us to speak to the jarl about his children. One of his children has become broody and violent, the jarl asks us to speak with him. I speak with Nelkir, who seems aggressive, seems he has been listening around the castle and has overheard things. He has also been speaking to something he calls the whispering lady. I go the door where he has been listening and an ethereal voice speaks to us. A daedra is trapped behind seals and wants us to let it out. I have to speak to Nelkir again to find out how to open the door. It seems that the door key is held by the jarl and his wizard. I pickpocket Farangar and get the key. Inside the room we find that the voice is coming from an enchanted sword. The sword is fairly powerful, though it seems that it drives people mad, I suppose I'll find out.
I now have the blood I need to give to Septimus, I take it to him. The blood does indeed open the cube. Inside is a room with a book. Septimus is killed magically as he expresses disappointment. The wretched abyss gives us a book, the book allows us a leg up in some skills, we can choose, might, shadow and magic skills to increase.

Assassin's guild quest line
In Windhelm, a boy called Aventus Aretino has been trying to summon the dark brotherhood.
I enter his house and speak to him, we can reveal the truth that we aren't part of the dark brotherhood or deceive him and let him think that we are from the dark brotherhood.
Aventus wants us to kill the woman who runs the orphanage in Riften, he hates her and wants her assassinated. I go to Riften and find the orphanage, Grelod is indeed cruel to the children there. I kill her and leave to go back to Aventus.
I go to an inn and sleep, when I wake there is a woman called Astrid in the room. It seems we have stolen a kill from the dark brotherhood. We must repay the debt. There are three people in the shack with us, we are to choose the right one to kill. I choose the one of the three who seems least moral and then find that it wasn't really worth thinking about. All that was needed was for us to kill on command. Astrid invites us to join the dark brotherhood. I go to the dark brotherhood sanctuary and find Astrid inside. She welcomes us and gives us some dark brotherhood armor. we are to speak with Nazir for our first job.
I find a bunch of dark brotherhood characters in the sanctuary and can learn about their history. To progress I speak to Nazir, who gives me some names of people to kill.
The first is Betlid, who is a miner, I snipe her with an arrow to avoid being seen killing her by the guards in the town. Next is Narfi, who I can sneak up on in his run down shack. The last is Ennodius, a miller. After killing them all I go back to the dark brotherhood sanctuary and speak with Nazir. In the sanctuary, I find someone called Cicero has arrived, he has brought the corpse of the night mother. This is putting the cat amongst the pigeons as the Skyrim sect of the dark brotherhood has been operating alone since the elf war disrupted the dark brotherhood in other areas of Cyrodil. It seems that now the night mother is here to take over as is her usual role. The night mother is a corpse, who speaks only to a listener, she hears the prayers of people all over the world who ask for the dark brotherhood’s services. The listener is the one the night mother speaks to. There is no listener at present. I am fairly certain that I am going to be the new listener.
I have a new contract to fulfill, I must speak to a girl called Muiri in Markath. Her ex lover, has turned out to be a bandit leader, she wants him killed. I travel to Raldbthar and find a dwemer ruin, the bandits have colonized only the first few rooms. I find Alain and kill him and his bandits fairly easily. Pressing on into the Dwemer ruins I find a huge catacomb and city area. There is a puzzle where cogs are jammed with bits of bones. I undo the jams and wish I hadn't, this frees a Dwemer centurion master to attack us. The key here is to get into the pool of water, which he can't enter. You can them move from side to side, making him walk around the bridge. This means you can use ranged weapons on him and he can't do much about it. There is a door down here to Blackreach. I find a door back to skyrim and leave. Time to go back and finish the contract. The second target of Muiri is Nilsine Shatter-shield, I find her and kill her also. She gives me some money and I have to return to the dark brotherhood sanctuary.
Astrid is worried about Cicero, she has heard him talking to someone when he is alone in the night mother's chamber. She wants us to eavesdrop on Cicero, she wants us to hide inside the night mother's coffin. I enter the coffin and wait until Cicero arrives. I can hear him babbling about the other assassins. The night mother then starts talking with us. I can't say I am surprised. We are told to speak to Cicero and tell his a phrase. He is angry when we appear from the coffin, though is happy when we tell him the phrase. Astrid bursts in and we explain, she is unhappy that we have been told to speak to someone. She tells us to go to Nazir and get some new jobs. We are not to do what the night mother told us. I go to Nazir, he gives us two jobs to do. I figure that we may be given a choice here. To side with Astrid's version of the dark brotherhood, or the traditional night mother version, both seem equally as terrible. I decide to do the jobs as Astrid asked and to also visit the person the night mother asked us to see.
The first assassination is simply to kill a man called Lurbuk in a bar, which is easily done by hiding in a room nearby, where you are hidden and shooting him with an arrow.
The next target is Hern, he is supposed to be a vampire, though I find him outside in daylight. He is harder to kill and someone called Hert, who may be his wife get in on the fight as well. I kill him and it's time to go back to Nazir.
As I enter the sanctuary Astrid tells me that we should go and carry out the night mother's wishes. I get my rewards from Nazir, then back out to find the crypt that the night mother has sent us to visit.
The crypt is called Volunruud, we are looking for someone named Amaund. I fight my way past some draugr and eventually find Amaund. He has a job, just a little one, he wants us to kill the Emperor of Tamriel. His servant Rexus gives us a letter and an amulet to take to Astrid. She is impressed, she asks that we speak to a fence called Delvin Mallory to see if the amulet is indeed worth a lot of money. I have to go to the ragged flagon in Riften to find Devlin. He will buy the amulet, he gives us a letter of credit to give to Astrid.
Astrid is pleased and tells us that we are to be the one to carry out the plan. Our first job is to kill a bride on her wedding day. The bride has ties to the Stormcloaks, which will stall the peace process. This will force the emperor to come to Skyrim. Which answers the questions about why we are being sent to kill a bride. I travel to Solitude where the wedding is to take place. I find a vantage point above the wedding and using invisibility potion I take my shot with an arrow and kill the bride. One of the dark brotherhood has came with us and creates a distraction so we can get away. Back with Astrid we are given our reward and told to speak with Gabriella who is planning the next stage of the plan.
I find Gabriella and she tells us that the chief of the emperors security is their next target, or more precisely his son. By killing his son and planting evidence of a plot against the empire on him, it will put the emperors guard in disarray. I find the Commander and Gaius in Dragon Bridge and steal the schedule from the imperial office there. I now have to follow Gaius to a city, which will gain me a bonus, and also ensure his body is found quickly. There doesn't seem to be a way to kill Gaius easily in a city without drawing attention, as he has a lot of health. I pay my 1000 bounty for killing someone in the city and plant the letter on him. Back in the sanctuary I am rewarded fro the mission. Then we find that Cicero has went crazy, well crazier, and attacked Astrid. She tells us that we must take care of the situation. We must go to Cicero's room and find some clues. In his journal we learn of another dark brotherhood sanctuary in Skyrim. Back to Astrid and she sends us on the way. Arnbjorn, who is Astrid's werewolf husband also went after Cicero.
In dawnstar I find Arnbjorn, he has been wounded by Cicero. Inside the sanctuary we are attacked by ghostly dark brotherhood members called guardians. Eventually I come to Cicero and find him lying wounded on the floor. He asks that we spare him. I decide to do so, since he is actually right, even though he is madder than a bag of weasels. Back at the sanctuary I find Astrid and lie to her, telling her that Cicero is dead.
The next part of the plan is to find the gourmet, the chef who will cook for the emperor.
We have to follow a lead to the gourmet, as we don't know who he is. A cook in Markarth may know who he is, we must question him. I head to Markarth and look for the chef, I find Anton Virane in the palace at Markarth. After intimidating him into telling us the identity of the gourmet, I must kill him. The gourmet is an Orc named, Balagog, he is standing around in a convenient place at the Nightgate inn. I kill him, take his pass and have to hide his body. I do this by dropping it into a nearby river. Back at the sanctuary, we receive our reward. Astrid tells us that it is time, we are to assassinate the Emperor.
We have to go to Solitude, and give Commander Maro the Gourmet's writ of passage, from there we can poison the emperor, using a poison called Jarrin root that Astrid gives us.
Something in the way Astrid is acting makes me think that I may be about to be betrayed.
I head to Solitude and show commander Maro the writ, he lets us pass. Inside we meet Gianna, who wants us to get dressed as a chef. We then have to make the stew with Gianna, we are given an opportunity to add the poison. We then have to follow Gianna to the state room where the emperor is dining with some dignitaries from Solitude.
I watch as the emperor eats some stew and dies. The guards then attack. I am directed to a door and leave by it. It seems like nobody is following, which is weird. I cross the bridge  we find ourselves on and then am met by three guards and Commander Maro. Maro tells us that we were betrayed, Astrid, or someone from the dark brotherhood has told Maro of the plan. The emperor wasn't the real emperor, just a decoy. Maro was given this chance to look good in return for letting the dark brotherhood thrive. He has double crossed the double crossers and as he speak to us the sanctuary is being attacked. Maro leaves the guards to kill us. I kill the three guards, fairly easily I have to say. The town guards are also after me, I pay a steep 1500 bounty to be free of their interference.
Back at the dark brotherhood sanctuary there are more of the emperors guards outside, it seems they are already carrying out their attack.
Inside it seems that Penitus Oculatis are inside also. I find Arnbjorn fighting in the main room, he is a werewolf and is killed, I find Nazir, and have to save him from some enemies. We try and leave, though it seems that the sanctuary is caving in around us. We are told by the night mother to embrace her, I go to the casket and it closes around us. Seemingly just in time as the caves collapse. The night mother tells us to sleep and after a few seconds of blank screen we hear Nazir and Babette digging the casket out of the rubble. The night mother tells us that we must find Astrid, who I am fairly sure is the traitor.
The game has now crashed twice in the same area, not impressing me much.
I find Astrid, she is badly burnt, she will not survive. She is the traitor, she wanted things to stay the way they were before the night mother came. She asks us to rebuild the dark brotherhood. She has made a dark sacrament prayer for herself, the first of the new dark brotherhood contracts. I take her blade of woe and kill her with it. A kindness, as she must be in terrible pain and about to die anyway. I have to go back to the night mother. She tells us that we must carry out our contract, the real emperor must die. She asks us to tell Nazir of our plans. We are to find Amaund, the original contract giver. Nazir is going to move the night mother to the Dawnstar sanctuary.
I go to Whiterun to find Amaund, he is surprised to see us, though pleased that we still want to carry out the contract. The emperor is aboard his ship, the Katariah in the bay at Solitude. We also have a chance to get our revenge on Maro. I find Maro and kill him, then head for the ship, which is nearby. I can enter by climbing up the anchor chain. Inside the ship we have a mix of sailors and Penitus Ocularis soldiers to fight. I eventually find my way to the emperors room. He isn't shocked to find us at his door, he seemed to be expecting and resigned to his fate. He asks that we do him a favor, the man who ordered his assassination is not to profit from it. He asks that we kill Amaund after we take his money. I go back to Amaund, and find the location of our money. I then kill Amaund, which results in a fight and a bounty for Whiterun. I then return to Volunrund and find my 20000 gold reward waiting for me as promised. Back at the new sanctuary Nazir tells us to speak with Devlin again, to refurbish the sanctuary. The night mother also gives us a new contract.
I go to Devlin, this is only a cosmetic mission, I can pay him to upgrade the sanctuary, which I do.
I find a talking dog that wants our help, as it points out, we have dragons and talking cat people, what is so surprising about a talking dog? It seems that there is some Daedric interference going on here. We must travel with the dog to a Daedric shrine, it seems it is lost and needs help getting home. I smell a rat, or should that be dog?
I find the caves, which are home to a shrine of a Daedra named Clavicus Vile. I fight through some vampires and their thralls to the shrine. I speak to the Daedra through the shrine and it isn't really interested in the dog coming back after all. The Daedra wants us to recover an axe for it.
It seems that I have contracted the vampire disease, and if I don't do something about it will turn into a vampire.
I go to Rimerock burrow with the dog and have to fight a mage here. the axe that Clavicus Vile wants is here. I find a beacon, which can talk also, it wants to be returned to it's rightful place.
I go back to Clavicus Vile, we get a choice, keep the axe, and use it to kill Barnabas the dog, or give the axe back and get an armored mask. I choose the mask.
I take the beacon back to the statue of Meridia, as I do I am lifted high above Skyrim. She asks that we enter her shrine and destroy a mage that is annoying her. I enter the Kikreath dungeon and find some new enemies here, corrupted shades.
There is a light beam that needs to be threaded through the dungeon from the statue, specially built mirror pedestals need to be activated as we go.
Eventually we meet the mage Malkoran, he is a tough enemy, he seems susceptible to fire. When he dies he turns into a shade for another go at you. I am given a sword called Dawn breaker in return for this errand.
I need to get rid of the vampirism I have contracted, it is annoying, while it gives you some spells, they aren't as useful as the things it removes like your stamina being shot to hell in the daytime. I go to Morthal and speak to the barmaid in the bar there, she tells us about a mage who can help with vampirism who lives in Morthal.
Falion knows of a ritual involving a filled black soul gem. Handily Falion can sell you a black soul gem. We now need to find someone to kill, I find a cave with some handy vampire thralls, and kill them while using soul trap. This fills the black souls gem, we have to go back to Falion. He tells us to meet him at a stone circle just outside of Morthal at dawn. When we do he completes the ritual and we are cured.

Thieves guild quest line
In Riften I have to do some small errands for Brynjolf, there are three people with bad debt to the guild. I go to a shopkeeper named Beresi, who won't pay. The next woman called Haelga won't either. Though there is a woman in her bunkhouse who tells us get three markers from men she has slept with, which will mortify Haelga.
In the bar in Riften the barmaid, Keevara won't pay either, until her husband is made to convince her. He tells us to drop into conversation about her farm in Morrowind, and her family. She pays up when we do.
I find the men who Haelga has slept with next, the first Bolli, gives us the token, scared that we will tell his wife. A man at the stables also gives us his mark when we intimidate him. An elf called Indaryn also gives up his mark when persuaded. On going back to Haelga there is no option to give her the marks, or to advance the quest, it seems bugged.
I go back to Brynjolf, it seems he can give us some advice. He tells us to smash an urn that Beresi has and to steal Haelgas statue of Dibella. I go back to Beresi and smash his urn, this annoys him and he pays. I feel like I am in the mafia or something. Similarly with Haelga taking the statue and speaking to her gives the conversation options to proceed. I now have to go back to Brynjolf, where we are accepted into the guild and discuss what is to happen next. He asks us to follow him through a secret door into the thieves guild hideout. We meet Mercer Frey the leader of the thieves guild.
The first thieves guild mission to go to an island estate called Goldenglow. Here we must clean out their safe and burn some beehives. This is in response to the estate suddenly deciding they aren't going to honor agreements with Maven Black Briar, who the thieves guild has contracts with.
I go to the island and find it full of mercenaries. I burn the beehives. Then inside the house and empty the safe. Back at Brynjolf he sends us to Maven Black Briar for a chat. She wants us to go to Whiterun and speak with Mallus Maccius, he tells us that the owner of a rival Meadery is holding a tasting session. We are to poison the mead, using pest poison. I enter the brewery, speaking to the owner Sabjorn, who gives us poison to do the job. Under the brewery are some tunnels and they are filled with spiders and skeevers.
There is also a mad mage named Hameyln who takes a bit of killing. Once past him you can poison the nest, then move into the mead store and poison the vats.
Back at the bar, we see a guard captain come to test the mead. The guard is angry at the terrible taste and throws Sabjorn in jail. Mallus is now in charge of the Meadery, he works for Maven, so that means she is effectively in control here. We are to check through Sabjorn's accounts and look for his partner. I find a note and take it back to Maven. There is no name, though there is a symbol. We are told to go and see Brynjolf, who tells us to go to Mercer. Mercer has deduced that a man called Gulum-Ei is involved, he works at the east empire trading company in Solitude.
I travel to Solitude to find Gulum-Ei and find him in the Winking Skeever bar. He wants us to get him a case of firebrand wine in return for information on the mysterious nemesis of the thieves guild.
I go to the blue palace and find the wine fairly easily, sitting unattended. I take it back to Gulum-Ei, who tells us that our target is a woman, who is angry with Mercer. That is all he knows. Obviously he does know more and isn't going to tell us willingly. I have to follow him. We go through solitude and down to the docks, where we trip trough the east empire trading company warehouses. We are attacked by bandits and soldiers inside the docks. Eventually we catch up with Gulum-Ei, after killing everyone else but him he is in a more chatty mood. He tells us that a woman called Karliah is responsible. She is an ex member of the thieves guild as was involved with Mercer in the dirty politics of the guild.
I go back to Mercer with the news, Gulum-Ei told us that she said something about where the end began. Mercer thinks that this may be the place where she murdered the old guild leader. I trek out to the old burial chamber and meet mercer, who lets us inside.
The fight to the end of this dungeon is long and hard, many many Draugur are in between us and Karliah. The best part of this is that Mercer is a great ally here. He has dual swords with enchantments, along with a flame astronach it feels more like a team game. I took the distance weapon role and let Mercer be my tank. Eventually we reach the end chamber and as our character enters we are shot with something that makes us see green mist and collapse. We watch immobile as Karliah and Mercer have a chat. It seems that it was actually Mercer who killed the old Guild leader and blamed it on Karliah. He wants to fight Karliah, but she won't let him, using a potion to become invisible and flee. Mercer comes  to us and slices us with his blade, the screen goes black. we aren't dead though, Karliah has saved us and we find ourselves alone with her outside. She tells us that she intended to capture Mercer alive and make him answer for his crimes to the guild. She has found a journal that Gallus kept, which she also thinks may be evidence, however the journal is written in an unknown language. She thinks someone at the college of Winterhold may be able to read it.
It seems that Gallus, Karliah and Mercer are part of an even more secret sect called the Nightingales. I go to Winterhold and speak to the person that Karliah has told us about, his name is Enthir, he can't help. The journal is written in the Falmer language. Enthir knows of someone in Markarth who may be able to help though, so it's off to Markath.
I find the mage Calcelmo, who needs a spider killed in his dwemer dig site before he will help. I head into the ruins and kill the spider, it is a fairly big one, with a few smaller spiders on the way. I head back to Calcelmo. This gives us access to the museum he runs, though he still won't translate our journal. Inside the museum it segues way into more ruins. There are guards and mages who attack on sight. I kill them and progress, eventually finding Calcelmo's tower. Inside is the stone he used to learn the falmer language. I have to take a rubbing of it. Now we have to go back to Enthir, who we find in the company of Karliah. The translation shows the Mercer was suspected to be a traitor by Gallus for months before his death. The journal also mentions a scared temple of the Nightingales called the twilight sepulcher. Karliah asks that we meet her back at the guild in Riften to expose Mercer. Inside the guild base we meet Brynjolf, Vex and Devlin. An uneasy truce is held as Brynjolf reads the journal. He is still suspicious, though orders that the vault be opened to check it's contents. Devlin uses his key, then Brynjolf. Inside the vault is almost entirely empty, Mercer has taken the entire guild for fools. Everyone is angry, Brynjolf gives us a task. Mercer owns a house in Riften, there may be some clues there. We are to investigate. entering the house is hard work. There is an escape ramp at the back, which can be brought down by shooting it's mechanism with an arrow. I use the ramp to get inside. There are a few bandit type enemies inside. Exploring the house, finding a secret panel in a wardrobe we find a link to the ratways. I find a secret hideout and some plans. I take them back to Brynjolf. He thinks the Mercer is going after a treasure called the Falmer's eyes. Karliah asks that we come with her to a secret location, it seems she wants us to be the equal of Mercer when we meet him. I think she is going to make us Nightingales.
Karliah takes us to a hidden rock formation with a door, it is called Nightingale hall. Inside we are given Nightingale armor and have to put it on, even if it is worse than the armor I have. We then enter a room with three plinths and a central area. Nocturnal manifests as a glowing blue light. It speaks with Karliah and a deal is struck, we are made Nightingales. Karliah tells us that Mercer has stolen a skeleton key. We need to get the key back and return it. Brynjolf tells us that when this is over he wants us to take over as guild leader.
Mercer intends to steal the eyes of the Falmer, which are supposed to be situated in a Dwemer ruin of Irknghthand.
These are typical Dwemer ruins, filled with steam robots and flaming traps. I meet Brynjolf and Karliah inside and we set off after Mercer. The Dwemer dungeon is full of Falmer. It is one of the biggest dungeons yet. Eventually we find Mercer prying the fist sized jeweled flamer eyes from a large statue. I have to fight him alone as he uses magic to make Brynjolf attack Karliah. I manage to defeat him fairly easily, considering the hardship getting to this point. The chamber begins to fill with water and we can only escape once it is totally full and a ceiling hole becomes an escape route. Karliah tells us to take the key to the Twilight Sepulcher.
I enter the cave of the Twilight Sepulcher, I meet a ghostly sentinel who blames itself for letting Mercer get the key. It turns out to be the ghost of Gallus, who tells us his thanks and asks us to follow the pilgrims path and replace the key.  
I move into the dungeon and have to fight nightingale ghosts who are hostile to us. Then I come to a room where the light is dangerous and we have to stick to the shadow. Some more nightingale sentinels, then we come to a long tunnel, which is conspicuous by the fact that nothing tries to kill me. I come to well and jump in, there is a skeleton at the bottom and  a note suggesting that jumping down here wasn't a good idea. Just when I think I might be in trouble we see the skeleton key in front of us and the well floor dissolves. We find ourselves in a chamber with a blue shape on the floor, a keyhole is a perfect fit for the skeleton key. Nocturnal appears before us and is sarcastic, she gives us our reward. Karliah tells us what being an agent of nocturnal means. We can choose between three powers, though we exchange them as long as we do it a day at a time. I can choose a health drain, invisibility for a few seconds or the chance to make multiple enemies fight among themselves. I choose the make allies fight each other option. I return to the thieves guild to find that Brynjolf will run it for us, while we are leader.

Stormcloak Rebellion
It is time to take a side in the war that is raging in Skyrim, since this game is all about  Skyrim, it seems pertinent to take the countries side and free it from the Imperial grip which sees it's views and beliefs subjugated to appease the elves and seemingly keep them off the back of the citizens of Cyrodill.
I go to Windhelm, and speak to Galmar Stone Fist, who is Ulfric's general. He has a test for us, he wants us to go to serpent stone island, if we survive we pass. The island is a home to Icewraiths, we have to kill one and return. I head out to a set of standing stones on an isolated island and kill the Icewraith there. Now I must go back to Galmar where we take an oath to join the Stormcloaks.
Out first mission is to recover an artifact called the jagged crown. It is the symbol of power in Skyrim, essentially the crown of the true high king of Skyrim. I am told to go to a place called Korvanjund, where I meet up with some Stormcloaks. We find a dungeon guarded by Imperial soldiers and have to kill them. Inside the dungeon we fight imperials, it's fairly easy with around four assistants. We come to a puzzle, where we must find the switch to open a gate. Now we are fighting draugrs, we come  to a room filled with them, one is wearing the crown. Once they are fought we have to go back to Windhelm and give Ulfric the crown.
Ulfric now wants us to deliver a message to the Jarl of Whiterun, it seems he is giving The Jarl a chance to join him otherwise it is a declaration of war.
I go to Whiterun, and Balgruuf, he talks politics with his advisors, it seems he will not be siding with Ulfric. Since Ulfric has played his hand and revealed that he will attack now, it seems that Balgruuf will take up the Imperial offer a garrison of solders at Whiterun. We are told to go back to Ulfric with his axe.
We are now committed to attacking Whiterun, I have to meet with Galmar to get my orders. I find him at a camp outside Whiterun, they are firing huge catapults at the city.
We have to storm the city and get the drawbridge down. Once done we go inside the city. I have to fight my way to the castle of dragons reach. Here we must fight the Jarl, until his health is low, he then surrenders. There is some political chit chat, we are then told to go back to Windhelm and tell Ulfric of our victory.
We must now go to the Whiterun area, and take it for the Stormcloaks as well. I report to Galmar at a camp outside Whiterun, he wants us to attack an Imperial fort. We must go to a location to start the attack, we must then clear out the fort and the prison of Imperial. Once done we can free the prisoners, we must then report back to the group leader, Rolof, who tells us to go back to Ulfric.
Back at Windhelm, Ulfric gives us an Orcish sword, he also tells us that we can claim a house in Windhelm.
We must now take the Rift, I am to meet Galmar at the rift Stormcloak camp. He tells us that we must attack fort Greenwall. This is simple enough, go to the fort, kill every soldier there and the mission is over. we are told to go back to Ulfric in Windhelm, he gives us a sword and armor, and tells us to prepare for the attack on Solitude.
I go to speak with Galmar at another makeshift camp near a fort, Haafingar, again we have to storm the the fort and kill the imperials garrisoned there.
Back to Galmar and it is time to attack the city of Solitude itself, this is the seat of imperial power and the throne of all Skyrim.
I am to meet Ulfric, I find him giving a speech to the massed soldiers at the gates of Solitude. We then enter the city, which is on fire. We must fight our way up into the castle and inside we face General Tulius and his henchwoman. Once they are defeated we hear some more arguing. We are then given a choice, kill Tulius our self or let Ulfric do it, I let him.
We then go outside and give a speech, Ulfric let's the wife of the old jarl stay on as leader of Solitude, as long as she swears to the side of the Stormcloaks. She will and there will be a proper election for the high king job in due time.

The companion quest line
The companions seem to the last of the larger quests to take on. I go to Whiterun and enter a large hall which is their base. I find lots of grumpy people, eventually Kodlak appears to be a leader of sorts. I am told to go out and fight someone called Vilkas, to test my arm. we go outside and I have to hit him a few times. Once I have, he seems satisfied. He gives us his sword to take to the blacksmith for sharpening.
There is a blacksmith right next door and I find a man named Eorlund tending it. I give him the sword for sharpening, he asks that we take a shield to Aela. I am shown to my room by Farkas on Aela's orders. He shows us to a dorm, it seems we are now accepted by the companions as one of them.
My first companion duty is to rough up a woman in Whiterun who has been causing trouble for our client. I am directed to a temple where we have to beat up the high priestess, then go back to Farkas. Farkas gives us 100 gold for our trouble and tells us to speak to Skjor who wants to see us. It seems that a part of the shattered blade of Wuuthrad, which was once owned by a companion named Ysgramor has been located at a place called dustman's cairn. We are to go and get it, Farkas will come with us.
I go to Dustman's cairn, looks like more draugr slaughtering to be done, I fight a few draugr then enter a large area. There is a lever, which when I pull it traps me in the room by a gate. Farkas tells us that he will find a way to free us. Then a group of men enter the room and seem hostile to the companions. As they are about to attack Farkas, about five against one he turns into a werewolf and slaughters them.
He then comes back to us in his normal form after opening the gate. It seems the certain members of the companions, the inner circle are werewolves. The Silverhand are enemies of werewolves it seems. 
We now progress through the very long and winding dustman's cairn, fighting Silverhands and draugrs. Eventually we come to a room where we fight a never ending stream of draugrs. The sword fragment lies on the altar here. We earn a shout word as well.
Back the the companion base we are taken around the back and sworn in to the companions. I can also claim a free sword from the blacksmith.

It took 70 hours to complete the majority of the main quest lines, I received 480 achievement points.