Oblivion
Last night I finally installed Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and sat down to a pretty interesting game. I had played the game before it, Morrowind, awhile back, and it didn’t really thrill me, though it did have some ideas I thought were pretty good. Oblivion took the ideas I liked about Morrowind, and put them in a better game.
I think the most offputting thing about Morrowind is the appearance of the game. Morrowind’s world seemed dark and unfinished, it looked ugly. This is not to say the graphics were bad, they were just… bland. The second thing is that it was entirely in first-person. Sure there WAS a thrid-person mode, but it was so clunky and awkward there wasn’t any point in it. Oblivion fixes both of these problems with a nice-looking game with a decent third-person mode.
Like Morrowind, Oblivion has a learning-based levelling system, which is doubtlessly the strongest point to this game. If you run around long enough, you get better at running. If you jump around like a crazy person, you gain a level of jumping. Even persuading people and getting hit while wearing armor all have stats that can be increased. Quite literally, if you chose to do so, you could spend hours and hours in a town levelling various stats. You pick the locks, sneak around, persuade and bribe people, and generally you can do whatever you damn well please.
Its this kind of freedom that often both attracts and deters me from many PC games. Its nice to have a free, open world. The problem is oftentimes there’s just not enough things to fill it. So far Oblivion seems to be breaking that trend, and I hope that’s the case.
More to come as I play.
Zel-kun out.