I have a bit of a funny relationship with RPGs, some of them I quite like (even some JRPGs aren't that bad in my opinion) while others remind why they, and the people who play them are on the recieving end of so much stick from those funny members of society some call socialites (I personally call them 'arseholes') who even I must bow down to and agree with from one time to another.
So...Oblivon (Elder scrolls IV if we must be specific) is the latest in the Elder scrolls series (which I have had no previous experience with so bare with me for a second), I got this game because it was reccomended to me by 2 of my friends and five customer reviews on Amazon in which case I thought 'must be pretty good then'.
Upon starting the game we first meet the character creation screen which is touchy to say the least. The developers for some mysterious reason made it possible to have you character have some well and truely freakish facial features such as glow in the dark hair, a face roughly 2 ft wide and skin pale enough to make him prismatic (I called this sin against nature 'Roy'), halfway through the tutorial you are then given the semi critical choice of what star-sign to be born under, sounds interesting until you realise that there are only 3 or 4 that are actually useful while the others are either profound wastes of time or have penalties that outweigh the benefits (for example: +100 mp but....100% weakness to all that is magical).
Finally, we get to your choice of class (what western RPG would be complete without one?) where I actually do have to be somewhat complimentary. While you do have your standard warrior, mage, assassin, archer, barbarian, knight etc...you also get the option to create your own class which I personally found to be quite enlightening, I made a stealth based class which I titled the 'rapeist' .
(Are you sure you want to be a rapeist?...that'll stay with me to the grave)
After character creation we suddenly find ourselves in a prision with no previous explanation as to why (lazy writers if you ask me). This probably could be explained away with 'you come up with it yourself' (which I did, I like to think that my character was placed in prision for public nudity, that would explain why everyone seemed to hate him from the word go) which is fine for some but players who like a story with depth will probably be somewhat dusturbed in a way, continuously wanting a definitive backstory. The story of this game is a major let down considering that is is an RPG (famed for their story telling) and the number of side quests you have to do (my reccord with one character being 27), basically (SPOLIER warning here, if this actually bothers you skip down until you see the word GROOVY in capitals and spam my mail box with hate mail calling me a thick headed FPS obsessed man-child who regularly letches) the emperor dies meaning that demons...I'm sorry, deadra, invade the world as we know it through gates from hell...I'm sorry, Oblivion. You, our plucky young hero, have to travel around to world sorting out everyones troubles from minor domestic disputes to major demonic incursions. Long story short, you save to world.
GROOVY, But enough of me ratting on the story, the combat in the game is pretty good and earns points from me for not being point and click or turn based (joining the ranks of Mass Effect of somewhat more action based RPGs) however each type of combat has its flaws: melee is repetetive after a while and I always seemed to have a problem with allies constantly running in front of me when I'm fighting an enemy and consiquently aquiring one or more new holes courtousy of my sword, this wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the fact that the legal system that means that every guard in the universe judges this simple accident as pre-meditated murder.
Stealth would have been tolerable if it weren't for the fact that at times it is near enough impossible, this is especially true for the thieves missions where my reccomended strategy is 'run like hell and resist arrest', this is also made worse when you seem to stumble upon telepathic guards who seemingly know where you are the second you do anything less than legal, for example, at one point I murdered someone in a city and should have gotten away with it (no wittnesses and no-one saw me go in their house) yet the second I stepped out of the door of their home a guard was already there with a bounty of 1005 gold on my head (5 for breaking and entering you see).
Magic, I must confess, I didn't do much of since trying to remember what spell to use when and having to switch between 7 of them in a given battle makes my head hurt but I can say this, mixed classes are unuseually hard to make since most worthwhile spells require such a high skill level and amount of mp that only players who focus on magic will have, I personally wanted my warrior character (whom I named Conan out of complete and utter lack of originality) to be able to use healing spells since I thought it would be as good idea...fine, if it weren't for the fact that a slightly better healing spell that heals about 10hp more than the one you begin with requires at least 3 times the mp...so it was either sacrifice magic or sacrifice combat since the rather annoying levelling up system only lets you boost 3 attributes rather than having a somewhat blander increase across the board like JRPGs do (something I have got to give them credit for).
The problem with stats brings me to my next issue, levelling up skills. Now, most people will complain about MMOs being grindy and repetitive but Oblivion seemed to see this as a good thing since they state there are a few ways to level up your 'powers'.
1. Special books you can find or buy (you get no indication as to what books these might be, and its not always the most expensive ones either as I learnt at the expense of 180 hard earned gold) that have one use.
2. Use the skill over and over again (this might be alright if the skill is something like sword fighting or running but try applying this logic to magic or, god forbid, sneaking).
3. Buy a lesson in that skill and go up one for free (that would work fine if they didn't cost so much and weren't limited to five per level meaning you will often miss out on them by forgeting to use them before waking up to a self realisation).
As you can see, two of them you can more or less forget about due to their chancey nature. I personally found levelling up to be a nightmare since the amount of a skill that you have to repeat is more than you will preform in the actual game, but to survive the later confrontations you ideally need the higher levels...catch 22, eternal boredom levelling up or slightly more difficulty later? I opted out of both by going into a basement which had giant rats, tweaking their noses and tying down the block button with a rubber band while I went and did something else (for the purpose of demonstration lets say I was mountain climbing with attractive single women who totally dig me) upon coming back I discovered that I had just mastered all forms of armor and blocking. I rest my case.
A point I should make about open ended sandbox RPG games like this one is that while you CAN do anything you want you will probably have little drive to unless there is some kind of reward for it, for instance, I wouldn't have gone near the mage storyline if it weren't for the fact that roughly a quarter of the games achievements lie there. Since most hidden caves and ruins are at least 10 minutes out from any major town or city, going out to do spelunking is laboriously drawn out since you have to find the bloody places (which is why I particularly hated it when I got tired of aimlessly wandering around for something to do and tried to warp to a nearby town but couldn't because there was a slightly intoxicated horseshoe crab nearby).
Overall, I would say that while Oblivion isn't a bad game (is has some parts that are genuinly pretty good and plenty of variety) it also isn't a great game (due to awkard combat, glitches and the thought police), and is probably something I would only reccomend to fans of RPGs and WoW in particular (I've never played it before but I get the feeling that this would be pretty simmilar).
As per useual, please comment if you thought it was good or apocolyptic
-Iron Mal
So...Oblivon (Elder scrolls IV if we must be specific) is the latest in the Elder scrolls series (which I have had no previous experience with so bare with me for a second), I got this game because it was reccomended to me by 2 of my friends and five customer reviews on Amazon in which case I thought 'must be pretty good then'.
Upon starting the game we first meet the character creation screen which is touchy to say the least. The developers for some mysterious reason made it possible to have you character have some well and truely freakish facial features such as glow in the dark hair, a face roughly 2 ft wide and skin pale enough to make him prismatic (I called this sin against nature 'Roy'), halfway through the tutorial you are then given the semi critical choice of what star-sign to be born under, sounds interesting until you realise that there are only 3 or 4 that are actually useful while the others are either profound wastes of time or have penalties that outweigh the benefits (for example: +100 mp but....100% weakness to all that is magical).
Finally, we get to your choice of class (what western RPG would be complete without one?) where I actually do have to be somewhat complimentary. While you do have your standard warrior, mage, assassin, archer, barbarian, knight etc...you also get the option to create your own class which I personally found to be quite enlightening, I made a stealth based class which I titled the 'rapeist' .
(Are you sure you want to be a rapeist?...that'll stay with me to the grave)
After character creation we suddenly find ourselves in a prision with no previous explanation as to why (lazy writers if you ask me). This probably could be explained away with 'you come up with it yourself' (which I did, I like to think that my character was placed in prision for public nudity, that would explain why everyone seemed to hate him from the word go) which is fine for some but players who like a story with depth will probably be somewhat dusturbed in a way, continuously wanting a definitive backstory. The story of this game is a major let down considering that is is an RPG (famed for their story telling) and the number of side quests you have to do (my reccord with one character being 27), basically (SPOLIER warning here, if this actually bothers you skip down until you see the word GROOVY in capitals and spam my mail box with hate mail calling me a thick headed FPS obsessed man-child who regularly letches) the emperor dies meaning that demons...I'm sorry, deadra, invade the world as we know it through gates from hell...I'm sorry, Oblivion. You, our plucky young hero, have to travel around to world sorting out everyones troubles from minor domestic disputes to major demonic incursions. Long story short, you save to world.
GROOVY, But enough of me ratting on the story, the combat in the game is pretty good and earns points from me for not being point and click or turn based (joining the ranks of Mass Effect of somewhat more action based RPGs) however each type of combat has its flaws: melee is repetetive after a while and I always seemed to have a problem with allies constantly running in front of me when I'm fighting an enemy and consiquently aquiring one or more new holes courtousy of my sword, this wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the fact that the legal system that means that every guard in the universe judges this simple accident as pre-meditated murder.
Stealth would have been tolerable if it weren't for the fact that at times it is near enough impossible, this is especially true for the thieves missions where my reccomended strategy is 'run like hell and resist arrest', this is also made worse when you seem to stumble upon telepathic guards who seemingly know where you are the second you do anything less than legal, for example, at one point I murdered someone in a city and should have gotten away with it (no wittnesses and no-one saw me go in their house) yet the second I stepped out of the door of their home a guard was already there with a bounty of 1005 gold on my head (5 for breaking and entering you see).
Magic, I must confess, I didn't do much of since trying to remember what spell to use when and having to switch between 7 of them in a given battle makes my head hurt but I can say this, mixed classes are unuseually hard to make since most worthwhile spells require such a high skill level and amount of mp that only players who focus on magic will have, I personally wanted my warrior character (whom I named Conan out of complete and utter lack of originality) to be able to use healing spells since I thought it would be as good idea...fine, if it weren't for the fact that a slightly better healing spell that heals about 10hp more than the one you begin with requires at least 3 times the mp...so it was either sacrifice magic or sacrifice combat since the rather annoying levelling up system only lets you boost 3 attributes rather than having a somewhat blander increase across the board like JRPGs do (something I have got to give them credit for).
The problem with stats brings me to my next issue, levelling up skills. Now, most people will complain about MMOs being grindy and repetitive but Oblivion seemed to see this as a good thing since they state there are a few ways to level up your 'powers'.
1. Special books you can find or buy (you get no indication as to what books these might be, and its not always the most expensive ones either as I learnt at the expense of 180 hard earned gold) that have one use.
2. Use the skill over and over again (this might be alright if the skill is something like sword fighting or running but try applying this logic to magic or, god forbid, sneaking).
3. Buy a lesson in that skill and go up one for free (that would work fine if they didn't cost so much and weren't limited to five per level meaning you will often miss out on them by forgeting to use them before waking up to a self realisation).
As you can see, two of them you can more or less forget about due to their chancey nature. I personally found levelling up to be a nightmare since the amount of a skill that you have to repeat is more than you will preform in the actual game, but to survive the later confrontations you ideally need the higher levels...catch 22, eternal boredom levelling up or slightly more difficulty later? I opted out of both by going into a basement which had giant rats, tweaking their noses and tying down the block button with a rubber band while I went and did something else (for the purpose of demonstration lets say I was mountain climbing with attractive single women who totally dig me) upon coming back I discovered that I had just mastered all forms of armor and blocking. I rest my case.
A point I should make about open ended sandbox RPG games like this one is that while you CAN do anything you want you will probably have little drive to unless there is some kind of reward for it, for instance, I wouldn't have gone near the mage storyline if it weren't for the fact that roughly a quarter of the games achievements lie there. Since most hidden caves and ruins are at least 10 minutes out from any major town or city, going out to do spelunking is laboriously drawn out since you have to find the bloody places (which is why I particularly hated it when I got tired of aimlessly wandering around for something to do and tried to warp to a nearby town but couldn't because there was a slightly intoxicated horseshoe crab nearby).
Overall, I would say that while Oblivion isn't a bad game (is has some parts that are genuinly pretty good and plenty of variety) it also isn't a great game (due to awkard combat, glitches and the thought police), and is probably something I would only reccomend to fans of RPGs and WoW in particular (I've never played it before but I get the feeling that this would be pretty simmilar).
As per useual, please comment if you thought it was good or apocolyptic
-Iron Mal
