Sweet Oblivion
Playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is the only thing that's kept me sane for the past month. Between the adoption paperwork snafu, a family medical crisis, and a promotion at work (yay, but yikes too!), I've just got way, way, way too much stress in my life. So throwing myself into a realm filled with clear objectives and solvable problems is very appealing. (Particularly a realm with an available "add gold" cheat!)
Oblivion is a totally bitchin' RPG that isn't massively multiplayer and isn't played online, so it's good for antisocial gamers like me. (I'm perfectly sociable about everything else, but game time is me time). You can customize your character a lot, the leveling and skills system makes sense, the world is HUGE, and there are a bazillion small quests in addition to the main one. The main quest involves saving the kingdom, like basically any RPG worth its salt.
The quests are pretty good, and combat is fun. The different cities are actually pretty different from each other, and you can buy houses in them once you save or steal enough money (or, um, cheat). The pacing is mostly slow and meandery at first, so you have to stick with it long enough to discover the main places in the realm and collect some quests, but once you do, it gets to be pretty cool. The quests and story aren't quite up to the level of Neverwinter Nights (best RPG ever!) but they're not bad, and the character development is better than NN. For instance, you can buy potions at a shop, or you can wander around collecting odd ingredients in the wilderness and mix your own potions, developing alchemy as a skill over time....whatever you feel like. You can join several different guilds including one for murderers. When I'm done playing my current character, who's mainly a blade fighting hero, I'm going to play the whole thing again with an evil magician character. But unlike most RPG's, you're not restricted to narrow character classes - if you want to specialize in alchemy AND blunt weapons, you can. Same goes for good/evil - there's no alignment. You collect fame and/or infamy points as you go, which determines how people react to you and affects some elements of your game experience.
Anyway, it's good. I've logged 63 hours of play time so far, with no end in sight. I love a good timesink!
Oblivion is a totally bitchin' RPG that isn't massively multiplayer and isn't played online, so it's good for antisocial gamers like me. (I'm perfectly sociable about everything else, but game time is me time). You can customize your character a lot, the leveling and skills system makes sense, the world is HUGE, and there are a bazillion small quests in addition to the main one. The main quest involves saving the kingdom, like basically any RPG worth its salt.
The quests are pretty good, and combat is fun. The different cities are actually pretty different from each other, and you can buy houses in them once you save or steal enough money (or, um, cheat). The pacing is mostly slow and meandery at first, so you have to stick with it long enough to discover the main places in the realm and collect some quests, but once you do, it gets to be pretty cool. The quests and story aren't quite up to the level of Neverwinter Nights (best RPG ever!) but they're not bad, and the character development is better than NN. For instance, you can buy potions at a shop, or you can wander around collecting odd ingredients in the wilderness and mix your own potions, developing alchemy as a skill over time....whatever you feel like. You can join several different guilds including one for murderers. When I'm done playing my current character, who's mainly a blade fighting hero, I'm going to play the whole thing again with an evil magician character. But unlike most RPG's, you're not restricted to narrow character classes - if you want to specialize in alchemy AND blunt weapons, you can. Same goes for good/evil - there's no alignment. You collect fame and/or infamy points as you go, which determines how people react to you and affects some elements of your game experience.
Anyway, it's good. I've logged 63 hours of play time so far, with no end in sight. I love a good timesink!
Comments
I used to play Morrowind on my husband's xbox *all the time.*
Then Frances was born. I haven't touched it since.
*sigh*
Now I miss it.
Posted by: Andrea | October 12, 2006 06:36 AM