So I replayed Oblivion mostly because I never actually beat it despite sinking about 60 hours into (due mostly to dawdling around) and because Skyrim is coming out.
But anyway. I didn’t restart the whole game cause that would be ridiculous. I simply reconnected with a previous character (I made a couple) that was my favorite. I made a dark elf named Kila that was born under the Thief sign and didn’t stray much from that path. When I restarted it she was Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, the Grand Champion of the Arena and high ups in all the others. You might notice that I wasn’t the Grey Fox in the Thief Guild… well its a long story but it pretty must has to do with the fact that the last quest is a bitch and requires hours inside a sewer filled with zombies. I gave up… I was like 16. Not exactly the most focused age ever.
I also had only closed like 5 Oblivion gates… there are like 50. So what exactly had I been doing for those 60 hours, you ask. Well apparently not much but I was a Master in quite a few skills like Athletics and Blade. So I guess I had just been wandering around doing side quests for like a really really long time. I did become a vampire and then cure myself within like 15 days so that was sort of productive.
But you aren’t reading this to hear Kila’s life story. This a review, dammit. Oblivion is a good game if you like sprawling, sandbox RPGs. If you’re more of a Modern Warfare kind of guy (fuck you, man. Its not actually realistic.) then you will scoff at the 10 playable species and the ridiculous amount of customization options. There are kind of a lot actually. I had to just ignore the spell customization cause I couldn’t handle that kind of responsibility and Kila wasn’t really a spell kind of person. She was more of a stab in your sleep kind of girl. And when that failed, hack-and-slash was fine. Anyway, there are a lot of spells and levels and you can make your own and your own potions and its nuts. I focused on the quests and finding the weapons I wanted rather than making them or changing them. The soul stones do something with that but at this point I’m using them for paperweights cause I hate customization and I like a challenge.
As always, these things have the weirdest fighting gameplay. Its messed up and awkward and I hate the wild swinging. On the bright side, when I dive out of the way and the other guys sword misses me, it actually misses me. On the cloudy side, sometimes it refuses to let you hit the enemy that is held up by a helpful rock formation. Its glitchy, kind of odd and its not the game’s best feature. But its an RPG, its not supposed to be. The magic is cool and useful but sort of hard to aim.
The most annoying thing is the darkness. You go into a cave and you can’t see shit. Yes, they give you a torch but it only gives you the illusion that you can see the monster coming straight for you. Honestly, I just knew an enemy was coming when the music started. I even jacked up my lightness but it just made everything washed out. So I relied heavily on the light detecting spell and saving a lot. It made me really avoid caves and since like 95% of quests are in some sort of cave, this naturally led to a lot of ignored quests. I did, however, buy every available horse in the game and like 5 houses so I must have been pretty good at making money.
Items are pretty varied and it gets a bit overwhelming but maybe I’m just too simple for so many choices. I tend to straddle the line of Halo and Oblivion in that I like to shoot things and I love the fucking Battle Rifle but I also like to create a character and watch them grow into horrible, pickpocketing monsters. I suppose Fallout 3 would be a good game for me, and I’ve played it and really liked it, but it doesn’t really have Halo or first person shooter-esque shooting mechanics.
Alright, well I have to get to bed cause I have an early class tomorrow but I’ll give my final score.
Overall grade: A-
Interesting game with lots and lots of quests, customization and choices but has bulky gameplay and is too damn dark!
Next game: (well Dead Island is out but I have yet to get it cause of school) Fable 3