Oblivion

Since my internet was out yesterday, I had a good chunk of time to devote to Oblivion. First of all, this game seriously kicks my system's butt. The "recommended" setting for gameplay was 640x480 with all settings on medium. While it did run pretty smoothly on this resolution, it makes it feel like I am playing a console game with the crappy huge textures. After trying to tweak it, I was able to get the game running somewhat smoothly on 1024x768 but with basically minimum draw distance. This also sucks as I cannot see any NPCs until they are literally 1 feet in front of me...somehow not very practical for an archery/stealth based character. I have decided that the best mode of action is to keep the minimum draw distance in cities and increase the draw distance in dungeons.

The character generator is truly amazing. There are soooo many options that I didn't even get to try out some of the more interesting ones like cheekbone curvature or nose concave/convex-ness. I decided to let the game randomly generate a face for me which turned out to be a big mistake as the game seems to think that you play a 65 year old hag who has never heard of botox. The number of wrinkles on the computer generated faces are astonishing. I had to generate at least a dozen ones before I got a "normal" face.

After a brief intro featuring a voice-over by the King (Patrick Stewart), the game starts you off in a beginner dungeon so you can learn the ropes. The new skills rating system is quite interesting. In all previous Elder Scrolls game, the more you used a skill, the better you got. Oblivion throws in a minor twist in that there are now 5 tiers for a skill (0-24 Novice, 25-49 Apprentice, 50-74 Veteran, 74-99 Expert, and 100 Master). Each skill gives different bonuses when you reach a particular tier. For instance, Marksmanship: Novice skill is the starting tier, when you draw your bow back and hold it, you lose stamina at a very fast rate. At apprentice, you no longer have that penalty so you can keep the bow drawn for as long as you need. At Veteran, you can now zoom the view in when you hold the string back for more accurate shots. At Expert, your bow shots have a chance to knock the target down. At Master, your bow shots have a chance to paralyze the target. Of course all of these bonuses are cumulative.

This adds a really cool incentive to level up your skills to get those special effects. People who know my style of playing games know that I am obsessed with skills so this does not bode well for my ever advancing the plotline. For example: I found a nice little high rock that was close to the ceiling of the starter dungeon and proceeded to rapidly jump up and down on the rock to increase my athleticism (At Master skill, I get to jump on water like in all those cool kung fu movies!). I must have jumped there for about 15 minutes, but eventually I decided to proceed with the plot.

The combat system is basically like the other Elder Scrolls games with the exception of the new blocking skill. Blocking used to occur at random, but now you have a specific button to block. Each time you block an attack, you lose a nice chunk of stamina so you cannot just turtle against opponents as eventually you will run out of stamina to block. This gives a whole new tactical aspect to the combat as blocking significantly reduces the damage received which I assume is very important later in the game. There is also a Blocking skill associated which gives different benefits as you increase the skill (Master level allows you a chance to knockdown and disarm an opponent after a block).

There are a couple of minigames worth mentioning. The first is the speechcraft skill. It allows you to "convince" other people that you are a good person. They can then provide you with more information, or possiblly hints to legendary artifacts or quests. If you are a sneaky rogue or assassin, you can persuade them, then pickpocket/backstab them when they are no longer on guard. The way it works is, you have this round table of things you can do to try to get them to like you: Tell a joke, Flatter them, Intimidate them, insult them, or as a last resort, bribe them. You pick choices on the wheel then proceed in order. I haven't figured out the mechanics of this yet, but I am sure there is some trick to it.

The second minigame is lockpicking. Locks are basically rated based on how many tumblers there are on them (0-6). When you attempt to pick the lock, you move your pick to push the tumblers up, then left click to lock them in place. If you fail, the tumblers come crashing down and destroy your lockpick. However, there is an easy trick to this, as when you push the tumbler correctly, they will go up much much slower than when you pushed them incorrectly. It does take some good reflexes to be able to react and lock the tumbler in place. After a little practice, I was able to pick 'Very Hard' (5 tumbler) locks with relative ease.

I am sure there is much more to explore in Oblivion as I only just got out of the beginner dungeon and into Imperial City.