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Saturday 12 January, 2008
Second gamelog entry
Gameplay
As I play the game more, I notice that everything in Oblivion is nicely polished. The quality of the graphics of the environment and how it mimics the real world was stunning. Different characters have different affections for you, and you can perform a number of things to alter how much they like or hate you. You can tell them jokes, you can attempt to charm them, you can buy a big-ticket item from them, or you can even bribe them. Not only that, but characters in the game have their own schedule. A shopkeeper would lock up his shop and sleep late at night, and in the morning he would open up the shop again. You can also find the same shopkeeper chatting with a fellow NPC who happens to be passing by.
The game was also quite addicting. I kept getting side-tracked by one side quests after another that I didn't even touch the main quest of the game until I was about thirty hours into the game, and there are still numerous side quests out there that I haven't done or found. Not only are the side quests and adventures fun, but for the most part they do not offer much in terms of rewards. I didn't get a brand new spell, or a chest with a thousand jewels in it, but I did obtain extremely satisfactory feelings from doing the quests. The fun in the quests in Oblivion seems to originate from doing the quests itself, not the reward at the end of the road.
Design
An innovative aspect of Oblivion is how open-ended it is. There is one main quest in the game, and then there's numerous other side quests and discovering that you can do. By numerous, I really do mean numerous. I have invested roughly around twenty-five hours into the game and I have not even touched the main quest ever since I finished the tutorial/introduction portion of the game. It truly is an amazing concept. In other games, there's basically one huge main quest, and there are almost always only tiny quantities of things that you can do on the side, in regards to mini-games, side quests, discoveries, etc. In Oblivion, you're pretty much free to do anything. Exploring, role playing, doing side quests, become a vampire, become a werewolf, become a criminal, etc.
The game is also quite challenging. Aiming, movement, how one swings one's weapon, parries, recovery time, preparation, stealth, and a number of other concepts are central parts to Oblivion's battle mechanics. There is a lot of skill involved in successfully completing a fight.
On top of that, the game scales with a player's level. The concept of power leveling is something that frequently occurs in other RPGs. Can't beat a boss or have trouble in a new area or dungeon? No problem! Just hack and slash your way through random enemy fights in order to advance your character. After you do that, you can come back to whatever gave you trouble and beat it down with pure brute force. In Oblivion, power leveling will actually hurt you more than it helps you, due to the mechanics of Oblivion's leveling system and how the whole game ( and by the whole game, I do mean the WHOLE game. Enemies, armor, loot, vendor inventories, difficulty of locks, a merchant's trading skill, everthing) scales as you level. You can't crush enemies by simply out leveling them in Oblivion - you actually need skill and strategy in order to be successful.
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