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Wednesday 5 March, 2008
GAMEPLAY
Oblivions quest system allows lots of optionality: a new character can join the fighters guild, the mages guild, the arena, or even a secret assassin's guild. Following certain quest lines makes changes to the world irrevocably: Murdering someone for the Dark Brotherhood that gives you a fighter's guild quest seriously inhibits your ability to do Fighter's Guild quests, even if you are not caught, because that person is never around to grant you Fighter's Guild advancement. Or you can perform unaligned quests for random people you meet exploring the world, or for Gods who's favor you earn, in exchange for currency, favor, and artifacts. This open world game play allows you to play the game for any end you like: bettering yourself, helping others, making or destroying things, and much more.
DESIGN
Oblivion's realistic graphics are one of the main elements of the game, because it makes you feel like you're actually in the game (except that you don't have a cross hairs in real life). When I made too large of a jump I felt like I was falling, like in those dreams you have where you jolt awake right before the ground gives you a hug. The graphics also make the game world nice to explore, to see all of it because it is worth seeing.
The combat system, although more expansive than most games on the market, leaves a little to be desired. There are only four attacks you can make (not including powered up versions of those attacks) forward, right, left, and back. Only the backwards attack takes skill to pull off, and none can be guided all that well around defenses like shields or staffs that would be interesting to try and attack past. I realise this expectation is unfair, but it feels that with the other aspects of the game, that kind of combat system is the only way to play.
Interactivity with the world makes certain quests in this game interesting, like in the Dark Brotherhood where you get an extra bonus in the quest for making the death look accidental by causing a Trophy to fall on the target rather than murdering him outright. If only all kills could be made this way, rather than just having some of them scripted. It would have been interesting to see multiple ways of completing objectives that were less straightforward, like this one.
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