Bethesda knows what it wants. Ever since 1996, the company has seems to have pursued a singular vision of what it feels an RPG should be:
an enormous, immersive world with open-ended gameplay and a content-rich alternate universe that could pull in a player for months at a time.
Its first significant attempt at achieving this was 1996's Daggerfall (a.k.a. The Elder Scrolls: Chapter II), a brilliant game that was weighed
down with bugs and technical issues that mildly annoyed some, infuriated others, and kept many people from running it at all.
The next attempt, 2002's Morrowind: It was streamlined and easier to get into, but the game lived by a very unique and immersive world that "screamed" exploring
unknown lands - the graphics were much improved, and the gameplay was more accessible to all kinds of players not just the typical RPG fan.
It was, however, also weighed down with bugs and technical issues that mildly annoyed some, infuriated others, and kept many people from running it at all.
Some changes in the gameplay also werent welcomed with open arms from the fans of the previous game Daggerfall.
Fast forward to 2006 and Bethesda's latest release in The Elder Scrolls series, Oblivion. If this doesn't prove that history repeats itself, I don't know
what does. Oblivion is even more streamlined and easier to get into but at the cost of depth compared to Morrowind.
Oblivion takes place in Tamriel, a fantasy universe occupied by a mixture of the standard humans, Elves and Orcs, along with a few non-standard ones
like half-lion people and even a race of lizard men. Though it's not a direct sequel, Oblivion, like the earlier games, starts with the player in prison
for some unspecified crime. You won't spend long there, however, because you're quickly rescued by none other than the Emperor of Tamriel
(voiced by Patrick Stewart), who's on the run from mysterious assassins. It seems the Emperor's sons have been murdered and once he's dead,
there's nothing stopping the denizens of Oblivion (Tamriel's version of Hell) from opening dimensional gates and wiping out all life on the planet.
Naturally, after the Emperor's death, it's up to the player to take his amulet and find some way of stopping the Oblivion invasion.
Or perhaps not. One of the hallmarks of the Elder Scrolls series has always been the absolute freedom to do whatever the player wishes.
That freedom remains in Oblivion. If the player wants to walk away from the main quest and never return, they're perfectly free to do so.
Indeed, one of the core elements of the game is walking around the world of tamriel and doing lots of sidequests or clearing the many dungeons the world
provides. The price of this freedom is however that the world doesnt really react to your actions: the mentioned invasion never happens if you dont trigger the
quests associated with it - you can do anything you want - but it matters little. Not only in that aspect Oblivion reminds me a lot of MMORPGs: huge world, plenty
of dungeons and quests to do, but the feeling that you are really part of a living world doesnt come up unless you use your imagination a lot.
Best example are the factions you can join in the game: there s 4 different guilds with their own quest chains and the end of each you can even become the
leader of said guild. Or leader of all 4 guilds: its very well possible for a character that never used magic to become archmage of the mage s guild.
The most hilarious quest i ever encountered in a computer game is only possible because of that: you can become archmage of the mages guild and at the same time
another quest is to steal an item from the archmage of said mage s guild...... if you accept that quest after having become archmage yourself you can figure out
the rest out yourself
I havent laughed that much because of something in a computer game in a long time, but then again its a pretty sad example of how
nothing you do really matters in tamriel.
Lets look at another part of the freedom Oblivion gives you: character development, alchemy, and spell-making systems. Character development is relatively
unchanged from previous Elder Scrolls titles. Unlike other RPG systems, player characteristics aren't leveled up via an arbitrary experience point system.
Instead, player abilities improve through practice. The more the player swings a sword in combat, the better his or her sword fighting skills become,
and casting spells increases the power and complexity of spells they can cast. While there are plenty of pre-made spells, magic items, and potions in
the game, the powerful and easy-to-use crafting system means that players can create custom made items and spells. This means that character development
is largely based on how the player actually plays the game, not on arbitrary decisions made without enough information when the player levels.
It isn't always easy to do this -- you're forced to pick a specialty at the beginning of the game -- but it is possible to turn a pure warrior into
a mage just by practicing. Whether you like or dislike that "learning-by-doing" system is up to your individual taste but i felt the main problem with
the character development is that its incredibly dull and lacking variety. Your gameplay at Level 1 will not differ much from your gameplay at Level 20 except
that your equipment looks more shiny.
Lets take a look on World of Warcraft for example: Granted i dont have the freedom of chosing the skills i want but i am forced to chose a class instead....
however if i decide to play a warrior in WoW every few level ups i get new abilites. And those new abilities arent
just "Hit the enemy for X more damage" but abilities like "Charge", "Intercept", "Battleshout", "Overpower" etc.... lots of special attacks i can use to make
combat more interesting. Oblivion seriously pales in comparision. As a melee fighter combat will always be about hitting the enemy, blocking their attacks and
repeat till either the enemies or your hitpoints are reduced to zero. For mages its not much better, Oblivion has your standard fare of fantasy spells like fireballs,
lighting and various buffs but lacking any "special" spells. Because of the lack of unique abilities and spells to look forward to i personally really felt
very little motivation to level up (combined with the level-scaling, more on that later)
In comparision to Morrowind Oblivion also lost freedom in terms of equipment, spell-making etc. You can no longer select individual pauldrons, cant
wear clothing under your armor nor wear a skirt for example. Sure, its not that important but i really dont understand why Bethesda took that away.
Now its just about Chest, Helm, Legs, Boots and Gloves - quite a loss in deciding your characters looks.
Owners of the PC version of Oblivion can download a free copy of the Elder Scrolls Construction Kit, released shortly after the game's official launch.
This is a powerful editor that gamers can use to alter aspects of the game, add content to the world, or even create their own new adventures.
Skilled modders have already made hundreds if not thousands of mods for Oblivion and if you dont enjoy the game the way it is - you may be get some fun
out of what the community has and will produce with the toolset.
Lets talk graphics. There's an extraordinary rush that comes from walking out of the prison sewers at the beginning of the game, taking in the beautiful
vista, and realizing that everything the player can see is "real."
The graphics engine of Oblivion is simply enormous and the first few hours in Tamriel are definitly eyecandy at its finest.
But after those first hours in Tamriel unfortunately that great experience fades very fast since you cant help but notice how the world is very "generic".
Sure, all those trees, grass, water and buildings look wonderfull.... but when you have seen a hundred of them that effect goes away pretty quick.
Tamriel lacks the love of detail morrowind and many other games have, it feels like a mere collections of cities, forests, ruins and dungeons instead of
a fantasy world that would exist even without the player. There is little in terms of variation in landscape and while the first few dungeons you enter look
absolutely stunning - it takes only a few more and you seen them basically all. Compare that with WoW s huge world where every zone has its own distinct looks
and every dungeon is carefully designed even on the pure optical side.
I can only hope skilled modders will use the engine to the best and create diverse, atmospheric worlds to explore - else Oblivion s wonderful graphics engine
sadly pretty much goes to waste by what is provided in terms of art direction in the original game.
The world is huge however, so if you dont mind things getting repeative as long as there is quests to do and monsters to slay you can spend months in oblivion
without ever touching the main quest. (or after doing so)
And there is LOTs of quests to do and one has to give Bethesda credit that unlike the typical MMORPG most of them arent just "kill 100 orcs and come back"
but rather interesting, especially the Dark Brotherhood quest line. The problem with the quests however, no matter how fun they sound: they feel "unnatural"
- a quest is doing things the NPCs or your questlog tell you. Unlike some other cRPGs you dont have choices to make and means to solve quests in different ways.
If someone wants you to steal an item - you have to go steal it. You cant talk to the owner and maybe buy it instead. You cant hire a thief to steal it for you (and
in exchange maybe do him another favour your character is better suited for).
So while they "read" alot better than your typical MMORPG/Diablo-Clone quest, they end up in actually beeing no different since a quest is merely doing a job
the way your are told to do it, instead of doing a job a way you want to do it.
One of the first quests i got was about getting information about another NPC where my quest-giver told me to "not tell the other guy". I was never given
the ability to "tell the other" guy. You may have freedom to do 300 quests when and where you want to - but you never have the freedom to do a quest HOW you want to.
(or at least very very rarely - i admit i havent played every quest )
Thief-characters will enjoy that unlike other games basically all houses in Oblivion can be entered and thus you will have lots of stuff to steal - if you get
caught however you have to pay a fine or go into jail. Its fun for a while but also gets boring pretty fast as the quantity (lots of houses to break into)
doesnt make up for the lack of quality (no real consequences to your actions, nor objects really worth stealing)
One of the main problems of Oblivion is the new feature of "Level-Scaling". It means that all enemies and all loot will be balanced against your current level.
The noble goal of that feature is that Oblivion always remains challenging and the player doesnt get bored by one-hitting every enemy in sight at later levels
- or gets frusttraded by BEEING one-hit by every enemy in sight should he go to the wrong place at the wrong time...
The problem is that level-scaling has lots of very bad side-effects:
1. combined with the dull character development it takes all the joy out of leveling all-together. Whats the point of doing x-more damage when every level up
also means your enemies getting x-more hitpoints ?
2. items are scaled to your level as well. as a low level you ll never come across daedric armor (now THAT would be something worth stealing for a thief character)
and as a high level character daedric armor will be so common even bandits use it - a real immersion breaker right there.
3. the game is "beatable" at level 1. yes thats right - you can become arena grandchampion, leader of all guilds etc all at level 1 in your trusty leather armor.
4. monsters are scaled to your level. at high level every random dungeon is full of high level enemies. some monster types simply stop appearing alltogether.
Well at least for those who dont like managing stats Oblivion can be played like your average shooter without problems.
If you read that far you are probably wondering "thats alot of negativity, so oblivion is not worth getting ?". I d say that depends alot on what you
expect from the game.
The best comparision with oblivion is imho World of Warcraft , despite that beeing a MMORPG. Sure, WoW features playing online with thousands of players
and unlike Oblivion thus offers PvP, raid encounters etc..... but when it comes to general gameplay for a single player they are pretty similar:
you are thrown in a huge world and level your character by killing, exploring and doing quests. now that sounds like mosts cRPG but well just like MMORPGs
oblivion puts the focus on freedom instead of following a strict storyline with just a few sidequests. (oblivions mainquest is very well comparable with
some questchains in mmorpgs).
and unless you really dont want one or all of these 3 things:
1) paying 10 bucks per month
2) beeing required to be online to play
3) "sharing" a world with 1000s of others (which may include plenty l337 kidz)
i d say WoW wins the comparision in almost every regard. (unless some really good custom content is beeing made or you wanna use the construction set yourself)
But if the above 3 things are keeping you from playing MMORPG yet you want to dive into an open, non-linear world to do quests and combat in .. you probably should
give oblivion a try - especially seeing there is more than enough mods already out now that change some of the flaws of the game for the better.
My biggest beef with oblivion is that as a sequel to morrowind it really disappointet me. Morrowind had many flaws i thought, but they all were made up by
the unique world the game played in - you really felt exploring that time. And since exploring is what TES-games are about, i can only wonder why Bethesda chose
to create a world as cliche, as generic and repeative as Tamriel. When morrowind is like exploring a foreign country 5000 km away with its own culture, architecture etc...
Oblivion is like watching Lord of the Rings for the 30st time, good looking landscapes dont look so great anymore if you seen them over and over.
