March 23, 2006
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
TheAngryIntern - Well, i have a couple of hours into the game now, and I must say so far it is everything I hoped it would be!!
The game world appears to be freaking HUGE, but they put a nice feature in where you can click on you destination on the map and automatically travel there if you don't want to walk. There are horses in the game which allow you to get around a bit faster. The character creation is pretty thorough. You can change a lot of the features of your character to make him as unique as possible. The races are the same as Morrowind, and so are most of the classes. you do have the ability to make your own class, which I did. I wanted to call it a Shadow Mage, but there is a limit to how many letters, so I called it a Dark Mage. He specializes in stealth and destruction magic.
If you have played Morrowind you will definitely feel right at home. The menu system is a bit different and takes a little bit to get used to, but the overall feel of the controls is the same as Morrowind. The Graphics are mind blowing. Huge draw distances let you see the trees blowing in teh wind atop distant hills, vegetation is everywhere swaying in the breeze. I think they borrowed a bit of the facial animation from Half Life 2, as the characters actually look likey they are speaking what they are saying (if that makes any sense). And so far, all conversations with NPC's i've had have all had voice overs, a nice touch. Patrick Stewart does the narration during the introduction sequence, another neat touch.
I can already tell this game is going to consume at least as much time as Morrowind, and most likely much much more. Just like Morrowind, there is a main quest line and about a bajillion side quests to do, so you can go exploring to your heart's content.
That's about it for a quick little review. Perhaps I'll add more later as I get further into the game. As for a first impression, it gets a big thumbs up from me and I highly recommend it to all the First Adopters!!! [Discuss]
