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April 1, 2006 - The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

This Tuesday, I picked up Oblivion, the new RPG for the 360. Since then, I've put in fourteen hours of play, and that includes two late nights at work and two nights early to bed. Honestly, I think the only reason I can make myself stop playing it and write up this little bit about it is because the NCAA tournament is on.

So perhaps you've deduced that I like the game. This would be correct to the extreme. But saying "I like the game" doesn't make for a very interesting post, so let's try for something a tad more informative.

For the few of you who played Morrowind, the third installment in the Elder Scrolls series, very little of this will be new. The franchise is built on being a wide-open role-playing experience with tons and tons of hidden stuff in an extremely realistic world. 'Immersive' may be the best way to describe it. You could probably spend the rest of your natural life wandering around this virtual world and still not find every last little thing. Almost without exception, you can do whatever you want. You can convince every person to like you, or kill anyone on sight. You can buy property and invest in shops, or you can sneak around and steal everything you see. You can complete the entire game without casting a spell, or you can do it without swinging a sword. The game truly is what you make it, and very few other games can say that.

Take a look at your character creation. Most recent games have some sort of character customization; pick a race, class, and face, and you're done. Not here. When defining your character, you get to set no fewer than seven paramters ... for how your nose looks. There are probably a total of fifty settings for your facial appearance alone. You take the 21 built-in skills and 7 built-in attributes, and define exactly what your character will excel in. All characters can use every skill, but you have precise control over your favorites. You could easily spend an hour or more just creating your character.

Then you make it out into the world. Once again, you can do practically anything. There's a main storyline that you can follow, or not. There are four separate guilds that you can join and move up through, or not. There are a couple other mini-storylines that you can play through, or not. There are hundreds of unmarked caves, ruins, and side-quests waiting to be found in the world; you can seek them out, or not. A much-improved quest system helps you keep track of where you are in all the overlapping storylines, and where you need to go next. If you get tired of one storyline, change your active quest and come back to it later. It's very easy to always be occupied without being overwhelmed.

The world is very immersive and much more realistic than your average game world. To start with, it's huge; it would probably take you two hours or more to just walk from one end of the world to the other. There are half a dozen major cities, all with their own architecture, layouts, and inhabitants. People stop and talk to each other in the streets, discussing the latest rumors. When night comes, the streets empty and residents lock their doors. In the morning, they walk to work and the stores open. If a shopkeeper likes you, he'll give you better deals; if not, you can use your speechcraft skill to make him like you more. The armorer won't be interested in buying your potions, but he might have some good advice on where to go to improve your defensive skills. Every house has realistic contents; the wealthy will have banquets and expensive items, and the drunkards will have overturned furniture and empty bottles. Characters have their own schemes and goals, and often you'll find yourself in the middle of opposing sides without all the information. It's very easy to get into the mindset that this other world is very, very real.

Technically, the game is impressive as well. In the overworld, the draw distance is amazing, and there's no fog at all, which leads to a gorgeous, far-reaching landscape. If you climb to the top of a mountain and just look around, you'll be very impressed. The visuals are equally impressive indoors, with complicated lighting and shadow effects that change as the surroundings change. If you get stuck in a dark place, you can throw out a fireball to light your way. Enemy AI is good without being excellent; your foes will lead their ranged attacks to catch you moving, and will strafe, parry, and attack in a very fluid motion. The soundtrack is also good without being excellent; most of the time I don't notice it, but when it's good, it's really good. The controller is a surprisingly good interface to the game, especially since I'm used to playing this type of game with a keyboard and mouse. There are only one or two things I'd like to be able to do with a controller that I can't, although the inventory and status screens can be klunky to navigate. The only real annoyance in the game is load times, and even they aren't terrible.

Long story short, this game is incredible. It's obvious that thousands of hours were spent defining and creating the most realistic world possible, and the gameplay experience reflects that. If you at all enjoy role-playing in the actual sense -- defining exactly who you are and precisely how you want to play the game -- this is your game. The experience will change completely if you create a different character, unlike most "role-players" which simply take you down a path. The same danger that plagued Morrowind is still there: The game may simply be too big and too complicated for a lot of people. Some very big improvements have helped this danger, namely fast travel and an improved quest system, but even so, it's not your typical fast-paced, hack-n-slash game.

Thumbs way, way, way up.

April 16, 2006 - People

Without going into a whole lot of detail or naming a whole lot of names, I have absolutely had it with people. People in general, people in groups, people by themselves; it makes no difference, I'm equally sick of all of them. Maybe I'm just too tired or cranky or old recently, but all I can see is the selfishness of individuals and absolute stupidity of groups. It's practically made me ready to lock my front door and write off the rest of the world. I never understood the people who thought this way, but I'm starting to.

And no, this does not mean I'm pissed at you. If you're reading this, odds are you're not involved.

April 25, 2006 - Yet another week with no update

Yeah, yeah, I have a website. I know.

To start with, that trouble with people I mentioned? Meh, I'm (mostly) over it. I think it was a combination of being tired and cranky, along with my periodic cycles of wanting to change things I can't control, then getting frustrated when I can't. It's so much easier to just remove myself from the situation, is all. I think I may just end up taking my father's advice after all (audience groans) and try not to be reliant on anyone else for much of anything. Yes, that's all very vague. I don't plan on calling anyone specific out on this.

So what else? The past couple weeks at work have been pretty busy, which is kind of nice. Because of where we are in our cycle though, they're also pretty high-pressure. When you screw up, people let you know in pretty direct terms. That's a lesson I've learned a couple times. It's a delicate balance between "do it quick" and "do it right", and one that I've come up on the wrong side of recently. As with most things, I think this is just something I have to feel out a couple of times. It's no big deal either way, really.

Pete and Chad have found their way out here; Pete with Microsoft, and Chad with Avanade. It's already been pretty cool having them out here; we hung out pretty much all weekend, which included a poker game and my first bowling in forever. Bowling was a blast, until the next morning; I didn't eat much on Saturday, and then adding beverages to the bowling made Sunday morning not very pleasant. But that's okay, as it was still an awesome weekend altogether. It'll be great to have the two of them out here, and their timing is great since we're just starting to get some decent weather! With any luck, outdoorsy activities will be possible from now until October. That's not to say that I'll do them, of course, since the 360 is still humming along nicely!

Oh, and of course mister Shadow has been a good dog. Notice that's "has been", not "is". See, this morning on our walk, he wandered off like he usually does and found a luscious dead, rotting fish to roll around in. So he came back to me covered in the single most revolting odor I've ever experienced, and he was extremely proud of himself. One bath, forty minutes, and three shampoo cycles later, he still smelled like old trout. My apartment reeks, my hands reek, and my dog reeks. I'm really hoping that another couple washes tomorrow will help, but I'm not holding my breath. Pun intended.

That's about all, I think. I'll update this again when ... well, when I update it. Who knows when that'll be.