All you really have to do is click the cursor on the target- but the target is moving, and when you get hit the camera gets jostled, so there's just enough challenge. It removes almost all randomness- if you hit you do damage spells always work- they'll just do little damage if you're underpowered. Moving around feels so natural that you can navigate a complex 3-D obstacle course almost without thinking.Ĭombat is an admirably simple and satisfying minigame. Throw plates around set off traps with an arrow move dead enemies into creepy and entertaining poses, or just throw them down the stairs.īeing pretty helps (earlier games look clunky in comparison), but the user interface makes it a wonderfully immersive experience. The game uses the same Havok physics engine as Half-Life 2, so it's fun just to play with objects. The water moves deer run around in the distance it rains and snows spells light up your surroundings look carefully at the two moons and you see them move against the starry background. And it's more impressive in game, because it's 3-D and fully animated. And this is only a hint: this is medium level graphics, all my computer can handle. There are several hundred places to explore and loot, and at least a hundred separate quests, some of them quite elaborate.īut before we get to that, dig on that art. Except that you can do anything and go anywhere. Oblivion basically nails the D&D experience, except for hearing Lore do characters, and sending out for pizza.

Well, with management skills like that, who needs him? Ignore the main storyline as long as you like there's plenty else to do. You start out meeting Emperor Jean-Luc, er, Uriel Septim, who dies but sends you out, a first-level nobody with leather armor and a rusty iron shortsword, to save the empire. If you've been living in a bubble, Oblivion is a single-player RPG. This isn't a strategy guide because a) it'd be 200 pages long, and b) it's been done, at the the Elder Scrolls wiki. I haven't played games like this before, so I get a kick out of lots of things that are near-beer and stale Pepsi to you hard-core gaming types. I'm going to cover some general aspects of the game, then add points and interesting bits as I play more. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is such a huge, rambling game that it needs a long rambling review.

Oblivion Journal Oblivion Journal 16 Jul.

Oblivion a rusty key