QJ.NET’s Hands On Oblivion Observations
Hello Ladies and Gents! Well, we’ve all seen the big boys reviews for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but not too many from the gamers’ side so I figured I’d help out and give my impressions from playing it for several hours since it came out last week. For those who haven’t heard much about Oblivion it is a very open ended first person (you can change to third person if you like awkward controls) action RPG.
There’s so much that you can do in Oblivion that the main game really isn’t the best part, if that’s all gamers have been playing up to this point. When you begin your game you will have to make your character, but OblivionÂ’s character creator rivals those of the PC MMOs that have been flooding the market for the last decade where you can customize nearly every option to create your character including facial features.
Read the full write-up after the jump!
Hello Ladies and Gents! Well, we’ve all seen the big boys reviews for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but not too many from the gamers’ side so I figured I’d help out and give my impressions from playing it for several hours since it came out last week. For those who haven’t heard much about Oblivion it is a very open ended first person (you can change to third person if you like awkward controls) action RPG.
There’s so much that you can do in Oblivion that the main game really isn’t the best part, if that’s all gamers have been playing up to this point. When you begin your game you will have to make your character, but OblivionÂ’s character creator rivals those of the PC MMOs that have been flooding the market for the last decade where you can customize nearly every option to create your character including facial features.
The way Oblivion’s RPG aspects come in are very different from most role playing games as it makes for a more realistic experience by having to actually do specific skills to get your levels to rise. To be a better warrior character it would be best to use swords and axes as main weapons to increase proficiency in those skills. The same goes for Archers, and the only thing that will help you be a better archer is to use a bow with arrows.
Every aspect of the game uses the same premise throughout, such as sneaking for thievery and running to boost your athletic skills. The game consists of a main quest as well as many side quests with guilds which each have their own story arcs and locals in all the towns inside of the game’s gigantic realistic country.
I’ll share one of my greatest experiences from the game so far without using any spoilers from the main story as it involves one of the side quest story arcs, The Arena.
The Arena is a gladiator type of area in the main city in which you go through the ranks, from a pit dog up to the Grand Champion, throughout several fights to the death. Once you become the Grand Champion an elf-like boy known only as the Adoring Fan will ask to follow you around without getting in the way. The Adoring Fan is a great help and will carry a torch around caves and ruins that you enter and will follow you until his death (literally) in which the experience starts.
On a certain mission I ended up joining a cult and on the mission the person showing me around gave me the cults robe to wear, as well as starting to show me around the cults’ cave. Walking through the cave was very interesting as a cult member walked by me and started a conversation – just to have a friendly chat. But after talking to me he walked by and saw my Adoring Fan, who wasn’t a member of the cult. He casually killed the Adoring Fan with lighting out of his hands such as the Emperor did in Star Wars and continued on with his daily tasks. Don’t worry though, the Adoring Fan might have died, but every time you enter another town or location somehow he will be right behind you. On that note, after I saw that my fan had died I walked to his corpse and took the two gold that he had on his body, I do it every time my Adoring Fan dies, be it by an evil entity or by my own hand.
Oblivion seems to be the Top selling Xbox 360 game so far and I can definitely see why. More than half the people on my friends list on Live is playing it at all times of the day and one of the cool features is you can see what level your friends character is whenever they are online so you can do some power leveling to catch up. It gets my seal of approval and I agree with the critics that it is one of the must own titles out on the 360 so far, and no one should go without playing it. Just ask your friends who are playing or message me on Xbox Live, ALGEBRA, and I hope to see you on 360updates as well as on Xbox Live in the world of Oblivion.