. : : Marc Sez : : .

Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion - Sweet Graphics, Crap Gameplay

Heard of Elder Scrolls 4 - Oblivion?

I have it installed. My system can run the game very well. Yes, it looks nice. Really really good even. But there’s something important missing. Gameplay!

Oblivion is a roleplaying game. Except that it’s in first person. Now for someone who played and loved Neverwinter Nights, this game is seriously messed up. It’s like playing a standard RPG, except in the first person. And since you completely control the character you have to fight in first person with melee weapons!

They tried that in the Thief games and it was acceptable since you weren’t supposed to go fighting that way and it was there only for emergencies. But for a warrior in Oblivion, that is the primary fighting technique. So basically what I do is go waving my sword around at the enemy and moving back and forth hoping their melee attack won’t hit me and hoping mine will. It’s seriously retarded.

Also, they have a new transport system which basically just teleports you to wherever you want. This makes the game somewhat unrealistic since the environments are beautiful and players should be made to travel manually to destinations, atleast for the first time.

Another huge problem is that cities are really big and since you’re in first person mode and not the zoomed out mode of usual RPGs I get confused easily. I usually visit every single place in a city and talk to every single person and this is made very difficult.

I still have the game installed but I really don’t feel like playing it. Why the heck is this game rated so high by everyone? I’ll give it a 9 for graphics and at 7 for gameplay (out of a maximum of ten points).