First Impressions: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC)

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has a sordid history with me, which is why I didn't jump on the bandwagon back in 2006 when the game first came out.  Prior to 2006, I had heard nothing about The Elder Scrolls series on any platform, most likely due to the fact that I wasn't a big PC gamer until recently and I didn't own a 360 or PS3.  

The symbol for the school of Conjuration.

I recall seeing the boxes in Target and upon first inspection, I thought that I had stumbled across a video game series based around H.P. Lovecraft's Cthuhlu mythos.  The cues for me were the similarity between the "Elder Gods" and the "Elder Scrolls," as well as "Oblivion" being a frequent theme of sorts in Lovecraft's writings about the various.  Even the logo I thought was an artistic relic based around the image of Cthulhu.  Granted the symbol looks a bit more like fangs, but now that you have Lovecraft in your mind, seeing what I had thought might become a bit more clear.  So at this point, I figured I would get around to playing this Oblivion game.

The house I live in during 2006, we had a housemate whom we will simply call OnlineGamblerGuyWhoLivesInAMercedes, or Axe for short talked a bit about the game then showed myself and Chreekat what the game was like.  He described it as a kind of fun fantasy game played in first person and I immediatly thought of the Neo Geo game, Crossed Swords.  Axe said that by the end of the game it had gotten repetitious and that you can simply jump while moving and you raise in experience levels.  He said that it while it was a decent game, just that by the end, it got pretty boring.

This was my first impression of not only Oblivion, but of this apparent Elder Scrolls series.  It was not a favorable impression.

Ring in 2012.   Skyrim had been out a year by the time I bought the game and delved deep into it's depths (not nearly as much as Conklederp has mind you).  Thus my impression of The Elder Scrolls forever changed and for the better at that.  In March of 2013 I began playing Morrowind (Chapter III) and this January (just over a month ago), I began playing Oblivion.  

My feelings about this game continue to be conflicted.  I understand the immense leap from Morrowind to Obilivion, the changes in gameplay mechanics (the ones I know about anyway), the graphical improvements over the four years between the two games.  However, in the back of my mind are those first feelings of negativity because of the review of a housemate and finding out that the conjuration sigil had nothing to do with anything related to H.P. Lovecraft.

One other sad thing, for me at least, is that I'm not a fan of the intro song, which is just a fanfaric and slightly sped up version of "Nerevar Rising" from Morrowind.  Yes, I know it was used again in "Dragonborn" from Skyrim, but there it's done with a choir and all bombastic, which I tend to like.  Basically the song, "Reign of the Septims" using the "Nerevar Rising" theme, plays it too fast for what the song is doing.  I don't know if that really makes much sense, but that's how I feel.  The rest of the music in the world I do enjoy as it is very Jeremy Soule and fitting for Cyrodiil.

Presently, I am 14 hours into the game, which isn't far by Elder Scroll standards and for those of you who know, I just joined The Blades at Cloud Ruler Temple and that is where I have left the game since the middle of January.  Rather than be all rhetorical, I have not stopped playing, but felt that I could now diverge from the main storyline to do any half dozen of those side quests that always populate these open world games.

There are certain things that I do like so far in Obilivion such as the lushness of the land.  I mean, just look at all these lupins (??)

and I just escaped (was allowed to escape) from prison!  I like the facial feature-thing mechanic that I will/might get to in a later post.  I like building my character and having them focus their abilities along certain paths.  And as is the case with any game, there are certain aspects that I'm not too fond of such as the menu system, the pudginess of faces due to the facial feature-thing mechanic, the ability to fast travel to locations you have not yet gone to but know of their existence and how small Cyrodiil feels, but maybe this last part is normal having come from such a vast expanse in Vvardenfell.

I will come back to Obilivion very soon, I think I just needed some time to figure out my current feelings for the game and how they conflict with how I first felt about the game.  Well, that's about my quota for the month for talking about feelings.  


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
I Shall Return From Out Of The Fire
P.S.  Have a good (snowy?) weekend all.

Returning To Normalcy

Merry Christmas.

Happy Holidays.

Happy New Year.

I'm now making this post from Conklederp's iMacpadairintoshBook, although it says MacBook right in front of me.  Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against Apple.  I grew up on an Apple //e and every other computer I used until college was some form of Mac, but I digress from my lack of there being a point.

I got my computer back from [Name Omitted] after having spilt a small amount of beer on the keyboard.  I figured the keyboard was shot, due to the H, G, "Up Arrow" and 7 (on the 10 key) not working (and H is part of my password to log on to my computer; at least it was), I just wanted to make sure that nothing else was damaged, even after I performed a fairly thorough cleaning job right after the spill happened.  Turns out that it's just my keyboard that needs to be replaced, which the guy at [N.O.] sounded a little surprised at.  He then quoted me a price that seemed a little high, but maybe that was because I knew what had to be done, knew to do it, and how much a replacement keyboard would cost.  For a moment, it sounded like he was trying to hoodwink me when saying that it would be difficult/costly because of the metal shell that makes up the casing of my laptop, suggested that the keyboard was backlit, which I said it wasn't, then said something about the possible difficulty in removing the keyboard.  I thanked him for his time, paid for the diagnostics and check up that he ran and said I would perform the necessary repairs myself.  I was polite, but knew that I could replace the keyboard, minus the $60 labor fee.

Moving on to gaming now.  I fully admit that I have a weakness for games in a series.  They don't even have to be related to each other, just add a 3 or an VIII and I'm interested.  Bare in mind though, that this doesn't happen with all genres, just mainly RPG's but there are always exceptions.  I feel it'd be pretty obvious that I'm a fan of the Final Fantasy games with the only games that I haven't played are VIII, X, X-2, XI, XIII, XIII-2 and XIV.  I currently have Dragon Warrior/Quest I - VI, VIII and IX.  After playing through Doom 3, I immediately wanted to know about the story from Doom  and Doom 2: Hell on Earth, so I bought those shortly after acquiring a Steam account.  The Baldur's Gate and Diablo series I also love, although I've been resistant to buying Diablo III for reasons that I've gone into before.  I have also yet to play Warcraft III even though I loved the first two games, which is possibly because I've heard about the Orcs not really being evil, I call bullshit on that.  After seeing a lot of Fallout 3 (but not having played it), I really wanted to know what the Fallout series was like, so Vorlynx got me the first three games a couple years back.  Recently with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, I fell in love with the world and backstory of events that may have happened in previous games or were never covered.  There was talk among people (as well as books) referring to "the Oblivion Crisis," so after some hunting, I was able to locate and download the first two Elder Scrolls games and only yesterday, purchased Morrowind and Oblivion (The Elder Scrolls III & IV respectively).  There's also the Professor Layton series, of which I need to play Diabolical Box (yes, I know I'm two and-a-half years late) and then get the rest of the series.  And dear god!, The Legend of Zelda series, although with the exception of The Adventure of Link, have avoided using numerals but instead have used subtitles, which is a nice change of pace for any genre.

I have missed this, our little moments together in our little corner of the internet.  I've since ordered a replacement keyboard which will hopefully arrive by the end of the week and will be installed within 10 minutes (as opposed the hour the guy at [N.O.] said it would take) and then I'll be able to get back to my regular routine.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Absence Makes The Heart Wonder Why There's No Beer In The Fridge.