May 2006 Archives

I am hopelessly hooked on the PC game, Oblivion. I’ve played lots of RPGs in my day, but never has one been so immersive. For those that enjoy playing stealthy types, one of the main programmers from the Thief series designed the stealth components of this game. The stealth ability has greatly improved since Bethesda+'s previous game, Morrowind. For once, thief missions involve sneaking in and out of places like a cat burglar, rather than just assassin missions. In fact, it is a bit of a challenge to even find the thieves guild.

Patrick Stewart, Sean Bean, Terrence Stamp and Lynda Carter provide extra flavor to the game via voice acting. Patrick Stewart starts off the game providing the voice of the Emperor. In the hands of someone else, the dialog might have come across as cheesy. In Stewart’s hands, it gets the game off to a fantastic start.

I went through the opening scenario a few times, not just to hear Patrick Stewart (although that was an added bonus), but to test the new character creation model. Rather than  picking stats, skills, professions and a whole bunch of options, you pick a race, name, and gender and then start playing the game. At the end of the first scenario, the game will suggest (via a character in game) a possible profession. During your escape with the Emperor you come across many weapons and armor types and depending on what you choose and how you handle certain situations, the game will suggest a class. If you don’t like the class suggested, you can choose another or make one that is entirely unique. I really loved this feature. I can remember spending quite some time in other games choosing stats and skills and then after spending more than a hour preparing to play, find out I hated the mechanics of the game or whatever, and never play the game again. This is a very clever solution.