Nice view of um…. a nightmarish hell. *cough*

No. It isn’t what you’re thinking. Bethesda has released Elder Scrolls IV – Oblivion. The previous game in this PC RPG series was called Morrowind. I thought Morrowind was OK… so I thought I’d at least take a look at Oblivion. I’ve finished a few quests and got my character to level 2.. which seemed to take ages.

The Good
• As I’m sure you’ll read over and over in reviews, the game is beautifully rendered (esp. with a decent video card… on my 6800GS the world is very impressive) the landscapes, towns and environments are the best I’ve seen in a video game.
• The devs added a compass that points in the direction of your current quest… very handy!
• High level of detail available during character creation
• still lots of choice in character creation
• so far the story has been clear and easy to follow – wow!

The Bad
• Many of the NPCs still look pretty bad. The effort doesn’t seem to have been taken here. -Having to constantly go in and out of all the menus to change things – gah
• stupid process involved to *drop* an item and why can’t I drop it anywhere… the game should figure that out, I shouldn’t have to move to accommodate placed items
• The game allows only 10 quick keys… so many spells, various weapon configurations, potions, etc. all need to fit there somehow…?!
• I’ve been able to get stuck in situations I can’t *move* out of, forcing me to restart the game
• map is a pain in the ass to use. something onscreen and slightly opaque would be much more useful

The Ugly
• Can you say crash to desktop? The game has crashed about five times during various parts of the game. Hopefully this will be addressed in a patch!
• I may update this as I get deeper into the game. Oblivion is well worth checking out if you’re a RPG fan.