Retro Game Friday: Oblivion

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m covering an entry in a series I love. It’s The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion!

Plot Synopsis:  The story begins with the player imprisoned in a cell for an unknown crime. Emperor Uriel Septim VII, accompanied by Imperial bodyguards known as “the Blades”, arrive in the prison, fleeing from assassins who have murdered the emperor’s three sons and are now targeting him. The emperor and the Blades reveal that the player’s jail cell contains a secret entrance to a part of the city’s sewer that functions as an escape route. Pardoned by the emperor, the player follows the group into the sewer, where they come under attack by assassins. All but one of the Blades are cut down in the fighting that ensues. Knowing he is destined to die by the hands of the assassins, Uriel Septim entrusts the player with the Amulet of Kings, worn by the Septim emperors of Tamriel, and orders the player to take it to a man named Jauffre, the grand master of the Blades, at Weynon Priory. Immediately afterward, one of the assassins kills the emperor. The player escapes the sewer and heads out into the open world of Cyrodiil.

Plot: The plot of the game is pretty decent, but it’s also not anything super great either. There are some really interesting sidequests, particularly the Sheogorath DLC, but the main story falls short in my opinion.

Characters: There are plenty of interesting NPCs, M’aiq the Liar for instance, but again most of them aren’t super impressive. To be honest I’ve never felt the same level of affection for the NPCs in Oblivion or Skyrim quite like I did in Morrowind. Granted that in Morrowind you could kill any and all NPCs if you so chose, other than the always present guards, but even then it was a choice….

Gameplay: However that choice was removed starting in Oblivion, which is a real shame, because I actually enjoyed the heck out of learning who I can dispatch and who I couldn’t. It also removed the ability to use the levitate spell from the repertoire of available spells, which again was a massive let down.

Art: The art is very badly aged, and the faces in the game look horrible. Especially the eyes.

Music: Decent, but not as catchy as Morrowind or Skyrim’s music.

Overall: An easily skippable entry in the series, it removed most of what I loved about Morrowind and added DLC Horse Armor instead.

 

Video Game Tuesday: Free to Play

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m covering a topic that can really bug me sometimes. It’s Free to Play games!

What is Free to Play?: Free-to-play (F2P) refers to video games which give players access to a significant portion of their content without paying.

What’s so bad about something being free?: I’ve got no problem with a game being free, in fact I laud a company that can make a good game that is free to play. Hearthstone is a great example of a properly done F2P game. However so many other games out there take advantage of the consumer, you, by having incredibly intrusive advertising and constant prompts to buy the game or features that will let you beat it easier. I don’t like having advertising forced on me, in fact I hate it with a passion, and paying to beat a game that is supposed to be free is incredibly unethical. Some games out there are impossible to beat without cheating, it’s not very common, but I find them to be the lowest type of scam and despise anyone who makes such a game. A game is meant to be played for fun, not to frustrate you so much that you end up buying something to beat it because it’s impossible to accomplish for 99.99% of the human population.

Candy Crush is a perfect example of a game that I hate, I can understand if you locked some game modes behind a paywall. Go for it, that’s a reasonable thing to sell. But selling something to allow you to continue playing the already free game modes is incredibly messed up. It scams more ignorant consumers and is to me an incredibly shady sort of business.

Any good suggestions on well made F2P games?: MOBAs are a good example with League of Legends being an incredibly well made F2P game. Hearthstone like I mentioned above is another one. There are F2P games out there that aren’t scams, but you need to be careful and choose wisely.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday!