Oblivion Rocks My World
I'd been holding off on installing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion until I managed to obtain the new computer. In essence I was spending $1600 on Oblivion - so I had really high expectations. Yes, I know I coulda gotten an XBox 360 for cheaper, but it was time for an upgrade anyway. This was the first time I bought a desktop from a vendor instead of cobbling it together myself. I went with a sweet system from iBuyPower.com. It's an AMD 4400+ Dual-Core with a gig of RAM, 300 gig HD, and twin SLI-linked NVidia 7900s. It'll be obsolete before the end of summer, but for now, it's pretty awesome, and it's mine.

It runs like a dream. I was able to crank up the graphics detail on Oblivion all the way up to maximum, complete with HDR Lighting and all that other goodness, and let her rip. So with max settings in place and running at a silky-smooth framerate. I was finally able to see what all the fuss was about.

And the game completely has kicked my hinderd and left me prone on the floor with awe and a grin on my face. It has, so far, surpassed my expectations. Which is actually a pretty rare thing, but I'd tried to keep myself aloof from the hype surrounding its release.

And no, I haven't found anything in the game yet to warrant its re-rating to "Mature." But I'm only a few hours in.

The Elder Scrolls Series
So much has been said about this game, I really can't add much. I've been a fan of the Elder Scrolls series since Daggerfall (I missed Arena - I don't remember why). The graphics have always been good, but first and foremost the game has been about open-ended play. The games try to immerse you in a huge, open-ended world with a loose storyline that you are free to follow or ignore, and then set you loose to just explore and do whatever.

To top it off, the games are also very replayable with vastly different classes. I only found out long after the fact that I'd finished Daggerfall with about the most difficult class possible - a skill-based rogue with no magical abilities to speak of. My wife played Daggerfall for months, mainly just going from town to town seeing what clothes she could buy to play "paper doll" with her character.

I never finished Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind. It lacked the scope of Daggerfall, and the isle of Morrowind was just too bizarre and alien, so I guess I never got sucked in like I did with Daggerfall. Still, it was a very good game, still open-ended (but without the random quests and dungeons). By the time I played Morrowind, I'd been exposed to the plot-and-character-heavy Japanese console RPGs. Morrowind was sort of the opposite of these - but it proved that you didn't need to have a heavily story-based RPG with angsty teen characters to have a successful RPG.

Instead, like its predecessors, Morrowind was about IMMERSION. For the same reason I like to call Falcon 4.0 a Roleplaying Game - the Elder Scrolls games are about dropping you into a fantastic world and making it come alive for you.

Oblivion
Oblivion - from what I can tell - continues the tradition of immersion in spades. After making you get through the "bunny slope dungeon" and introducing you to the story line, the game boots you into a wild world where you can literally see for MILES. See AND go there. Distant mountains? Start walking. You'll get there after a day or two. But you'll encounter all kinds of additional adventures along the way, because (so far) they've packed it with lots of stuff to do along the way - including dungeons to explore, bandit camps to fight off, old ruins to examine, and wild herbs to harvest.

The graphics and the open-endedness serve the premise of the series, which is IMMERSION. And I'm friggin' immersed! There's so much to do and explore, and the graphics are truly "next gen" beyond anything else I have played. Of course, the graphics come at the expense of really powerful new computer... or I guess you could only spring for an XBox 360. I'm not sure which one looks better at this point.

So How Do I Compete With THAT?!?
So as an indie game developer who sells (and is developing) lower-budget RPGs, I find myself playing this game and asking myself, "How in the world do I compete with THAT? There's just no way."

Jeff Vogel, of Spiderweb Software, has gone on record in the past expressing the same kind of confusion. When asked why someone would play his indie RPG, Geneforge, instead of the next Baldur's Gate, he responded, "I'm not sure. Baldur's Gate 2 was just too good."

My answer is similar. You cannot compete with that. Not without an experienced team and at least $10 million devoted strictly to development. Hang it up. Give up now. There's no going toe-to-toe against this game on an indie budget. Oblivion will pwn you.

Just like you wouldn't take your indie First-Person-Shooter toe-to-toe against the Battlefield or Unreal Tournament series. They will frag you.

So What Do You Do If You Want To Make RPGs?
But just because Oblivion rocks doesn't mean there's no room for other RPGs. There'll be plenty of room for the upcoming Final Fantasy game on the consoles (as long as it doesn't suck). There'll be plenty of room for Neverwinter Nights II. There'd be plenty of room for a Baldur's Gate III. And there's room for the Aveyonds and Cute Knights and Geneforges and other indie games of the world.

Even with the amazing amount of open-ended gameplay that Oblivion offers, there's many things it doesn't. Interesting characters, for one thing (an area where Final Fantasy games kick butt, albeit in a really weird, angsty, loses-something-in-the-translation way). The storylines in the Elder Scrolls games are typically pretty weak. And you don't get the challenge of fighting off the desire to settle for being a cleaning maid for the rest of your life in Oblivion!

In Oblivion you don't get the opportunity (as far as I know) to help repair or break up a marriage with your mad conversational skillz, like you do in Facade (how DO you type that French letter in that word, anyway?). Or find an ancient artifact in the post-apocalyptic word of Fallout. Or an infinite number of other things.

There are an infinite number of places an RPG can go where the Elder Scrolls, for all their variety and open-endedness, can't follow. Granted - some may be less commercially viable than others, or at least more difficult to market. Its hard to break with tradition and expectations. But even if the road-less-travelled that you choose doesn't go too far from the beaten path, there are a lot of new places to go and to take the 'genre,' if we're willing to risk it. And I certainly intend to do so.

But I'll also keep taking some time out to enjoy Oblivion.

Labels: Mainstream Games, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 10:56 PM (Permalink)