Upcoming - Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

There are a few constants in my life online.

1) I ramble about topics at random
2) I only use an IM if bored crazy
3) I vanish for weeks when a decent RPG or strategy game is released

No. 3 is going to happen this coming Friday (in Europe) when Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion hits shop shelves across Europe. Much in the vein of addictive games like Civilisation IV and Rome: Total War, there will be a few weeks where countless people will drop offline, lose contact with close friends and relatives, and lock doors in case the significant other in their lives tries to interrupt them.

The problem with games like the Elder Scrolls series is the replay value and depth of gameplay. Morrowind has been a constant presence on my hard drive, alongside Rome TW, since 2002. Even playing last time in January there was still lots to do and explore. It was wearing thin I'll admit - only so much questing you can do over a 3-4 year period even with some quality mods added - but the game is so huge that new encounters are inevitable if you go looking hard enough .

Rome TW has something similar. No many how times you play, there are always moments of satisfaction to be found. The best one yet I've had was a huge battle with my fellow Brutii outnumbered and eventually routed by a horde of Gauls. Rallying up my troops over the course of 20 minutes, I sent them all over the battle map avoiding enemy formations until some semblance of order was restored. Atop a deserted hill, I sent out small units of cavalry to keep the Gauls off balance. That done I used expended Archers as shock troops (excellent method of stalling an enemy formation's charge) before pounding them from the sides with heavy infantry. After almost 30 minutes of near routs, after the near defeat of my army, I'm victorious. If you haven't played a TW game before - you don't deserve to live. Even when it seems all is lost some creative thinking can switch the course of events.

Anyways, Oblivion is looking like a fantastic game. If the world is as detailed as Fry Cry's it will be a sight to behold - and who didn't sit for a while with their mouths open after seeing that island paradise the first time? Combat and Magic have been improved - and the addition of physics will add a certain feeling of satisfaction when I get to smashing foes around the place with fireballs. NPC's have seen improvement in daily activity schedules, lip synching, real voice conversation, etc. I doubt the hyped realism is as evident as publicised - and early reviews seem to bear out the level of repetition I expected. More important Magic, Archery and Stealth have all been revamped and balance out melee combat nicely by all accounts. There really is nothing more irritating than being forced into melee combat because magic is too weak or requires range to work well.

A few well hyped quirks are interesting in themselves. You can now buy (more likely steal ) horses. And yes, in case you've hidden under a rock for the last year, you can ride them. The world is now something along the lines of 16 square miles of forest, plains, mountains and urban areas. Towns are better guarded - town watch are no longer random patrolling loners, they congregate in groups and will hunt down criminals, i.e. your character, pretty efficiently. I could continue with a long list.

Suffice it to say Oblivion is looking to be a long way ahead of Morrowind. They've kept all the best points of Morrowind, and revamped the more repetitive/boring bits where players had little interaction before - such as the Melee/Magic use.

Since this is one of those games I'm a huge fan off I'm going to spend a little extra to supplement my PC's capacity and buy a Creative XFire Sound Card at the weekend. My aging Audigy 2 is probably starting to use a fair number of my processor cycles on more recent games, and this will offer better sound (esp. for Headphone use when emulating 5.1 surround) and ensure the processor (which I don't want to replace for at least another 6 months) is as free as possible to handle the game. Another piece of good news is that NVidia are releasing an updated ForceWare driver specifically addressing performance in Oblivion later today which will hopefully keep my 6800 GT up to scratch.

Another 3 days until I get around to scorching Skeletons with a maniacal grin plastered across my face...