Okie Dokie, I've spent my first evening with this one and the graphics are nice. Very nice. Almost too nice. I have a AMD 3600 64 bit processor with 2 GB of 400 DDR Ram and an AGP GEForce 6600 with 256 of DDR, and it can barely run medium graphics. I shudder to think what it would take to run this thing full throttle.
The quest system is the same, but there are tons of minor quests. No complaint there.
Horses are back. YAY!
Again, you are limited to one province (the Imperial Province this time). Daggerfall was the last one of their games to try and cover the entire world. It was... BIG.
Combat has been simplified, and you get major rewards for certain skills (but as you level up, so do the opponents. They will always be 1-x levels above you, so as to be challenging). For instance, in the exit dungeon I obtained a bow. If you sneak, and shoot someone with a bow, you get double damage. Also (and it may be the monsters I am fighting) it seems that when you get hit with a big sword, you're going to die. Armor stops the weapon from hitting meat, but when it does hit meat, as in real life, 1-2 good whacks with a 3' piece of sharp steel and you're done. No more whacking a goblin 19 times with a claymore to kill it.
Character classes are far less general than before. Your fighter may know how to open locks, or your wizard may know how to use a blade, but mostly, he's a fighter or wizard.
So far, it's a very immersive experience, and quite fun. I've completed the opening quest and explored several ruins and caves along the path to the next quest. My character is a Redguard (Brawny fighter type) Custom Class, which I named "Corsair". He specializes in Heavy armor, shields, bows, blades, alchemy (to make potions) can open locks, and has misc. bonuses such as athletics, and can cast minor healing spells (restoration).
He's pretty good at sneaking and I'll often use the bow to pick off opponents down long hallways. If the first shot doesn't drop them, I'll switch to a blade and shield and give them what-for.
The biggest addition, I think, and it causes a major change to the way you design character classes, is the apprentice, journeyman, and master level of skills. When a skill (such as blade) reaches a certain level, you get a bonus thing you can do with it, such as disarm or knockdown. That makes it much more critical to make the 7 primary skills ones that your character will use a lot. Also, since the monsters level up with you, the old power-leveling method (you level when you increase 10 skills etc) of running everywhere and jumping around to increase your athletics and speed will backfire, since you'll be really fast and can jump, but the monsters are now leveled up with you and you really should have increased the blade skill to hit them. But, if you increase your blade skill 9 points, you're whacking every other level 1 monster around.
If you like the genre, I think this game is probably the best produced to date. I should also point out that if you played Morrowind, the "Loading Area" message in Oblivion doesn't pause the screen at all. It flashes but the player never stops moving.
Topic: Elder Scrolls: Obvilion (Read 1960 times)