The Video Game Revue

Oblivion

I was doing pretty good these past three weeks about not buying new games and trying to make progress in the ones that I already have. I managed to make some real progress in getting the hang of GalCiv II, which is a real gem of a game and fully worth checking out, and I've been plodding through Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow which I've found to be much more challenging than Harmony of Dissonance was. I still haven't finished Digital Devil Saga and both Xenogears and Ace Combat 5 are being neglected, but I did manage to make some real progress in Disgaea, and I think I've finally reached the final chapter of that game. I've also been playing through the original Metal Gear for MSX which comes on MGS3: Subsistence, and although I haven't put a lot of time into it yet, it's really good--I'd certainly like to finish it (and probably the sequel as well.)

Things just got a bit hairy though, since yesterday I broke down and bought four new games: Odama, Tekken 5, Brain Age, and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. What I'm really here to write about today are these.

Odama is that genre-bending GameCube game that combines pinball with feudal Japanese warfare. It's an interesting game with a colourful theme, but I'd read bad reviews of it, which made me hesitant to buy it. As it turns out, Odama is every bit as fun as I'd hoped it would be; I promptly played it for over two hours after opening it.

I can definitely see where the bad criticism came from, since many elements of Odama are unpolished, and the game can feel frustratingly clumsy at times. The microphone aspect of the game really is just a gimmick, although a fun one--but it adds an unnecessary complication to the game. The pinball "feel" of the game is much clumsier than Metroid Pinball; I find that the "Odama" (rolling ball weapon dealie) often comes off of the pinball paddels at unexpected angles, and I've had a hard time adjusting to the feel of this game. Critical parts of the user interface are poorly explained, and it took me a long time to figure out that you could use the D-pad to select various rally targets for your troops, etc. This can be a very frustrating game and can feel completely chaotic because it's so difficult to control things.

On the other hand, I really enjoy the challenge factor, and learning to play this game has been a lot of fun--particularly because there is so much to learn. Sometimes I like to play a game where I can just pick it up and instinctively know how everything works, and sometimes I really want a game to be confusing at first so that I have to go through the process of figuring it out. Odama has been the latter kind of game for me. Each level of the game has repeatedly kicked my ass, yet I've seen myself continually improving my skill at the game, which is both exciting and refreshing. Although Odama may have fallen well short of the mark of a classic game, it's still fun and interesting enough that I've become addicted to it, and that's all that I really expected of it.

Tekken 5 was a purchase that I put off for a long time. I knew that it was a great game back when it first came out, and I knew that I should be making time for it--but I never did. It's out now as a greatest hits title, and in much the same way that I scooped up Devil May Cry 3 and Ace Combat 5 for cheap, I figured that Tekken 5 was worth the new purchase price. I've played it for less than an hour so far, but it does seem to live up to everything that I'd heard about it: the gameplay is very refined, the graphics are good, and the whole experience that it provides is all-round fantastic. I particularly love the fact that Tekken 5 and Soul Calibur III are both such great 3-D fighting games while both feeling so completely different; I think that part of why I'd been reluctant to get Tekken 5 was that I was waiting for Soul Calibur III and I felt that having both games would be somewhat redundant, but there is no redundancy at all.

I haven't played Brain Age yet. I mostly got this game for my girlfriend, Sunny, and she played several games of it while waiting in the queue for WoW battlegrounds. Apparently her brain age is 22, or something.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was the surprise hit of the night last night, however. After gorging myself on Odama with a bit of Tekken 5, I decided to install Oblivion "just to see what it looks like." Now my experience with Elder Scrolls up to this point has been very limited. I once bought Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind as a cheap compliation title (came with both expansion packs) and played it for an hour or two. It was a neat game, but somewhat intimidating in scope, and I didn't really have the time to get into it, so I set it aside and kept telling myself "yeah, I'll play that someday." I wasn't planning on getting Oblivion for a while, but people have been saying that it's friendlier and more accessible than Elder Scrolls III, and the fact that Gabe & Tycho from Penny Arcade have been enjoying it so much was no small factor either.

I had a hard time tearing myself away from that game last night. It is so beautiful, so immersive, and so much fun. The only shame is that right now I have to run it on pathetic 640x480 resolution with low detail, and even then it is choppy a lot of the time. Fortunately I have plans in the works for a new computer, although completing these plans is a matter of weeks off yet. Still, I can't even really wait for the new computer to play this game--it's so fun and amazing that getting even a fraction of the experience that it provides is enough to sweep me off of my feet. I've had so much fun with Oblivion so far that it reminds me of how I used to feel about RPGs back in the days when they still seemed exotic and mysterious to me. I feel the same way about Oblivion that I felt about Ultima VII when it was new, which is to say that there's this vast fantasy world waiting for me to discover--and one that hasn't been corrupted so much by internet culture or plagued with monthly subscription fees as your average MMORPG is. I've been craving this kind of single-player PC RPG experience in much the same way that one begins to crave a good sitcom after too much time spent watching only reality TV shows.

Perhaps the best part of the whole Oblivion deal, although I may be getting ahead of myself here, is that Oblivion will be a gentle introduction to the Elder Scrolls series that will enable me to go back and thoroughly enjoy Morrowind later on. I'd like to see that happen. First I should probably finish Digital Devil Saga, Disgaea, and Xenogears. (Hmm... I wonder if I'll still be saying that a year from now.)

posted by Parappa @ 8:34 AM