I came up with short list of games to complete:
- Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
- Okami
- Fatal Frame II
Not a bad list, I thought. All three are titles I liked when I first started playing them over a year ago. And despite my pet peeves (Oblivion's leveling system, Okami/Fatal Frame's frustratingly dated save game and dialogue mechanics), I figured I could plow through each by the middle of October if I ignored Gametap and Steam for awhile. Which would permit me just enough time to get a HDTV and a Xbox before Mass Market Effect comes out.
Okay, so maybe it's too early to hate on Mass Effect, or even Fallout 3. But with all the bitching among the "hardcore" in the gaming media about "casual" games, I think I'm allowed to be skeptical. The most highly regarded CRPGs in recent years were created with the Xbox in mind. And after Knights of the Old Republic and Oblivion, I can't help but think the "C" in CRPG now stands for "casual." (Though I prefer the term "softcore.")
I was doing pretty well in Oblivion until today. I was on my third character, I had a set of goals I wanted to complete before I finished the main quest, and had downloaded enough mods to make the game less stupid. But then I looked up the wandering monster list, and I deleted Oblivion off my hard drive for the last time.
Ignoring animals and discounting minor variations on the same creatures, that's, what, 20 monsters or so? I'm at level 30, and there's nothing left to look forward except ripping out Xivilai hearts and extracting Deadroth teeth? Fuck Oblivion. There hasn't been a more accurately named fantasy territory since Desolace.
Oblivion got fairly good reviews when it came out, and rightly so. Although the map is huge and you're free to level up your character as you see fit, the game is best if finished in a few weeks. If you find yourself trying to complete every quest, max out your stats, or explore every dungeon, you'll quickly discover there isn't much variety in the world. All caverns are pretty much the same, as are all dungeons, ruins, castles, and that's 15 times true for the planes of Oblivion.
I'm off to try my patience with Okami.
3 comments:
I recently started playing oblivion again, but only because I decided I wanted to get some more gamerscore points from it. I'm almost finished with the initial grand, I'm not sure I'll bother buying the xpac for the extra 250.
I still enjoy playing it to some extent, tho I wish I had the option of mods to make things more tolerable, and I agree the leveling system is atrocious.
Also in that vein, I just beat Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. It's only been a year since I put it down after engaging in a whiffle-bullet sniper duel with a hundred year old man. The second go around, the game felt a lot more fun for me, even if there's no way in hell I'm going to hide in a corner for over two minutes to throw enemies off of my scent. Also, there was an escort quest that was actually enjoyable. I'm as amazed as you are.
In the end, the game felt like a synthesis between everything that worked in Metal Gear Solid 1, and everything that didn't in Metal Gear Solid 2. Except there was actually a game in between the 20-minute-long cinema scenes, so it's nothing like Metal Gear Solid 2 at all.
And now, I only have Metroid Prime 2 left in my "Stack of shame" before I've completed every game that I still own.
I looked up some spoilers on the game, and the final foe is apparently that four-armed guy from Serious Sam.
The future of gaming is also the past. Goro lives!
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