Recent reviews by partly_cloudy32

Game is still blocked in 177 countries because of Sony but that is not Arrowhead's fault. Game is very good

To begin this review, I would like to say that I had never played this game before I bought it on January 17th. I might've played for all of 10 minutes and then got bored on the Xbox version of the game on Game Pass, but I never really dived into it. I also had never played through the entirety of Skyrim, despite having played it for 100's of hours. I never felt compelled to finish the story or really do anything, but that changed around December 2021. I had Skyrim already installed and just felt like playing it, and I got hooked. I loved the atmosphere, the graphics, and the story. Sure, the whole Delphine forcing you to kill Paarthurnax is dumb and the combat is a mild inconvenience at best but as a whole I enjoyed it. I finished the main story of the game around the beginning of January, and soon after that, I felt like there was no reason to keep on playing. Solstheim and Dawnguard were nice, but I finished them fairly quickly and soon I didn't have much to do. That's when I remembered Oblivion.

Despite never having played the game, I always had a disliking to it. The biggest thing that turned me off was the graphics. I know that it was released in 2006, but that's why I either play newer games or 2D games. Graphics are a huge part of a game for me and when they aren't appealing it can ruin the whole game. But, I enjoyed Skyrim so much, and I had heard of how much people liked Oblivion, so I thought, 'It wouldn't hurt to try," and I was right.

I'll admit, the first few days were rough. I found myself getting confused at a lot of mechanics, complaining about the graphics, and getting angry at the combat system, but in the end I enjoyed myself, which is why I kept playing. This game has a good way of making you want to play it again, whilst also having enough stuff for you to never get tired. I found myself fascinated at the characters in the story, despite only being voice acted by one person each, I felt like they had real personality, especially the side quests they all have you do. Of course, the characters with their own voice actors (Martin, Mankar Camoran, etc.) I felt the deepest connection to, and when Jauffre died in the battle at the end (in my game at least, I've seen others where he doesn't die) I actually felt sad.

The combat system in this game is what still interests me. In the beginning, when I did the Imperial City Arena questline, I always felt like I was being screwed over, with the enemy zipping around me and making me stagger every hit. I know now that this is because as an Imperial my agility stat was much lower than most other races, but I thought the game was just unfair. The blocking and attacking was hard to learn but after a while I got the hang of it. It's a very precise pattern of block, hit, hit, but you also have to take into account if there's multiple enemies and their movements. If you get too close they can run around you and get you from behind. It's a very interesting system that's hard to learn and I feel like I'm still learning.

To say that this game is a 'masterpiece' is not an exaggeration. The number of mechanics, the lively cities (compared to Skyrim's "cities" with at most like 8 buildings), the depth of the characters, the complexity of the combat, and the overall scale of the story are what make this game great. You feel like you're making an impact by closing the (albeit boring to complete) Oblivion gates, and I can't describe how cool it felt to fight Umaril at the end of the Knights of the Nine questline. Also, mods make this game so much better. I would highly recommend the DarnUI mod that completely changes the UI from a mobile game to a proper PC game.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk

This game may not be for everyone, but i'm a huge fan of doing things in games that take a very long time and give huge rewards, and this game is perfect for this, driving for hours to earn hundreds of thousands of Euros, and the feeling of finishing a 3,000+ km delivery in one go is one I have never felt in any other game before.