This time round we are covering Oblivion, a delightful game from 2006 that, at the time was graphically awesome, and to be fair its something that the game has held up well and it still looks pretty damn awesome by today’s standards as well, especially on the PC where extra mods and increased graphics processing help the game look that bit better anyway. The game features all the usual mod cons, like dynamic weather, nice trees with lots of singled out leaves that don’t look like they are cardboard cutouts, and all manner of lighting, fog and visual effects. You can see an absolute mile into the distance which is particularly awesome given that in many games there is a random fog effect that suddenly obscures vision 3ft infront of your house. The only downside to this comes with the fact that at the time, the game was so demanding in terms of power that you only really got the full effect if you had a near top of the line PC, and the XBox360 version does hav a few stutters every now and then as well.

If you're this guy, you should cut somone in half for the sheer hell of it!

Moving on from the games looks, we head into the region of how the game plays. You basically get the “whole” tutorial thing at the start of the game, buts its very well done. It completes and early and key part of the story line, buts its extremely well integrated to the point where you are picking up the basics as you go through, and barely even realise whats going on, as far as I was concerned at the time, I was playing the first scene of the story, and getting a few hints along the way, only to emerge and realise I knew how to aim, attack, cast spells, change equipment etc…

To me, this was pretty fucking fantastic, as I dislike games where the tutorial is stale and stapled in, or just doesn’t fit with the tutorial. As far as im concerned, the game should either have a separate tutorial you can chose to play before starting the game so that its seperate, or if this is not an option it should integrate as flawlessly as possible with the story line. An example of something thats not so great is COD4 where you are part of the SAS but go through a kind of training/testing thing which makes no sense since your already with the SAS and should know what to do, and have proved your worth already.

Oblivion has a main questline, some side questlines, and then loads of random 1 time and small quests all over the place. Most of which are worth doing as you get decent items out of them which help the main questline, and also gets you doing things so your skills advance. My only real gripe with the gameplay is the fact that everything levels with you, so everything is a constant challenge, but unfortunately a doable challenge. I would prefer the option to head to a place above my level, and fight harder things and get better rewards which I could use to torture things my own level for fun!

A normal oblivion gate, hardcore shit lives on the other side!

We can roll on from the gameplay and into the actual storyline itself and how it holds up, and I have to say myself,  the whole story is pretty fucking good, aside from the ending which I found to be a bit of an anti-climax but that could just be my personal opinion on that one. As I already mentioned the tutorial integrates perfectly with the storyline, and gets the game on its way. From that point on the story is up to you, you can ignore the main quest, finish it first, do what you want. Everything has a story to it, and out of the hundreds of characters ingame, you can bet your ass most of them are involved in one quest or another, and i think this is awesome. I mean, I hate stale static NPC’s who are ingame for no reason at all, whats the point in it? Life for the sake of life in a game makes no sense.

The great thing I like about the story is the fact that you are the hero, but you are not THE HERO. Your basic task is to find the new emperor and return him to the throne. Thankfully its not some lame storyline where you turn out to be emperor, or become emperor because the guy is dead, or end up as rent boy on a street corner cos the emperor thought you were a dick during some missions. It gives great freedom to you cos if you are like me and random people need to die for reasons only you know, you are not left with some kind of fucked up ending where people would be all like “why is he emperor if he murdered half the city, he should be in jail.” It is a good way of doing it and with the amount of effort put into the stories and sidequests etc, I would definitely not call it cheap, because cheap would be parroting the usual story and scripting you into a box (which doesn’t happen often unless you make it!) The only real way you can get stuck is if you kill someone involved in a quest, cos in oblivion once your average NPC is dead, they stay dead and thats that. Only main questline players get to experience being “knocked out” the rest die and head to hell to burn for being annoying. The only other thing to add to this for people new to the game is that questlines have multiple arches, a NPC ay die on a quest with you, and others will act like it had to happen, yet you could try again and save them and that takes it of a bit differently but doesn’t change things monumentally, it just alters dialogue and some options, which is great!

Epic Scenery, lets roll onward!

Finally I can’t mention this game without adding in that for PC users who own the game, you can’t fully enjoy it without trying a few of the mods for the game. Some are good, others are fucking fantastic and you should definitely have a look around and try a few of them out.

I guess thats pretty much all I have to say on oblivion at this point, there is more I can say for sure but I don’t want to give away storylines and information that could spoil storylines as some people may not have played the game and will want to now. My only advice could be to make sure you try everything in the game, and also safe often and try to keep the killing to a minimum until you have some quests out of the way as you never know who you need. Either that or make a new game and kill till your hearts content!

I definately recommend this game, and you should play it or return to it if you already have it.

What I have heard about is Skate 2, specifically I heard about it from a guy in work who also had the good sense to show me a video to gain my interest. In Video one I saw a guy grind a pole, and jump to another pole, I wasn’t massively impressed. The second video showed a guy falling off a ledge and smashing his face into the floor in an incredibly hilarious fashion, my interest was now gained.

Skate 2 is a game that takes the style in a different direction from the Tony Hawks franchise, or at least it takes it in a different direction from what I remember about that particular franchise. Hell I don’t even know if I should be comparing them, but I’m sure some diehard will scream at me if I have it wrong, not that I care. The skating is more “realistic” and freeroam sense. I use realistic in the sense that your not boxed in to an area where you complete some challenges and then piss off to the next box to peddle your wares for no apparent reason. You basically roam around a town and do whatever the fuck you want, there are of course challenges and events which you enter and these require you remain in a specific area, but there are no hidden or manufactured walls keeping you there, you can leave the area and exit the challenge as you please.

The controls are the first feature of the game that I seriously do enjoy (to an extent). The controls are definitely innovative, instead of a button mashing 6 finger fuck fest, you have “flickit” controls that enable most tricks to be done with the use of the right stick. This function applies to a majority of your staple tricks, like kickflips and ollies etc. While this new direction interests me, it also frustrates me as sometimes a degree of difference in your accuracy results in the guy doing something entirely different than what you had planned and possibly to you failing a challenge or something. Other tricks do keep to the button pushing/holding styles of old, but then they have become part and parcel of many of these games now, and I honestly cant suggest much better if I’m honest

Something I found less enjoyable in the game however was the storyline, there were many parts of it which were unrealistic and kinda moronic at times. Certainly the fact that your character has been to jail is one of the odd things, I have no idea why he ended up there although I expect it was to do with soft drugs or some other shit. Not that I have anything against the guy having a colourful background. EA however in their infinite wisdom like to keep from having any kind of high age rating on a game so it can appeal to as much money many customers as possible. So there is a lot of omitted points of swearing in the game. There are a lot of “oh my gods!” and “holy cow!” where something like “Holy shit” or “what the fuck” could have sufficed. Maybe you could say I’m being picky and overly going out of my way to attack the game, but for something billed as “more realistic,” an ex-con who has friends who mind their language incase they offend kids, while simultaneously going out of his way to annoy people in a law enforcement profession in an attempt to “stick it to the man” seems a bit lame. Kinda like removing self sealing freezer bags because people might use them to sell drugs, but ignoring the drug problem itself.

The storyline kinda comes together in dribs and drabs, you skate around causing trouble and fighting the power in the form of “mongocorp” which requires the “mongo” to make them sound stupid and monkey like, because only people like that could be against skateboarding in a public place where injury to the general public is a sure thing. Personally I would have played up the ex-con and just made out he was a serious badass, but then, that might get kids to rebel, and EA might have to face lawsuits from angry Americans who blame everything but their shitty parenting for their fat angry kids. Plus most of Europe is looking for something to blame at the moment as well I guess. So basically you skate around with a gimp who films you all the time as you make your comeback, and who will occasionally point out helpful things to you, like the fact you fell over, or got hit by a car. Its a good thing they added him in, because me being the massive retard I am thought cars were ramps, and falling down was slang for winning the game…

You go from event to event getting up your credit, and making friends, and this in turn opens more events and more friends and so forth. Some friends run the new events, others offer services such as removing clamps from grinding rails or draining pools. There is also a fat black guy who will hassle the security guards in buildings for some fried chicken cash.

I guess in general terms skate 2 isn’t terrible in terms of storyline, there could be none at all, or it could be a cocksmoking shit fest, which isn’t too much lower than it is now, but then I guess the majority of the people playing will probably not care about the history of the character, wether he does this or that or who his friends are. Most of them will just want to skate.

Myself? I don’t fall into either, I fall into the third category. The one that wants to see the main character in a coma, with his video friend having to make the decision whether to turn the life support off, or hang on just another day. My main enjoyment from the games comes from trying to kill the bastard, and although you may not believe this, its the feature I find the best in the game! My main frustration with these previous games was the fact that falling down always pissed you off. It would eat away precious time in Tony Hawks, and in myriads of games falling down has been a sure death (Damn you Super Mario Brothers 3).

Skate 2 (and possibly skate which I have never played) have made this fun, and have taken the sting out of the annoyance, without making it some dumbed down moron fest were you could never fall over. Falling down will give you a score for the hall of meat, fall faster, harder and as awkwardly as possible to rack up the points. Its a fantastic system and one more games should take hold of. You fuck up your trick, fall off a ledge, and spread-eagle yourself while frantically trying to land on an arm and a leg for massive win. Its great, and in a bizarre way it adds to the realism, if only in the sense that when you hit something you scramble to try and sort yourself into some kind of hilarious mess. Its almost the same as in real-life when you fall and kinda scramble to not fall badly, except more awesome.

If I had to make a recommendation about the game, which as a reviewer I guess I’m duty bound to do I would say follow this advice.

* Hardcore Skating/Skating game fan: Purchase
* Skating fan/skater which a vested interest and some spare cash: Purchase
* Interested in the game in some way with a good bit of spare case and no other use: Purchase
* Everyone else: Best to look for something else

The game does have some appeal, but I think its a limited appeal, when I read up about the game myself before buying I found most people talking about it skated, or played these games frequently. There were not a lot of newcomers or “gamers” that seemed to be playing this one, or if they did they were a silent minority. It brings some nice things to the table, but at the same time it doesn’t capture my imagination in any sort of massive sense. It kinda gives me the same vibe most EA games do, “lets find a sport, release a new copy every year with some updated graphics and a new box, and wait for the millions to roll in” It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but has redesigned what I previously knew about the wheel.