Why Oblivion Is Better Than Skyrim

I’ve decided to try to stick to a bi-weekly release schedule, which means I'm late. While there’s a number of things I could review (Divekick, You’re Next, Now You See Me, Stoker, Kick-Ass 2, Jeff Who Lives at Home, Visitor Q), I just don’t feel like it. So I figured I’d try something else and see how it goes.

Before I go into why it is that Oblivion is superior to Skyrim, I think it’s important to establish how I feel about the Elder Scrolls series as a whole. Theoretically, I’d say The Elder Scrolls is the most appealing, ambitious, awe-inspiring idea in games (that's not to say it's the most creative or interesting or anything else that actually deserves acclaim). I’d say we can all agree that what we ultimately want from The Elder Scrolls is a perfect simulation of life in a fantasy realm. I’d say we can also all agree that none of the Elder Scrolls games have come even remotely close to achieving this. Of course, it would be unreasonable to expect such a thing with the extremely limited technology of today. We would need computers a hundred thousand times stronger than those we currently use to be able to run such a game. If we ever do get this game, it would be more than just a game, it would be another reality. Because it would be another reality, we wouldn't want it to adhere to game design philosophies because we wouldn't want to notice the fact that it was artificially created. Unfortunately, we don’t have that game, so we'll have to make do with The Elder Scrolls as we currently know it. And while it is a game, it should approach its gameyness cautiously. It should strive for immersion, but not realism. Realism is hard to do. Perhaps it should not try to create an illusory living, breathing world, but instead create a world that functions as a vessel for good gameplay.

I'd also like to say I'm not going to address the many, many flaws with the Elder Scrolls franchise. That's not what I'm writing about.

Let's begin. 

If I were to put my reasons for liking Oblivion more than Skyrim into one word, it would be “smooth”. That’s it, really. Oblivion is damn smooth. It’s really the only smooth Bethesda game.

Rambly Videogame Theory Ideas

I thought I’d try out a more traditional blogpost just to see how I like it. If I do, I might sometimes write these up if I’m thinking about something. This is will likely be completely nonsensical and meaningless. Don’t read it.

This morning I just started thinking about how if you drew a graph that showed the amount of people playing games since their creation against the amount of artistic development in games since their creation (somehow represented in a numerical form), the amount of people playing games would be vastly larger than the artistic development. I mean, gaming is (arguably) bigger than film, yet the amount of art theory for games is minisule in comparison to film. I know that this is obviously due to the fact that film has been around for about a hundred years and gaming for only about 40, but it’s still amazing how quickly gaming has become so popular.

Just Cause 2 (2010)

Why is it that most gamers determine whether a game is casual or hardcore by either its price tag or the “maturity” of its subject matter? Just Cause 2 is a perfect example of a full price (well, at launch, at least) game that has “highly mature” subject matter but is in every sense of the word a casual game. And that’s something more games should aspire to be.

Liquid Rising (2012)

Official Site

Before I begin this review, I’d like to apologise that I haven’t posted any reviews for the last two weeks. I have had some important exams on and decided not to write any reviews until they were over. I’ll release two extra reviews to make up for the two weeks that I missed. Anyway, let’s get to it.

Liquid Rising is a really niche documentary, to say the least. Funded by online pay-what-you-want donations, it tells us about the members of Team Liquid, arguably the biggest non-Korean professional Starcraft 2 team. Their lives in Team Liquid, their tournament careers, and their personality are all shown in detail here, through a bunch of cut-up interviews with all the Team Liquid members and other big Starcraft community personalities. I’m going to say right now that if you are against the prospect of gaming being considered a sport, you’ll find no enjoyment here. In fact, unless you already have some level of interest in Starcraft and E-sports, you probably won’t find anything to like here at all.

Dear Esther (2012)

Official Site

Alright, my first game review! I hope to do more of these in the future, as reviewing games is ultimately where I want to be at in 10 years or so. Hopefully I don't do too bad a job.

So Dear Esther was originally a mod released in 2008 for Half-Life 2. It has recently been remade into a proper game, and, as I understand it, something quite different from the original mod. It's on Steam now, and it goes for $10 AUS. However, if you're reading this around the time of my writing it, the Steam summer sales should be starting any day now, so I'm sure you'll be able to grab it for $5, or maybe even less.