Cynical Gamer reviews Oblivion

The way I would have reviewed Oblivion.

I guess many of you wouldn't have known but in March I got married. Well, not married in the traditional sense, I found a game that I was happy to settle down with for a while. Games are like that. Sometimes you spend more time with them than you do with real people. What I will do is write the review with the marriage vows I made and then report on how the relationship is doing.

I will cherish, honour and obey (as long as I am not working for the Dark Brotherhood inwhich case anything goes). I will ride my horse from town to town fulfilling od jobs and quests for NPCs when required. I will endevour to complete the main quest and save Cyrodil when I can while sucking the very marrow out of the game.

I promise I will upgrade my PC so that I can ride the hills of Cyrodill and explore the dungeons to see every detail in the splendour inwhich it was intended. This upgrade will not utilize Crossfire as Oblivion has had some issues with this setup and it would spoil my game experience. I will spend every last penny on this upgrade even though I may not eat for two weeks waiting for my next pay cheque.

After making the upgrade I found out that Oblivion was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Even though I have found some blemishes in the game (such as the trading system, some lag, and repetition with the quests) I have continued to play through. It is difficult to keep beauty like this pleased all of the time.

I will accept the level scaling warts-and-all as this is the way the developer intended the game to be. Even though I made the mistake of performing the main quest till level 14 and the groups at Kavatch were nearly impossible I understand that this is different from other RPGs and will offer me replayability beyond my wildest dreams (well, until you get to over level 20 and everything is a piece of piss).

I will promise not to add any mods to the game as this is like telling my new wife to go out for plastic surgery. If I cannot appreciate the game for what it is then how can I be happy. It may be after some time and that beauty is starting to wane that attempt to mod her in order to improve on her beautiful skin, but only as a very last measure.

I will spend every spare second that I have playing Oblivion despite what it might do for my life outside of the game. I will make a commitment to the game because there has been nothing released which compares until death do us part.

Rating System:
Did Oblivion Consumate on the Wedding Night 10/10
Is Oblivion the most beautiful thing you have seen (after upgrading) 10/10
Does Oblivion hold long term appeal? 2/10
Will Oblivion break the mould and succeed where 50% of relationships do not? 0/10
Cynical Gamer Rating: 5/10

Just a report on the relationship: I must say that I have been seeing other games. Unfortunately things aren't working out between me and Oblivion in the long term. Bethesda keeps asking for me for maintenance payments because of my relationship with the game. They have promised that there will be more. That the dungeons will be bigger. That I can have my own mage's paradise (and I am not even a mage). That my horse can wear armour. But I just can't bring myself to pay any more.

I felt that I had to do something to preserve the relationship. So, as any gamer does when they get a bit bored with what they've got, I modded it. As far as I was concerned anything could go. Adding the mods to the game was like going to a guidance counsellor and finding out that the best thing to save your relationship was maybe to role play a little. It started with saddle bags and progressed to extra content. However, I just couldn't reignite that initial spark. Something was missing that the modding community could not bring back.

I walked out on Oblivion over 4 weeks ago and haven't been back to check in on how it is doing. I don't know what it is but I am just not as compelled to go back and play it as I was with Morrowind. Morrowind (Oblivion's older sister) is more the type of game that you settle down with. It has warts and you accept them for what they are and keep coming back to it. Oblivion is the beautiful younger sister which just can't keep pleasing you cause she is constantly seeing other people.

You may say that I am a superficial person and I would understand, but Oblivion promised me so much. It was going to be the game of my dreams. However, I just can't maintain the relationship. While everything seemed perfect at the beginning there just wasn't enough substance for me to keep working at it.