The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC, PS3, XBox 360)

Five years after the crisis in Morrowind spears have been outlawed and a new and powerful Daedra — which is the game’s word for demons — cult is part of a conspiracy to kill the Emperor of Cyrodiil, an act that hasn’t occurred in a long ass time. You play as a prisoner who is in the path of Emperor Uriel Septim’s flight from The Imperial City. Septim declares your presence as fate and tells his bodyguard to bring you along. Despite their best efforts to talk sense into Septim and keep him safe they fail in both regards. He is killed before your eyes and he bestows the Amulet of Kings on you — conveniently forgiving your crimes in this act, apparently. It is your duty to find the last heir to the throne and give him the powerful artifact — or you could go fight mud crabs instead, no rush.

When the legends say that a Septim must sit on the throne the legends ain’t foolin’. The walls between Cyrodil and Oblivion — Basically this game’s version of hell — and this strange cult are opening gates to usher in their Daedric host. Thwart their plans and take back Cyrodiil, brave prisoner-adventurer-guy or gal.

I love this guy, he’s like a magical Grandpa — voiced by Patrick Stewart no less. 

History

Immediately after the release of The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind in 2002, Bethesda began working on the next installment in the series, Oblivion. The Havok Physics Engine allowed them to create a world in which objects could actually move in a semi-realistic fashion. Improvements in graphics technology and hard work by the developers allowed them to create a world approximately 14 square miles large. Sadly the enormous throngs of imperial citizens had to be curtailed to 20 or 30 to a town due to major slow down issues.

The big draw was the new Radiant AI system, home-brewed by Bethesda itself. It allowed them to alter and create semi-random behaviors in the citizens based on certain traits they had. Hungry characters who tended toward crime would steal food. Thieves will spawn outside of towns and try to sneak around to steal valuables. Some civilians will run away instead of fight — and others will, unreasonable, fight to the death because I stole a loaf of bread.

YOU’LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE, COPPER!

The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion was released on March 20th, 2006. It’s competition was Kingdom Hearts II (PS2), Metal Gear Acid 2 (PSP), and Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (PS2)

Experiences

When I think Oblivion I think glitches.  The game was notoriously glitchy on release. Bethesda would eventually do their best to patch things up but there were still problems. The craziest thing I’ve ever heard of follows as such.

My friend, we’ll call him Sparko, turned in a quest and in a scripted event he is attacked by the quest giver — nothing unnatural yet. Sparko retaliated, town guards arrived and joined in the brawl, killing the quest giver. The guards initiated dialogue and expressed sorrow that the dead man lost his mind. At which point the guards began shouting, ‘someone’s been murdered!’ about the man they just helped kill. Strangest of all, the body spontaneously rose as if nothing happened. He began to stare at where is dead body had formerly lain and joined in the chant of, ‘someone’s been murdered!’ Sparko then began to back away incredibly slowly.

In short, it’s a well coded game.

Gameplay

Oblivion is a Sandbox Fantasy RPG. You’ll be swinging swords, firing your bow, or casting spells to get from A to B across Cyrodiil, to complete quests, or explore exotic locales and lost ruins. Um… that’s all there is to it really. There’s an overlying plot about putting an emperor on the throne but there’s absolutely no urgency to complete it and a million other things to do. There’s really no wrong way to play the game

Except whatever this is. This is the wrong way to play the game.

Wanna kill an old lady, whatever, the guards’ll probably get pissed. Wanna steal stuff, aight. Like the plot and wanna pursue it, go ahead. Oblivion don’t judge and when it does it entails a slap on the wrist and some skill penalties — or death, those guards will not hesitate to kill you.

The Gush

Ragdoll physics might be the greatest innovation in video game history. Shooting a minotaur with a lightning bold and watching him flop through the air like a drunken ballerina is one of the most viscerally pleasing things on the planet.

The quests in this game are generally really fun and interesting. Some are even downright challenging and fascinating. I still remember the truth behind the Grey Prince’s lineage and I can’t think of a Daedric Prince quest that was boring.

Speaking of Daedric princes, the Shivering Isles is one of the greatest pieces of DLC I’ve ever purchased. I cannot think of a world in which I felt more like a guest in my own home than the dominion of Sheogorath, The Daedric Prince of Madness. Most of the time I find insanity to be a cheap character trait but the thing that makes Sheogorath great are his moments of clarity — so inconsistent is his inconsistency that he has powerful moments of immense sanity. The characters, architecture, creatures, and larger than life depiction of the Mad God himself blew me out of the water.

I mean, just look at this dapper bastard.

The Kvetch

The leveling up system in this game is a mess. I think it’s pretty cool that your skills level up as you use them, even if it is slower than dirt for some skills — I’m looking at you athletics. But then raising your skills related to your class makes you level up. I follow so far but in order to level up you have to sleep, why? I understand that it’s indicative of epiphany but… it’s annoying… really annoying — and the trite inspirational quote that accompanies each level up screen is similarly unwelcome. When you level up you select stats to increase by 1-5 points. I thought that the degree of increase was random but it’s actually related to the skills that were raised for that instance of leveling up and there are only a certain number of skill raises per level up. Each skill correlates to a certain statistic so if you want to make a statistically powerful character then you need to make sure you only raise certain skills that correlate to the stats that you want to raise and the game doesn’t tell you which skills correlate to which stats. How do you figure it out? You gotta look it up, I guess. TLDR: I JUST WANNA GET STRONKER! HOW DO?

I JUST WANT TO BE AN ORC! LET ME HIT THINGS!

I only complain so much about the levelling up thing because the higher your level the stronger the monsters get. So if you don’t put points in the right places, get good spells, and/or get good equipment then you’re gonna end up in the dust. My level 21 Orc Barbarian, Gronald, was stun-locked and viciously murdered by an unarmed goblin. That’s just wrong. This guy killed a giant demon spider and he got totally owned by goblin.

The persuasion minigame isn’t exactly intuitive and it’s certainly not fun. It’s not even particularly useful but some quests are impossible to complete without raising a subjects personal opinion of you.

Just looking at this, try to figure it out.

I gotta complain more about the level scaling because it doesn’t just effect the gameplay, it can even shatter the immersion. Enemy equipment is also scaled up so sometimes the struggling bandits are wearing ebony armor. How did he get that? He just complained about his rumbling stomach. Did he blow all of his money on his suit of armor? Why doesn’t he pawn it for enough gold to eat for a year? I’m so confused.

Wouldn’t it be weird if the Arena, Thieve’s Guild, Mage’s Guild, Fighter’s Guild, and Assassin’s Guild all had the same leader? If you so choose, your character can be this individual. I’m not sure what the design alternative would be but it seems odd that it’s even possible considering that these guilds sometimes have conflicting tenets. Maybe quest chains could just end without the player becoming the all high, supreme, mega, leader and the actual Leader’s closest agent. Or maybe they could only choose to be leader of one faction.

The Verdict

I know I complain about it a lot but a few ticks down on the difficulty meter and the enemy scaling becomes much more manageable. For those few proud souls who refuse to lower the difficulty on principle I say, ‘Godspeed. May you be beaten to death by unarmed goblins for your hubris.’ That being said, the game is worth it alone for the Shivering Isle’s Expansion. The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion is available on Steam for $20 with all the DLC included. For the complaints I’ve cited I’d wait for it to go down to $15. It’s fun but it can be a real pain in the genitals. Especially when you could play next week’s game for the same cost as it’s theoretical sale price.

Next Week: Shovel Knight

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 (PC, PS3, XBox 360, and OS X)

After World War II in his genius and his hubris Albert Einstein built a time machine and used it to go back in time to kill Hitler before his rise to power. Unfortunately without Hitler there was nothing to stop the meteoric rise of Stalin. Feeling personally responsible, Einstein used his genius to make the Allies new and incredible weapons that could crush the Soviet war machine. This left the Soviets desperate, but their network of spies was still good. They used these covert agents to steal the designs for the very time machine Einstein used to kill Hitler and a lowly aide uses it to go back in time to kill Einstein himself. Ignoring the grandfather paradox taking place here, if Einstein doesn’t exist, he doesn’t make nuclear weapons. If there are no nuclear weapons then the war with Japan did not end in their surrender. That’s right! Now it’s a three way free-for-all between the Tesla powered Soviets, the propaganda fueled Allies, and the crafty Empire of the Rising Sun. You play as an enterprising commander in the nation of your choice to take back the glory of your home and crush your enemies!

Behold, the leaders of the not so free world. Yes, that is George Takei as the Emperor of Japan and Tim Curry as the Premier of Russia.

History

Red Alert 3 was developed by Electronic Arts. It was unofficially announced in 2004 by Mark Skaggs after the release of The Battle for Middle Earth but Mark left EA soon after. Red Alert 3 wasn’t spoken of again until 2008 when PC Gamer had the game as their cover story. The most note-worthy aspect of the development of Red Alert 3 is that it used the controversial SecuROM system. So, check this, the SecuROM system makes it so each CD key could only be used five times. If you uninstall the game and reinstall it or change video drivers it might use up one of your 5 installs. Eventually backlash from the players caused EA to abolish the system’s use in this game over time.

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 was released on October 28th, 2008. It’s competition was Fallout 3 (PS3, Xbox 360, and PC), World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC and Mac), and LittleBigPlanet (PS3).

Experiences

The live action segments are the best part of this game. It’s satire at its best and they got great actors to play all the characters. I stand by that the live action cast was only given their scripts moments before filming. It’s the only explanation that I can find for this scene.

Just… everything about it is comedy gold. The way Curry is trying to keep a straight face, the little false start he’s got before he delivers the final line, and the way he bellows “SPACE” like he didn’t know that was the line until it came out of his mouth.

Gameplay

Unlike Mob Rule, Red Alert 3 is your quintessential RTS. You build buildings, those buildings produce units, you manage your resources, and build an army that will counter your opponent’s. You’ve also got a bar that builds and accrues points which you can spend on your factions special abilities like an orbital launch or flash reinforcements from a splintered timeline– the bar builds faster the more combat you’re in so get to fighting.

First one to blow up your opponent’s base wins.

You can play against the AI or other players in skirmish maps online. The game has also got a story campaign with 10 unique missions per faction. Normally each map gives you an AI companion but you can replace that digital dummy with a real player if you want– an RTS first by my reckoning.

The Gush

I already mentioned how much I loved the live action cutscenes. They’ve got more camp than a hundred tents put together– a secret button is hidden in a bust of Lenin for goodness sake. The only thing better is watching all the behind the scenes outtakes and silliness.

Holy co-op Comrade, you can play the main campaign with a friend. I recommend doing this because the AI isn’t exactly reliable. But if you’re not feeling the love then the AI will be a competent ally.

Normally naval combat is a poorly designed tacked on thing — I’m looking at you Warcraft 2 — but Red Alert 3 throws in a bunch of interesting and useful amphibious units. As a matter of fact every factions unique Commando unit is amphibious as well. Why did it take us this long to think of naval artillery?

The Kvetch

This game is uncomfortably sexist sometimes. From the scantily clad and sexualized Commandos to Tim Curry checking out his secretary’s ass and grinning at the player it’s all just a little cringe-worthy. The allied campaign even ends with the commander being rewarded with a night with the Allied commando or the Allied communications officer– just… blugh.

Pictured is the Allied Commando and all the combat gear she isn’t wearing and her in game model is similar.

The Soviet campaign at least has got some insane difficulty spikes. It took me three tries to beat the fourth mission and then I breezed through the rest. Last I checked difficulty is supposed to be curve with the game getting more difficult as it goes on.

Spoilers, but the Soviet campaign culminates in the destruction of the Statue of Liberty. I was so excited and totally pumped to kick J.K. Simmons out of the White House but I dunno man, the whole thing just felt toothless. The mission is pretty easy and the ending is just such a let-down. There’s a toast and you’re suddenly the new Premier, nothing makes sense. I haven’t played the other campaigns but I hope their endings are more satisfying than the Soviet one.

The Verdict

I’d say that Red Alert 3 is worth it for the cut-scenes alone. If you’ve got any interest in real-time strategy games then I’d say go for it. But if they’re not your thing then you could just look up all the cut-scenes online. It’s $20 on Steam and it’s got a $20 expansion pack and I would suggest waiting for it to go on sale. They’re also available on PS3 and Xbos 360 and I can’t speak to the quality of the console ports but Starcraft 64 has always made me wary of console strategy games.

Next Week: Borderlands 2

Poker Night at the Inventory and Trusting the Designers (Windows and Mac)

Deep in the bowels of the city there’s a secret speakeasy, The Inventory. It was established in 1919 in anticipation of the passing of American Prohibition. The owners of the establishment had also heard that the 18th Amendment was going to outlaw games and amusements, something they would not stand for– as proprietors of a games and amusement company. The Inventory served game enthusiasts and creators for years and began to cater to game characters as well. They remained hidden for 90 years and they’re still open for business, offering games, gambling, and liquor to those who find their establishment. You are a gambler of some renown who has come to The Inventory to make some scratch playing some high stakes Texas Hold ‘Em.

And down we go via secret street elevator. You can even see Sam in the background.

History

Poker Night at the Inventory was born of the desire to create a sequel to Telltale’s Texas Hold ‘Em, that game’s focus on banter, and a conversation between Telltale employees about “what videogame characters do when they’re not ‘on the clock int he games we play.” Telltale already had the license to Strong Bad and Sam and Max because of their work on the modern Sam and Max installments and Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People. They then focused on acquiring a Team Fortress 2 character as the designer’s themselves enjoyed the game immensely. It was these talks with Valve that created a healthy relationship between them later on.

Poker Night at the Inventory was released on November 22nd, 2010. It’s competition was Super Meat Boy (PC), Call of Duty Black Ops (PC, Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii), and Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii).

Gameplay

Texas Hold ‘Em is one of the most popular and simple iterations of Poker. At the beginning of each round each player is dealt two cards face down. These cards belong to them and only they can use them to build a five card hand– the game automatically chooses the best hand your cards can make. There’s a round of betting. Three cards are dealt face up, these cards may be utilized by anyone to build a their hand. There’s a round of betting. A fourth card is dealt. Another round of betting. The final card is dealt followed by more betting. Then everyone reveals their cards and the most statistically unlikely hand is declared the most superior.

Ranked from most rare to least.

The real draw of the game is learning the tells of the other players. They don’t have perfect poker faces, they let go of little bits of information regarding the quality of their hands all the time. It’s up to the player to figure out what action correlates to what hand state. For example, if the Heavy slams his fist on the table he’s got bad cards. It’s most difficult to learn the tells of the cartoonish characters Max and Strong Bad but they do have them and I think they’re pretty funny.

The other gamblers at the table are Strong Bad from Homestarrunner.com, Max from the Sam and Max adventure game duo, The Heavy from TF2, and Tycho from Penny arcade and they act just like you’d imagine them to. Every so often one of the characters will offer collateral instead of money. Defeating them will earn the player an in game trophy and out of game loot– as in special items in other games, not a pile of jewels or something.

Such as Strong Bad’s one-of-a-kind special Dangeresque prop glasses.

Experiences

The enjoyment a player derives from this game is directly related to how much they trust the designers. I told someone that I was playing this game and they said that it didn’t matter, that the game was rigged, and that the AI could just count cards whenever they wanted. I think that’s an unjust estimation. The big difference between me and my friend here is that I trust the designers not to allow the game to work that way and that he didn’t.

If the designer loses the player’s trust then there’s no way for the player to have fun. That being said, I saw time and again how the characters were loyal to their character– The Heavy or Max plays just about exactly as you’d expect him to. The game earned my trust by sticking to its rules. None of the players ever present a tell in an attempt to deceive– sometimes a character might perform the tell for a bad opening hand but turn it around by the end.

The Gush

The Banter is really where this game shines. I think it’s really funny and it doesn’t present the same conversations too often. Some of it’s way out there and really deep into the mythos of each of the characters but some of it’s based on something as simple as the character’s appearance.

There’s also something delightfully silly about someone scooping up poker chips with a shovel.

All of the characters have character and I really like that. It comes through in the repeated attitudes. Strong Bad dislikes Tycho and will often insult him. The Heavy considers Strong Bad to be a little Heavy. I hadn’t even heard of Sam and Max before this game and it’s Max’s playing… style that got me interested in them.

I mean, the resemblance is uncanny.

A deck of playing cards goes for anything between 2 and 20 dollars. At 5 dollars, Poker Night at the Inventory measures up pretty well to the cost of a deck and it throws in the experience of hanging out with a bunch of silly characters to sweeten the pot.

The Kvetch

Eventually every mine runs dry. It takes a long time but eventually you’ve heard everything they’ve had to say. I pick it up every once and awhile but I’m not sure if I’m hearing something new or if I forgot I had heard it.

The aesthetics can get a little dry after a long time. It’s always the same guys, table, and Inventory every game. There’s no way to change it up.

The Verdict

 I’m fond of poker and I’m fond of videogames. This game is like the peanut butter cup of these two ideas, it’s goddam delicious. This isn’t a game that brings on long play sessions it’s more of touch and go and come back to experience. It’s definitely worth the 5 dollar value if you purchase it on Steam. I’d say you’d enjoy the game if you’re familiar with at least half of the characters and enjoy poker.

Next Week: The Bard’s Tale