Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

[PeteJ]

Don't worry, you will slowly get more powerful and be taking down rats with ease.

To begin with they are rock solid, and quite frustrating to take down. I also have a woodelf due to marksmanship and struggled hugely to begin with (at this point you won't have chosen your major skills, so basically you suck at everything...no offense ) - taking out the rats\bunny rabbits is almost impossible with the bow, just switch straight to sword or use the Flare magic.

Remember you can use the shortcuts with the d-pad, a complete life saver. You begin with flare and heal, and it is worth mapping them both.

Having said that - my character is level 4 now and I'm still struggling with the combat. Each fight lasts and age, and it is rock hard if more than one attacks me at a time.

[Simmy]

Thanks for that pete, atleast I know I'm not doing something wrong. Wil stick with me elfy, he'll come good in the end, when I become an uber archer

Capcom, I am an RPG n00b to, but the game really already looks too good to turn down. I'm picking up the controls, equipment screen magic etc quciker than I expected, and can already see me sinking allot of my gaming time into this ! I'll let you know how I'm getting on later tonight, when I've got my teeth into the game a little bit more.

[YOUWIN]

i must be quite a hard bastid then, havn't struggled at all with the combat, rats, goblins, bandits all went down pretty easily, chose combat as my class but chose stealth skill as my majors. Pretty rounded.

Am about to level up, when the game gets turned on again, - done a bit of bartering, and played lots of the persuade mini game as speechcraft is very impotant for us tealeafs -

then had to give in to my tiredness and so popped into an inn for a kip, which is exactly what im about to do aswell, need zzzzzzz'ssss.

must read the manual in bed first tho........

[Myth]

I can't wait, gonna ring my indie and if he has it I'll sell my HMV order when it comes through tomorrow/saturday.

[PeteJ]

For those playing, like Pete, how do you think an RPG "noob" would fair.
Should be fine. It's very deep, but most of it is hidden. You don't need to ever check your character stats if you don't want to. Starting off will be very confusing, despite the excellent training section - you learn an awful lot, particularly when selecting your skills. It does let you try out everything before making a choice though, which is good.


This looks much more like a PC game, and I am a bit worried about getting the hang of it!
It is the very definition of a Western RPG

I understand you have a compass that points to the next (Optional) objective. Is it quite straight forward?
Very straight foward. You can select which is your current "active quest", and it will point in the right direction. It's even colour coded to tell you if it is inside a location, above\below you etc. Very user friendly. Every quest you pickup automatically updates the quest info for you.


I wanted to try and make a wizard type character like "Yes, sir Mr Gandalf" from LOTR. Is that possible?
Would I be able after time, to get very powerful in this game as a wizard?
Very much so, one of the character presets is a battlemage like Gandalf.

Is the combat based on actual gaming skill, or more role based?
All skill - this time you actually have to make contact to cause damage. Your character stats do determin damage caused, extra effects (such as knock down), loss of fatigue, mana use etc. If you miss when throwing a fireball then you've missed.

Regarding the difficulty, you can change this on the fly from the ingame options.

[Flompy]

Wow

Graphically this is amazing, and has only been bettered by Ghost Recon. Only played for about an hour so far, but already I've stolen a load of **** from a church, slept rough, hunted deer, stolen a horse and drowned it in a river, and run through town naked- BECAUSE I CAN!

All that bull about frame rate, forget it. It never changes and has been smooth the whole time from what I can tell, and the amount of effects going on are very impressive (& they are not pointless effects either). 720p looks lush, and the 5.1 surround is very convincing.

Music is amazing, voice acting superb (Patrick Stewart FTW) and the atmosphere is great! I've not really started the story yet, although I must say that so far it does not seem to be as 'hardcore' as I expected (levelling up is all done automatically, you can't adjust your HP etc as in most RPG's).

Very good first impressions, although like Halo why the first section has to be in boring corridors with none of what is really impressive (the outdoors) is beyond me- it's like the designers want the first impressions to be negative.

Overall very impressed, hoping it becomes more in depth and less Fable-like in it's simplicity but I've only scratched the surface so far. To anybody with a 360 I'd say get this game, as it is going to last you a LONG time!

More impressions when I've had more time with the beast

[capcom_suicide]

Regarding the difficulty, you can change this on the fly from the ingame options.

thanks very much Pete.

[andrewfee]

With regards to archery; it is probably one of the hardest skills to start with; mainly due to the fact that you'll get maybe a couple of hits and then your target will be up close hitting you.

As an archer, it seems like stealth will be essential, as you build up a damage multiplier for stealth kills, and I believe that you will also do more damage for a head shot. (although I have also heard that there is no locational damage from other sources; I'm not sure)

You may want to pick blade and carry around a dagger as a secondary weapon - the bow for getting in a couple of shots, and then you can parry / attack with it when your enemy gets up close. This is what I think I'll probably choose for my character.

Once you start levelling up though, I hear you'll be able to do some serious damage when the stealth multiplier gets high, with you being able to kill many enemies outright with a well-aimed arrow.

You'll also be able to get enchanted bows, arrows, and poisons you can apply. (seems like Alchemy would be useful there)

[angelx]

Will it wean you off FF11?

[Concept]

That's partly what I'm looking to it for. An offline MMORPG type experience with all the bad bits removed.

[FreelancePolice]

Don't forget you get a backstab ability with a 4X damage multiplyer but you'd have to be good enough to sneak up on them

my work collegue has his copy here and is reading through the manual. I must say despite me ordering the regular edition the septum and box do look very nice!

[Soi]

@andrewfee: I see how poisonned arrows would need Alchemy. What about enchanted arrows? Alchemy too?

Enchanted weapons sound cool, and I want to make sure I have the right skills. I have the game manual in front of me (not played it yet) and it isn't a help with this point.

[Concept]

Any news of major chains breaking the streetdate nationally? There was word of a few odd stores doing this yesterday, but when I went to check... nothing. This is the only game worth specifically dragging myself into town for this year (SotC's PAL release being the exception).

[MikeF]

apparently Game in Norwich are selling now so may be worth checking your local game

[Yoshimax]

My Game will always handover titles on the Thursday but you have to ask them to do so (some kind of workaround) - I suggest giving it a try.