So I sat down and spent a few more hours with the Oblivion on the 360, trying to enjoy it. And I’m almost there! Almost… but not quite! I realized that I was reliving the Everquest 2 experience (and Black & White before): a game that is interesting and has many things to do, but I end up not having fun doing them. A game where I like some bits of the graphics but never stop feeling like it’s all just cardboard cutouts. A game where every time I want to do something, I find some bureaucracy is required.
The world has day/night cycles and people go about their lives accordingly, but they often don’t fit into my private playing agenda, unless I force myself to follow those cycles too. It is initially impressive and immersive, but I always end up feeling immersed as an observer, as a spectator, as a participant, but not as a player.
Automatic level scaling means I can do things in whichever order I want, but also that I never become very powerful compared to how I was in the beginning. I’ll never be able to go back to a previously rough spot and just rip them apart for revenge. I’ll become a hero through my participation in the quest lines, not out of sheer power improvements. Level progression becomes a strange annoyance instead of one of the main indicators of advancement (indeed, a friend finished the main quest at level 2). They should have simply taken levels out of the game.
The interface is brilliant, but still fails to put in my hands the power of a very complex character sheet, with dozens of spells, scrolls and potions. With only 8 hotkeys for everything (4 of them very unreliable) and which can’t really be used while moving, I fight the interface more than I fight the creatures.
So… what kind of game is this, what’s the key to its success? Is it fun? Is it interesting? Is it impressive? Is it hype? If nothing else, it’s a huge world with many choices of things to do, and a bunch of predefined content lines to provide some guidance and goals.