Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

[Artega]

Given that I have a set of Imperial Legion armor, the commonality of the silver longsword becomes an asset. I look ever more like one of those boys now.[right][snapback]109333[/snapback][/right]

Gotta admit, the Legion armor is probably the best-looking armor in the game, if you ask me. Or it's at least tied with Steel and Daedric. Don't get to have a sword, though, since I prefer breaking heads rather than severing them :)

Got Oblivion a couple of weeks ago, and have sunk about thirty hours into it, and could quite easily sink a hundred more if I went around and did every quest and explored every area I've uncovered; I've discovered probably twenty or more Oblivion Gates so far, and I've only closed five, not counting ones that had to be closed for quests.

Quests have been somewhat boring, and some are stupidly hard; I cannot find the third (and final?) physical clue for the Chorrol quest that makes the Countess trust me enough so that I can buy a house there (not that I really want one; my house in Anvil is great, since there's a merchant there that I can sell my stuff to for 63% of its normal value, which is good considering my abysmal Mercantile score.) Quest text and information points to the castle courtyard as the location of the third clue (the first two being found in the West Tower and Great Hall, as you'd expect from the quest text), but I can't find anything there, and I don't find pixel hunts to be particularly immersive. Additionally, talking to a purported expert on wines doesn't bring up any dialogue options for the Shadowbanish Wine I've found, which really doesn't seem to make much sense.

Combat also tends to be a drag, being largely block-attack-block (I prefer to use a flurry of normal attacks rather than a single power attack, given that my mace hits harder and slower than a sword) affairs. I turned the difficulty down a notch or two to make combat a little less boring; some may find monsters with absurd HP values to be entertaining, but I'm not one of them. Definitely a point that makes me think the game wasn't worth the $50 pricetag, since the combat was the entire reason I bought it (I found Morrowind to be interesting, but combat was so incredibly boring I couldn't force myself to continue playing it.)

Currently a Level 27 Nord warrior/healer hybrid. Mostly use Absorb: Health spell variants and buff spells from Restoration, and otherwise just beat things into submisson with my mace. Would definitely drop Alchemy in favor of something else (Alteration sounds fun) if given the option; it's amusing, but largely pointless. Would probably change races to Argonian for kicks, too; being ten feet tall is fun, and the 50-damage Frost touch attack racial ability was great early on, but... humans are boring.

Armorer, while a pain in the ass to skill up is definitely worth it at Expert; having armor and weapons at 125 health is great. My mace (Daedric that happened to be enchanted for 25 Fire on strike when I took it from some idiot bandit's corpse) hits for 24 with 125 health on it, and my Blunt is only 77 right now.

As far as accomplishments go, I'm Grand Champion of the Arena (which apparently impresses the guards in most places), Master of the Fighters Guild, a member of the Order of Virtuous Blood, a member of the Blades, and an Associate of the Mages Guild (apparently casting a Restoration spell once in a blue moon qualifies me as a mage.)

I've two murders to my name (one was the Gray Prince, who was apparently considered innocent even though I killed him in an Arena match; the other was an idiotic NPC that got in front of my target while doing a quest), a maximum Bounty of 1000, 109 stolen items, and no other illegal things (that have been witnessed.) I've collected 7 Nirnroots without trying to find them, closed five Oblivion gates, and have killed a total of over a thousand enemies (combining monster and people.) I wear a full set of Daedric armor (all pieces enchanted either when found or via Sigil Stones), wield the previously mentioned Daedric mace along with the Tower of the Nine shield (bought from Stonewall Shields in the Imperial City), and have over 90,000 gold and very little to spend it on (usually training in my minor skills that I'm trying to raise.)

A little ways into the main questline (mostly because the game gets very boring very quickly doing nothing but wandering through caves and hellgates), and I've found it pretty interesting so far, though it seems to believe I'm a gofer most of the time.

Game hasn't felt like a $50 thus far, but I haven't tried any of the mods out yet, so maybe my opinion will improve after I check them out.