Back to Basics

Ok, after my rant on Oblivion i thought i should add a little but of substance.

I have a tooth ache. I think my wisdom tooth is pushing its way through even further because my gum has swelled up and is really painful. Stupid hippy dentist doesnt work wednesdays either.

Lana was having a 'party' tonight, its kinda like a tupperware party but with clothes. I hope it goes well, but havent heard from her yet.

Another jerk didnt like me critising his driving. He cut me off at a round about, I gave him the finger, he stops and REVERSES INTO the round about to yell at me. As usual i have music on so i have no idea what his issue is, he drives up a little and pulls over, so i just drive past him.

My teeth really hurt.

'Scuse me while I kill this guy.

Ok, this time i have a purpose with my post. The purpose is kinda lame, and Im sure Lana will pay me out about it, but still.

This post is dedicated to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
This game is amazing. Since starting it I have:

• Discovered a lair of bandits:
  
• This allowed me to sneak up to one, shoot him with an arrow and have the force carry him over the ledge he was standing against. This is thanks to the physics that the game employs, meaning everything has a weight.
  
• I also explored the main chamber and read a note saying that two bandits had gone deeper into the lair, one had dissapeared and when the others went looking for him they could only hear scrathing against the walls. Eventually you find a secret passageway and find the missing bandit dead on an alter, as well as some necromancers.
• Cleared out an entire dungeon without being seen: Sneaking around picking people off with one shot of my bow, very assassin like.
• Used the dungeons traps to my advantage, this is pretty simple in game, but its so much fun. Some of the dungeons, etc have traps in them, pressure plates, wire etc and when you step on the plate, cut the wire the trap is released, these include logs rolling down a hill, boulders dropping on you, spiked balls swinging at you. When you can turn one of these on an enemy it is sooo satisfying.
  
• Got to a town and met the resident wierdo. He was convinced that people were spying on him and had me watch them, when i reported that none were he attacked me.
  

Yeah and Im not even a little way through it. Its a great game. What make it unique are a few things the first being, Radiant A.I.

Radiant AI works by giving NPCs a list of goals. Nothing else is scripted. They must decide how to achieve these goals by themselves based on their individual statistics. A hungry NPC might compare his current gold against his moral values to decide whether he will walk to a store and purchase food, or just steal it; a skilled archer can choose to hunt his own deer.
The following are examples of unexpected behavior discovered during early testing:

• One character was given a rake and the goal "rake leaves"; another was given a broom and the goal "sweep paths," and this worked smoothly. Then they swapped the items, so that the raker was given a broom and the sweeper was given the rake. In the end, one of them killed the other so he could get the proper item.

• Another test had an on-duty NPC guard become hungry. The guard went into the forest to hunt for food. The other guards also left to arrest the truant guard, leaving the town unprotected. The villager NPCs then looted all of the shops, due to the lack of law enforcement.

• In one Dark Brotherhood quest, the player can meet up with a shady merchant who sells skooma, an in-game drug. During testing, the NPC would be dead when the player got to him. The reason was that NPCs from the local skooma den were trying to get their fix, didn't have any money, and so were killing the merchant to get it.

• While testing to confirm that the physics models for a magical item known as the "Skull of Corruption," which creates an evil copy of the character/monster it is used on, were working properly, a tester dropped the item on the ground. An NPC immediately picked it up and used it on the player character, creating a copy of him that proceeded to kill every NPC in sight.

From Wikipeadia.

The other thing is the physics engine. Yes it does feature in a few games, but it seems more natural in this game, not tacked in just because they could like in Half Life 2.

You should play it, or at least see it in all its glory, so here:
Ok so this first video isnt 'in game' its been specifically made, but its still shows the physics.


This one is an official trailer, so it looks good but doesnt show much in game stuff:


The final one shows a lot more in game stuff:


Anyway, to play it is to love it, so get to it.