Whoa, an update.

I can't believe I'm updating tonight. I spent all of today and yesterday dreading today's update, since it was gonna feel so FORCED. And whatddya know? Bam. Now I can write what I originally thought was going to be my FIRST update:

The long awaited: Oblivion!, by Bethesda, the popular developer of...well, a fuckton of stuff! Just go look at their site! Well, okay, it seems like it's just Morrowind and Fallout, but whatever.

So you know, I've heard a lot about Oblivion. Most of it as been praise, and this review on GameFAQs stands out as being fucking hilariously fanboy-ish. Me, well, my entire opinion couldn't be accurately summed up in one word. Actually, yes it could. Meh.

I picked up Oblivion a while ago, originally playing because my stepbro was and I thought it looked cool. So I rolled a character. I picked an Iksar--I mean, an ARGONIAN as my character because lizards are awesome. And you know what? I figured a hand-to-hand spellcaster would be awesome. I mean, really, this lizard that can beat the crap out of you AND light you up? That's just overpowered.

Well, apparently Bethesda thought so too, because hand-to-hand FUCKING SUCKS. And I spent most of my time trying to level that shit up so it wouldn't suck, and someone forgot to mention that the world LEVELS with you, so I figured, hey, levels, makes things easier.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK. afirewgyirejgkmr'e;

*scribbles on last two paragraphs*

SO I ROLLED AN ARGONIAN. And this time, being the learned person I was, I picked SWORDS and spells. And this time it went much smoother because the game didn't dick me over and make my attacks retardedly ineffective. Which, I'm serious, a retarded kid drooling on my opponent would have been more effective than my punches.

Right. Well, after having my first attempt to make a decent character dicked over, I knew the game a hell of a lot better and didn't fuck everything up. I hate games that do that by the way. Why would you give people options and then say "Oh, forgot to mention, these ones suck." And while I'm taking about that, who the hell wants 9001 customizable options for your character? Seriously, you don't even fucking see your character for most of the game. The entire thing becomes a huge waste.

...Anyhow. Moving on. You know, the second time around, I was struck by how confoundingly EASY the game was. At first, when I hear a guy had said he'd had more trouble with Fallout than Oblivion, I was surprised. But then I figured out you could kill anything by running up and smacking your right trigger button. Or attack key, if you're playing on the comp. Now, I know Fallout had the VAATS system, but the thing is, if you didn't kill a mob with VAATS, you were stuck with the regular aiming, which, if you didn't know, with an Xbox controller SUCKS. And hell, it didn't hit ALL the time.

By the way, at the point where I am in Oblivion, I can fucking perma-stealth myself and smack something as many times as I like with the 6x sneak bonus damage. Really. And they never hit me back either. It's, er, rather ridiculous I can do this. Yay for chameleon.

Anyways, for a game I don't really consider a terrible amount of fun, I sure did sink a lot of hours into it. Why? Because you cannot do ANYTHING in Oblivion in a short amount of time. You'll be trying to complete some mundane quest, and bam, you just lost 2 hours of your life.

And that's for the MUNDANE quests. Holy fecal matter, trying to get through a guild quest? But I admit, it's nice just dropping a bunch of time into it. Especially if you have nothing better to do. In fact, I could even go as far to say...

...It's cathartic.

Want to tell this author what you think, but you don't want anyone else to see it? Think she's full of it and need to set her straight? Want to worship the ground she walks on? Well, good luck with that last one, but you can email Chrys at catharticgamer@yahoo.com and at least tell her what you think.