WEBVTT

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You know me: I'm a twitchy,

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instant-gratification kind of gamer,

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the sort who isn't happy unless

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there's a gun the size of a motorbike

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in his hands and a severed alien willy

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bouncing off the front of his space helmet.

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But every now and again, the planets would

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align and I'll be affected

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by weird cosmic rays, and suddenly

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all I want to do is play a nice fantasy RPG.

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Not a JRPG, God no - it's just space radiation,

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not the infinite power of Christ

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but a Western RPG, something with goblins

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and swords and men in loincloths

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going on about wenches; so this time,

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I pumped steroids into my video cards

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and had a crack at Oblivion.

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My only previous experience with the Elder

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Scrolls series was a brief spell of Morrowind

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during the previous planetary alignment,

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in which I ran around some muddy countryside

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in the rain for a few hours fending off

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weird sub-human creatures (so basically it

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was just like Glastonbury Festival).

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In Oblivion, you start off in a dungeon in

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the imperial palace. You're never told what

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crime you committed - I guess you're supposed

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to fill in that blank for yourself

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so I choose to believe I was in there

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for shagging the emperor's wife and daughter

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at the same time while playing

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a rock guitar solo

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on the desecrated corpse of God.

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Anyway, then the emperor showed up

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(played by Captain Picard -

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and I have to say I liked him a lot;

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he was the only character who actually

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seemed to know they were in a fantasy RPG),

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he took one look at me, noticed the camera

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floating behind my head, and said,

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"Oh, bugger; you're the protagonist,

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guess I have to die now." And die he did,

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but not before giving me the address of

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a mate of his for advice on the

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world-saving quest I could maybe think

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about following in between

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looting bodies and fast-traveling.

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I chose to play as a Nord

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(a race of brave William Wallace-types

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big on football violence)

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and I picked specialization

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in swords and heavy armor -

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partly out of a total lack of creativity,

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but mostly because I'd tried playing

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a mixed class in Morrowind and found that

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switching between magic and weapons

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mid-battle was as smooth and intuitive

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as shifting from fifth to reverse

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in a car with a missing gear lever.

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Oblivion's interface, however, seems

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a lot more user-friendly - for a PC RPG,

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anyway; I still had to check the manual

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to figure out how to fucking drop things,

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but if you can at least swing a sword

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without cutting your own legs off, then

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it's still a hell of a lot more intuitive

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than anything Richard Garriott ever made.

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But even if Oblivion had the most perfect

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interface ever devised and dispensed milk

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and cookies while cooing gentle reassurances

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in a soft motherly voice, it would still be

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condemned by its biggest flaw.

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Let me tell you about immersion: Immersion

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is when you go for a midnight walk after a

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weekend marathon of Thief II and catch yourself

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looking for your visibility gem.

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Immersion is when you're playing Condemned

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and your cat suddenly jumps onto your lap,

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only to be immediately launched off by a

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reflexive cannon-like blast of terrified piss.

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If a game can truly draw you in,

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it can make up for a lot of flaws.

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Take something like Assassin's Creed -

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so stuffed with bad design choices

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they were leaking out of its pores,

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but I didn't despise it because

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Assassin's Creed presents itself so well;

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and if you go into it with the right mindset,

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it'll suck you in like a thousand-dollar whore.

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Immersion can save the life of a bad game,

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and inversely, a lack of immersion can be

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a dog-shit bullet right between the eyes.

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For a game that is obviously trying so hard,

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Oblivion is one of the least

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immersive RPGs I've ever played.

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The world map is huge - granted,

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if you intend to walk from one end to the other,

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you better pack a few sandwiches,

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but frankly, take one good look around

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the moment you first emerge blinking

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into the daylight, and you've pretty

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much seen everything.

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It's like they took two hundred

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square yards of medieval English countryside,

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added a few wolves, then copy-pasted it

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until it was roughly the size of Yorkshire.

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Fortunately, you can bypass the insipid

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landscape and instantly teleport to anywhere

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you want, but that defeats the point of

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having a huge gameworld in the first place.

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I really hate to say this,

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but compare to that electronic smack-

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addition World of Warcraft -

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every territory has different terrain,

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colors and monsters, and the fast-travel

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system (while badly in need of an in-flight

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movie) at least gives the impression of a

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huge epic world. Oblivion, by comparison,

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might as well be entirely taking place

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in the same fucking meadow.

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And then there are the characters:

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They all have this weird, stiff, unreal

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quality about them, indicating that Cyrodiil

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is apparently located inside

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the uncanny valley.

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And that's before you try

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to talk to them -

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besides the main characters,

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there are about a hundred million

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individuals with maybe two actual

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personalities between them

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(neither of which are particularly

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well characterized).

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One crazy beggar woman switched between

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a grackled drawl and a well-spoken

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aristocratic tone from line to line,

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so either she's pulling a very inept con,

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or the dialogue assignment is fucked.

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The attempt to create a

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procedurally-generated NPC conversation

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system was courageous, but then, so is

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jumping into a skip full of used syringes.

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The tiny number of voice actors just makes

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it laughable, with characters frequently

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found conversing with themselves about

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how much they enjoy buying from the

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shop owned by themselves. On top of that,

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the endlessly repeated lines are so badly

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written and awkwardly delivered, it's like

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you're trapped in a middle-school amateur

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dramatics production of The Lord of the

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Rings adapted for stage by a deaf budgerigar.

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Oblivion might be incredibly deep

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and full of interesting quests that

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all end with foxy night elves giving you

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soapy tit-wanks, but it's all for naught

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because it just won't let me in.

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Whenever I thought I was starting to lose

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myself in the experience, some NPC

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would get stuck on a paving stone

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or force me to feed them that

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stupid conversation pie, and I'd

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come crashing back to reality,

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where I am nothing more than an

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Anglo-Australian tit trying to outsmart

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a cloud of ones and zeros.

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The root of the problem is simply that

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they try too hard to impress us,

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so if nothing else, remember this:

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Spinning a plate on a stick is impressive,

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but try to spin three at once,

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and you'll just end up digging

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porcelain out of your face.