There’s no doubt that Oblivion looks great. It’s setting a pretty high bar for future video games; substandard graphics are not going to be acceptable for much longer. But how does it play? I’ve had a week to dig into this game and it’s time for some real analysis.
The first thing to note is that combat has been revamped from Morrowind, and this is a welcome change. Morrowind (Oblivion’s predicessor) had overly simplistic combat; just click a button and your weapon would swing. You could perform three different attacks with a sword: lunge, horizontal slash or overhead chop. Each weapon in the game would tell you specific attack that did the best damage and there was a setting in the game that would allow you to always attack with the best attack, like Horizontal Slash. Thus, you could simply click a button and make your best attack every time. Due to that, combat was boring.
Oblivion’s combat has been significantly changed. Weapons don’t have different values of damage based on attack style now, they just have a base damage rating. This makes it easier to determine which weapon is better when comparing loot or items in a store. But that’s not the really great change. The best part is that the action has changed; you no longer just click your button and swing your sword. There’s more to it than that. Things have become a bit more complex since Morrowind.
The base attack is still made by clicking your mouse and this will cause your weapon to swing. A couple fast clicks with cause your character to make two quick attacks in rapid succession. But the real improvement is that characters now have access to several “Power” attacks in addition to the standard attack and that has changed combat significantly.
Power attacks are made by holding the mouse button down for a second before releasing it. This “delayed” mouse click action, performed in conjuction with the movement keys in one of the four basic directions (forwards, backwards, left/right) will cause your character to perform a “Power” attack, that does more damage, yet sacrifices some endurence/stamina. The animations for these attacks are well done and the damage benefit from performing them is significant. On top of that, as you level up the power attacks gain additional abilities, like paralyzation or knockdown.
What’s great about this system is that the Non-player characters (NPC’s) also use it, and by doing so they create a more complex combat encounter. Certain power moves have extended animations that take time to complete. This can create significant delay between attacks as an opponent must finish their current move before beginning another. What this does is open up windows of opportunity for the player to strategically advance or retreat and attack when the opponent is in a compromised position, instead of just charging into the enemy and clicking as fast as possible. It becomes very important while playing Oblivion to try and time your attacks between your enemy’s swings, or to retreat and block attacks while they are swinging at you. Combat as a whole feels a lot more interesting, engaging and fun.
That said, the overall combat system in Oblivion is still much like it was in Morrowind; it’s basically one-on-one, and heaven forbid you have to defend against multiple opponents at the same time, because you’ll be dead. For me, this is a major disappointment.
The area of multiple target engagement is where Morrowind, and now Oblivion, have failed miserably as far as I’m concerned. Games like Everquest 2 and Neverwinter Nights are shining examples of how multi-enemy encounters can (and should) be done. In addition to tough fights against very difficult individual foes, they frequently pit the player against groups of opponents. They do this by throwing weaker enemies at the player. Instead of a fight against one tough monsters, they pit the player against a half-dozen weaker monsters, substituting numbers for strength. This is not only fun (makes the player feel a bit more heroic) but it also opens the door to a whole new range of area-of-effect (AoE) spells and tactics.
Area of effect spells are a blast in pretty much any game environment. I enjoyed Neverwinter Nights: Hoards of the Underdark quite a bit because the higher you get in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons system, the more access you have to powerful, AoE spells. Being able to fear several enemies so you don’t have to fight them all at the same time is enjoyable from a strategic standpoint. Being able to perform combat moves than whirl your character in a giant arc, slicing all nearby opponents is a blast. Everything about multi-enemy fighting is fun in these games. It also helps make your character feel more “heroic” because they can wade into the thick of battle and come out alive.
Sadly, Oblivion misses this opportunity by miles. The encounters in Oblivion are frequently so difficult that engaging more than one enemy at a time is suicide. Part of the problem with Oblivion is that all encounters scale to the level range of the player, so you are never getting stronger than your opponents. In fact, leveling up in Oblivion is anti-climactic because of this auto-scaling. It robs the player of the sense of satisfaction that comes from beating old enemies. I can’t count how many times in Morrowind I attacked something that wound up kicking my ass. But after several levels I would return to that dungeon/encounter much stronger and exact my revenge. Sadly, this element of gameplay is gone from Oblivion (it did exist in Morrowind and this is one of the few things that its predicessor has over the sequel).
With the auto-scaling of the opponents comes an inability of the game engine to throw multiple, easier enemies at the player. There are simply no encounters where you are pitted against a dozen monsters with an arsenal of AoE spells at your command. If you do find yourself up against four or more opponents in Oblivion (as I have discovered) then you are facing certain death.
And Oblivion’s spell system, almost an exact carbon copy from Morrowind, doens’t do anything to help. Almost all spells are single target spells designed to either aid you (the player) or hurt a single enemy in combat. This makes fighting any more than one opponent a dicy proposition. I’ve died several times already just fighting two enemies at once.
Another very bad aspect of combat in Oblivion is fighting with allies. This was a rare occurance in Morrowind as you spent most of the game alone, pitted against the denizens of evil. But the developers of Oblivion have attempted to enhance the combat experience by frequently placing allies at your side for specific quests and events. This would be very welcome addition to the game play if not for the clumsy combat engine of Oblivion, which has your allies frequently dashing into the middle of the fight right as your sword is trying to come down on an enemy. In nearly every fight I have participated in that involved allies I have wound up slashing my teammates. This causes ones allies to quickly turn into enemies, creating more frustration. Any attempts to “be careful” and not strike your teammates usually causes your allies die quickly from rapid enemy attacks. They simply move around too much to make fighting as a team beneficial or fun.
Overall, the combat in Oblivion is still lacking in several areas. I find it rather disappointing considering the sheer number of contemporary games that have better encounter systems. How come no one at Bethesda (the developers of Oblivion) noticed this? Even very old games, like Baldur’s Gate, have combat that is more fun and involves more enemies. Bethesda has done a remarkable job with the graphics of the game (and the AI of the NPC’s, but that’s another post) and they have improved Oblivion’s combat compared to Morrowind in a significant way. But video games do not live in isolation, and it is more than fair to compare Oblivion’s combat to other games. When you make that comparison it becomes very clear that Oblivion just doesn’t stack up.
It’s better than Morrowind, and that’s a start. But I think Bethesda has a long way to go in the combat department.
In my development area we can guarentee 100% XP desktops so this is, as usual, good enough for me 
