The House Of Elder Scrolls IV

You know that you’re living in a House Of The Hardcore Gamer when it’s a married couple that has to take shifts playing their individual characters in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. This is essentially a massive “offline MMO” in that it has the huge scope and non-linear nature of a typical online Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game, but without any of the jerks screaming “OMFG! N00B! LOL!”

The Wife and I have chosen similar characters although, in a frightening show of true personality traits, she plays much more precisely and thoughtfully than I do. We both ended up with thief type characters with some minor magic, though mine was a custom and hers was selected from the available types. However, she tends not to get caught when she goes thieving, whereas I usually have every guard in town gunning for me when I pick pockets, get caught at it, and resist arrest. Or someone says something I just don’t like and I put an arrow in them. Or someone says they have the best house in town and I go in and steal every single thing only to get caught when I finally try and pick the pocket of the sleeping annoying person. So while she’s the thief type that doesn’t get caught, I’m the one that has “adventures” that frequently end with jail time or having to pay fines to someone to get out of it. As one magazine described it, the game is essentially a first person “Grand Theft Horseback.”

With any luck, my next game related post will be about Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, a new adventure game, which is a rare thing in these years when the entire adventure game genre is dying a slow painful death.