It’s been nearly two weeks since I last played Skyrim, but while I was playing I was completely absorbed in the game, as I’d known I would be. 146 hours I put into that game, and I feel fairly certain that I’ll be going back to it in maybe a year or so, once some of the better mods have come out.

I did enjoy Skyrim a lot, but I can’t help but feel that it wasn’t as good as Oblivion in a number of ways. Sure, the graphics were an improvement. That’s a function of the improved hardware between 2007 and 2011. They also got rid of Oblivion’s lame conversation wheel mini-game. But I can’t help but feel that alchemy was much more useful and more fun in Oblivion – I’m not sure why they changed it at all. Skyrim’s perk tree was a vast improvement over the 25/50/75/100 perk schema in Oblivion, and Bethesda was smart to get rid of the weird major and minor skill system that caused such a leveling paradox in Oblivion. I also really liked the new lockpicking system. It was almost too easy at times, but that’s much better than being too difficult.

My primary gripe with Skyrim, and the reason that I preferred Oblivion, was due to the nature of the game’s main plot. In Oblivion, the world was being invaded by the demonic Daedra through horrific gaping red magical gates, and it was the player’s job to save the world by venturing into a realm that might as well have been Hell. It was epic. In Skyrim, the plot involves killing dragons because they’re kind of mean. Sure – there’s one big powerful dragon who’s extra mean and must be stopped, but the threat seems nebulous and so relatively minor. The dragons in Skyrim were never as much of a threat as the Daedra were in Oblivion. Plus, even though the main dragon will have been defeated at the conclusion of Skyrim’s main plot, there are still many powerful dragons in evidence, attacking just as much as they ever were. How much has actually been resolved?

My last gripe with Skyrim is mainly geared towards the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild plots. Although there are ostensibly unlimited quests in Skyrim, the game’s foremost quest lines are the main story, the civil war, the Wizard’s College, the Thieves Guild, the Dark Brotherhood, and the Companions. That’s six questlines, and two of them are really only available if you choose to be at least partially evil. And while I’m not at all opposed to games that allow you to be evil, I find it odd that large sections of content are entirely closed off unless your character is a cold-blooded murderer or thief. Two out of six questlines is a third of the game’s non-random content, although it’s actually less since the main quest likely has far more content than other quest lines. Personally, playing as a sneak sniper is my favorite way to play Skyrim, so it’s ironic that the Dark Brotherhood is the only quest line I never touched.

As you likely know, Resident Evil 4 heralded a rebirth for the series. And while I do miss some of the classic survival horror elements, Resident Evil 4 really is an excellent third-person shooter and action game. It’s got a lot of replayability, and some awesome set pieces. It uses quicktime events as well as I’ve ever seen them used in a game, and holds true to a lot of Resident Evil staples. As it’s seeming like the even-numbered titles in the series are the good ones, I have high hopes for Resident Evil 6.

9- Starcraft (Blizzard Entertainment, PC, 1998)

A couple weeks ago, my wife and I were in a Best Buy, and I pointed out to her a game on the shelf: Starcraft Battle Chest. How amazing is it that the game is twelve years old and still selling in a prominent place on store shelves? It’s just that good.

At this point, more than a decade later, I hardly need to talk about how amazing it was that Blizzard created three separate yet balanced factions which each had an entirely different play style and different tactics. We may take it for granted now, but it really is pretty impressive. I’ve reinstalled and replayed Starcraft 2 plenty of times, although I’ve only finished the single-player campaign once. I’m willing to believe that this slot in my list will soon be replaced by Starcraft 2, which I have yet to play.

8- Portal (Valve Software, PC, 2007)

If you read this site, you’re likely interested in video games. And if you’re interested in video games, you likely don’t need me to explain to you how awesome Portal was/is. Portal is a puzzle-platformer that introduced a simple concept and then stretched it six ways from Octember, and layered on some humor via everyone’s favorite passive-agressive psychotic artificial intelligence.

Dispire what a brief joy the game was, Portal is universally recognised as a kick-ass game. I, for one, agree.

7- Psychonauts (Double Fine, PC, 2005)

If you haven’t guessed by the name of this site, I really like Psychonauts. It’s hands-down the funniest game I’ve ever played. And while I can’t claim that humor games are my favorite genre, I’ve got huge appreciation for Psychonauts. At this point, I’ve only played Psychonauts start-to-finish twice, but I have no doubt that I’ll go back again someday and replay it a third time.

6- Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda, PC, 2006)

Oblivion had so much going for it. I’ll grant you that the engine wasn’t ideal, but seeing physics-based traps go off from a first-person perspective, gathering wild flowers to make potions, and fighting melee battles from a first-person perspective was only part of the game’s joy. Then, the modding community took a game which on its own was simply good, and they made it great. The GUI updates, improved AI, new music, and higher-resolution graphics that the modding community introduced were simply amazing.

So what about the game settings I do like?

Ultima
I first entered Sosaria when I got a copy of Ultima III for my tenth birthday. Sosaria was a crude world, like the worlds of Ultima I and Ultima II before it. Later, I played Ultima IV, which introduced the world of Brittania. Somewhere between ultima IV and Ultima V, I fell in love with Brittania. Between those two games, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that I’d spent a thousand hours in Brittania. Don’t be shocked – I’ve heard of at least one person who took 15 years to finish the game. On summer vacations, I’d spend all day playing, and stay up until well after midnight.

The game’s crude graphics didn’t exactly lend a vivid sense of realism, but they forced me to use my imagination in the same way that reading a book does. As I travelled south down the coast from Britain to Paws, I imagined the seashore, and envisioned what that must look like. When I exited the eighth level of a dungeon into the Underworld, I thought of just how dark the sunless world must be, and imagined the dank smell of stagnant air. Travelling through the poisonous swamps near the village of Cove brought to mind visions of The Swamp of Sadness from the Neverending Story, except with more disease and rotted overgrowth. The game’s poor graphics forced me to use my imagination. To me, that was a vivid world, and I grew to know it well.

Starcraft
Starcraft doesn’t have much in the way of landscape – just different maps that you fight on. But somehow, the setting calls to me. It’s a space opera, and the races are far more interesting than Klingons, Wookiees and Sebacians. When Starcraft: Ghost was annnounced, I was very excited to enter that world and see Mutalisks and Ultralisks up close. Walking amongst Protoss pylons in top-down Starcraft is one thing, but to envision a Terran Command Center lifting off or a zergling ambush from first-person perspective is fairly exciting. I would absolutely love to see a game in the Starcraft setting that is not a RTS.

Beyond Good and Evil
It’s not the geography of Hillys that calls to me, but rather its inhabitants. In real life, we think of ethnic diversity in terms of Caucasians, Asians, Africans, and Hispanics. On planet Hillys, the inhabitants aren’t only the human descendants of Apes. They’ve also descended from pigs, rhinos, cats, sharks, and hippos. The notion seems so wildly creative.

Half-Life 2
The opening of Half-Life 2 expresses so effectively the oppressive atmosphere that exists in City 17. The people of planet Earth have been conquered by an alien invasion, and the cities are nothing more than internment camps – even the names of the cities have been taken away. This is an excellent example of the “showing rather than telling” technique of authorship. They show you the horribly oppressed people and then put a crowbar in your hands and let you fight for them.

The story is as epic as the Star Wars trilogy and the setting as rich as any I’ve seen. This page does a fantastic job of laying out the timeline, filling in the backstory, and putting forth theories as to the motives of the mysterious G-Man. I’m eagerly waiting for Half-Life 2 episode 3, mainly to see where the story goes.

Oblivion
I never played Morrowind or any of the other Elder Scrolls games before Oblivion. But when I heard all the buzz about Oblivion on a discussion board I frequent, I had to try it. Oblivion is one of the most atmospheric games I’ve ever played – from the sunny mountain peaks to the swampy villages to the eerie Ayleid ruins.

Tamriel is one of those game worlds where I can easily envision the routes from place to place. The game locations seemed like real places to me. The game’s landmarks and road signs are distinct, and the terrain is varied such that I can find the way from Bruma to Chorrol without even having to consult the map.

Dragon Age
Perhaps more than any of the other game worlds listed above, the world of Dragon Age has been fleshed out wonderfully. The circle of mages that are watched over by templars to ensure that their magic doesn’t enable them to be posessed by demonic forces. The dwarven caste system, so rigid, so unfair. The seven old gods being gradually corrupted by the darkspawn, leading to blights. The enslavement of elvenkind by humanity, which has been abolished, and which has lead to the current split in the elven race. It’s all so intriguing – I’m totally absorbed in this world and its story.

I’d be interested to hear comments from other readers – what is your favorite video game setting?

Early on, I found that one of the themes that came up in many of my favorite games was atmosphere. I remember the first time I played Half-Life 2. At one point, I came to a beach with the sun setting over the water. The scenery was so amazing that I had to stop and just stare for a few seconds. In those few seconds, I got shot.

The amazing outdoor scenery and realistic run-down East European urban landscapes make Half-Life 2 an incredibly atmospheric and immersive game, but it’s by no means the only one. I had similar reactions to many areas in Oblivion. The snowy peaks of Bruma’s Jerall Mountains, the swamps around Bravil, and the softly glowing depths of Aleid ruins all stood out to me, made me feel that I was truly there.

The final pair of games in my immersive/atmospheric collection, which I feel I need to hit in tandem, is Dead Space and Doom 3. Both take place on dark spaceships filled with hideous demonic creatures. And while each does certain things better than the other, both make excellent use of light, darkness, and sound to create a tense and threatening atmosphere. They’re best played in the dark. Muahahahaha!

Towards the end of last week, I got restless with the games I had to play. Borderlands and Dragon Age: Origins were still a couple weeks from release, and although I still had Final Fantasy XII to finish, I really just felt like playing something else. I played halfway through Half-Life 2 episode 2, I fired up Fallout 3 briefly, and I played a few minutes of Dark Messiah of Might & Magic. Meh. Not what I wanted. I played some Plants vs Zombies, some Scribblenauts, and some Zuma. Nothing was satisfying me. I didn’t want to start Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena until I’d have some time to really get into it, and I knew that I’d be dropping any other games I was playing on October 26th, once Borderlands became available for download via Steam.

Then it came to me: Oblivion. I’d reinstall Oblivion.

When I first played Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion a few years ago, I had a blast with the game. But one thing that never sat right with me was the fact that all enemies in the game leveled with you. You’d never get mauled by a mountain lion at first level or bump into a rat whose ass you could quickly stomp when you were level 30. Then I found Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul. Although there are hundreds of changes enacted by this mod, the two parts that really make it worth it for me are the AI changes and the alterations to game difficulty. Now, the world is not such a safe place when you’re level one.

So on Friday, I installed the game and downloaded a number of mods. After installing everything and starting up the game, I noticed that there were strange translucent yellow areas all over the place – odd graphical artifacts. After another hour or so of play and googling the problem, I learned that these were missing meshes. The game was also crashing every hour or so. Rrgh.

I eventually decided to uninstall and reinstall the whole thing on Saturday afternoon. How upset was I when I found that after reinstalling, the meshes were still missing? The Oblivion Mod Manager has a tool for updating and re-registering meshes and textures, but it did me no good. I tried playing for a while longer, and the game had seemed to stop crashing, which was a plus, but when I realized that the missing meshes were actually containers, that every chest and barrel in the game was missing, I gave up. Quit. Uninstalled. I’m now playing the original Dungeon Siege at 1680 x 1050 resolution.

I’m sure that I could get the thing running correctly. It might take an extra install or two. But I just don’t have the willpower right now. From what I’ve read, it’s an issue with Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul – the game replaces containers and their meshes, and although I installed “OSCURO’S OBLIVION OVERHAUL V 1.3 + 1.31 & 1.32 PATCHES“, I seem to have somehow ended up missing the required meshes. Maybe next time, I’ll try downloading a different version of the mod from a different site. I’ve heard that disabling your firewall during the download is supposed to help. Or maybe I’ll just try FCOM, which contains “Francesco’s Leveled Creatures Items”, “Warcry”, “Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul”, and “Martigen’s Monster Mod”.

Keepers is a weekly segment in which I discuss games I’ve played that I’ve seen fit to keep after playing. I generally sell a game that I’ve finished, so the only reason I keep one is because I plan to replay the game some day. Classifying a game as a “keeper” is generally a badge of merit.

Most people who own a PC or console and like RPGs have played The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It’s a fantastic game. And although I’ll admit that by the end I was a bit burned out on the game, it’s largely because I’d played it for over 200 hours.

Although it came out far prior to Fallout 3, which ran on the same engine, I honestly believe that Oblivion was far better than Fallout 3. You can also make the argument that the whole leveling system in Oblivion was overly complex and that you could easily screw your character over by leveling incorrectly – I’ve written about the complexities of the leveling system in Oblivion more than once – but there are mods out there that can alter or “fix” these issues if you find them to be issues. My favorite of these is Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul, but the number of mods out there for Oblivion is absolutely huge, which is one reason I believe the PC version to be so much better than the console version.

I’m not entirely sure that I’ll ever go back and play as massive a game as Oblivion a second third time, but that doesn’t change my opinion that the game is most definitely a keeper.

I’ll totally agree that Fallout 3 has better minigames. They got rid of that hideous conversation game and even the lockpick game in Fallout 3 is much improved. The new computer hacking game is simply awesome. Fallout 3 also has better character models and better voice acting. But all these things can’t change the fact that Oblivion was simply a better game.

First of all, Oblivion had much more creative and ingenious quests. The Daedric quests that granted special magical items, the arena, the dark brotherhood, the various guild quests, and the beautiful world-inside-a-painting are a few examples. Other quests in Obilivion had you trailing people, eavesdropping, following hand-drawn maps, and interpreting drawings on walls. Nothing that creative in Fallout 3. A few good characters and some funny conversations, but being able to talk through intercoms and watching static animations of vertibirds can’t match up with having to cast a high level lightning spell on an old stump in the middle of the wilderness to complete a quest.

Next up, the mods. Perhaps it was because I picked up Oblivion six or eight months after its release, and there’s also the fact that the Garden of Eden Creation Kit wasn’t released for Fallout 3 until months after the game was on store shelves. But for me, one of the things that made Oblivion truly great was the wealth of user mods. The BT Mod and Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul were by far the best Oblivion mods, but consider also the user-created music for Oblivion, the much needed No Psychic Guards mod, and a couple favorites of mine, the Darker Dungeons mod, which gave torches and light spells an actual purpose, and the Drop Lit Torches mod, which caused you to drop a lit torch when you drew a weapon. The torch would remain there on the ground, lit, and you could pick it back up if you needed. Fantastic.

What mods does Fallout 3 have? Mostly new and reskinned weapons. Of course, there are plenty of cheat mods and things to make you more powerful. They’ve got a decent start with the mods that remove slow motion from V.A.T.S. and allow you to use random logical items to repair weapons and armor, and Bethesda has blogged about some mods, but they’re nothing approaching the genius of the best Oblivion mods.

Third on my list is Alchemy. Here’s a genius engaging skill that has you hunting everywhere for different types of flora and vegetation and allows you to collect different equipment to create dozens of different potions, or mix multiple-effect potions as your skill increases. What does Fallout 3 have to compare? Collecting random junk like medical braces and lunchboxes to create a handful of weapons, many of which are fairly useless. Come on – did you really like the railroad spike gun? Did you find the Rock-It Launcher useful? Granted, the dart gun is great and I love the deathclaw gauntlet, but overall Fallout 3’s item crafting can’t match Oblivion’s alchemy system.

One of the primary things that made Oblivion better than Fallout 3 was the set pieces. The fall of Kvatch, leading a squad of soldiers through an Oblivion gate to try to close it, and stopping that crazy giant war machine were truly epic, and those are just the moments I can remember off the top of my head. What were Fallout 3’s set pieces? Umm… the giant robot at the end? The optional nuke? That’s all I can think of. Oblivion had a much more epic feel.

Lastly, the novelty. When Oblivion came out, it was brand new, and it was very impressive. But at the time Oblivion is coming out, we’re seeing the same NPCs, the same kinds of traps, and the whole same game engine. But no there are no spells, no new abilities as skills reach the 25/50/75/100 points, no shield blocking, and none of the beautiful weather effects that Oblivion had. The game’s drugs are a poor replacement for Oblivion’s alchemy system, and the weaponcrafting in Fallout 3 is extremely limited. I’d have felt a bit better if Fallout 3 had implemented a few vehicles. Even Oblivion had crappy, crappy horses.