Rants about digital arts, photography and university.

It’s interesting to note how Oblivion mirrors The Lord of the Rings. I had never really thought about that connection, even though it’s quite obvious.  The towers in Oblivion quite clearly mirror the landscape of Mordor and the environment of the entire game pretty much goes hand-in-hand with the imagined aesthetics of Middle-Earth.  It does, however, more explicitly depict the 19th century-like world that it represents.

The article suggests that it’s odd that one would spend the time and effort to create a character personalized to the extent that is possible and never see the character’s face in game.  It does go into the experience this offers players that are fans of the genre, but personally, I didn’t even really know what the genre was about when I first played Oblivion and I still enjoyed the level of control in the character creation.  I think it helps to create a relationship with the digital model, knowing that it’s personalized to such an extent that it’s unlikely that anybody else playing the game has a character that is exactly the same.  Also, I think the fact that the main character isn’t fleshed out is a good thing.  It allows the player to feel like they are the character, instead of controlling a character.

The discussion of the landscape makes a lot of sense.  Part of the appeal of games like Oblivion is that the environment is so vast that the player really develops a relationship with it through exploration.  The fact that it is so immersive and that it is split up into two distinct worlds creates an interesting dynamic where the player feels excited about seeing new parts of the world.  The fact that the player almost seems to play against the landscape of Oblivion is also quite satisfying.  There are, in a sense, boss battles within the world of Oblivion, but once an Oblivion gate is closed it truly does feel more like the gate and the world on the other side were the opponents, rather than the characters within them.  The commentary against the industrial landscape is pretty obvious too.