The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC)
Highlights of Production: 4 years into Production (2002-2006), released on Mar 21 2006, one of the rare great work relationship between 2K (publisher) and Bethesda (developer), Radiant AI (Bethesda's proprietary AI system), used the Havok engine for physics and Gamebryo for rendering, one of the first games to introduce HDR (High Dynamic Range lighting), used procedural terrain generation techniques, great sound design (the title music composition got the creator a BAFTA award), received RPG of the year award by most game critic websites including Gamespot and IGN.

Well to just judge the production quality that this game has achieved you have gotta play the game in length. When I started playing this game just last month, it struck me what I had missed in the last couple of years (my years of abandoning the PC!), what a great RPG game in the making. Hats of to the team at Bethesda who made this possible. This game got me so involved (still involved, still not completed the game) that it has raised my expectations of what to expect from the upcoming RPG games (DIABLO, anybody listening!).

I have to confess, one of my best game moments came when I first saw the Oblivion Gate at Kvatch. What a visual treat. The sky grew in red color, the sound was threatening me with something evil to come. The moment I was near the gate, I could feel the force the gate was throwing at me. What a great moment it was. Few games could achieve to bring gamers to feel like this.



Well my final review shall come after I finish this game (it is such a huge game). This game has definitely got me excited. This game has one of the best game beginnings I've seen yet. Watch the intro video below. Till then signing out, Ciao.

Have today's strategy games become BIG, HUGE and BULKY?
I was playing Supreme Commander (PC)(Launched in Feb 2007), one of the big sci-fi RTS of recent times, it is then that I realized how big the scope of today's strategy games have become. This game is created by Gas Powered Games, one of my favorite game companies who got us the Dungeon Seige series. I remember when I had played Dungeon Seige (Part 1), I used to love playing this game and used to enjoy the vast landscapes and adventure this game brought to gamers like me. Imagine a vast topography of unexplored land, WOW! that sounded so exciting back then. These guys were used to create large games, games with vast topography and huge content which kept the gamers busy for long hours.

Not that these guys are the only ones making large scope games which take more than 40 hours to complete. You have Bethesda who gave us the Oblivion series, what a great RPG series!

This makes me think, games have come of age and are expected to give more and more large and imemrsive games for us to play. Comparing the games just 3 years back, today's games have lots more to give and lots more to show to gamers like us. When you check out Supreme Commander just look at the amount of strategy content available. We are talking about huge 80km x 80km maps, the smallest being 8km x 8km. These are huge maps to play any game in todays world. Just the sheer size of armies which are under your control would make you nervous but at the same time powerful. Just imagine what kind of army would you create to attack your opponent via Land, Air and Sea. All these types of armies under one keyboard and mouse control, isn't is maddening?? Well it is thouroughly enjoyable, let me tell you that!

So what would BIG, HUGE and BULKY mean to today's games? BIG would definately mean scope, the amount of content which goes into these games is huge. HUGE would mean what kind of power is available at the players disposal. For example, have you had so many options to kill your enemy? Have you had such great intelligence with which your enemy would pounce back? That is HUGE. BULKY would definately mean sheer game size and hardware requirements. Just look at the hardware requirements of Supreme Commander.....it would bring down and good machine to its knees...( no need to discuss Crysis??). Some of these games take more than 6 GB of memory (including of virtual memory). Now that is BULKY!

But at the end of the day these games thouroughly entertains us as gamers. What else do you need when you have so much power to control and ready at your disposal :) I cannot immagine what could games achieve even one year from now! Well we would have to live, play and watch!

Now Playing: Final Fantasy 4 (Nintendo DS)
This is my latest craze nowadays. It is probably one the the best games with a very high production quality. Rarely does the producer's vision goes the down route which most games go nowadays. Look at Assasin's Creed on the DS, a shameful execution in the name of brand realization by Gameloft. But Square Enix is in its league of its own. Always maintaining the highest production quality in their titles. I remember my first PS2 game was Final Fantasy. It left such an everlasting impression upon me. I used to think whether such high production values would be achieved in handhelds? Well this game has just proved me correct and only Square Enix (apart from Nintendo themselves) can achieve such high production vales in their own IP's. Square Enix makes all its profit only from its Final Fantasy series. So does Nintendo from its own first party titles. Such is the power of creating original IP's. Everyone should notice the strengths in creating such original IP's and must not shy away from taking risks. I'm not saying go bankrupt chasing the original IP route, but at least allocate some portion of your effort in trying to create one. I'm sure companies like Nintendo and Square Enix would have stumbled many a times and then succeeded in creating true brand IP power.

Well coming back to the game itself. I'm still just a few hours into playing this game. Died a many times, upgraded the levels of my party, conquered dungeons and killed lots of enemy foes, loved every bit of this fantasy rpg. I shall review this game as soon as I finish it. Till then you can watch the trailer of the game below (this is the opening trailer of the game, so enjoy it):