Motherfucker, can you fight them?
When we last left the mighty Zasz: Catman extraordianaire, we were progressing through the subterranean escape passages beneath the imperial jail/city with our new Emperor buddy and his guard types.
I think we’re really bonding, nice gents, the kind of guys you’d enjoy a drink with. They could be in Carling adverts, passing you terrible alcohol while you fight Daedra-cultist-assassins.
It’s gonna be a good ti-
Hay, where are you going guys? ... guys? ;_;
FINE! At least this place is safe, you can come back and get me later. I’ll just slash this sword around. Hay this is getting good.
In Oblivion you can make “power attacks”. These work basically the same with every weapon, though have unique effects based on your skill with that weapon. Holding a movement key and the attack button at the same time is the modus operandi and they are a good way to dispatch weak enemies quickly.
Unique effects include disarm, knockdown, paralysis and so on. “But what do you mean skill with that weapon, oh great Narrator?” QUIET WHIPPERSNAPPER, I’LL EXPLAIN LATER. For now, understand that with that sword we picked up we can either do a few fast attacks, or big strong ones with longer cooldowns. Fast and weak, slow and strong.
But, nothing to fight, so we shouldn’t really be worrying about all th-
OH GOD KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT
After an EPIC DUEL SO INCREDIBLE CAPTURING IT IN SCREENSHOTS SIMPLY CORRUPTED MY HARDDRIVE (I’ve changed my screenshot key now so I can take better ones, probably from Chapter 5 on) the rats lay defeated, ourselves triumphant.
And you know what that means: loot time.
This is not as awesome as I was promised.
… this doesn’t even give me a benefit. It’s basically poison. I killed this monster and it dropped poison. I’m outrag- hay there’s a hole in the wall, let’s check it out. A turn to the right reveals a chest. Rat, you are forgiven your earlier failings, for now you bring plentiful bounty!
Moving on, and dispatching of another pesky rat, we come across the following.
You've got a little... there's something on your... er...
Now, there are only so many options in a situation like this:
a) Leave the poor man and his possessions where he is, respecting the dead and all that go with them to the next life.
b) Nab the bow and shield, open the chest – they might not be his, after all, and they are just lying there.
c) TAKE IT ALL.
OH BOY
Now, there are a lot of things to learn in this little period, but most of them are simple. The shield you saw before increases your armour, which makes you take less damage, and is also much more effective for blocking than a sword.
The bow is your standard range weapon – there are no guns or crossbows in Oblivion, much to my dismay. Magic is a weak alternative, but isn’t quite as manly. To fire a bow you need arrows and we’ll get onto them in more depth later.
The armour you see is of the light variety – light armour weighs less than heavy but provides less protection. This makes it easier to perform certain tasks (such as sneaking) but means you take more damage when you are hit.
Lockpicks are used to pick locks. There is a mini-game for this, helpfully demonstrated by the chest next to our ever helpful skeleton pal.
MASTER OF LOCKS, I'M STEALING YOUR STUFF
BENDING THE RULES AND SNATCHING YOUR SOCKS
Basically you tap the little tumblers up and when they’re in the right place you left click to lock them in. It is not as easy as it sounds, but easier than that sentence makes it seem. The harder the lock, the more tumblers there are to be put into place (on this lock, the righthand four were already done when we started), and the lower your Security skill, the harder those tumblers are to get into the right place.
It is my crowning glory that with only three reloads, I once picked a Very Hard lock with a Security skill of 5, with a single pick. Sound actually plays a larger part in this mini-game than many realise and it can be infinitely harder to play without sound than it is with.
Now that you are all well and truly bored with talk of locks and tumblers, lets shoot the crap out of something! This bucket has had it coming!
Arrow fight at the Bucket Coral.
The hero!
The villian!
To fire you must have both a bow and arrows equipped. While having a bow is counted as a two-handed weapon, arrows occupy their own equipment “slot” and thus can be kept on until the end of time.
Traitorous bucket dealt with throughly, we may procede to the exit. Defining the western RPG, we have a meaningless choice: do we try to pick the lock on the door or “try to find the key” – aka, look at the goblin right next to the door and loot his corpse.
You should realise by now what happens when I am given a corpse-looting choice.
Tune in next time for GOBLINS.