Competition For World Of Warcraft
I've remarked before how World Of Warcraft is the only computer game since probably Defender that's well and truly hooked me. I'm almost salivating at the thought of The Burning Crusade expansion coming later this year. But David has been salivating over a more imminent arrival - the fourth volume of Bethseda's The Elder Scrolls series; Oblivion. It's a single player RPG for the X-Box 360 and PC, so in type it's not a direct WoW competitor at all, but clearly in terms of attention time it's going to put up a fight. The long pre-ordered copy for the X-Box arrived on Thursday while I was away, by the time I got back that night David was fully immersed and consequently, conversation in our house has been something that used to happen.
But I've had the place to myself this evening, and under some duress I've been giving it a go. And I confess I can see the attraction. It's a game with a main story that you can follow if you want, and countless other mini-adventures (to coin a phrase) that you can pick up and follow if you want. You can collect a quest today and get round to it next year if you want, and though you pick a 'class' for your character at the outset, if you want to try expanding your type into other areas you're free to do so. Most importantly of all - this is a world in which (until you hit its boundaries of course) you can go anywhere and do pretty much anything. You could quite happily just spend your days living as a citizen, meeting new people and exploring the world and never touching a 'quest' if you wanted to. Of course, if you did you'd be missing out on a hell of a lot.
I'm sold. Though not to the extent that I won't be keeping my WoW hand in between now and The Dark Portal Opening.
I know, I know: *cough*Geek*cough*.