Oblivion - some chinks in the horse armor

I've now been playing Oblivion for about 50 hours and I have a few more things to say. The game is still phenominal, has yet to become boring or repetitive, and I'm sure I'm only about a third of the way through with it. Some of the newness has worn off, however. I'm up to 14 complete XBOX 360 lockups. I'm not really surprised by this, evidently this is hallmark of Bethesda games. Nor am I really annoyed with it. With a game as rich and complex as this, my programmer's mind is telling me that these are acceptable losses. There were a couple of things that I do take issue with, however. I've run into at least three quests where I had to revert to a previous save and begin all over to complete because glitches or poor design made them unfinishable - one of which was part of the core story! Bethesda ought to worry about correcting these snafus, not charging people extra money for horse armor.

And while I'm on that subject, I have to say that Bethesda ought to be ashamed of themselves for trying to profit from something so frivolous and stupid. Expansion packs are one thing, but charging someone for horse armor is downright petty. I hope the whole concept dies a short but painful DIVX-like death. I, for one, will never be so stupid as to spend real money on special game items. It is my hope that gamers will never fall into this trap that Microsoft and Sony are hoping to trap us in where everything is virtual, and you spend money on intangable things.

Microsoft envisions a future where all game content is downloaded from the Internet. While this may seem more convienent, it is a very bad thing. For starters, it destroys any real value that your games have. You won't be able to sell your used games because there won't be anything to sell. You won't be able to let friends borrow your games because Microsoft will not let you - I can say with absolute certaintly that their opinion on the matter will be that if your friend wants to play the game, he/she can come to your house to do it, or buy a copy his/her self. The publishers will have complete control over what you can play and when you can play it. And if that wasn't bad enough, the bargain bins and used game shops which allow so many people to enjoy games without dropping tons of cash will be done away with. So I urge you to resist this trend - don't pay to download games from XBOX Live! and whatever you do, don't waste money on virtual items and cheats.