PixlBit

                                        

     I picked up the GOTY Edition of Oblivion today so I could get all the DLC and give my regular edition Oblivion to my friend. I think getting the DLC on Xbox Live would've been slightly cheaper ($15 instead of $19), but I wanted to let my friend have my old copy so that I could watch him play it as well.

     He's busy with Cabela's African Safari at the moment though, and I'm still waiting for my unscratched copy to arrive in the mail. He's had some trouble with read errors with my copy, but he's managed to keep it working. I'm green with envy as he's almost to the end of the game and hunting Elephants. I don't like hunting much in real life, but it's neat to see these animals set in an accurate virtual world. It gives you a taste of what it would look like to actually be there in Africa. With regard hunting though, I keep thinking of that Monty Python line delivered by Graham Chapman where he's hunting the deadly Mosquito, "I've been a hunter all my life. I love animals. That's why I like to kill 'em".

                                            

I recite that joke everytime I see my buddy bag another critter.

           

    But I am getting deep into Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I became Champion of the Arena pretty handily. Fighting at the lowest difficulty is like Conan fighting midgets; nothing touches me and everything I strike goes down almost immediately. I happily accepted the title though and went to start the guild missions.

     I began with the Fighter's guild and got a few missions in before I accidently shot an arrow at one of my fellow guild members. Hey, I was entering a dark mine after being attacked by two goblins and only saw an outline of a human in the distance. Of course, I let an arrow fly. But does my fellow guild member, armored head to toe in shiny steel with barely a scratch from my arrow, understand? No. He charges me, and since I'm basically Conan, I sliced him in two with one mighty slash. What was I supposed to do? Run and hide? This guy didn't even give me a chance to explain! Anyway, I was expelled from the guild and had to find 20 Bear Pelts to make up for it. "Where the hell was I going to find 20 Bears to kill?", I thought.

     Well, it was night time, so I went to bed thinking, "I've yet again messed up this playthrough" when suddenly I'm awaken by a member of the Dark Brotherhood who wants to recruit me. Well, I'm so depressed and hopeless, I say "what the heck" and go do the first murder to get me into the guild. Only a little later do I discover that stores all over the place carry Bear pelts and that I could've easily gotten 20 to get back into the Fighter's Guild. Well, it was now too late because, apparently, if you don't complete the first mission with the Dark Brotherhood, they'll never visit you again. So here I am, wanting to be a Fighter and changing my clothes to black leather so I can do assassinations for the Dark Brotherhood. Dam it! This game always goes fubar on me every darn time!

             

    And to top it all off, I have this wacky follower that won't stop following me around. i picked him up after becoming Champion and he just wants to worship at my feet. I felt like I had to take care of him or something, so I tried to keep him out of danger. I told him to wait on a mission to stop some robbers, and when I came back, he was gone. Ah well, I was disgraced now anyway with a murder on my conscience and soon to be many more as a member of the Dark Brotherhood. I'm just glad my fans aren't around to see what I have become.