Recent reviews by Cosmic

Mechanically not too deep, but deep enough to be satisfying and present the player with interesting trade-offs. Fantastic atmosphere.

A really relaxing game, great to play while listening to a podcast or the like.

I first bought Hexcells way back in 2014. It's been a game I've revisited a few times - a truly zen puzzler, which has helped me during some tough periods in my life.

Cute and chill casual game, plus a great tool to help brush up your physical intuition.

Really good expansion, adds a lot of fun flavour. The new leader and council mechanics fit in very well with the rest of the game and open up some fun possibilities.

The leader cap introduced with the patch makes a lot of sense. I think it does a lot to help balance the game and counter the early-game science ship spam that was previously the "optimal" strategy. The exploration phase is a lot less rushed now.

A very cute and clever adventure game. Given this was by a small team on a budget, quality in terms of animation, VA, and visuals is really great. Story is fun and rewarding.

5-10 hours to finish a playthrough and discover all the endings.

An excellent adventure game. Each case is interesting, and the deduction system is really fun to use and play around with. The gameplay of searching around for clues does fall short in that you just need to walk up and interact with every interactable entity that you come across to gather all the evidence you need (which you'll know when every clickable thing has a green icon over it), but I enjoy the fun of the process. I look forward to the upcoming sequel a lot; six cases is a fair amount, but there's limited replayability so once you're done you probably won't get the same enjoyment from playing the same cases again unless you wait a year or so to play again.

Very strong game. I think the first two episodes were stronger because I enjoyed the police procedural format, but I still think it was an excellent story. Performance issues on my toaster laptop aside, I have no complaints.

I really came to like and care about the core characters. The puzzles were fun to solve. The ending was very nice. I really hope for a second season with more of a police-based format, I think the mechanics and the character go well with lots of crazy cases.

Oblivion's contemporary reception is rather poor. For one, it was a sequel to Morrowind - one of the most unique, creative, and strange RPGs of all time - which was set in a rather bland European setting (the province of Cyrodiil) and had a main plot (and characters) which could be described most charitably as "lackluster". Its levelling system was a joke; beyond level 20, enemies became complete damage sponges and an encounter with a single goblin could become a tedious and extended five-minute-long clickfest, and you found lowly bandits wearing insanely high level armour as you levelled up. Although innovative, the Elder Scroll's trademark "build up skills you use" system made it so that magic users in particular were shafted; to get to the top branch in most offensive and defensive schools, you had to cast a spell on an enemy (or yourself) in the region of a hundred-thousand times. The persuasion system was a farcical joke. The fact that many of the NPCs had potato faces sent a lot of people to the bottom of the uncanny valley whilst playing. Fast-travel (and an instant knowledge of where all the main cities were) encouraged players to not explore the world, and for players newer to TES made the process of exploration a daunting and dull one, owing to overreliance on fast travel distorting their perception of distance and time taken to travel the map. The UI at launch was also attrocious, making finding a single item in your inventory a process which may last up to a minute. There were also of course the huge amount of bugs which Bethesda still did not iron out in the years after Oblivion's release. And, we must remember, it's a 10 year old game whose age also is really showing.

So, we have a game which is inferior in the graphical and writing departments to Skyrim and Morrowind, respectively. Why do I prefer it immensely over Skyrim and Morrowind? Why do I think it's one of the best RPGs of all time?

Firstly, there are the faction quests. Specifically, the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood. These two quest lines contain a great deal of challenge and are excellently written; they effectively constitute small bite-sized games of their own. Two particular quests from these quest lines still stick in my head, and remain far more memorable than any other quest in RPG I've ever played; a quest during the Dark Brotherhood (a murderer's guild, effectively) where you are tasked with killing five guests at a party, and the final quest of the Thieves Guild where you must perform a daring and dangerous heist. The former quest is memorable in that you had five fun and interesting characters who you could kill in any order, and channel their emotions, prejudices, and reactions towards each other and you, potentially resulting in them killing themselves off. The latter is a highly elaborate and extremely difficult dungeon crawl (or, considering the circumstances, sneak) followed by a rather difficult stealth section; the number of failstates means that this quest is incredibly tense and incredibly rewarding. I can hardly say these two quests make the entire game worth it by themselves, but alongside all of the faction quests remaining highly memorable and very fun to play, you have a great deal of content which you'll enjoy greatly on your first playthrough.

Secondly, the Shivering Isles. This expansion pack probably has the prestige of being the best expansions in history, delivering a unique, lore-rich, and colourful second world for players to explore and enjoy. The main quest line here is filled with choices, and offers a great degree of replayability. Sheogorath and the other residents of the eponymous Shivering Isles are extremely fun to interact with and the world, despite being nearly 10 years old, looks stunningly beautiful; the Manic side does, at least! Knights of the Nine is an incredibly fun (but sadly much shorter) expansion which also really brightens the game up for players.

Thirdly, there's the atmosphere of the world. Vvardenfell was a crazy and alien world; a neo-Babylonian land of mystery. Skyrim was a hostile and rugged land of hard and rather uncaring inhabitants. Although Morrowind had a fascinating world (in contrast to Skyrim's lamentably forgettable one), it lacked warmth and cosiness. Oblivion's Cyrodiil isn't as strange and as memorable as Morrowind, but I think it's undeniably beautiful, cosy, and relaxing. Riding around the forests of Colovia, chasing deer and riding past (usually) strange ruins whilst the sun shines down through the leaves ahead. Entering the Imperial City and walking through its districts. Entering Bruma and exploring its snug half-underground houses, lit by warm fires. Riding through the jungle to the southernmost tip of the map, and staring out to sea. The sunlit fields of the Golden Coast. Each biome in Oblivion feels different, and has a very lovely charm. Each city, too, also is different; with unique architecture alongside its ecology. And all of them I enjoy walking about and relaxing in far more than any place in another Elder Scroll's game.

This is complemented by what I see as Jeremy Soule's best work in a video game ever. Whilst I think the combat tracks have gotten rather repetitive (although I only felt so after my first 250 hours), I don't feel rather annoyed by them. The ambient tracks in the cities and the wilds, however, are astonishing and soothing despite their age. Exploring the world to "Auriel's Ascension" remains amongst my most-loved gaming experiences. Walking into a small tavern by the roadside and hearing "Harvest Dawn" as I sit down and interact with NPCs is so comforting it's crazy. The soundtrack is probably the best part of the vanilla game, and I think even if you hate the game, you owe yourself to buy a copy for recreational listening.

The world also inherits the lore from Morrowind, and builds upon it in some instances; there are a huge amount of books in the world, and a great deal to learn about the world. You can spend hours just reading through libraries in the game world and learning about the history of Nirn, metaphysics, flora, fauna, and becoming acquainted with several million copies of the Lusty Argonian Maid.

So, we have a cosy game with a fantastic expansion and some excellent faction and side-quests, which also is very fun to explore. However, with the flaws I've mentioned how can I say this is such a great RPG?

Mods. It's a cop-out, but I do think that with the installation of a few baseline mods, a lot of the difficulties with Oblivion can be overcome and the true potential of this game is unlocked. With just Oblivion XP, Osicuro's Oblivion Overhaul, the Unofficial Oblivion Patch, Oblivion Character Overhaul, and a UI upgrade such as Darnified UI, Oblivion's core faults are swept aside and you can finally see the untarnished joy to be had in this game.

And of course, there are mods which add content to the game by a still-going (although the modding community is doubtlessly a shadow of its pre-Skyrim self) modding scene. Although these mods must be played whilst acknowledging their likelihood of being buggy (and their creators often being obtuse and relying too much on the players having to consult their guides), I've got a lot out of playing them and there are some which practically match the technical quality of the vanilla game. These mods can potentially double how much game you get for your money, and they can also present you with some highly memorable and enjoyable experiences.

Oblivion is not as well-written as Morrowind. It's not as shiny as Skyrim. I still think that it's a beautiful game with an amazing world, despite its generic nature. Its worst flaws can be corrected with some effort via modding; and when they are I'm hooked.