I can't believe it's not multiplayer!

It's been a while since I impulse-bought a game, and longer since I impulse-bought a game and actually liked it. So I was surprised at myself - if not at the game, based on its reputation - to find myself playing Oblivion for 12 hours out of the past 24.

My poor Night Elf has been sitting alone in Ashenvale all day long, listening to that terrible music, her poor vulture's stomach growling away. Both my Urban Dead characters were killed despite one of them already being dead. The legions of people who won't admit I talked them into playing Eve have probably forgotten I have an account. Subspace could well have died its fourth death for all I know.

Needless to say, I can't remember the last movie I saw, and I've been reading the same book for three weeks.

One reason I level so slowly in roleplaying games is I wander off and explore constantly. Oblivion is the biggest and most open-ended in the series that single-handedly invented that sort of behavior, yet I find myself not doing this at all. The story has an urgency to it that has kept me on target without my even noticing. The movement and control have little of the awkwardness that made Morrowind such a chore at times. The combat is fun. My eyes don't glaze over when someone tries to give me a quest. Usually I even accept the quest.

Pretty much everything about this game is right.

I'd tell you more but I'm itching to go back and play some more. (Also I don't think I have any readers yet.)

In other news, I hate kittens.