Okay so I made a quick swerve, the next review was to be Second Sight but I have recently completed The Knights Of The Nine expansions pack for Bethesda's epic, Oblivion.
Expansion?
So Bethesda released Oblivion, a huge leap forward in RPG gaming from their last venture Morrowind. Oblivion perfected and built upon everything they had created in Morrowind and made it at least 100 times better. You were drawn into a plot that takes you all over the land of Cyrodil and has you fighting to save the kingdom....or not. It's your choice.
If you want to go off and become a thief, spreading a crime wave across the land, go ahead. Or if you would rather make money from fighting in the arena, then go ahead again.
It's your choice. There are quests abound in Oblivion, aside from the main questline you will encounter quests in unusal places and some are rather amusing to play through, my particular favourite being The Dark Brotherhood.
Oblivion came out to rave reviews, and after its success on the PC it was ported to the Xbox 360 quickly after. Bethesda had created 2 Expansion packs for Morrowind and had decided to follow suit with Oblivion. People began to wonder what they would create for Oblivion, would it be new cities? A new land to adventure in? What would be created. And then Knights Of The Nine was released.
This expansion did not any new land to Oblivion, it added a few new dungeons and a new plot line to follow through to its conclusion but apart from that it did not offer anything new.
A Plot, Games Have Plots these days?
So the first time you play Oblivion with Knights of The Nine installed, all you have to do is speak to someone and ask about Rumours and they will tell you about the chapel in Anvil being attacked and a prophet standing out front of it preaching. So you must travel to Anvil and go inside the chapel to see a slaughter has taken place. Everyone inside is dead and parts of the chapel are burning and at the very Alter of the Nine is a message scrawled in blood.
After this you must speak to the prophet and if you are humble he will charge you with a pilgramage which you must take if you have any hope of getting to the bottom of this massacre.
So begins the questline for Knights of The Nine.
For if you partake of this pilgramage and venture forth into the wild, it will be your duty to reform the Knights Of The Nine, a sacred order, pledged to protect the world from demonic forces.
The Meat And Bones Of It All
Right so you've gone to Anvil and spoke to the Prophet and he hit you with jibberish, let me tell you straight, you have to check his map that he handed you and use this map to find 9 Wayshrines that you have to pray at. This involves going all over the game map. And you will find lots of fighting along the way, just because you are in the wild.
If you find all 9 wayshrines and pray at them you will receive a vision, the leader of the old Knights of The Nine will come to you and tell you to find his suit of armour and use it to vanquish an ancient evil that has arisen.
Right so roughly translated, it's tomb raiding time!
You must run into a dark tomb and take the armour located within. Once you have done so you are to find the old basecamp of the Knights of The Nine, this a priory and Chapel deep into the West Weald.
When you arrive you must fight the ghosts of the remaining 8 of the 9 before you can venture further. But not to worry, if you have a sturdy sheild then all should be fine.
I want go any further into what you must do, but at each point where I completed a section I always had the anticipation of "now the real quest will begin" and it never really did. And then by the time I felt things were really getting started I was at the end of the questline and only had 1 more thing left to do.
Okay so Spoiler Alert coming up, but to finish the questline you must defeat a Deadra Prince, a demon akin to a god. You must best him in battle. And your warned constantly how powerful he is and how he can defeat you easily, but by the time you get to that quest you are so powered up you can bitchslap this guy without breaking a sweat.
All in, my time on this Expansion, playing from start til finish without getting sidetracked should take maybe 5 hours, 6 hours at the most.
And when it is done you have a legion of Knights who are willing to follow you wherever you travels take you.
Is It A Good Thing?
Okay so you have played Oblivion to death and have done everything you can in the game and you want some more time in this world to quest and you notice The Knights of The Nine Expansion pack on Xbox Live or on the shop shelf. Could this be the new lease of life for Oblivion that you so sorely crave?
Simple answer is no, there is just not enough there to justify buying this expansion solely on it's own. Luckily I bought the Oblivion Game Of The Year Edition which came with both of Oblivion's expansion packs included. If you are one of these lucky people or you are one of the vagabonds who downloads software without paying (tsk tsk, shame on you) then yes it is definetly worth playing, however if you have to go out and buy it seperate, I wouldn't bother.
One reason it is good if you have it included is this: I had completed Knights of The Nine questline and the Order Of The Nine was up and running. However just off the right of the priory a pesky Oblivion gate had opened up. So I got one of my fellow Knights to follow me into the land of Oblivion and with his help I closed a gate.
So in that respect it is a good expansion to complete, it means you have someone to join you on some difficult quests.
In Conclusion
Bethesda's Oblivion is an epic game, there is no denying it. And I think that had Knights of The Nine been more fleshed out, it too could have been epic but it feels just a tad too short and not up to par with the rest of the questlines in the game.
Don't get me wrong, this expansion isn't bad, it's rather good but not worth paying for seperatley. Buy the game of the year edition if you don't already have Oblivion and when you feel the need to power yourself up and get some good armour and weapons, then follow this questline. It gives you all you need and is entertaining to boot.
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