[awkward silence]

[typing, Oblivion theme plays]

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, developed by Bethesda Game Studios

and published by 2K Games in March of 2006.

And just looking at this box for the PC version it’s clear that Bethesda was keen on correcting

the weaker aspects of its predecessor, Morrowind, boasting about fully-voiced NPCs, an improved

combat system, Havok physics, and a streamlined user interface.

It was also the first time an Elder Scrolls game launched with a console port from day

one, with Oblivion on the Xbox 360 released alongside the PC version

and a PlayStation 3 port arriving a year later.

Leading some to immediately write it off as, quote, a “dumbed down” console game.

Didn’t seem to stop the masses from snatching it up though, quickly becoming the most successful

Elder Scrolls game to date, selling over 3 million units by January of 2007 and moving

over 9.5 million units by 2015.

As a result, Oblivion remains one of most-played entries in the series, as well as being many

players’ first Elder Scrolls game at all.

So let’s go ahead and take a look at the PC version,

which came in both standard and Collector’s Edition boxes.

Each of these came with a single DVD-ROM containing the game itself, but the collector’s edition

also had this “Making of Oblivion” bonus disc packed inside a delightful looking sleeve.

You also get a little ad for the isometric mobile version of Oblivion for flip phones,

the requisite in-game world map, this being the province of Cyrodiil, and a 50-page full-color

instruction booklet touching on a wide variety of topics, like classes, skills, spells, weaponry,

and general Elder Scrolls lore.

And apparently the Collector’s Edition was supposed to provide both a Pocket Guide to

the Empire and even a gold Septim coin, but mine didn’t so screw me I guess.

Oh well there’s a tale to tell just as soon as you start the game, featuring the dulcet

tones of Sir Patrick Stewart.

[“This is the 27th of Last Seed; the Year of Akatosh 433.”]

[“These are the closing days of the 3rd Era, and the final hours of my life.”]

The story goes that while on routine patrol of the Romulan neutral zone, the Enterprise

encounters a scout ship seeking asylum in Federation--er, wait.

[rustling of papers] Uh, wrong Patrick Stewart game.

Ah here we go. Ahem.

It’s about six years after the events of The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, and Emperor

Uriel Septim VII is freaking out about having seen the gates of Oblivion and is convinced

he’s gonna die soon.

His three sons have been assassinated and it’s clear that he’s next on the agenda,

so he and his Imperial bodyguards, known as the Blades, are fleeing Cyrodiil because crap sucks.

And so your story begins at the main menu, where you start a new game and create a character.

In classic Elder Scrolls fashion, this begins with you as an imprisoned nobody, a blank

slate ready to be molded into whatever weird shape you desire.

After you choose your name, gender, race, skin tone and other basic stuff, you can go

into a ridiculously complicated character creation tool set and use dozens of sliders

to manipulate every millimeter of your appearance.

Oblivion became infamous for its uncanny, weirdly-proportioned, pudding-faced characters,

and it’s easy to see why using these tools.

Just embrace it, I say, and go with the most ridiculous head you can come up with.

After this you’re greeted with a much prettier sight than your face: the bleak stone walls

of a prison cell.

In keeping with Elder Scrolls tradition, this first area acts as the tutorial, although

it’s more direct in Oblivion than previous entries with pop-ups blasting walkthrough

text at every other turn.

In-between ham-fisted tutorial boxes you get freed from your cell by Emperor Picard himself,

who brings you along with his entourage of meatheads through the underbelly of Cyrodiil.

Tutorial messages continue to berate as you perform the Elderest of Scrollsy things like

dispatching low-level rats and scouring each room for weapons, armor, and loot.

Along the way you’ll choose both your birthsign and your class, each affecting the skills

and capabilities of your character throughout the rest of the experience.

Signs are pre-constructed, but as with previous Elder Scrolls games the classes can be customized

to your liking and named anything you deem clever.

Suddenly you witness the unavoidable death of Professor Emperor Patrick Xavier Stewart

Picard the Seventh, who has apparently grown to trust you over the past five minutes and

tasks you with protecting the irreplaceable Amulet of Kings.

Once you reach the sewer exit, it’s one last chance to adjust your stats and then

aw yeah, it’s that big Bethesda reveal moment, providing your first glimpse of a world of

possibilities that lie in wait.

[peaceful waterside sound effects, orchestral music plays]

And wow was this a memorable moment in 2006!

At the time I was still impressed by the open world of Morrowind,

then to see all this not even four years later?

Holy nuts.

Drop in that orchestral soundtrack from Jeremy Soule and daggone,

you’ve got yourself one classy role-playing experience.

[classy role-playing music plays its role]

Granted it ran like week-old garbage on my

PC in ‘06, but even at mid to low-range settings it was still the most gorgeous open

world I’d ever seen.

The Gamebryo Engine had certainly had its detractors over the years, and rightfully

so with its penchant for instability and bizarre technical shortcuts

that can result in legendarily glitchy gameplay.

But you have to give it props for providing such lovely scenery, and breaking new ground

with HDR lighting, specular mapping, and lush vegetation.

Even though it absolutely killed my computer to do so, there really was nothing like cranking

the lighting, shadows, and grass settings to the max and admiring the flora and fauna.

Just look at that grass!

There’s so much of it! And it wafts!

WAFTS I SAY.

Then there’s another graphical aspect that has, in my opinion, aged poorly, and that

is the intense bloom.

Effects like this have dated games from the mid-2000s almost more than anything else,

it just looks strange in retrospect with its blown out colors

and artificial-looking glow around objects.

Still, even going back to it now it’s no deal-breaker, since the gameplay of Oblivion

remains pretty darned enjoyable.

You’re given a huge map to explore right from the beginning, and whether or not you

choose to follow the main story path is entirely optional.

If you want to immediately head underground and hunt for treasure, go right ahead.

If you wanna explore one of the big cities, go for it, there are even fast travel points

provided from the start.

Personally I just pick a random direction and start walking.

Er, well, more accurately I start running and jumping constantly, gotta get those athletic

and acrobatic skills up, nawmean?

[jumping, skill increase sound effects]

And if I’m not run-jumping I’m riding a horse, because horses are a thing again.

Stables can be found outside each major settlement, and you can either pay for one outright or

go full bandit and steal one to ride off into the sunset.

And it won’t be long until something tries to kill both you and Mister Ed, so it’s

a good thing Bethesda overhauled the combat system.

Because as much as I absolutely love Morrowind,

I’ve never been tremendously fond of its combat.

I mean, I understood and accepted it, dice rolls and all that.

But Oblivion was the first time with any Elder Scrolls game I just *didn’t* think about

what I was doin’ when killin’ stuff.

Swinging axes, clubs, and swords into your enemies feels more intuitive now, like you’re

actually connecting with a body and not just flailing their general direction, hoping for a lucky hit.

And ranged attacks in the form of bows and magic come across as more satisfying with

predictable results right from the start, no need to level up a ton to dole out notable damage.

Part of this has to do with Oblivion’s dynamic level scaling, where enemy strength and damage

dealt adjusts to your current abilities.

So as you level up, each new enemy becomes stronger, with the idea being to provide a

smoother difficulty curve and to keep combat challenging.

But the strength of this system is also its weakness, and that is that no matter what,

there’s always a chance you’ll get pummeled by some random encounter even after you’ve

become a battle-hardened warrior capable of slaying the baddest demons around.

But that’s more of a late-game balance problem and it doesn’t affect every playthrough

in the same way.

Besides, I’m more interested in sneaking into places and stealing all their stuff anyway,

and thankfully that remains quite a good time indeed.

I especially enjoy combining stealth and thievery skills with magic to crawl around nearly-invisible

and take advantage of every attack I can.

Mm, sneak damage multiplier, that never gets old.

Still gotta be careful though, since NPCs often jump at the chance to run and call for

guards instead of fighting, which means: ["STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM!"]

["NOBODY BREAKS THE LAW ON MY WATCH"]

["I'M CONFISCATING YOUR STOLEN GOODS. NOW PAY YOUR FINE,"]

["OR IT'S OFF TO JAIL."]

[sick beats play in jest]

Heh. So here’s another highly-discussed point of contention, the voice actors.

Or rather, the lack of them.

It’s not that the acting itself is bad, for the most part it’s actually quite good.

And considering that this is the first Elder Scrolls to feature fully-voiced dialogue for

every NPC, it’s impressive in sheer sense of scale.

You’ve got Bethesda game staples like Wes Johnson, Michael Mack, and Elisabeth Noone,

in addition to Hollywood actors like the aforementioned Patrick Stewart, as well as Lynda Carter and Sean Bean.

["Something has changed."]

["Jauffre believes that the death of the Emperor and the darkening of the Dragonfires is the key."]

The issue arises from the fact that there are around 50,000 lines of dialogue that were

only voiced by about a dozen people, so you ended up with tons of NPCs that sound identical,

especially if they’re the same race or character class.

The repetition is bad enough that it’s a meme to this day, yet in a sense I find it charming.

It’s like this whole world is an amusement park that spent most of its budget on set

dressing, and the staff is just doing the best they can to act out a story with the

limited resources on-hand.

Same goes for a large number of the dungeons, they really start to look confusingly similar

and rather bland before long.

There’s nothing wrong with using a bunch of pre-made components to build these things,

and besides, apparently there was only one guy at Bethesda in charge of building all of them.

But more often than not, in Oblivion it’s painfully obvious, which led to me ignoring

most of the tertiary caves and dungeons in favor of those from the main story.

And the story itself is, ahh.

It’s an Elder Scrolls story.

There are ancient prophecies and powerful objects and great beings and all that stuff,

and I quite enjoy the world-building and lore presented.

But more often than not I get distracted and find myself joining a cult or something.

The usual guilds and their associated questlines are here and they’re awesome: the Thieves

Guild, the Mages Guild, the Fighters Guild, and the Stabby Guild, aka the Dark Brotherhood.

Have to appreciate a group of people who enjoy nothing more than helping each other pull

off the best murderin’ possible.

You also deal with The Order of the Mythic Dawn in Oblivion, a Daedric cult that brought

about this whole Oblivion Crisis in the first place.

In an act that had detrimental effects on the property values of Cyrodiil real estate,

Oblivion Gates have popped up all over the place like fiery zits on the face of Satan.

Entering one of these gates teleports you to one of the many Planes of Oblivion, filled

with daedra and other nasty creatures hellbent on being evil and whatnot.

Within each Oblivion gate there’s a towering central tower in the center, and tucked away

up top is a powerful Sigil Stone.

If you make it up there alive then grab onto that sucker, watch as everything goes apocalyptic,

and hooray: the gate is now closed.

Hope you enjoyed that because they continue generating all over the map.

Several of them are hand-crafted realms pertinent to the story, but the rest are randomly-generated

and the fun runs out fast.

As a result it’s an unfortunate fact that my least favorite part of Oblivion is

well, Oblivion.

Thankfully you can ignore most of them if you want to, and enjoy the freedom to play

the role of your choosing.

This includes buying houses again, with several domestic dwellings available for purchase

in multiple locales, each of which can be decorated.

Up to a point anyway: you can’t place individual items wherever you’d like, instead relying

on merchants that offer preset furniture and decor.

Seems like a good time to talk about the bartering and speech systems, which are largely affected

by associated skills and haggling percentages, in addition to your relationship with each

given individual.

And eh, I’ve never been too enamored with this mini-game, but once you get used to it

it’s whatever.

Beyond straight up bribery there are four possible methods of NPC persuasion: