The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (GOTY)

While everyone else is enjoying the fifth installment of The Elder Scrolls, Bethesda's ongoing, Game-of-the-Year winning, fantasy franchise, I'm just now sitting down with the The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Game of the Year Edition.  I was really shy from getting into the series, because I like my fantasy games like I like my sex life: turn-based and from a third-person perspective.  Just kidding:  I'm married, and no longer have a sex life.

Unlike the traditional genre staples, the Elder Scrolls series are fantasy games from first-person perspective, which dynamically changes everything when it comes to combat strategy, and gives the game an unsurprising sense of immersion.  The engine is painstakingly identical to that of the Fallout series, which makes sense, as the games are made by the same folks.

Full review is happening, after the jump...

Cat-man image not included to prevent
nightmares for my reader-base.

The game begins with a robust character generation component, wherein you chose from one of ten possible races.  A sudden panic had already ridden through my very bones: what if I make the wrong choice?  I toiled, entreatingly, through the options, trying to decide which class I would play and how my current choice would impact that.  I finally decided on Khajiit, a feline-human hybrid with the ability to see in the dark.  I am often discouraged by a lack of ability to see in dark underground vaults caves, so I placed the value of night-vision over everything else.

It was probably a pretty stupid idea, really, since I looked like a grotesque nightmare cat-man, and had granted myself the puny endurance of a bird made completely out of tissue paper.  I compensated by making my head abnormally large.  So the character creation boasted not only substantive choices, but also fun cosmetic ones.

Though minimal, character race impacts the story, in that other characters will greet you by racial title.  This makes my first experience with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion a gaming tri-fecta - gameplay, presentation, and story all bundled together nicely.

That mushy crap won't work on me, buddy.

In what I'm told is the series' trademark, your newly created character wakes up in a prison cell, interrupted by an escaping Emperor (voiced by Sir Patrick Stewart) who is being rushed to safety after the grisly assassination of his heirs.  An escape passage to the sewers exists in your jail cell, which is a pretty poor design plan for a prison, but whatever.  Instead of sitting in jail permanently, you follow the Emporer and his guard.  At this point of time, the Emperor asked me my sign - clearly hitting on me (I got to choose one out of 13 signs).  I judged him for his poor taste, but maybe he has a thing for furries with large heads.

Eventually the assassins catch up and murder him, but not before he bestows you to find his last remaining heir and present him with an amulet that will let him reign.  The nearest guard thanks you for trying to help and says that you can probably take care of yourself, since clearly you are a [blank].

The blank is filled by whatever class most matched your playstyle to this point.  Now, I like me some immersion, so this was really doing it for me.  I strolled through the various classes (there are 21 pre-defined classes), and was also blown away to discover I could design my own class.  But, embracing immersion, I went with Assassin, and was determined to live my life as such.

Really quickly, for those of you playing at home, along with gender (which I didn't mention), the pre-built choices of the game give you an opportunity to have made a character one of 5,460 ways (2 for gender x 10 for race x 13 for sign x 21 for pre-defined classes).  So, there are an unbelievable amount of options, even before even taking into account custom classes.  But just for giggles - how many custom characters does The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion give you the opportunity to make?

• You can choose 1 of 2 genders (x2)
• 1 of 10 races (x10)
• 1 of 13 birth signs (x13)
• 2 of 8 key class attributes (x56)
• 7 of 21 major skills (x[21!-15!])

The result?  7.43884099 × 10²³ or 743,884,099,000,000,000,000,000 or 743 sextillion, 884 quintillion, and 99 quadrillion custom characters.  If you were really into extrapolating this sort of thing, you could also consider that there are 14 factions in the game you can chose to join or not join, giving you an additional x196 multiplier to the above number.

Night-eye provides low-light vision for those
dark, damp interior environments.

Anyway, I settled for a pre-built class and merely picked from 1 of 5,460.  I had my freedom, some amulet thing, and a purpose!  And then, I was smacked back into reality by a window asking me if I was sure I liked my race, gender, birth sign, and class, and if I didn't, I could magically repeal any decision made up until this point.  While the immersion certainly took a hit, I can understand how an "are you sure" option may be necessary since you will be spending a very long time in the shoes of the person you just created.

And boy, is there a world to be in.  After getting out of the dungeon sewers, you are free to do as the Emperor wished, or go all willy-nilly around the world at your own pace.  The openness, in comparison with other fantasy/RPG games is staggeringly unnerving.  I've thus far become a member of the Mages' guild, Theives' guild, Assassin's guild, cohort of vampire hunters, defender of the Emperor's bloodline, and a general do-gooder in a couple of the world's 7 or 8 thriving towns.  And I'm barely a quarter into the game, from my best estimates.  With about 20 hours of playtime under my belt, that ranks The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion as a chart-topper with 80 hours of gameplay awaiting me.  We've not yet even discussed the full array of DLC that came with the GOTY edition.

The gameplay and story involve traveling into a parallel plane (the titular Oblivion) and closing the gate that has opened between the worlds.  And, really, it's the world that is the story, which is how this game really got it right.  One of my complaints with Fallout 3 was a disconnect in the side-quests from everything else that was going on.  In Oblivion, everything I do seems to have a grander impact on the entire world and settlements seem more integrated.  (Though, in fairness, it is probably harder to get along across civilizations when you are living in a post-nuke world.)

Clearly paying no attention to skin-care.
Stupid undead skeletons.

Combat depends on your delivery - blades, axes, bows, and magic are the primary methods, though your character could also summon undead creatures from the ether to handle things for you.  And because advancement works based on skill usage and not experience from slaying creatures, there are avenues of being more a pacifist (thought there are many story-driven, combat required situations).  Being concealed and delivering an attack from afar has been my preference, though I think a future build as a slash-happy magic user would also work.  It's hard to imagine any combination that doesn't work, in fact, even further adding depth to the gameplay.

Oblivion has been well-worth its purchase price, and is an excellent pacifier for not having The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.  If you haven't picked this up, I couldn't recommend anything higher.