Although a lot can be said about Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, there’s one thing on the mind of most gamers and that is the fact that the game has come a long way since it was first announced for the Xbox 360 and the PC. During a private press showing for the game last Friday, Advanced Media was there to witness first hand and to play the game without any distractions for four straight hours. While four hours may seem like a lot, when you’re playing Oblivion, it actually felt more like 4 minutes. That’s just how large this game was. There are both some good things to write about this game and there are also some bad things; which I hope can get ironed out before final release.
The first thing you must do before starting out on your adventure is to create your character. The character creation process took me about 35-40 minutes to do. Now, you may ask why I spent a good amount of time on creating my character but let me tell you that some people could probably spend two hours creating their character without even knowing it. That is how much there is to the character creation process.
In addition to multiple racial classes, you can chose a multitude of options for eyes, facial expressions, hair color and length, cheek-bone placement, how fat or skinny you want your character to be, how to curl your character’s lips, and so much more. The list goes on and on. If I were to worry about the minor things and try to get my character just the exact way I wanted her to look, I could have easily spent two, maybe three hours just creating my character alone. There are just that many choices and while most people will appreciate all the options, some might find it a tad bit overwhelming.
After you’ve finished creating your character, the game will begin in the Imperial Capital of Cyrodil – center of power for the Empire in the world of Tamriel – or more specifically, its luxurious prison. Indeed, you start the game with your character behind bars. Of course, you don’t know why you are there or how you got there but I guess that isn’t important at this moment in the game.
Soon, the Emperor, Uriel Septim, and his guards open the cell door and barge in to reveal a secret passageway out of the kingdom jails. It appears that the Emperor has been targeted for assassination and they are fleeing the city. Although the Emperor is an aging man, he still carries a sword and looks pretty capable of defending himself.
With the door to freedom opened up directly in front of you, in the form of a passageway through the catacombs, you take your first step into the adventure that is Oblivion and the defining role your character will eventually play in the overall scheme of things.
Unfortunately for me, it seems that the game I was playing still had some glitches as it froze for 7 minutes while loading the catacombs stage. This is almost certainly because it was an early version of the code. I doubt we’ll see 7 minute loads in the final version. After that was done, I descended into the depths of darkness to seek my freedom and follow the Emperor and his guards; without them seeing me, of course.
The catacombs escape basically serves as a tutorial to get a feel for the game. It will show you various ways to cast magic, evade, sneak, pick up and equip weapons, armor, and more. You could literally blast through this stage pretty quickly but if it is your first time playing, you will need all the help you can possibly get. So one must be patient and fight little rats, goblins, and a few undead.
The actual entire level here is dark with only a few sections of light from cracks in the ceiling or the fires lit by the small patches of goblins lurking in the sector. Although, for the most part you can see where you are going, my see in the dark spell came in handy many, many times.
The enemies here are easy to dispatch with only a few swings of your sword. Always be sure to check the bodies of your fallen victims for new items, money, and other necessities before moving on as some of them leave health potions which can really come in handy if you find yourself getting careless or low on health. Of course, if you play it safe and use your shield to block, you won’t take much damage at all.
It isn’t always smart to go all out and attack like a maniac. Play it safe and play it smart and your can save your health potions for later. Basically, block with the L trigger when getting attacked, wait for an opening and then splatter your enemies’ guts all over the place with a few well places taps of the L trigger and swings of your weapon. Be smart and your combat, acrobatic, and other skills will increase with time and training. But you’ll have to make sure to rest in an inn in order to actually level up.
After a semi-lengthy trek through the catacombs, I happen upon the Emperor and his guards again. It doesn’t seem like they are having any better luck than me in escaping as routes are blocked and our paths have crossed once more. Before his guards can conveniently run me through or decapitate me, the Emperor speaks a whole lot of mumbo-jumbo about how I am some sort of chosen warrior of his dreams or something or another and invites me into his group.
Not long afterwards, we find ourselves trapped and surrounded by assassins. Through my conversations with the Emperor, the choice for my birth sign is revealed. Each sign you can choose have pros and some have pros and cons to them; so make sure you choose wisely. This is a very important part of character creation.
Soon afterwards, the Emperor predicts his death. While he does fight against the assassins, he’s pretty easily distinguishable as the emperor due to his long red cape and crown. Obviously this escape wasn’t well planned and that was unfortunate.
Indeed, only a few moments later, bam, he is killed by an assassin from behind before I could really do anything to save his poor highness. Fortunately for me, he was able to hand me his Amulet of Kings before getting killed. He wanted me to deliver it to a special someone who would know where his final son was so I could give it to him. This basically is your first real quest in the main storyline.
After dispatching all the assassins, the final remaining living guard talks to me and I get to finalize my character creation process by choosing the my player class. Here, you could pick from multiple different trades such as witch hunter, acrobatic, thief, battle mage, or you could basically create your own class and pick and choose abilities and special skills.
Afterwards, I leave the guard to tend to the emperor’s body and make my way out of the sewers. By now I know how to control my character pretty well with the two analogue sticks and what buttons do what, although, you can customize your controller the way you seem fit. Next up is to bring the Amulet of Kings to a person in a place called Weynon Priory.
After escaping the sewers, I finally got to see the lush landscape of the outside world. Whilst most of the close-up visuals are stunning, the far off distance shots proved very underwhelming. Everything in the immediate area was beautifully rendered but trees and far off mountainous regions just didn’t floor me as I expected them to. Some far off trees just looks taped onto the background and weren’t detailed at all.
As I started walking around a bit, a huge thunderstorm hit and the environmental effects engine kicked in big time. Raindrops cascaded unto the ground and into lake water, lightning ripped the sky apart and thunder cracked the otherwise calm landscape. I’m telling you now, play this game with a kicking 5.1 surround setup and you’ll be blown away. TV speakers will not do it justice.
So, after traveling the world a bit and killing anything that looked like it would be fun to kill, like flying gargoyle-type critters and mountain lions and such, I finally made it to Weynon Priory and delivered the amulet to the correct person who handed me out another mission to find the king’s son and make him Emperor. I was excited that my existence in this game was finally meaning something other than that of adventurer out to kill evil things and gain levels.
Eventually I ended up at this evil red looking gate type thing which according to one nice fellow at Bethesda, I wasn’t supposed to be there. So, basically my four hours were up and I was left with a cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers. After exchanging business cards with the nice lady up front, I grabbed a few snacks and took some bottles of water and my buddy Dave Rudden and I left the room wondering what could have happened if we were just allowed inside that glowing red gate. Oh well, come March 20, if this date doesn’t change, I will finally get to see what lies beyond what was denied to me during the press showing.
Basically, I never played Morrowind but now I may be regretting that. If it was even half the fun of Oblivion, then I have truly missed out on something special. Although the four hours of game play seems like a lot, it really isn’t and I believe I’ve not even scratched the surface of this gigantic game set before me. The official release date can’t come soon enough for Oblivion. Let us just hope it isn’t delayed again.
