The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Written By Chris Gardiner

The Elder Scroll’s series has to be one of the biggest and most open ended games ever created. Elder Scroll’s III Morrowind blew gamers away with massive amount of interactive characters with their own personal stories, the amount of literature scattered about the world, the fact that every item in the game was interactive (i.e. you could steal ANYTHING,) and how great the overall game looked.

Now just over 3 years later, Elder Scroll’s IV Oblivion is near its completion. Although Morrowind was intended to be a "Dark," game, the lack of AI, and lack of voice acting didn’t convey the game as being to dark. Oblivion looks to change this by adding complete voice acting for over 1,000 interactive characters, truly stunning graphics that you need to see to believe, and the most realistic AI ever created.

The story behind Oblivion is after the death of Emperor Tamriel, the gates of Oblivion opens up and hell is released. The game starts off similar to Morrowind. You’re character is in prison, and you don’t know who you are. From there you roam through a world relatively equal to 2 square kilometers filled with lush forests, and dungeons hidden everywhere.

The most interesting thing about the game is the normal everyday characters you encounter while walking through towns. Normally these are characters you just ignore, but in Oblivion they’re going to live complete lives. That means every day in the game, they do chores, jobs, hangout with friends, and keep up with current events. I believe this will create new kind of gaming experience that will be very easy to mistake for reality.

Another huge addition to the game is the physics. Everything has weight, and will effect the way you go about a lot of things. For example, imagine trying to steal a heavy sword off a shelf in someone’s house. They’re downstairs doing, whatever, and when you try to take the sword you knock over a pot. This will alarm the character you’re trying to steal from. In the Morrowind if you wanted to steal something you could just take it, as long as there was no one in the immediate area. This will add a whole new level of depth to being a thief.

The best part of Morrowind was how open ended the game was and how many different things you could do. Oblivion is to be about the same size, and will allow users to search hundreds of dungeons, dozens of towns, and offer hundreds of hours of gameplay. If you’re an RPG fan this is the one not to miss.