Leveling Down

There are various enemies in the world of Tamriel, including ice elementals

Ah, Oblivion – the game that I bought originally when it came out for PC, played about 10 hours into it, got overwhelmed, and quit. Since borrowing it from my brother last Christmas, I’ve tried again and again to get into it, only to stop before I really even left the first zone because I just didn’t feel like tackling this monster of a game. It was good that there were Achievements this time to guide me, since without them I felt like I could be lost in the game forever. After finding some guidance in a noob Oblivion thread on a forum, I decided to force myself to start the game.

This was maybe two weeks ago. Now I can say I’ve finished the game, but I don’t think I can ever say I’ll have completed it since it is so massive in scope. 50 hours and 1000 Achievement points is good enough for me. I understand now why the game was so well received, and I can only agree.

Intro
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is the fourth game in the Elder Scrolls series, released by Bethesda Softworks. The Elder Scrolls series has pretty much been Bethesda Softworks’ bread and butter – churn out a new one every 4 years and rake in the profit. They’ve recently acquired the Fallout franchise, and will be developing Fallout 3. While fans of the Fallout universe are scared that the third one will be butchered, I personally am looking forward to Bethesda Softworks developing it since I never got into the Fallout series but enjoy what they’ve done with the Elder Scrolls games.

Anyway, Oblivion was released last year on both the PC and Xbox 360, where it has sold over a million copies on the 360 and over 3 million for both the Xbox 360 and PC as of January 2007. It doesn’t look like there’s going to be a price drop for this million game seller in sight, as it has very strong legs and continues to sell. It is the ultimate RPG experience on the 360 right now, and should satisfy every RPG fan.

The game is so popular that the tiny Japanese Xbox 360 install base has requested for the game to be translated into Japanese. Considering the amount of text and dialogue in the game and the few Japanese people that actually own it, it would make for a very costly translation. However, Bethesda has decided to fulfill this request! The Japanese translated version will be released in July 2007 – Bethesda Softworks hopes that the game will achieve at least a level of success similar to Blue Dragon there and that it will keep selling through positive word of mouth.

A daedra has just stepped out of a gate from the plains of Oblivion

Storyline and Premise of the Game
Why is Oblivion so popular? It is because it is a traditional RPG but with untraditional enhancements. It is more akin to a sandbox RPG, which appeals to the American crowd. Think Grand Theft Auto 3 how it has an open city where you can do all sorts of missions or follow along the main one. Now transplant that type of freedom into an enormous RPG world, and you have Oblivion. There’s a main quest line, but even after the quest line is complete, the game never officially ends. I completed the storyline and expected the credits to roll but they never did. It was weird to just quit the game at that point on my own and conclude that I was done when there were no actual end credits.

The main storyline is pretty exciting. It revolves around the world of Tamriel where the Emperor has been slain by a Daedric cult intent on bringing forth a Daedric invasion from Oblivion. With the Emperor killed, the gates to Oblivion open up all over the world and the demons pour forth onto the land. The main questline revolves around going into an Oblivion gate infesting each city and closing it. Once a city’s gate has been closed, the ruler of the city provides the city’s military support for sort of a “final battle” to fight for the empire.

By stepping into an Oblivion gate, you enter a demonic world that involves finding the tower with the main source of energy powering the gate. Once you climb to the top of that tower and remove the crystal, the gate shuts and you get thrown back into Tamriel. It was definitely awesome the first time I entered this different world of Oblivion, but to have to do it 10 times in a row to get further in the quest line was somewhat tedious. It was during this main quest line that I was considering stopping the game but luckily, I pushed forward and experienced the rest of the game’s world.

What you see in this picture is not just a “background shot.” You can actually travel through all of those trees if you wish.

Another big aspect of the game revolves around joining four different guilds, as well as becoming a gladiator in the Imperial City arena. By joining a guild, you are given quests that you must complete, and as you complete more, you will raise in rank within that guild. Eventually, you climb to the rank of guild leader, and at that point there are no more quests left to do for that guild. But at the top of each guild, you are given certain luxuries and goods. The four guilds are as follows:

1. Fighter’s Guild
This guild accomplishes simple tasks, usually related to straightforward melee. It has rules that make it seem more good than evil, even though the guild is still somewhat of a business. The main opposition of this guild is another group that is competing for the same business from the citizens as the Fighter’s Guild. It’s probably the easiest of the guilds to get through and the first one I recommend joining.

2. Mage’s Guild
The Mage’s Guild is also pretty straightforward and inherently good. The guild has a firm stance against the dark arts – necromancy, etc. By casting out the studies and specialization of the more “evil magic,” the Mage’s Guild has an evil counterpart as its opposition.

3. Thieves Guild
The Thieves Guild is interesting because it is not as straightforward as the Fighter’s Guild and Mage’s Guild. I initially believed the Thieves Guild to be an evil guild, but they are more along the lines of a neutral group. It’s more Robin Hood, in that they steal from the rich and give to the poor. I think there were two strict requirements – not stealing from other guild members and not killing. The quests were pretty fun since they required more covert style play, something I’m not used to doing in video games. Their main opposition, of course, are the authorities.

4. Dark Brotherhood
The final guild in the game, the Dark Brotherhood, would be considered an evil guild. The only way to join them is to kill an innocent civilian – then the Dark Brotherhood visits you when you are sleeping and tries to recruit you. Joining the Dark Brotherhood definitely provided me with a guilty pleasure; the quests/tasks involved with this guild always required killing someone or several people. Not only that, but there were bonuses involved for certain criteria fulfilled on the tasks.

For example, one quest involved an assignment to kill all five people that were all locked up in a house believing that there was a hidden treasure. All of the other five people assume you’re another guest also looking for the treasure, but your job is to assassinate all of them and you get a bonus reward if none of them discover that you’re the killer (meaning, you kill each of the five off in the house without anyone else seeing). Using speechcraft and wit, you get the guests to turn on one another and isolate themselves so you can go in and do the killing. Quests like this were definitely a lot of fun since they weren’t the inherently good quests related to the main storyline.

Oblivion features 10 different humanoid races in the game, some more humanoid than others.

Game Mechanics
One of the most overwhelming mechanics of the game is your character customization. There are ten different humanoid-like races, all with their own race’s strengths and weaknesses. Once you’ve decided on a race, you need to decide what type of class you will be. Any class-type is possible, as the basis for a class is determined by choosing seven major class skills. So for example, if you wanted to be a pure fighter class, you would probably pick major skills consisting of blades, blunt weapons, heavy armor, blocking, etc. If you wanted to be a thief, you may want to pick major skills consisting of sneaking, acrobatics, and lock picking.

Based on this guy’s major skills, it looks like he’s a spellsword – emphasizing both magic spells and heavy armor

The experience system in this game is unique and unlike traditional RPGs where you just level up through experience points gained from slain enemies. In this game, by increasing your major skills, you level up your character. To level up your skills, you have to use them. Want to level up blades? Keep swinging a sword. Want to level up lock picking? Keep attempting to unlock things. Each skill can be maxed out at 100. However, in order to level up, you are only required to gain 10 skill points total in any of your seven major skills. So as a thief with thief related major skills, you could gain 10 points of sneaking or lock picking and level up, or just 5 points of each. Thus, deciding on which skills you want to be your major skills are important and define your class. As a fighter, I wouldn’t want magic to be my major skills since I would have to use them in order to level up.

How can you play this massive RPG if you level up in such an unorthodox way? Won’t you get rocked if you enter some dungeon and your level is too low? No problem – the game’s enemies and gear you find all level with you. You may encounter a level 1 rat when you first start the game, but when you’re level 20 and finding the same rats you encountered at the start of the game, expect the rats to be near your level. This is the same with gear – the gear that you find will be stronger as you level up in the game, regardless of which dungeon you go through early or late in the game. Oblivion also has a difficulty slider in the game as well that can be modified at any time. Slide the bar all the way to the right and the enemies will be a lot stronger than you – slide it to the left and everything will drop in just a few hits. This type of convenience that Bethesda Softworks provides really allows one to just enjoy the game at any pace chosen.

Not only does your character ride horses to traverse the world, NPCs will be riding them as well.

There are about 10 major cities in the world of Oblivion, and maybe over 100 different dungeons/land marks. You can traverse the 16 square miles of the world’s terrain on foot or on horseback, but Bethesda Softworks has made it so that you can quick travel to any city or any landmark you’ve already visited. Just bring up the map and select where you want to go and you’ll instantly be transported there (minus the loading). This type of convenience allows the world to be massive but at the same time doesn’t force you to waste time traversing it if you don’t feel like it.

Time is also an element in this game. There is an in-game clock and calendar, and the citizens of the world live their lives according to the in-game clock. Arrive at the item shop at 6AM and expecting it to be open? The owner doesn’t generally open shop until 8AM. Want to rob someone’s house? Wait until 1AM or so when the owner is already sleeping. Oblivion has a convenient option to dealing with time in this game – allowing you to wait up to 24 hours at any location. Want the store to open but it’s 11PM? Just choose the command to wait 9 hours and suddenly it’ll be 8AM. Voila! Store is open.

If you enter a house that is unlocked, the inhabitant will welcome you. But if you enter a house with the door locked, the inhabitant will call the guards and you’ll get arrested.

There are hundreds of quests in this game besides the main quest and the guild related quests. Simply poking around towns listening to rumors will allow you to learn about new quests that can be pursued. I skipped all of these because I figured I would never be done with Oblivion if I wanted to finish every quest in the game.

Bethesda Softworks has made quests very easy to manage and complete. Not only is there a log for each quest for you to follow what parts you’ve already completed and what quest you are on, there is almost always a marker for a quest on your compass and map once you accept one. In the game, if the quest location is in a different zone than what you are in, it will appear red, but if it is in the same zone, it will appear green. Providing the player with such supportive quest system made the game a lot more enjoyable. With the amount of text in this game, it would have been nearly impossible to complete several quests with no indication of where to go except for what people have said.

Some enemies, like ghosts, cannot be damaged normal weapons so you must use magic to kill them

Achievement System
Oblivion originally had 1000 straightforward Achievement points in the game. About a third of the Achievements in the game revolved around completing the main storyline, while the rest of the 1000 points revolved around becoming the leader of the four guilds in the game and being the champion of the Imperial Arena.

Oblivion had a recent expansion release, the Shivering Isles, which added another 250 Achievement points in the game, bringing the game’s total to 1250. It looks like in order to get the 250 new Achievement points, the player will simply need to go through the expansion’s small storyline. I expect the expansion’s storyline to be about the same length as one of the main guilds.

While the Achievements are basic and get the job done, this was the only area of the game that I wish more work were put in. There is so much that can be done in the game but none of the Achievements really hint at any of these accomplishments. For example, it’s possible to buy a house and furnish it in every city in the game. These houses are somewhat expensive. Why aren’t there impressive Achievements like “Bought a house in every city?”

Liches are among the scarier enemies that you will find when exploring dark crypts.

Also, there’s all sorts of statistics in the game that revolve around things like # of jokes told, fame, infamy, bounty, # of days as a vampire, # of victims killed as a vampire, etc. All this stat tracking for some of the cooler stuff and the developers couldn’t come up with Achievements that would really be impressive? “Jokester” Achievement – told 1000 jokes. “Vampire Lord” Achievement – slain 1000 civilians and drank their blood. “Crime lord” – Bounty of 1,000,000 septims hit. Achievements like these would have really pushed exploration in the game, as well as different aspects of the game.

Dead Rising had several innovative and fun Achievements (“Frank the pimp” – escort 8 female civilians to safety, etc.) and it’s just a shame that with a sandbox RPG like Oblivion, there’s no creativity in what we can show off to our peers.

Anvil is a port town, with several shops lined up along its harbor.

Final Thoughts
The only negative I can really think about this game is the lack of interesting Achievements. Other than that, the game is the most massive, satisfying, and easy-to-play RPG I’ve ever played. How can such a game be so massive in scope yet so easy to play? It’s just a testament to Bethesda Softworks – they’ve been working on the Elder Scrolls series for over 10 years now, and the series just keeps getting better. I’m anxious to see how Elder Scrolls V turns out, but I guess it’ll be a while since they’re concentrating their efforts on Fallout 3 now.

I give this game an A – a near perfect game that is only marred by its weak Achievements and slightly repetitive Oblivion towers in the main storyline. If more thought were put into the Achievements, it is entirely possible that I would have scored even higher. Still, it’s a game that no one should miss. With many RPGs going the way of the MMORPG nowadays, Oblivion stands strong and shows us that an amazing single player RPG can last us even longer than an online one. The game is enjoyable for novice and veteran RPG fans alike. There’s just so much depth in the game that you can spend the entire game harvesting mushrooms across the world to concoct potions, or live your life as a thief pick-pocketing citizens and stealing their silverware. The game is what you want it to be, and unlike other sandbox games (e.g. Crackdown) the actual storyline is quite captivating and entertaining should you want to progress through it. If any game is worth buying full price for, it’s this one.

Be Sociable, Share!

•