The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Preview

Greg: Back to his womanising ways

The day I got my copy of Oblivion was the day everything else in my life came to a screeching halt. I hum the game's theme song during the day, I've been avoiding all forms of social activity and I literally have to pry my hands from the controller and force myself to go outside and get some exercise. It's sad really, but this just goes to show how much of a remarkable job Bethesda has done at bringing the Elder Scrolls series to the next generation.

After finally getting my hands on a copy of the game, I glued myself to my best friend, the Laz-E-Boy my mother bought me (thanks mum!), and spent the next three hours customizing my character. Unlike Tom, who chose the Nord class (come on Tom, a Nord?), I decided to give the Redguard a shot. Seemed like a good idea to me. The Redguards have a natural immunity to disease and are easily the best warriors in the game. Oddly enough, my character ended up looking identical to David Beckham, and for a moment, I considered changing my character's name to exactly that, but in the end, I felt Beckham wasn't quite ready yet for the world of Tamriel, and reverted back to Isis, my character's original name.

After escaping the sewers with my Beckham look-a-like, I spent the next hour or so just staring in awe at how huge this game really is. And the first time you step out of the sewers, you'll probably do the same. Cyrodiil is a vast province with dozens of caves to explore, plenty of sights to see and more than a few side quests to complete. So after 25 hours of playtime, how far am I into the game you ask? Oh, I'd say I've completed about ten per cent, maybe. In other words, you might want to free up your schedule for the next few months.

The indoor locations look just as stunning as the sprawling countryside

Though I'm no where near completing the game, one of my favourite things so far is the variety of the side quests. For example, one quest had me searching for a missing painter. Seems your typical RPG quest right? Wrong. It turns out the painter was trapped in one of his paintings by a thief who stole his magical paint brush - and yes, I'm not making this up. In order to rescue the painter, you have to jump into the painting, which for the record, looks gorgeous. The sky is filled with blue brush strokes, while the trees are bathed in strokes of red, orange, and yellow to create the autumn setting. And once you've taken care of the trolls (who the thief painted to protect him), you'll find the thief's dead body (as if trolls could be controlled, come on now) blanketed by the white background of the unfinished portion of the painting - awesome.

Or the time I had to pose as a married man and meet two lovely ladies at their farmhouse for a little 'manage et trois' action. Of course, these two fine specimens were known for bringing married men to their home, undressing them, and robbing them for all their worth. So I unsheathed my sword, let them have it, grabbed all of the stolen loot and ran off. After all, I needed some sort of consolation prize for my efforts. There's actually quite a bit more to that quest, but I think I've spoiled enough already.

... I've developed a bit of a crush on the game's map system.

After spending this much time with the game, I've developed a bit of a crush on the game's map system. Although you can't zoom out, which makes locating distant targets quite tricky, if you select one of your available quests a marker will be placed on the location, or person, showing you exactly where to go. Hardcore Elder Scrolls veterans might prefer to walk aimlessly for hours trying to find a cave with the only hint given being to "go North," but for players like me who actually want to complete the game at some point in this lifetime, this is a blessing.

I'm also impressed by the Radiant A.I. The conversations NPCs have with each other might be a little bland, but their actions certainly aren't. I was in the woods late at night trying to find a cave or two with some treasure worth looting when I suddenly heard an arrow being shot. Naturally I assumed it was being shot at me, but further inspection revealed that it was actually someone from the nearby town shooting at something off in the distance. Then I noticed another archer opposite the first, shooting at the exact same position. I ran up the top of the cliff just as both of them put away their bows, unsheathed their swords, and began running at each other. They fought for a moment until the first archer was killed. I followed the second for a bit until I came across what they were shooting at - a wolf. They were fighting over the damn wolf! But before the NPC could nab the meat, I charged, sword raised high and took him out with a swift swing of the blade. Talk about unexpected events.

With Beckham at Level 12, six Oblivion gates closed, and with a handful of side quests completed (I've barely even tapped into the game's main quest yet), I think it's quite obvious how impressed I am with Bethesda's work. At this point my only gripes are with the frame rate and a number of glitches that have forced me to re-do large portions of the game - I really do need to start remembering to save in multiple slots.

The in-game menus are a doddle to use

But considering Elder Scrolls is such a enormous game, it doesn't really surprise me that the frame rate dips down below 30 fps here and there, or that frequent stuttering loads accompany your adventuring, or that last night I got stuck in a wall for the second time and couldn't get out. Do these setbacks ever make the game unplayable? Hardly. Can they be a bit of a nuisance? Absolutely. Either way, I don't think I'll ever see a game of this scale without a few technical errors to report. It comes with the territory.

All-in-all, Oblivion appears to be the first game I've played in a long time that actually lives up to the hype. It's by far the best Xbox 360 game out there and this is exactly what Elder Scrolls, let alone RPG fans, have been longing for. Though you'll have to wait a little bit to find out what our final verdict is, there's no point in denying this game's brilliance. The shear size of the playing field, number of quests, items, and so forth is more than worth every penny. My hat's off to Bethesda on this one.