What It Is
If you don’t already know, then count yourself among the portion of the human race that still has a chance to procreate.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is the latest in a series of role playing video games which is part of an immense government-sponsored program to control population growth.
Basically, nothing could be less sexy than playing an Elder Scrolls game. Not even farting a twinkie. I don’t even know how you could do that, but it’s still sexier than picking up a controller and battling dark elves in the land of Gr’aathwailee (or whatever magical land it is in which all this Elder Scrolls crap takes place).
People die while playing games from this series. They sit and mash buttons until their bodies cease to function. It’s not a glorious death, and it’s almost indistinguishable from the state the person was in while playing the game. The clearest indication of deceasion is the eventual liquefication of the corpse which, over time, manages to overtake the stench of the rotting half-eaten containers of microwave spaghetti that no doubt litter the room of the gamer.
I’m serious. If you don’t already know what Elder Scrolls is, then go away. Pick up a new, healthy hobby instead. Like getting cholera.
Background
I’m just going to start things off by saying that I hated the previous game in this series.
I sat down once to play Morrowind (Elder Scrolls III) for about eight hours. It contained nearly everything in the universe that I’ve ever hated.
I hate:
– Elves
– Orcs
– Trolls
– Ogres
– Battle axes
– Armor
– Hit points
– Dwarves (not real ones – I like them (except for dwarf mimes – they can just fuck off))
– Outside
And, most of all:
– Mushrooms
I don’t believe in a god, but if one exists, and if he’s listening, I’d like him to pay me a visit so we can have a little chat about this mushroom idea of his. They’re just awful. In every way. I don’t want to eat them. I don’t like looking at them. I hate the words used to describe their parts:
– Gills
– Caps
– Stems
– Spores
Think about the word itself: Mushroom.
Mush.
Room.
It’s disgusting. The concept of anything “mushy” is already gross, but the idea of an entire “room” of “mush” is too much for me to handle.
There. Just talking about it, I had a small seizure.
And again. Had another one.
I hate ‘em. And, nearing the eighth hour of my time in Morrowind, I came upon a village that was built out of mushrooms. Not those cute little Smurf mushrooms, either, but big, hulking, ominous, clearly violent-if-they-could-be, this-is-the-stuff-of-nightmares mushrooms.
I tried to cope. I thought it might make for a good opportunity to get over my fear. You know, like a virtual-therapy session or something. I could get close and personal with virtual mushrooms and make my peace with them.
It didn’t work at all.
After wandering around for a while, I came to this one mushroom that was about the size of Central Park. It just sat there and existed at me, threatening me with its presence. To my horror, I learned that it was even hollowed out – that I could go inside.
Which I did. It was compulsive. I couldn’t stop myself. Like the mushroom was exerting some kind of mind-control.
When I got inside, I thought I had arrived in my own, personal hell. I walked up to a “wall” and saw the “flesh” of the mushroom from which it had been carved. As though from a distance, I heard the words, “Oh, god, no… please, no” come out of my mouth. Then I spiritually threw-up, shut off the computer, and never played Morrowind again.
The Now
Given how taken I was with the third game in the series, it should come as no surprise that I reserved a copy of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion several months before it was released (the 360 version).
It finally arrived on Tuesday, and, boy, it doesn’t disappoint.
It’s So Big
One of the selling points of Oblivion, as far as I can tell, is that the game world is big.
Like, huge.
Like, you could fit North Dakota inside the Dwarven High Council’s employee parking lot and still have room left over for South Dakota.
That big.
The great benefit of the size is that it allows Oblivion to shine where The Elder Scrolls has always succeeded…
Going Forward For a Long Time
The Elder Scrolls series has always offered near limitless possibilities where forward locomotion is concerned. The game world is a collection of small towns connected by vast expanses of randomly-generated scenery that goes on for miles and miles and miles and...
You could actually put a brick down on the “forward” button, take a trip to France, come back, and your character would still be doin’ it to it. Walkin’. Movin’. Motivatin’.
I ride my recumbent stationary bicycle for forty minutes each day. I do it for the endorphine rush. It’s why I’m always in such a good mood.
Today, I started going forward in Oblivion right when I started my workout.
Thirty minutes later, I was still going. I had seen a deer, and been aggressed by a wolf, but other than that, nothing was going to bump me from my course. It reminded me of my middle school science textbook’s definition of inertia, which was “The tendency for a moving object to continue in a straight line until acted upon by an outside force.”
In this case, my “outside force” was a small insectoid hummingbird that I met on a ridge as the sun was setting. This was about thirty-five minutes into my forward-going, and I felt I had been making excellent progress. The endorphines from my workout were flowing through my veins, and the whole world just seemed to have sunshine coming out of its ass. I loved it.
So, I came face to face with this little bug-like avian. It hovered. I looked at it. It looked at me. And I looked at it. And we were, like, connecting. I felt like singing.
And then it electrocuted my horse.
And then I decided to go in the opposite direction, which I did for the next half hour, bringing me right back to where I started.
I love this game.
A Simple But Flexible Game Engine
I’ve never understood the rules which govern role playing games. There’s all these dice and stats and things. Your character has fifty charisma and ninety-nine intelligence, so he can summon the spirit of the dead unicorn from the Halls of Shara’aa to defeat the Hobgoblin of Bandorth and blah blah blah. You need a degree in the game before you can play it. Not my kind of thing.
That’s why I’m glad these video game things take care of the complexity for me, and that the developers provided me with a clear, easy to understand manual chock full of helpful nuggets such as (taken directly from the manual – I’m not making this up):
– “The magnitude of the Dispel must exceed the spell’s resistance to dispel (based on its casting cost) in order to dispel it.”
– “Conjures a lesser Daedra bound in the form of a magical, wondrously light Daedric item.”
– “An Expert receives no penalty to his chance of detection while Sneaking for moving while Sneaking.”
It’s like the Oblivion team was getting into crunch time and just foisted the duties of writing the manual off onto the company’s Chinese lawyers.
I imagine that this is kind of what tax forms look like in the land of Fantasia.
With a Kick Ass Graphics System To Back It Up
All kidding aside, Oblivion is a nice looking game. Rats look like rats. The sky has clouds. Sometimes it rains. Water reflects. Grass sways.
The only problem is that, as you travel outside, the game stops every twelve seconds to load up new scenery, like it’s doing it acre-by-acre.
I tried to ignore it at first, but the truth is that the constant “Loading area…” messages and accompanying pauses robbed all my forward-going of some of its magic. With the game pausing as often as it does, it’s hard to pretend that I really am the mighty Cockthor (my in-game name) on a great quest to go forward all across the land, stopping for nothing except to be harassed by violent hummingbirds.
The Verdict
Oddly enough, I think this game kicks ass.
In my heart of hearts, I hate games like this. As I sit here, my character is being attacked by a cat-person with a hammer. That just pisses me off. I forgot to mention “Cat-people” in my list of things I hate. I hate them.
Still, though, I dig this game. According to the in-game clock (which should include an alarm to remind you to get up and eat occasionally), I’ve played for a total of nine hours since I picked it up on Tuesday. The only thing I remember from all that time is getting my ass kicked by that bird thing, but I’ve clearly been having a good enough time to keep on doing whatever it is that I’m doing in the game.
If, like me, you don’t have any friends or people who love you, this game is the perfect means by which to hide from real life.
Also, you kind of have to have respect for any game in which an androgynous elf can tell you, completely straight-faced, that you can’t fight in the arena until you’ve spoken with Owyn, the Blademaster, who works down at the Bloodworks.
Recommended, both as a means of entertainment and a birth control device.