ELDER SCROLLS IV – OBLIVION 

Back in the ‘80s Mike Singleton’s Lords of Midnight and Doomdark’s Revenge offered amazed gamers the chance to roam at will around a huge landscape, interacting with allies, enemies and wild beasts. Their spiritual successor, in many ways, is the free-roaming RPG genre, and Oblivion is the current top of the pile.

 THE START 

You awake, anonymous and clueless, in a dank dungeon. Raised voices without suggest something amiss and by-the-by you get out of your cell and become witness to a Grand Strategic assassination. Whereupon you are charged with a heavy duty and sent off into the world. All clear so far? Well, no, but that’s the point. Without a ready made back story, you are forced to fill in the gaps yourself and by reading tracts scattered around the world and talking to its inhabitants, you gradually immerse yourself in and become integrated with the tale of Cyrodil. 

On your way out of the dungeon en route the capital, you hit the character creation screen. Now, I haven’t gone in for RPGs in any great way, so I’m a bit of a tyro at these things, but the process seemed pretty fair to me. There are several races to choose from, both human and non. Each has different character traits and skills in the physical and metaphysical arts. Within certain parameters you can modify these strengths to suit yourself and even such ephemera as birth star can be adjusted to add skill points. The problem being, of course, that as you have no idea what awaits you, you have little reference within which to make your choices. So use the thing, like Molyneaux’s magnificent Black & White, as a blind personality test and just see what happens. You can always start again if you don’t like where you end up.

 THE WORLD

 Emerging from the dungeons you get to see the playing area proper for the first time. Obviously a lot depends on your rig, but provided you have the minimum spec’ machine, you cannot fail to be impressed. Your immediate surroundings are immensely detailed and some of the long distance vistas spellbinding. On more than one occasion I’ve gone out of my way (and even into danger) to take in a particularly fine view. You can swan around the place in either first or third person view, though I’ve spent 99.9% of my time in first.

 The people you meet are also well drawn. Lips sync’ tolerably well, the voice acting is generally good and the faces appear live and animated. They move pretty well too, especially in combat, but more of that later.

 Although you won’t appreciate it immediately, the world is also very large. Walking at full tilt from side to side would probably take half an hour or more in real time. Assuming you made it of course, as there’s lots of stuff out there only too willing to kill you. In fact, at the outset probably the only place you can survive is the capital, Imperial City. Which is a good thing, as that’s where you’re headed.

 As well as walking, you can get hold of a horse, which speeds things up a lot. You can’t fight or use spells from horseback however, which is a bit of a bind (though you can outrun just about any trouble) and your mount will gradually lose health over time from attacks and from being ridden too hard. Eventually the poor thing will die, unless you have the appropriate spell. Acquiring a new one won’t be easy early in the game. You can try rustling, but that will put a large bounty on your head. They also cost a lot, so buying one early on isn’t really an option. Fortunately you are given one as a gift early in one of the quests and late on with one of the Guilds, you will be given a scary looking and very hardy black beast with blood red eyes.

 Once you have actually visited a location, whether it be a town or other landmark, you can “fast travel” there using the map. The appropriate amount of time is deemed to have elapsed, usually several hours, but in-game it’s just about instantaneous. It’s also inadvisable in the early stages, as you will miss out on other, sometimes important, landmarks on the way. The best thing to do is to explore the enormous playing area, taking note of what you find as there is a good chance you’ll be able to put the knowledge to good use in due course.

 GETTING ACQUAINTED

 No major spoilers here, but you have been given a task you probably can’t carry out just yet. You aren’t strong enough, or skilled enough, to survive more than a few minutes out in the countryside and you certainly won’t have a chance of fulfilling the various missions you will be given by the people you meet. Another thing you don’t have any of is gold and this is quite vital if you are to buy the gear and training you will need. I have to say, I despaired of getting anywhere for a good hour or so once I’d arrived in the city. There was the odd gold coin in some of the boxes and barrels I searched, along with food and the occasional item of clothing, but it obviously wasn’t going to get me far.

 The key to riches, and therefore the wherewithal to survive and prosper in Cyrodil, is in the quests and tasks you can undertake. The first to come your way will probably be one of the private commissions from members of the public. Mine was to follow and investigate a trader who was under suspicion thanks to his ruthless undercutting of his fellow merchants. Success saw a pile of gold come my way. Other quests become available as you progress, though a lot of them mean travel between the other eight towns in the Province. The only way to find out about these is to talk to the many and various denizens of the towns, cities and other scattered dwellings. Most people will have nothing much of interest to say, but occasionally you will either hear a rumour which can lead to a quest, or be offered one direct. There are dozens of the things which will keep you occupied for many hours.

 Or, you can go to the Guilds.

 ALL TOGETHER NOW

 The Guild Quests are the meat of the game. The overarching God and King thing is the raison d’être, but to get anywhere at all you need to make solid inroads into the Guilds.

 There are four.  The Thieves, the Mages, the Fighters and the Dark Brotherhood. Access to the first three is direct, in that you can seek out and apply to the appropriate person. For the last, you will have to wait until they contact you. Worth waiting for as the Brotherhood’s quests are probably the best.

 Each Guild will have you embark on a series of missions, which result in promotion and rewards, ultimately leading to you becoming the Head honcho. Some of these missions are very clever indeed, while some are of the more traditional find and fetch for which RPGs are well known. Some, especially for the Dark Brotherhood, require skilled use of the various stealth options available.

 Finally you can try your luck in the Arena. Here you can either bet on the outcome of the bouts or even take part yourself. This latter amounts to a Guild quest of its own, with progress up the ladder getting you more and more gold, but becoming progressively harder. The fights are, by the way, to the death. At normal hardness levels, if you start out early in the game, you will undoubtedly have to take long pauses between the levels, as you wait to get stronger and more skilled at combat.

 DELVING DEEP

 As you acquire your new skills and equipment, you will become ready to venture into some of the “dungeons” out there in Cyrodil. They come in various guises. There are ruined forts, cities, mines and caves dotted all over the place and each one is filled with a) bad things which want to kill you and b) untold riches in terms of money, potions and equipment.

 A word here about levelling. As time goes by, you will increase your skill levels in various areas by using those skills. Do a lot of mêlée fighting and your combat numbers will increase until you ascend a level. Increase three skills by a level and you get the opportunity, next time you rest, to upgrade your overall stat’s. It isn’t perfect and apparently has attracted some opprobrium from the RPG purists out there, but it works for me. The trick is that the foes you encounter also level up, so your basic combat stat’s remain roughly on a par. It will be your skill and experience, plus the help you get from spells and equipment, that make the difference.

 So, back to your tomb raiding. You won’t initially see any of these locations on your in-game map. You have to actually visit them first. Not go in, just locate. Upon entering, you will find yourself in what is essentially an underground maze, with traps, enemies and puzzles over which to triumph. Dotted around you will find chests (some locked) and other containers from which you can recover weapons, armour, enchanted items (which may allow the wearer to walk on or breathe under water, or increase your spell power or carrying capacity, for instance), gold and potions. These last are vital, as, particularly early on before you have acquired the relevant spells, you will frequently have need to restore health and increase magicka if you are to survive to see the outside world again.

 BUY LOW SELL HIGH

Not all the stuff you rob from these sites will you need, or even want to keep. In particular, the weapons and armour you can scavenge from your victims will prove to be an excellent source of much needed gold, when you sell them off to the various merchants in the Province. You are, however, limited in what you can carry, so unless you establish a stash somewhere, you will have to travel to one or other of the towns and cities to offload your booty. This will, in turn, increase your mercantile skill and, together with the mini-game which can improve your relations with people, mean better prices for you.

 THE BIG QUEST

 The King is dead and the dread hordes of chaos are entering the realm through gates into the horror of Oblivion. Ultimately you need to vanquish the power behind this invasion and so enable the new King to take the crown. I won’t go into this in any great detail, as the joy of the game is in having it unfold at its own pace. A word, however, about the Oblivion Gates which have popped up all over Cyrodil. These allow you to enter the realm of Oblivion, where you will find a whole new crop of bad guys to battle. The landscape is as far from Cyrodil as it’s possible to imagine. Something of a rip-off of Mordor and thoroughly creepy. So creepy in fact that I found myself actually dreading having to go through a new gate. Each one leads, eventually, to a tower from which you must remove the Sigil stone which keeps the gate open. Each tower is pretty much like the last, though in the Main Quest some of them are a whole lot trickier. The Sigils, which you get to keep, have their own powerful magic which you can put to your own use.

 IT’S MAGIC

 It isn’t all hacking and slashing. As time goes by you get hold of magic spells, powered by your Magicka supply, which can be used in combat, in social encounters, to heal yourself and others or to spread light and detect life. There are dozens of spells, all divided into six classes or schools. What you will be able to use depends on your skill levels in these schools and your overall Magicka, which in turn depends on your principle attributes. The trick is that the more powerful the spell, the more it will drain your magicka, so you can’t go into an Ayeleid ruin blasting everything in sight, as you will quickly run out of oomph and have to fall back on the old sword and shield thing until you’ve recharged.

 Some instances are scripted to demand that you use your various skills in imaginative ways, and some are even unachievable without the appropriate abilities. The Daedric quests, where you have to fulfil some task given you by one of the gods, even require you to have achieved a certain level, so you will have to put some of them on the back burner until you’ve battled your way up.

 AND IN ADDITION

 There are now two add-on packs. The first, Knights of the Nine, is a compendium pack of all the user created content (items and Quests), plus a whole new, eponymous, official Quest. The second sees you enter a new realm entirely, ruled by a mad God who entrusts you with seeing off a supernatural invasion. Both are well worth investing in even before you’ve finished the main game.

 SUMMARY

 Total freedom to roam at will around a vast land, taking on missions and Quests as and when you will, utilising skills which are almost self-selecting based on your style of play. Beautifully drawn and varied environments and a wide range of often engaging characters. Mostly interesting Quests and tasks and some clever mini-games that you will need to master. Plus, there has to be well over 100 hours of gameplay (I am at 125 and still haven’t finished). In all, an absolute bloody masterpiece and, of its genre, the finest thing to be written for the PC. Ever.