Oblivion has been and continues to be a fascinating game for me.  I know full well that some people claim to have completed the main quest in as little as a couple of days, but I’m now up to over 70 hours of play time…and I’m still not finished. 

The main quest isn’t hard and, in fact, it’s arguable that its easier to complete if you do it quickly.  Oblivion “scales” your foes as your character goes up in level- so if you work on a quest when you are level 5 your opponents will all be around the same level as you.  If you wait until you are 20th level, your opponents will have “kept up”…and although this may sound like the challenge is the same, the powers (spells, items, and so forth) at higher levels are (in my opinion) more challenging
to deal with. 

So how is the game keeping me busy?  Well, I’ll give a few examples, including my most significant accomplishment to date…

***** WARNING *** SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW *** WARNING *****

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I have spent every spare waking hour of the day lately playing Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. Its an awesome game: if you like deep, open ended single player computer role playing games, then Oblivion is definitely worth a look.

Oblivion is set in the Empire of Tamriel in the world of Nirn, a world that may be familiar to people who have been playing computer games for a few years as the setting for the Elder Scrolls. The Elder Scrolls series has been around for a while, starting over a decade ago with Elder Scrolls: Arena. The last release in the series before Oblivion was Morrowind in 2002, a role playing game that was lauded for its open ended style, huge size, and depth of backround materials. It also received some knocks for its initial bugs (most of which were fixed in subsequent patches). I personally played Morrowind- it was a very good game, but I found it hard to get engaged- it was, for me, a bit *too* wide open. I couldn’t really find a plotline to hook on to. I played it for weeks, but never finished it, and have no idea to this day what “finishing it” would have looked like. That’s both good and bad- good, because I had weeks of gaming and came no where near completing the game. Bad, because I never really felt like I was “part” of the game’s main plot.

Oblivion seems to have kept all of the good features from Morrowind (open ended, massive game world, incredible depth) and ditched some of the less than positive features (lack of hooks into the main plotline, game ending bugs). Right from the start, Oblivion’s story line is pretty obvious. But you can still veer off into the open country side, read hundreds of books, go off on your own adventuring paths…and, with the help of the quest journal, find your way back to the main plot easily.

WARNING: some spoilers follow
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I rarely actually finish big RPG games. You know, the ones that take 100 hours of play time to complete. Generally, not finishing the game makes me frustrated and a bit disappointed in the whole process…and less likely to buy the next one.

One significant exception to this a few years ago was Elder Scrolls: Morrowind. No, I didn’t finish the game. But I didn’t really mind, either. The game was so open-ended that I just enjoyed wandering around and poking at dungeons. I’m not even sure that I ever really was working on the main quest/story line. But because of the richness of the game, that apparent lack of “progress” didn’t really bother me a lot. I probably got 40 or more hours of play time out of the game and, as I said, never finished.

The next chapter in the Elder Scrolls series will be released soon. Its name is Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. A few years have passed since the last chapter was released. Naturally, this means the graphics and such are improved. But I’m really pleased to see that, at least based on what can be read, the developers have kept their focus on the things that really matter. The world in Oblivion looks as “huge” and opened-ended as the previous chapter.

The main improvements in the richness of the world, aside from graphics and such, come from improvements in NPC AI. The old NPCs in Morrowind were a bit static, but in Oblivion they all have drives/goals/interests that direct their lives independently from interaction with the player. So much so that sometimes the NPCs even surprise the developers. Sneak around and steal from some NPCs and, if they don’t see you, they might start blaming each other. One might run home and grab a sword and start poking around in corners. I look forward to seeing this in action.

The graphics and such are also very impressive. You can download and view a few in-game movies to see what its like. Or watch the trailer, which is all rendered in game. Note that you’ll need the Divx codec installed in Windows Media (available for free download) or some other Divx player to watch that trailer.

And yes, that’s Patrick Stewart’s voice as the Emperor. These games are becoming big production deals now. Also note that Oblivion will be available for both Windows PCs and XBox 360 consoles. I’ll be buying Oblivion when it comes out, theoretically sometime later this quarter (rumours say the end of February).