If you've played it before, stop reading...
Right, I think we’ve established that unless you’re an ardent fan who simply has to have the same game on every platform and play them all the way through, there’s little here to attract the seasoned The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion player. So, and I apologise to all of you in advance, anyone who’s played The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion already can go off and do something else... go on, go and check out that pub that has exotic dancers every lunchtime... or ask that girl in the office, you know, the one across the way who looks like she’s a tiger in the sack, if she fancies a coffee.Ok, now we’ve whittled it down to you PS3 owners who’ve yet to play The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, lets’ have a look at what’s in store.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a first person RPG set in the world of Tamriel. You start the game as a prisoner but then escape and find yourself set upon a quest by a betrayed, dying king. From there onwards what you do is pretty much up to you as the game’s freeform nature allows you to either rigidly follow the storyline or go off and do hundreds of scripted and random side missions... the choice is yours.
Click for larger imageMake no mistake about it, this is a serious RPG with everything from initial character creation through to skill sets and levelling up being completely customisable. Sure, your initial choices affect how your character levels up as you progress, but there’s no points assignment system here. Instead, skills improve as you use them. So if you start off as a mage and find yourself using ranged weapons then your ranged weapon skill will increase the more you use it. This system is very similar to the one found in that age old classic Ultima series, especially Ultima Online, and means that your character is a true reflection of you as a player.
There’s ten races to choose from, ranging from human based Bretons and Imperials through to traditional fantasy humanoids such as Wood and High Elves or the more reptilian Argonoids or Khajiit. Each race has certain attributes that make them better suited for some classes more than others but this doesn’t mean you have to play them like that. To mould your character you then have eight attributes, strength, intelligence, endurance etc. which decide your derived attributes of health, magicka and fatigue. So going for a strong character with high endurance gives high hit points and good fatigue... but that’ll be at the expense of magicka as your limited in the number of points you can assign to each attribute.
Click for larger imageSuperbly, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion actually helps you decide what class to play by letting you play through the introduction, analyzing your playing style and then suggesting a class according to how you played. OF course, you can ignore this and opt to pick from 1 of the 21 pre-defined classes... or, if you really want to get ambitious, you can create your own class and play as that instead. Obviously, once you go with a certain class various skills and attributes are easier to increase and improve, but you can still play anyway you want... which is the beauty of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
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