The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The series Elder Scrolls dates back to its first incarnation in 1994 with The Elder Scrolls: Arena, and has been a strong contender in the computer RPG world. With a deep history and a strong story line, each game produced continues to add more and more detail and life to the land of Tamriel. And while Oblivion has been out for quite some time and has already garnered its first expansion, fans of the series have been long at work adding more and more content to the already hefty game. While you can find new dungeons and quests to download on line, you can also make cosmetic changes to the game as well. If you do not happen to like the color of glass armor, which has an almost toxic green coloring, just browse around on the net and you can find plenty of modules that will help alleviate your issue.
When you begin the game with just the original content, you begin by creating your character for the game. You pick your race and gender, and then get to make some decisions like hair style and color, eyes and body shape. Once your character is ready and named, you start in the dungeon for committing an untold crime, which is quite alright really, because moments after you “awaken” in the game and play around with the controls, Emperor Uriel is ushered to your cell. Did you really do something that bad to deserve the attention of the Emperor? No, the Emperor is just being escorted out of the castle through a secret passageway that just happens to be in your cell. Following behind the Emperor and his small band of guards, you get your first taste of combat defending yourself from rats.
After this short tutorial, you get to help defend the Emperor from assassins that appear from the shadows. Continuing on, you get to watch as the Emperor is critically wounded. And as he dies, he charges you with the task of finding his son before some terrible event befalls the empire. After receiving the Emperor’s amulet, you talk to his Head Guard who then lets you choose your class. Choices range from such RPG classics as fighters, thieves, and they manage to even allow YOU to create your own custom class! After you escape from the dungeon, you are released into the world and set free to run back and forth through the extremely large empire as you find the Emperor’s son and protect the world from utter devastation.
While that game is what one would expect from a traditional first person RPG, running around, hacking and slashing, slinging fireballs willy-nilly; the overall experience system is a little different. Instead of acquiring experience for each kill or each discovery, you gain experience by using a specific skill. So the more you run, the higher your athletic skill with increase; the more you sling fireballs, the higher your destruction skill will increase.
However, levels are still involved. When you picked your class in beginning, you separate all the skills into two categories: major skills and minor skills. Each class has ten major skills that define who and what they are. For example, a thief may have such skills as sneaking, security (lock picking), and acrobatics as some of its major skills whereas a wizard would have alteration, conjuration, and destruction. When you have raised your major skills by ten levels, your character will be able to increase a level the next time then rest in a bed. The ten levels can be in any combination; you could raise two levels in sneaking and eight in security, or two in sneaking, one in security, and seven in acrobatics, it does not matter which. The main difference between major and minor skills is that your major skills will increase much quicker than your minor ones, hence the ability to make your own custom class. You can decide just what skills your character will need to increase in levels and power.
Overall the game is very creative and fun. I have been playing for days and am still only on the second step of the main quest, but I’m already a level 28 thief who is the Master Champion of the Arena, and one step away from being the leader of the Thieves Guild. The only one complaint with the game deals with a weird issue I have with game crashes.
Sometimes the game will crash for no apparent reason when I am playing. I have almost become paranoid with my quick saves. I quick save before I do practically anything, especially opening doors! Other than that I found it to be a great game and have no problem giving it a 9 out of 10.