The red-headed stepchild of the Elder Scrolls series, where demons come out of his door to Oblivion (This is awful, please don’t actually leave this in). He is both beloved and maligned, criticised yet adored. He ruined gaming forever with just one dlc pack, but- um, the memes are funny?
Skyrim is accessible to a fault, a game that you can just pick up and play. Its greatest moments come in the quiet moments of exploration. Morrowind stands in stark contrast as an alien and inhospitable place, getting engrossed in an entirely other world is captivating, drinking in its bizarre culture and esoteric lore. Todd Howard saw Lord of the Rings and thought “sick, we’ll do that.” That is Oblivion.
We can talk about the gameplay, we both know about that. The level scaling, turning every encounter into something unkillable, the annoyingly precise stat allocation required on your character, “ah the clunkiness, can’t stand the clunkiness.” Mechanics probably won’t be what sucks you in, so what would be the draw?
The freedom! That’s what Bethesdaslop lovers crave. It’s the freedom to do anything you want and damn the consequences. Oblivion’s waltz out of the tutorial gate and seeing the beautiful countryside in the distance, the shimmering lake beckoning you to take a dive, the bone white ruins of Vilverin usher you into its mystery. Seeing that mountain, wondering if you could climb it (not yet). Its immediate offer of ‘go anywhere, do anything’ further cemented the future design doctrine of all Bethesda games. But are you really free? I mean, really? It’s not much of a roleplaying game, all things considered. It hardly lends itself to such a task. Oh, we’re not doing very well here, are we?
Okay, well. The writing is talked up a lot, but it really isn’t that good. Better than Skyrim, sure, but that’s hardly a feat. The Dark Brotherhood questline is held up as the golden standard- but even that doesn’t quite stand up to scrutiny- and the main quest is often outright ignored, so that can’t be a good sign. What the fuck is it then?
Why is Oblivion still adored by so many? Why is it one of my favourite games of all time? A damned near obsession of mine, some would say. For most, the answer is simple. Your first Bethesda game tends to be your favourite, such was the case for me. How would I put it? It’s kind of anecdotal, really, but let me try to explain:
Wandering into the basement of a random house, seeing corpses and blood strewn around everywhere, turning around and seeing the homeowner corner you in the darkness, only for him to greet you with, “Good day, how fares you this fine eve?” All while Jeremy Soule is playing his little heart out on the strings. Duh-duh-duh-duhhh-duh-duuuhhh~. There’s a reason Oblivion stands infamous for its lovely potato-faced denizens and awkward, stilted dialogue, but it’s the juxtaposition of their eeriness with such a worldly, standard high-fantasy environment, as the looming threat of actual hell comes to swallow you all. There’s a strange feeling of discomfort the game wraps around you, its stares disarming, the flicker of sheer madness lurking underneath their ungainly smiles. Unnerving, yet alluring all the same.
It’s drenched in this unshakeable charm despite everything visually going against it, something both deeply alien and all too familiar. A world that appears so real at first, then crumbles at the slightest touch of the player character, sometimes without needing your exact input either. And it’s in this place- between the uncanny valley and the scent of mother- that you’ll find Oblivion so strangely homely. My heart is still there, as it has been for over a decade. Wandering the Jerall Mountains, taking in the scenery, skittering just out of sight, eating your sweetrolls, gestating, taking form, lurking. Always lurking.
Constructing demented murder scenes and imagining the horrified responses of those that would discover it covered a great deal of my 300-something hours on the Playstation 3. A gleeful, slightly worrying past-time of tiny crows that now very big crows is actively writing long-winded, melodramatic fanfiction about to this day. Weird how things turn out, eh?
It’s almost impossible to describe. Oblivion is paradoxical in nature, a crawling mass of contradictions. Like a riddle, or a bad joke. But for all of its many faults and eccentricities- it all melts away every time the sun sets on the Colovian Highlands and I hear the Peace of Akatosh for what must be the billionth time. Those rolling green hills and towering trees, that whistle in the wind and the funny, impish creatures spattered around takes me all the way back to my first time touching the game all those many, many years ago. And it’s in these great hills where I shall make my grave.
Skyrim is accessible to a fault, a game that you can just pick up and play. Its greatest moments come in the quiet moments of exploration. Morrowind stands in stark contrast as an alien and inhospitable place, getting engrossed in an entirely other world is captivating, drinking in its bizarre culture and esoteric lore. Todd Howard saw Lord of the Rings and thought “sick, we’ll do that.” That is Oblivion.
We can talk about the gameplay, we both know about that. The level scaling, turning every encounter into something unkillable, the annoyingly precise stat allocation required on your character, “ah the clunkiness, can’t stand the clunkiness.” Mechanics probably won’t be what sucks you in, so what would be the draw?
The freedom! That’s what Bethesdaslop lovers crave. It’s the freedom to do anything you want and damn the consequences. Oblivion’s waltz out of the tutorial gate and seeing the beautiful countryside in the distance, the shimmering lake beckoning you to take a dive, the bone white ruins of Vilverin usher you into its mystery. Seeing that mountain, wondering if you could climb it (not yet). Its immediate offer of ‘go anywhere, do anything’ further cemented the future design doctrine of all Bethesda games. But are you really free? I mean, really? It’s not much of a roleplaying game, all things considered. It hardly lends itself to such a task. Oh, we’re not doing very well here, are we?
Okay, well. The writing is talked up a lot, but it really isn’t that good. Better than Skyrim, sure, but that’s hardly a feat. The Dark Brotherhood questline is held up as the golden standard- but even that doesn’t quite stand up to scrutiny- and the main quest is often outright ignored, so that can’t be a good sign. What the fuck is it then?
Why is Oblivion still adored by so many? Why is it one of my favourite games of all time? A damned near obsession of mine, some would say. For most, the answer is simple. Your first Bethesda game tends to be your favourite, such was the case for me. How would I put it? It’s kind of anecdotal, really, but let me try to explain:
Wandering into the basement of a random house, seeing corpses and blood strewn around everywhere, turning around and seeing the homeowner corner you in the darkness, only for him to greet you with, “Good day, how fares you this fine eve?” All while Jeremy Soule is playing his little heart out on the strings. Duh-duh-duh-duhhh-duh-duuuhhh~. There’s a reason Oblivion stands infamous for its lovely potato-faced denizens and awkward, stilted dialogue, but it’s the juxtaposition of their eeriness with such a worldly, standard high-fantasy environment, as the looming threat of actual hell comes to swallow you all. There’s a strange feeling of discomfort the game wraps around you, its stares disarming, the flicker of sheer madness lurking underneath their ungainly smiles. Unnerving, yet alluring all the same.
It’s drenched in this unshakeable charm despite everything visually going against it, something both deeply alien and all too familiar. A world that appears so real at first, then crumbles at the slightest touch of the player character, sometimes without needing your exact input either. And it’s in this place- between the uncanny valley and the scent of mother- that you’ll find Oblivion so strangely homely. My heart is still there, as it has been for over a decade. Wandering the Jerall Mountains, taking in the scenery, skittering just out of sight, eating your sweetrolls, gestating, taking form, lurking. Always lurking.
Constructing demented murder scenes and imagining the horrified responses of those that would discover it covered a great deal of my 300-something hours on the Playstation 3. A gleeful, slightly worrying past-time of tiny crows that now very big crows is actively writing long-winded, melodramatic fanfiction about to this day. Weird how things turn out, eh?
It’s almost impossible to describe. Oblivion is paradoxical in nature, a crawling mass of contradictions. Like a riddle, or a bad joke. But for all of its many faults and eccentricities- it all melts away every time the sun sets on the Colovian Highlands and I hear the Peace of Akatosh for what must be the billionth time. Those rolling green hills and towering trees, that whistle in the wind and the funny, impish creatures spattered around takes me all the way back to my first time touching the game all those many, many years ago. And it’s in these great hills where I shall make my grave.