The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion: You sleep rather soundly for a murderer

They’re coming. The floodgates have opened. By the Nine, we’re doomed.

This game takes itself seriously, developed by Bethesda Softworks, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion presents itself as “just another medieval RPG,” but lives up to so much more than that.

For one, every line in the game is voice-acted. The sheer amount of dialog can amount to hundreds, if not thousands of hours. The game itself boasts 10,000 NPCs, each with dialog options of their own. There are some dialog repeats, but Bethesda’s Radiant AI more than makes up for it.

NPCs in the game have schedules. They eat, drink, sleep and go about their everyday activities like real people. NPCs that bump into each other will address each other and strike up remarkably fluent conversations, changing topics according to the player’s stage in the game.

It’s clear the developers put a lot of effort into the game. Taking place in Cyrodiil, the game’s capital province, the map is enormous and includes vast cities taking up several game-zones each. Outside the city walls, dungeons, tombs, lairs and fortresses dot the landscape, each offering its own unique challenges.

The game uses a map compass to direct players to unexplored areas. New locations will simply fade in on the compass and become more clear as the player gets closer. Thanks to the game’s “fast travel” option, coming back to these locations is a breeze. Players can click any location they’ve visited before and arrive after a brief loading screen.

In terms of value for the player? I have personally sunk over 100 hours into the PC version of the game, and still haven’t discovered everything the game has to offer.

The game’s alchemy system alone deserves a book. There are hundreds of alchemical ingredients throughout Cyrodiil, each with up to four medicinal properties that can be combined with other herbs and meats to produce potions. Need a potion that restores health, provides a shield and renders the user invisible at the same time? No problem. There are thousands of viable combinations.

Oblivion’s biggest flaw is its levelling system. Casual players not looking to maximize stats by “grinding” will find themselves quickly outclassed by the game’s inhabitants. Players level up in Oblivion by repeating actions divided into major and minor skills. This can be anything from running to spell casting, the theory being that players will customize their characters’ levels depending on the skills they use most.

But Oblivion rewards players for owning generalized characters, indirectly forcing the player to train all their skills to get desired statistics. The pace of levelling also seems too fast, players will often find themselves facing opponents with better gear and greater strength. Fortunately, Oblivion continues to be one of the best mod-supported games in PC gaming. While Xbox and PS3 players will have to suffer the flaws of vanilla Oblivion, PC players can download mods that fix many of the levelling issues.