Bethesda Softworks and the The Elder Scrolls series got most of its fame from an incredibly popular PC and Xbox game titled The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. It added a new level of immersion to role playing games, and was reviewed as the greatest role playing game ever made. The fact that the storyline was highly flexible, and that you were given the ability to do whatever you wanted - develop your characters skills and abilities in whatever way you liked - appealed to almost all fans of the genre. The latest chapter in the series is the hugely anticipated Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which made its debut on the Xbox 360 and PC on March 23rd 2006. As gamers and reviewers from around the world have been raving: “The word ‘epic’ doesn’t even begin to describe it".
You can’t imagine how big this game is until you play it yourself. Green hills covered with dense forest, snow-capped mountains towering above the clouds, rivers and streams carving their way through the landscape forming waterfalls and dams that reflect the forests and sky. All of these things immediately grab your attention. The amount of detail in the surroundings is amazing. Shrubs and grass swaying in the wind, snow glistening under the sun and moon, towns buried away in the mountain forests, all of which can be seen from miles and miles across plains and hills, until the horizon is engulfed in a light haze of fog and mist. All of these things really put in to perspective the amount of time and effort that has been put in to this game (over 3 years), and the amount of power the Xbox 360 has to offer.
The game begins with a video showing you the Imperial City, in which you get to see just a glimpse of the area surrounding it, which will in itself no doubt leave you amazed. After a short speech from the Emperor of Cyrodill, Uriel Septim, your epic journey begins in a prison cell in the dungeons of the Imperial City. This is where your character development begins. There are 10 races to choose from. The Elven races consist of Dark Elves, Wood Elves and High Elves. The Human races consist of Nords, Imperials, Bretons and Redguards. There’s also the ‘Khajit’, a cat-like race, the brutal Orcs, and the lizard race known as ‘Argonians’. Each race has its own individual bonuses; for example, High Elves are better at using Magic than the Orcs, who receive bonuses to their statistics in the areas of Heavy Armour and Blunt Weapons. Along with these bonuses, each character class has its own special ability.