I remember years ago, before Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion came out, I really didn’t care too much for the series. I played ESIII on Xbox and found it boring as hell, even with all the stuff you could do. Oblivion suddenly came out of the woodwork and blew my socks off with the awesome graphics, the more solid, realistic setting (ESIII looked too alien to me), the playability and Patrick Stewart’s voiceover. I ate and drank all those cool documentary features put out by Bethesda for the game, and Oblivion redefined my idea of RPGs then. Now we’re looking forward to a new Elder Scrolls chapter, after all these years of Fallout games. FINALLY!
What can we look forward to? Well, apparently this is still set in the same Daedra-infested world we played in years ago. A new threat looms and a new hero is foretold. I hope this new game addresses the flaws or little quirks ESIV had.
I hope for the most part the character animation is fixed to be more natural looking, from your protagonist to the people and NPC’s he converses with. It’s been a while, so I am thinking that things have progressed somewhat. Also, in terms of character interaction I am assuming they take out that ridiculous wheel with the NPC emotions and crap… this minigame was kinda fun at the start, but really, it’s just plain weird. There has to be a better way of portraying interaction with NPCs, as other RPGs have shown us after Oblivion.
Other than that, I’m just hoping Skyrim is more detailed, more playable, more amazing. Oblivion wasn’t just a simple dungeon crawl- it was indeed a virtual world that you just melted into, becoming anything from a crusader or a criminal, pursuing every kind of interest from collecting lore to owning real estate to saving the world from otherdimensional invasion. Man, it’s still awesome, even today.
Man, I think I should bring out the ol’ copy of Oblivion and start playing it again, while waiting for Skyrim. Can’t hurt to exterminate a few dozen Necromancers while we wait, right?
The Lone Gamer 