![]() ![]() 'Morrowind', meanwhile, revealed that the player as the Nerevarine, a reincarnation in a religious prophecy that plays a crucial role in the game. For example, 'Skyrim' specifically placed you as Dragonborn, descended from a long-dead lineage of warriors. ![]() It's not until you reach Kvatch and fight off a horde - about a quarter of the way into the main storyline - that you're referred to by NPCs as "a hero".Īs much as any game before or since, 'Oblivion' made the player define the character. This aside, the storyline in 'Oblivion' intriguingly puts you not as some chosen warrior, or even a highly-skilled one at that, but opens with you in prison, chained up for an undisclosed crime, and essentially freed when the Emperor - Patrick Stewart, no less - is making his escape through the underground catacombs. #SEAN BEAN ELDER SCROLLS PC#In fact, quite a number of the features in 'Oblivion' were common enough to PC RPGs. In fact, they were a regular feature in most PC RPGs already but never before had it been ported so successfully to consoles. The armour system, the wear-and-tear of weapons, even the actual levelling system are now par for the course in just about every RPG out there. Here, it was merely one part in a much wider machine.īy today's standards, there's no denying that some of the features in 'Oblivion' are decidedly quaint. Not only that, most games almost advertised on the strength of the cast they'd lined up for it. It's not that the names weren't any weightier in 'Skyrim', it's that in 2006 on a console game hearing Captain Jean-Luc Picard or Boromir of Gondor was a surprise. Sean Bean and Patrick Stewart may be clearly phoning in the performance, but the very presence of their voices adds a weight to it all that 'Skyrim' doesn't have. Not only that, the voice cast is as impressive then as it was now. The trees, the grass it may look naff but walking over the plains or galloping a horse vertically up the mountains is still as satisfying and enjoyable as ever. The beautiful, lush landscapes of Cyrodiil feel unrealistic in comparison with, say, 'Skyrim' or even 'Breath of the Wild', but there's a richness to it all that still holds up. When you go back and play 'Oblivion' now, the pace of play is so much more stately and almost meditative in its execution. For all of the praise that's heaped upon 'Skyrim', there's something curious about how 'Oblivion' is now treated some twelve years on. The recurring joke about 'Skyrim', the follow-up to 'Oblivion', is that Bethesda were going out of their way to push it on to every possible gaming platform - whether it was re-releasing it on the Xbox One, the Nintendo Switch, or hoaxes about it being able to play it on mobile gaming. This week, it's 2006's RPG behemoth, 'The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion'. Each week, The Replay takes a classic game from the '80s, '90s and '00s and examines them in greater detail, exploring their impact, contemporary reviews, and why we're still playing them to this day. ![]()
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