A black, "IV" Roman numeral, streaked with lava veins, flashes on the white screen and is quickly replaced by the main menu. Looking at it, we await demonic invasions from other planes of reality, searches for an heir of a panic-stricken country's throne, fierce battles, intrigues, tens of quests, books, locations, and - obviously - our small part in saving the world. The "X" hour wil come in the end of November. The editors of AG had been given the chance to taste TES4 one and a half months before that date.
"You are the one from my dreams"
Adventurers are greeted with the avatar's portrait. There aren't many options - gender, race, and name. The player can choose any of the ten MW races - Elves, Humans, Orcs, Khajiits, Argonians... Right there is the appearance generator - using it you can control your age, build, hair, eyes color, nose shape(among others?). It is by far less powerful than face-generators in games like EVE Online, Star Wars Galaxies, and The Sims 2, but for a single-player game, where you don't have to show off your "image" to thousands of other users, it's enough.
After clicking "Done," Tamriel opens its doors to greet us. Stop! Our story starts slightly differently - the first thing to appear on the screen is the damp cell of a prison in the Imperial City. Right there we see our hero - having the generic "Prisoner" class - spending the first few minutes pushing chains, hanged there as an advertizement for the "Havok 2" physical engine. The chains represent one of the 9000 objects which you'll be able to throw, move, or push during the course of the game.
Our brief imprisonment is interrupted by the appearance of The Emperor, Uriel Septim VII surrounded by a couple of guards - the Blades. However, the point of this visit doesn't seem to be our hero - it's his lonely cell. The matter is that His Highness is actually here to use the secret tunnel under your bed to escape from assasins, who have already killed his sons.
The guards bellow at you to stay back under the fear of death. However, the prisoner is honored with a few words from the Emperor. For some cryptic reason, Uriel happened to see the player's face in his dreams - maybe this isn't as coincidential as it seems... The guard touches a stone in the wall, and the moulded bed comes crashing down.
Training grounds
So, a secret tunnel... It would be stupid to miss such an opportunity! Following our "liberators," we soon watch as the monarch and his suite are ambushed. As the battle ends, we collect the spoils, and discover that we're left alone. So, we'll have to try to find a way to freedom by ourselves - luckily, this part is quite linear. Here begins the tutorial dungeon, which lasts for about 20-30 minutes. The newbies are taught how to fight toe-to-toe, shoot, throw fireballs, and navigate around the interface.
Oblivion's dungeons are really dark, so the torch lying nearby served us well*like MW's dungeons weren't dark enough Mad*. The warm orange flame illuminate the surroundings, and cast patches of light on the walls. Right away, we find a richly decorated shield, a bow, and a quiver of arrows.
Next comes a battle with a fat rat, which jumps almost like a facehugger in the "Alien" movie - it's clear that we'll have to get used to the new battle system. In MW, all one had to do is tick "Always use the best attack," and click until the enemy was no more - now you'll be beaten easily unless you apply some tactics. Naturally though, the goblins, rats and zombies inhabiting the first dungeon weren't much of a hassle.
The main difference is that Bethesda completely eliminated the "chance" in close combat. It's like WYSIWYG - what you see is what you get. If your axe touched the enemy's body, it will cause some amount of damage. That amount is determined by your stats, skills, energy(stamina?), luck, and your weapon's quality and condition. The oponent's armor is taken into acount as well as their battle style - each NPC has a battle style which determines factors like reaction speed.
By advancing in the appropriate skills, our hero will learn special kinds of attacks or abilities. All is controlled by a mouse click, and a direction button. Blocking has improved as well - from now on we don't block automatically, like in MW, but manually by using shields, weapons, or our bare hands. Blocking doesn't only decrease the damage - it also causes a "rebounding" effect, enough to launch a counter attack. The AI seems to be doing well in this department, so be on your guard.
Not every battle in Oblivion ends with the death of any of the combatants - both you and the NPCs are able to ask for mercy, or simply run away. Whether the NPC will accept your apologies depends on their feelings towards you.
Not far from where you find the bow, there's an old well with a hanging battle - just what we need for some archery practice. When the bucket - demonstrating amazing physics - becomes as similar to a hedgehog a a bucket can get, we can come over and refill our emptied quiver.
A few steps later, we can find a chest - and a first thievery lesson. The fassion for lock picking mini-games which no stealth action manages to avoid nowadays has spread to The Elder Scrolls as well. The objectives are clear - all you have to do is raise and fix a number of bars with quick mouse clicks. Locks vary in difficulty, so while simple ones didn't require any effort, you might lose a dozen of lockpics while trying to pick others.
Another featured, apparently borrowed from Thief: The Dark Project is the stealth system. We just crouch, and the crosshair turns into an eye symbol - the lighter it is, the higher is the chance to be spotted. The developers claim that light and darkness plays a major role in the success of sneaking, but we could easily sneak behind a goblin holding a lighted torch. Who knows, maybe he was just so caught up in cooking his prey.
It's a kind of magic
Magic has improved thanks to the impressive visuals and the wide fantasy of Bethesda's art team. Now it has finally become dangerous even in the hands of a novice mage, wince mana reserves are regenerated all the time - even a simple fireball can wreck havoc. What's more important, is that you can cast spells whenever you want without having to sheath your weapons - with a single button press.
Poisonous herbs, which quickly found their way to the trash can in MW, are now quite useful - put some of their juice on your blade, and let the enemy worry about antidotes. The potion-quaffing system has been improved as well - the number of potions you can use at a time solely depends on your alchemy skill.
Herbarium collectors can find a way to pass their time in Cyrodiil, since there're over 120 types of harvestable plants - from aloe to the exotic "nirnroot," which has a quest associated with it by the way.
Fantasy Excel
The awful infentory system from MW has been ditched in favor of a neat table. Its columns include item icons, names, prices, wight, condition, damage(weapons), and armore rating(armor). You can also filter the items through 5 filters*care to elaborate?*. The spell system is organized in a similar fassion.
Hovering the cursor over an item reveals a few tips. From them you can discover, for example, that rat meat decreases stamina*Huh? I'd think it increases stamina, or decreases fatigue Confused* and possesses three more effects that you can uncover if you follow the trade of herbalism. In the lower left corner of the screen, you current/maximum allowed weight - unfortunately it is invisible when you're picking up items, so you might get suddenly stuck when you're in the middle of looting a nice piece of armor off a corpse.
However, the game keeps track of all your scores, such as jokes told, monsters killed, fame, infamy, and bounty. One of Bethesda's devs surely spent at least a few nights playing Fable.
And a hero will rise
Having fried a dozen of rats, smaked a couple of rude goblins, opened a fair share of chests, we find ourselves inside the palace cellars, where we meet Uriel and his guards again. The tutorial is nearing its end, as is the Emperor's life. He talks to you, letting you choose a birthsign, and giving the Amulet of Kings, which can close shut the gates of Oblivion and save the world from its doom. Unfortunately, the artifact can be used only by a person whose veins are filled with the blood of the Dragon; the Emperor's last living sun, who's been lost long ago.
Here Septim is killed by the traitorous blow of the assasin*Traitorous blow? Does that imply that the killer is well known?*. The last living guard tells us how to get out, and lets you choose - or create - a class.
This part of the game has undergone extensive changes. The main stats have been kept from MW, but skills are cut down to 21 - 7 major and 14 minor. The skills are logically divided into 7 parts, each having their key attribute. It seems that the game is much more balanced than MW.
To advance a skill, use it as much as you can. A player whose hobby is to tear his enemies with a sword, or stab them with a dagger is likely get good at "Blades." There're 5 levels of each skill - Novice, Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert and Master. Each rank grants a tangible improvement. A skilled swordsman can easily stun or paralyze their opponent for example. What's worth noting is a skilled trader can even invest in shops that bring constant profit.
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We didn't spend much time choosing a class - Spellsword looked like a good choice, so we went with it. Leaving the dark castle undergrounds, we were presented with a suggestion to change our class, race and stats, but that offer was ignored.
