Oblivious

Since giving up on Dragon Age Origins through boredom I have been reluctant to start another fantasy RPG, but I have now taken the plunge with Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

I have played some of Morrowind in the past but found it to be a visually uninspiring slog, but I read a review of Oblivion which said that it was a big leap forward so I thought I would give it a go.

From the start I wondered if I was making a mistake.  I started off in jail and everything looked familiarly dull but I did like the fact that the character creation was broken up by periods of gameplay so that you only chose your race and appearance at first and character class and birth sign (which is significant) could be decided at later times after a few fights.  What I liked less was that these early stages all happened in basements and tunnels and I am not into dungeon trawling and was dying to get out into the genuinely "open world".

The Imperial City as seen from lake Rumare

I have now done that and been able to explore the Imperial City and am heading out in to the countryside.

One thing I learned in the city is that it is a bad idea to break the law there.  I stole a silver bowl at the King and Queen Inn and then went upstairs and failed to pick the lock of a bedroom door.  When I got back downstairs there was a guard waiting for me.  Given a choice of paying a fine, going to jail or resisting arrest I tried resisting and in the fight which followed it became clear that he was pretty tough so I tried running away through the inn door and things only got worse as other guards started firing arrows at me and I soon went down.  This process was repeated several times so I tried escaping from the city and this worked until I got to the nearby docks.  When I saw a guard he did not attack me straight away so I thought maybe the slate had been wiped clean but when I tried taking to him he offered me the same choices as before and this time I thought maybe paying a fine would not be the worst thing that could happen.

I am trying to be a bad character and it goes against the grain.  I agreed to help some peasant guy by catching fish for him but he told me he had been saving up some money and I am going to try to kill him and steel his gold.  We'll see how it goes.

I think, despite my misgivings, that I am starting to feel engaged by the game and will probably play quite a lot of it, though I will definitely not finish it in the next few weeks.