I'm battling an ancient god in the sky above Cyrodil and after I kick his ass I'm going to Disney Land

This week in Spare Change? we have a game that may lean towards the pricey option of the scale, pushing up to $30 or $40, but none the less is an essential game for any collection.

If you have not played The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, you sir or madam, have not lived.

Normally I’m pretty accepting with peoples opinions and choices. I believe one of the great joys of human nature is that we have few boundaries outside of our own imagination and some general laws of physics and criticising people for whatever choices they make, as long as they don’t harm anyone else, is wrong. You should be able to love, worship, think or feel what ever you want.

This attitude does not extend to the game Oblivion.

Eat fireball spell imp!

If you don’t like Oblivion you are wrong. No perspectives, no ‘don’t like RPG’ arguments, you are just wrong and you should possibly be put in a camp some where to work under the mistaken belief you will be freed if you work hard enough.

Okay, that might be a bit harsh. But I like Oblivion and while Fallout 3 might be the recipient of most of my fawning affections these days, it will never replace the nostalgic love that still burns for its older sister.

Oblivion is a fantasy game, set in a world called Cyrodil. You start the game (after an insanely detailed character creation option) in a prison in the capital city. After some mocking remarks from the prisoner opposite you the king and his elite body guards show up. Seems there’s a secret passage out of your cell and after what could amount to a tutorial section to the game the king gives you an amulet and charges you to take it to a friend of his.

Then you find yourself in Cyrodil with a whole giant world laid out in front of you. A world so complex and deep that I could write several thousand worlds in this article and barely cover a smidgen of it; it’s one of the most amazing game worlds you’ll ever in counter.

Despite finding dwarf armour, as pictured above, there are strangely no dwarves in Oblivion... that's a bit weird actually

Rather than attempt to explain it to you I’ll just say that Oblivion feels as close to a living breathing world as you’re likely to find in any game. There are hundreds of characters in the game that lead their own lives while you’re not around. Your adventures might bring you in contact with them, but certainly not all of them.

To illustrate the point here’s a sliver of my first Oblivion experience. After fumbling around for a while I found myself with some crappy half broken gear. I’d just joined the Thieves Guild in the capital city and broke into a relatively expensive looking place to try and rip it off. Unfortunately the lady of the house was still up and around and confronted me. In a panic and not looking forward to going back to jail I cut her down. I decided to book town, stole a horse and road north, I came to an inn and paid to sleep in a bed there. That night I’m woken up by a very scary bastard named Lucien Lachance, a ‘Speaker’ for a cult of assassin’s called the Dark Brotherhood.

Being a vampire in the dark brotherhood has its advantages, you always know where you're next meal is coming from

He offers me the chance to join the Dark Brotherhood and gives me a knife and the details of a man I have to kill, if I’m not interested I just toss the knife away. At this stage I don’t have a lot going for me and thought what the hell. I killed the target and was led to the Dark Brotherhood’s secret hide out. After completing several quests/assassinations for them which I won’t spoil as they are some of the best quests in the game, I rose through the ranks to become a Listener for the Night Mother. One of the most feared individuals in the whole of Cyrodil. I almost never choose the bad guy route when I play games but a set of circumstances led me down the path that made me the leader of a cult of lunatic assassins. This is all before doing a single step in the story quest.

Now admittedly the game has plenty of flaws, some of the characters dialogue animations are a bit wooden making them look like talking mannequins and the combat can be notoriously annoying at times given that you are essentially playing a first person hack and slash game. But these are minor technical irritations in the face of a game experience so deep you sometimes wonder if it even has a bottom. The game has so much narrative, so much story telling to discover hidden in the fields and forests that it’s just intoxicating.

The world of Oblivion is addictive

Added to that is the expanded content, prior to Fallout 3 the expansions for Oblivion, Kinghts of the Nine and The Shimmering Isle represented the best DLC available on consoles. There are dozens of buildings and dungeons that add into the world of Oblivion and its well worth looking into them. Personally I'd make sure you have everything downloaded, every scrap of Oblivion content available, before you journey out on your first adventure, but thats just me. Most people will find the original game content more than over whelming.

I’m actually a little afraid to recommend Oblivion to people. When they ask me about games I usually reel of the recent best sellers or name drop a little known gem. But I rarely mention Oblivion, as I’m afraid that the individual may return to me and dare to suggest they don’t like it. Then I would have to kill them.

If you are reading this and have not all ready played Oblivion I heartily recommend it. Consider that a warning.