Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion preview

People in this business rarely applaud heartily after a game demo at E3. But it happened after we saw Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion in action at Bethesda’s heavily guarded mini theatre. Oblivion is quite simply the most gorgeous and impressive game, yours truly encountered at this year’s expo. Actually, it surpassed the Killzone PS3 presentation, which has sort of become the high watermark this year (regardless of whether it’s “rendered” or not –Ed.) But in opposition to Killzone, Oblivion is not a lightning fast shooter that never leaves you time to breathe and take in your surroundings. Oblivion has you moving around at a leisurely pace, and you get to stay in the same places for long periods of time. Still, the graphics and physics reach a level that makes the game come very close to a photorealistic representation of reality. Now “photorealistic” is a word that’s been stretched very thin in the game business lately, but if you have the right HDTV, this game will indeed provide virtual surroundings of unparalleled quality. You may have seen trailers or screens, and think you’ve seen the game. But forget those. They don’t even come close. Oblivion is many times more beautiful in action.

Oblivion is the latest game in Bethesda’s famous Elder Scrolls RPG series. These games often take more than 100 hours to complete, and Oblivion does not appear to deviate from the norm. The game contains more than 1000 NPCs, 200 dungeons and 9000 objects. The game is set to reach Xbox 360 and the PC this Christmas (and what a merry Christmas that will be, then! –Ed.)

It all began behind prison walls

It seems to be quite the tradition for Bethesda to start their games off with prison scenes, and this time, you find yourself incarcerated in the dungeon of an Imperial Legion castle. Suddenly, you hear voices in the hallway, and it turns out that two soldiers are on the run, along with the Emperor of Tamriel. And as luck would have it, they need a secret exit, located in your cell. So you might as well follow suit.

The first sensorial overloads are delivered by the insane level of detail on the walls, your incredibly cool sword, and, not least, the impressive physics engine, which is easily on par with the likes of Half-Life 2. Pick something up, chuck it about, push chains and see them dangling, etc… We were also shown a scene in which the hero shot an arrow at a bucket hanging on a strap. Not only do did the arrow get stuck in the bucket, making it swing from side to side, it was also retrievable. And even cooler, the arrow made the bucket tilt to the side because of its own weight. Arrows will embed themselves into the flesh of enemies in a similar fashion, but will rebound off solid materials such as rock or metal.

But back in your prison cell, The Emperor approaches you and tells you that he knows you from his dreams (directly translated: you’re in deep trouble). The Oblivion graphics engine then goes into overdrive, and the animations are nothing short of perfect. Character movements are completely fluid and very advanced, right down to the way one of the soldiers points at you. The developer has spent vast amounts of time on the spoken dialogue in the game, which lasts an amazing fifty hours in total. That means that half of the data on the DVD is sound alone. The lip-sync seemed a bit off in the demo, but we’re sure that this will be corrected before the final release.

On the other hand, it’s easy to read the emotions off the faces of the characters you’re speaking with. As a gimmick, we can mention that Patrick Stewart did the voice of the Emperor, and delivered a performance with his usual authority and flair.

Are we going huntin’ wabbits?

As cool as the prison cell was, it was nothing compared with what the graphics engine could produce outside. We stepped into a forest that looked completely realistic, with an amazing level of detail, right down to the individual leaves on trees, the blades of grass, the flowers, and much more. It was all generated in real time, and the game even has routines to govern the growth of plants and other things. Little butterflies fluttered around, and a deer was grazing further ahead. As we closed in, it ran away quickly. We turned right, following the compass, which has automatic pointers towards nearby hotspots. In front of us, the marble ruins of an ancient temple appeared, surrounded by the remains of massive statues.

Oblivion takes place in Cyrodiil, the main province of Tamriel, and the area spans about 25 square kilometres, half of which is covered in forest. Many Morrowind-players will most likely be pleasantly surprised by the new way of travelling. The game has a map that allows you to instantly go to any previously visited site. No more endless walking from place to place if you’re not up for it.

Battle as usual

The battle system of Oblivion is similar to the one found in Morrowind. You will still be whacking away at enemies who are trying to return the favour, or you will be duking it out with magic. You can also block attacks with a shield, should you have one. As mentioned above, arrows will stay sticking out from your enemies, producing a rather macabre but realistic effect. The physics engine adds detail to the battles; for instance, a vanquished skeleton dropped its shield, which then proceeded to roll around a little, before coming to rest on the floor.

All told, there are 200 dungeons in Oblivion, and these have all been individually designed by the graphical artists of the game (anyone remember the randomly generated ones from Daggerfall? Ed.) The level of detail is again staggering. Objects hang from the ceilings, there are fog effects, the floors are cluttered, etc. But as something new, there are also traps… traps that you can use agains your foes with a bit of cunning. We saw a large wooden grating with spikes on it, which swung back and forth as the hero triggered it. But he dodged it, and instead managed to lure two skeletons in front of it, thus defeating them. A great simulation of physics and rag-doll effects.

Some dungeons also contain so-called power crystals, which you can use to gain certain bonuses. And as always in Elder Scrolls, you can find a mind-blowing array of potions, spells and enhancements. Expect Oblivion to take at least as long as Morrowind to complete

The Sun headline: Bookseller sets her dog on fire

Apart from the graphics, the biggest news in the game may be the system that Bethesda styles Radiant AI. This brings far more life to the 1000+ NPCs found in the game than we’ve ever seen before in the previous titles. Every NPC gets a number of objectives each day, and based on their stats, this determines their behaviour. We witnessed a scene in which the hero visited a female bookseller. She wanted him to stay for a while, and the pair of them went upstairs. Here, she pulled out a bow and some arrows, and began practising, but she was so bad at it that she sent arrows flying all over the place. Then she decided to drink a potion to increase her accuracy, while her dog (also armed with Radiant AI) started to act up because it was hungry. She fed it, and hoped for some peace and quiet to read a book in (The game has more than 400 of these). But the second the sat down, the dog was at it again, and she cast some sort of calming spell on it, saying “Mommy is reading!” (all the dialogue is spoken). As last, she went to her bed to get some sleep, but the dog was back, more excited than ever, and she wound up casting a fire spell, incinerating the poor dog…

After the demonstration, I asked whether this example was scripted or not, but it wasn’t. But the NPCs objectives were put together in such a way that they would always produce an interesting result for the demonstration .In the finished game, Bethesda has taken great care not to give the NPCs goals that will make them freak out, and their reactions will usually be pretty predictable. But once you start interacting, things get more chaotic. For instance, you could snatch all the food from the dog in the above example, thus provoking a different reaction. Characters will also initiate dynamic conversations in the streets, which you can listen to. They can also pick up weapons, steal from you and many other things. In effect, the 24-hour NPC routines give a far more complete sensation of being in a real world than Morrowind ever did.

Save up for some new hardware

Naturally, there are tons of quests and missions. We got to see one in which a portal of Oblivion had manifested itself within a town. Oblivion is basically Tamriel’s version of Hell, so that was a bit of a bad situation. The town had been reduced to smouldering ruins, and there were enormous fires and plumes of smoke amidst the pouring rain. Along with a couple of NPCs, the hero attacked some clannfears and other bad creatures. The NPCs proved quite effective, and could easily dispose of the monsters. But then a demon appeared beside the portal and swept them aside like leaves, and then it was mano a mano. By the way, we have to say that the portal looked extremely cool, with light and fire-effects to make George Lucas envious (did you see Star Wars III yet? –Ed.).

The guys at Bethesda told us that Oblivion is the game they’ve been most happy about, and it’s easy to see why. The Elder Scrolls games have always been about creating credible virtual worlds, and Oblivion manages this feat many times better than any other RPG on the market today. The gameplay builds upon a well-known concept, but adds many improvements as well as an AI that populates the world with (almost) living creatures. On the hardware front, the game will be an absolute killer, and PC owners will be forced to upgrade to the latest gear in order to be able to run it at maximum settings. But then there is always the Xbox 360, which manages the job just as well visually and performance-wise. You will, however, need a HDTV to get the full quality, which I’ve been describing here, on your new Xbox 360. But then it’s lucky that you have half a year to do so, before the game is out.

Source: Boomtown DK
English version by: Jonatan A. Allin (neonwolf)