A Day in Oblivion – Unearthing the PS3

The controller’s sticks had turned unhealthily gunky when I removed the controller from its stone sarcophagus. Not sure if the meltiness was because my room is south-facing or a side effect of encasing my old consoles in the cursed sarcophagus of an Egyptian mummy.

But would Oblivion live up to my memories?

I’m a little wiser and a lot balder than I was when I played then back in those heady days before global pestilence had returned. Would time have eroded the delight I recalled, or would the plucky older game hold up well? I heroically decided to spend Sunday finding out.

The several hours I spent in Cyrodiil at the weekend were laced with nostalgia, so it might jut be rose-tinted glasses, but I really rather enjoyed my stay there. I played as a Breton battlemage, going with the suggested class rather than the custom one that I habitually created way back when.

The graphics are still perfectly reasonable (bearing in mind the ag), the major exception being the character faces. One big plus I’d forgotten was that the hotkeying on consoles is miles better than Skyrim. In Oblivion you get 8 (via the D-Pad) whereas there just 2 console hotkeys in Skyrim (up and down, selected from the favourites list accessible by pressing left or right). This came in very handy as someone focusing mostly on magic.

Another nice touch I’d forgotten was the Black Horse Courier, which helped get me back into the world before the empire started falling to pieces. Quests unfolded naturally too, with a couple of people seeking me out in Skingrad (one of whom had walked from the Imperial City), and my nirnroot-harvesting leading to another. There seemed more freedom wandering about this way and that, and I encountered a couple of ruins which I successfully navigated by summoning undead to do the hard work for me.

It was also a little sad to see the Mages Guild in Skingrad appear to have more spells than in the whole of Skyrim.

One diametrically opposing difference was the clear lack of voice-acting variety. That said, the races do stand out a lot more, especially in height terms. In Skyrim, Bretons, Nords, and Imperials look pretty damned similar (although the beast races are orders of magnitude better).

It’s early days, but I really rather enjoyed my Sunday in Cyrodiil. Had to swap the console back for other reasons, but looking forward to joining the Mages Guild and crafting my own spells.

Thaddeus

PS And, for those wondering, a day or two of leaving the controller out plus an hour of playing degunkified my cursed controller.