I was hoping you would resist arrest.”Īnd if you to resist arrest, what does the guard scream? The guard offers you three choices Pay a Fine (which you cannot afford), Go to Jail, or Resit Arrest. Hungry and distraught, you decide to steal a loaf of bread and are caught by an Imperial Guard. Say you are a poor person living on the streets of the Imperial City, the empire’s capital. Not exactly the most comforting sight in the world… Empire State of Mind Upholding this status quo is central to defeating evil, and while Uriel and Martin both seem like good men, a quick glance around the state of their Empire calls into question whether the Septim Dynasty is really working out for the people of Cyrodiil. Which means that the salvation of the world depends on a long line of rich white guys maintaining absolute power as dictators of an entire continent. So long as his bloodline continues to reign, the world will be safe. This is because the first emperor of Tamriel, Tiber Septim, literally ascended to godhood. (Quick Side-Note: Has a video game ever had a more star-studded cast than Oblivion?)Īll Martin needs to do is re-light the Dragonfires (which only a Septim wearing the Amulet of Kings can accomplish) to stop the otherworldly invasion. Together, you and Martin will end the Oblivion crisis and stop the dastardly plot of Mankar Camoran (Terence Stamp), the leader of the Mythic Dawn. The Emperor Uriel Septim VII (Patrick Stewart) is also assassinated, but not before he entrusts you with the Amulet of Kings (I’ll explain that in a moment) and tasks you with finding his illegitimate son Martin (Sean Bean). It’s still a great game, despite some oddly careless world-building details.) Fighting OblivionĪ cult called the Mythic Dawn kick things off by murdering the Emperor of Tamriel’s sons in one fell swoop. (Note: much of this review is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, not necessarily a serious academic analysis. It is far more frightening when it continually treats you as a hero while you run around torturing, precipitating massacres and committing small scale acts of genocide.Īnd it is all so much worse because it is unquestionable that the worst implications were all unintentional. It is one thing for a game to send you on morally dubious quests. Yet beneath its colorful facade is an ardent streak of conservatism and bone-chilling commitment to maintaining the status quo. The story is simple, and the writing is a curious mixture of generic and charming. Your task as the designated hero of fate is to close these Oblivion Gates and re-install an ancient family’s final descendant to the throne. In the case of Oblivion, the main threat that needs quelling are portals to another dimension that keep popping up all over Cyrodiil and spewing monsters into unsuspecting towns. Rather these games are primarily spent slaying dragons, deciding wars and being murdered by guards for accidentally picking up inkwells. Oblivion is the fourth Elder Scrolls game, a fantasy series best characterized by the fact it has almost nothing to do with elder scrolls (they are only relevant to the main plot in two out of five games, and do not even appear in two of the others). (Spoilers for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, a ten year old game).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |