You connect the Oblivion bone to the Skyrim bone...

After yesterday's exposition, let's lighten things up, shall we?  I'm really excited about The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.  We're down to about a month and a half away from release (11/11/11!), and in anticipation of that date, I decided to play another character through its predecessor, Oblivion.  I haven't written about Oblivion before, but it's one of my favorite games.  I had actually only briefly heard of the game before I bought it several years ago.  I was in a ridiculously long line at GameStop when I came up on the discount bin.  Glancing through it, I noticed the Game of the Year edition for $15.  I snatched it up and headed home with my prize.  If I'm being honest here, it took me a while to "get" this game.  I had played RPG's before, heck they're one of my favorite genres, but this one was different.  Outside of the opening character creation level, it gave me nothing to go on.  It dumped me out of the sewers, and said, "Good luck!"  I had never played a game that was placed in such an open, do-anything format.

My first character was a Wood Elf.  Now, one of the most important parts of the game is creating your character.  Choosing his/her Major and Minor skills, birth-sign, and the rest.  I screwed that up royally, because my guy was a wiener.  I must have picked the wrong skills, because I wanted him to be a swift, sneaky archer, but he was just way too weak.  I restarted the game, and this time I played as an Imperial knight-like character, which was much better-suited for my first play-through.

Pictured: Also an Imperial

The official soundtrack contains 26 tracks, although I would forgive you if you wouldn't have guessed that high.  There are several different versions of tunes that play in different parts of the game, say in a town or in a dungeon.  It keeps the feel the same, but the sound fresh.  Probably the most famous tune is the epic-sounding main theme, which plays over the title screen. 

All-in-all, Oblivion is a wonderful, silly, epic, sometimes buggy, engrossing romp through a richly detailed fantasy world.  The screen shots Bethesda has released for Skyrim have done nothing to dampen my enthusiasm for that game, and for the series.  The voice cast looks to be top-notch, and I'm sure the music will be as epic as ever. 

To Skyrim!