The alarm rang at 6:45 in the morning this past Monday and from the moment I woke up only one thing was on my mind – well, two actually; consuming my breakfast of oatmeal and egg whites and heading out to Times Square to get my hands-on experience on a near final, if not final build of the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for the Xbox 360. To say the least, I was excited to try this hotly anticipated role-playing game for the simple fact that the hype surrounding Oblivion even sucked me in a bit. I was curious to see if the game would live up to the hype and expectations fans have created it.

I’m not going to lie... I didn’t like the previous Elder Scrolls game all too much, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. I put roughly around twenty hours into Morrowind for the Xbox and I felt that the game was too unfocused and rather sleep inducing. So, to say the least, I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy my fours hours of playtime with Oblivion. However, Oblivion has already entertained me more than Morrowind could’ve ever hoped, and to fans this might very well mean that it will be one of the greatest adventure games ever made. I may not share these sentiments but I’m sure this is a pleasant thought for some.

Once I got to the showroom at the W Hotel in Times Square, I introduced myself to the lovely Erin Losi of Bethesda. To my surprise, I was the first guy to arrive, and the first to fire up the game. Upon starting a new game, you are introduce to the game’s character creation mode. For those less patient gamers, the character creation process may prove to be a mind-numbing experience; it’s an absolute nightmare – which, in actuality, means that it’s one of the deepest character creation modes you’ve seen to date. Practically every feature on the body can be toyed with to extreme detail. While you won’t have the same amount of creative freedom with the character’s muscular features and such as you do in EA’s Fight Night Round 3, the amount of tweaks one can make to a character’s face is absolutely mind numbing. You can toy around with the shape of eyelids, slope of the forehead and things of that sort. If I wanted to, I could’ve easily spent an hour or two on the character creation process alone but I’m not the kind of gamer that likes toying around with that kind of thing, I’d rather just get straight to the game.

The game starts with a of voice over from Patrick Stewart’s character, the Emperor of Tamriel. In all honesty I wasn’t paying attention the plot points in this introductory sequence all too much, but from what I can tell it looks as if anyone who is a fan of Lord of the Rings-like fantasy will feel right at home. What I did notice, however, is that the lip-synching on characters was spot on and probably the most convincing I’ve seen in a game to date – even though I didn’t find the character models all too impressive, due to some low-res textures found on some articles of clothing.

Unlike Morrowind, Oblivion puts you into the mix of things as soon as the game begins. You don’t have to look for the plot – you’re tossed into it from the get go as Patrick Stewart’s character has this eerie trust in you due to a dream he had in which you aid his cause. All the successors to the throne are being killed by demons and assassins, who I assume are coming into this dimension through the Gates of Oblivion, which mind you is the equivalent of Hell in the game’s universe. It is your role to help deliver the Amulet of Kings to the last successor to the throne, a priest in some remote town who had no idea he was the son of a king – a man who has the guilt of many deaths upon his shoulders, as the demons from the Gates of Oblivion are murdering countless innocents just to look for him.

You start off in a prison cell, and are then released by the Emperor due to his trust in you. You are quickly introduced into the game’s battle system as you move yourself through a labyrinth of dark prison tunnels, fighting off large sewer rats and assassins, whose intention is to spill the blood of the Emperor of Tamriel. The battle system itself is indeed improved over Morrowind but that’s not exactly saying much. The combat melee system used to wield various swords, axes, and hammers is still a very simple one. To most gamers, this is a great characteristic, since a complicated battle system isn’t one that lends itself well to newcomers or casual gamers, but for those more experienced gamers who’ve played as a fair number of sword-wielding heroes -- Oblivion’s melee system may just seem bland and awfully repetitive as the same two or three animations are repeated each time you swing one of the game’s many melee weapons. However, I do like that you could deflect the attacks of sword wielding-foes without having a shield in hand, but by just using the sword itself. This is rather effective, especially when larger blades require the use of both hands to wield.

This two hand combat system is something that I found to be implemented into the game very well. I like that players have the choice to have a shield in one hand and a sword in the other, or alternate the shield with a torch when you need to make your way through those dark tunnels, and yes, from what I’ve seen there are plenty of dark and dreary tunnels to explore in Oblivion.

Unfortunately, I’m not the most proficient user of magic and spells of that sort (unless they are the type of spells that recover health), since I prefer to use melee weapons, so I didn’t really toy around with that stuff much during my playtime. However, from what was explained to me by Bethesda’s Pete Hines, you could use spells to enhance weapons, allowing them to poison enemies, amongst other things of that sort. I would also like to mention that there’s a way to map spells to the D-pad of the Xbox 360 controller and from what I can remember, more than a dozen spells can be assigned. Although, due to the accuracy of the D-pad, or lack thereof, when it comes to executing precise directions in a circular pattern, it seems like there’s bound to be plenty of error using quick spells. So, that’s one minor issue that could’ve benefitted from some minor tweaking.

The game’s introductory dungeon is fairly useful in having players become accustomed to gameplay mechanics of Oblivion. Of course, fans of the series will feel right at home, but I don’t think newcomers will have much of a hassle getting used to flow of things, which is far better than what I would say about the game’s predecessor. Aside from the things I’ve already mentioned thus far, there’s also a lock-picking "mini-game" of sorts that has seemingly found its way into a vast number of games ever since its excellent execution in the original Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell. While lock-picking in Oblivion may not be as intuitive as it is in Splinter Cell, it’s just as annoying, or can be. Using the two lock-picking prongs, you have to push the pins of the lock up and set them in place before they come crashing down breaking your set of tools. The first ones encountered in the game are fairly easy to solve but they can be a real pain later on when you spend those nights running through alleys, breaking into people’s homes and unlocking their chests for some goods to pilfer.

More to come...