Hours 1 & 2: Escape from the sewers

I spent a good twenty minutes designing my character - an Altmer named Woodley Rhyme. I'd forgotten just how many facial aspects can be tweaked, and the permutations are fascinating, even if many of them do amount to 'Photoshop stretch'. At last, Woodley emerges!

So, the Emperor and his lackeys come up to MY cell and demand that I stand by the window! What if I don't? We'll see who holds the real power here! I soon got bored of their repeated insistences and obliged them. Guess it was worth it, since they show me a secret passage out of the cell. We get ambushed by some Mythic Dawn chumps, though, and Captain Renault bites the dust. Funny how I can ascertain her name merely by inspecting her cold corpse.

Two toasted rats later I decide to don the Mythic Dawn gear:

 Has anyone ever not done this, I wonder? Exploring the caverns (on my own - where the hell did the Emperor go?!), I soon come across some patches of mushrooms, which I think for some reason may indicate the nearby presence of goblins. I open a door and am proved correct. Do goblins grow them or something? They look like natural outcrops.

I soon meet up with the Emperor and his guards again. One of them keeps shouting "The Emperor's in danger!" in a way which reminds me of the infamous "things are worse than ev-urr!" line from The Dark Knight.





Baurus puts his foot in it by saying "From what I've seen of you, I'd say you're an experienced Bard. Am I right?" Uh, have I been singing this whole time? I guess I wouldn't know, since you never hear your own character speak. I've been toasting and hacking at cultists, and apparently holding a torch at one point. Ah I see, a Bard has Blade and Block as major skills (and a really curly beard, which I don't have). Well, no, I'm not a Bard. You're way off, Baurus. Idiot.

I chose a custom class by creating my own 'Battle Mage' - basically, substituting Blunt and Alchemy for Restoration and Illusion. I ain't picking' no nasty old mushroom to make some potion, hell no!

What's up with those little raised bridges over the sewer? Is someone going to be sailing a little boat underneath?!

First taste of freedom! The lush landscape and bright colours are a welcome change from the icy slopes of Skyrim. I head over to the nearby Ayleid ruins and discover a couple of bandits there, whom I quickly dispatch with a shocking display of advanced combat tactics - roasting them with a few fireballs and then whacking them round the head with my mighty blade to finish them off. Two mud crabs suffer the same ignominious fate.

And that's two hours! It's taken longer than I anticipated as I spent a good long while creating my character, dithering over my class, and pausing the game to write these lines. I'm loving Oblivion's intuitive magic/combat controls. I miss being able to dual-wield spells like in Skyrim, but the ability to have a sword and sheild equipped and cast spells at the same time without un-equipping them more than makes up for that, as does the spell hot key system which is reduced to a tedious list you have to scroll through in Skyrim.