Oblivious By: Reverend   Mar 31-2006 I picked up Elder Scrolls Four the other day. When I bought my Xbox 360 a month or two back, I was investing a sizeable amount of money in Oblivion being good. With all due respect to Halo 3, this was the game I was looking forward to. After I bought the system, I rented Dead Or Alive 4, Kameo: Elements of Power, Fight Night 3, and King Kong, and while each of them provided some amount of distraction, these offerings were not the reason I spent over half a thousand dollars on a white box. When I first placed the game CD, a piece of plastic representing all my hopes and dreams for my very expensive hardware, on the 360 cd-tray, it was a wonder it didn't snap right off, burdened as it was by the weight of my expectations. Keeping this in mind, you understand why the decision to shill out an extra ten dollars to get Oblivion's collector's edition was an easy one. I got a map, a vinyl-bound brief history of the empire, and a single septim. I am happy to report that the enjoyment I feel while bound up in the oddities of Tamriel is intense. While some problems with the AI do exist, I tend to find the things that the NPC's get up to quite amusing. I often describe them as wacky adventures. For example, I was once walking through the woods, out in the middle of no-where, and stumbled upon an odd scene. A pair of Imperial soldiers, armed with bows, were taking turns shooting each other. By the time I got there, the soldiers were already riddled with arrows. A dead, and similarily pin-cusioned, bandit lay between them. Near as I can figure, one soldier saw the bandit and tried to kill him with a bow. Later, a second patrolling officer stumbled upon them, and figured he'd try his luck with his own bow. He missed, hitting his comrade, who took offense. A shoot-out occured. All this occured long before I showed up. In any case, I could see that the situation wasn't about to resolve itself anytime soon. I continued on my way and came back later, and was rewarded with a set of Imperial armor. I think it's really cool that things like that can happen even though I'm not present. Everyone in Cyrodiil is leading their own life, I just interact with them.