Words On Wednesday

“ The Elder Scrolls IV - Oblivion Remastered ” is a 2025 remaster (go figure) of the 2006 action RPG "The Elder Scrolls IV - Oblivion." Oblivion came out originally on Xbox 360 and PC, which I had neither at the time. It came out later on PS3, but for whatever reason I never bought it. Oblivion Remastered was my first opportunity to play through this classic on my own. But wait. This is a remaster of a nearly 20 year old game, the fourth of a pretty popular series. I feel like I need to roll it back and give some context on the series as a whole, in addition to my own personal context. I've often said that Morrowind was my first Elder Scrolls game, but that's perhaps a bit misleading. Morrowind was the first game in the series that I personally owned. Oblivion was the first one that I played, and I didn't buy Morrowind until after I had played Oblivion on a friend's 360. We were in Kohl's sometime in 2006 or 2007 and saw Morrowind for the original Xbox on ...

A lot of video games allow players to create their own character, selecting gender, build, skin color, and facial features. Some people stick with the default character or one of a number of preset characters. Others like to create characters at random, with no real inspiration other than what their imagination comes up with. I, and players like me, try to create an avatar that resembles me as much as possible. If I’m going to be playing the game, and there isn’t a protagonist created specifically for the game, I want the main character to be an extension of myself. The Problem There are a number of problems with character creation systems when trying to make a character look a certain way. For one, the way people look can be very hard to describe. I could spend pages describing myself, or I could include a headshot and a full body shot in this post, and you’d have a near perfect idea of what I look like instantly. “A picture’s worth a thousand words” may actually be an understa...