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(posted 10/9/2006 to 11/25/2006)
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a medieval/fantasy
"role-playing game" (although it doesn't quite live up to that name,
if you ask me) by Bethesda Softworks available for the PC and Xbox
360, the sequel to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. And even though
I'm not that crazy about it, I've spent way too many countless hours
playing it to NOT make a few LEGO creations based on it!
Every time you run past an Oblivion gate in a hurry to avoid it, the
sky will change to a dark oppressive red and black gloom... at
least, it will by the time you're a couple of miles away from the
gate again. It really doesn't work all that well...
A comparison. Ah, oblivion gates. You either hate 'em or you...
well, everyone hates them. I myself hate them but tolerate them
because I want to get sigil stones to enchant my equipment
(something I'm obsessed with). I even downloaded the "don't close my
gates" mod so that the gates would stay open even after I'd finished
the main story. Now what kind of a sadistic monster would inflict
such torture on themselves? Well... me.
Here we have my character Amy Archer, supported by an Imperial
Legion Soldier and Imperial Legion Captain, fighting against some
evil conjurer (Mankar Camoran, possibly), a pair of Dremora, and a
Flame Atronach.
At first I made my Daedric armor dark grey, but after a while, I
slapped myself in the forehead and thought "What was I thinking?" Black is,
of course, a much better match to the in-game armor, even if it's not quite
LEGO black.
Another full shot of the gate assault. A rather simple model really.
When I was really into the game I felt like I might try building the
big caterpillar-like Daedric Siege Engine that dies sort of
pitifully at the end. But then... well, I saw how pitifully it died
at the end. Heh.
Another shot of Amy being flamed by possibly-Mankar-Camoran. He is
wielding a staff of fire... the bazooka of the Elder Scrolls IV:
Oblivion.
The nasties! The head conjurer, flanked by his Daedra buddies. Darth
Maul's head isn't perfect for a Daedra, but it's pretty close.
Actually it's more intimidating than most Daedra, who have vaguely
bluish skin, funky reddish brown hair, blurry low-res skin textures,
and sport a completely ridiculous permanent scowl expression.
And the heroes win! Amy has got a nice new suit of Daedric armor
too. Actually I never made her wear Daedric armor because it's so
ugly, but meh. The Imperial Legion guys' accessories (helmets,
pauldrons, and swords) are from a place called BrickForge, by the way. Their shields
are just shiny LEGO harpoons cut short and stuck through 2x2 dish
pieces.
And just after finishing off the last few badguys, the guards sheath
their weapons and strike up a little casual conversation... just
another day in Tamriel, after all.
One Oblivion gate down, a couple hundred left to go...
Here is
a scene from the beginning of the game... the Emperor Uriel Septim and a loyal bodyguard (a member of the Blades).
I think these are possibly the two best minifigs I made. The only
improvements needed are to make the red cloth on the Emperor's robes align
more correctly with the red bricks, and to make a helmet for the Blade guy...
Here's Brother Jauffre, the monk guy who turns out to be
Grandmaster of the Blades. His head is Lobot's from Star Wars. I gave it
hair to cover up the weird machine he has back there.
My main character when I played through The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
(and yes, unlike most games, I only played through it once) was Amy
Hunter. I remade her as Amy Archer in Oblivion, and this time I was able to
actually make her somewhat attractive! Thank you, Bethesda, for the face
editor! Man those default heads in Morrowind were ugly. Of course, most
people in Oblivion are ugly too, and it takes a bit of work to get your
character to look nice. Ebony Armor is
probably my favorite heavy armor. I never made Amy wear Daedric because it
looked so evil and ugly. Has anyone else noticed that Ebony Armor looks like
King Theoden's armor from the Lord of the Rings movies? There's even a
magical suit of Ebony Armor you can find in Oblivion called "Horselord's
Armor"!
Here are the comparison screenshots for you. I think you can tell which Amy
is which. What, you think it's weird that I play a female character? Bah,
well, neither game has any romances in them, so I figured, what the heck?
Besides, I have like six characters, and half of them are male. Oh, by the
way, Amy is wearing Imperial Dragon armor in both of those screenshots. The
Morrowind one is the one you get when you become the leader of the Legion.
The Oblivion one is the one you get when you complete the main quest.
Normally there is no feminine model for the Imperial Dragon Armor in
Oblivion, but luckily some guy made a mod for one. Thanks, "The Bloke!" You
can download his mod here:
http://www.tessource.com/files/file.php?id=4254
What? You don't own Oblivion for the PC? Well then, your loss. Despite the
fact that I always recommend playing through the original, unmodded game the
first time, there are a lot of great (and not-so-great) mods out there that
add replay value. You can even tweak the game, and the mods, very easily
yourself, to suit your own tastes. You console gamers don't know what you're
missing.
Here's some Speaker for the Black Hand (that's the name for the leaders in
the Dark Brotherhood, by the way). One thing that really bugged me about
Oblivion is the lack of alternate endings for quests. I mean, it is possible
that you accidentally got a "good" character into the Dark Brotherhood (such
as if you killed the Grey Prince in the Arena after doing his quest, which
unfortunately counts as a murder), so why
isn't it possible for you to get back out of it with a good ending? They had
a perfectly good story for an alternate ending: you could have helped that
traitor guy... you know the one I mean if you've finished the Dark
Brotherhood quests. But no, same ending every time. "RPG" my foot.
And here's a Dark Brotherhood Assassin. Just a lowly Murderer most likely.
That could possibly be the extremely annoying Blade of Woe in his hand.
Apparently the Dark Brotherhood superglues a special dagger into the
inventory of everyone they recruit. Ah well, don't my decals look cool?
While I'm on the subject, I actually grew rather fond of my fellow assassins
in the Cheydinhal Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary. They all seemed to have their
own personalities for once! And then, of course, you already know what
happens to THEM. Bah...
Here is my sister's character (one of them anyway), Nick Wolfe. You may have noticed that both of
our characters share names with characters in the Nova Refuge universe. Heh,
it's no coincidence, of course. Anyway, Nick here is wearing an Orcish
helmet I guess. It could have been an Ebony helmet, but I didn't want to
paint it.
While I'm on the subject of Nick Wolfe the bearded barbarian, I want to send
a little message to Bethesda (if they ever see this): PUT SOME BEARDS IN
NEXT TIME! It stinks the way none of the guys in Oblivion are manly enough
to even grow a decent mustache. The lousy excuse for facial hair included in the
game doesn't even look like hair at all; it just looks like your character
has been huffing spray paint. I want to see real geometrical beards, dangit!
So far I just have to use a mod.
Here are the two Septims (Uriel and his son Martin). It's amazing how they're both so bland. I've
always thought Sean Bean was a pretty cool actor, but his character in
Oblivion was completely lackluster. He was like an emotionless, depressed,
uglier clone of Boromir or something. If there is one thing Oblivion needed
to become one of the best RPG's ever made instead of what I'd hardly call an
RPG... it is a better writer. Yes, I think Oblivion came closer to the kind
of game I've always wanted than any other game before it, but if ONLY it had
a better writer! One who could make a truly interesting story and
characters. Then the game would be nearly perfect! Hey, Bethesda... I can
help! ;-) E-mail me!
One thing I really did like about Oblivion was the art style.
Almost everything... buildings, armor, characters... looked realistic and
down-to-earth. No ridiculous crap like you usually see in idiotic extreme
fantasy settings. Of course, this also meant the people looked realistic
(that is, ugly), unfortunately. But that's a small price to pay. And hey,
the females actually had armor that covered their bodies and offered some
real protection! When you switched a suit of armor off of a male character
it didn't suddenly turn into a bikini like in most RPG games. Of course, sicko
perverted modders out there have a smorgasbord of mods available for
"sexier" clothing ranging from the normal armor in the game with select bits
removed, to wearable Flame Atronach (pictured above) "armor," all the way to
complete nude mods. Perverts. Although I have to admit,
the Flame Atronachs are pretty hot. Get it, hot? Yeah, I know, I'm
hilarious.
I'm not really a big fan of the Elder Scrolls universe, to be honest. Too
many dang elves, and I don't like the way all of the races congregate
together in the same cities and places... with orcs and elves living
alongside humans, instead of living separately with more developed cultures. And no dwarves! Dwarves are sooo much cooler
than elves, and they left them completely out in the Elder Scrolls! If you
read the books lying around in either game, you eventually learn that the
dwarves were actually really tall, sort of evil, and all dead. I've
determined that the creators of the Elder Scrolls setting must have a
prejudice against short people. No dwarves, halflings, or gnomes, and yet
they still had to include stupid stuff like zombies.
Man I hate zombies. I don't know why on earth I made a minifig of one, despite my hatred for them. Did you know there's a secret law
requiring zombies to be featured in every video game? It's true. Any video
game not based strictly on real life (like a realistic war game or
something), but instead on sci-fi or fantasy, HAS to include zombies or
something like them. And I'm sick of it. But anyway, here's a LEGO zombie. Just
because I can.
Wow, I sure did a lot of ranting in these captions, didn't I? Well,
nevermind that. I really do like the game. In fact, I'm going to go work on
my newest character some more. I'm trying out some new mods with her,
including some I tweaked myself. See ya...
The character minifigs
shown on this page were made using custom decals (or "stickers" or
"labels" if you prefer) that I designed myself.
If you would like to make your own minifigs, I now provide a
printing service for my decals. Just click here:
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