Oblivion, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Potato

Out of all the games I've played, my favorite, the one that has stolen the most hours of my life, is... TES IV: Oblivion.

Elder Scrolls aficionados and people of good taste are probably laughing and/or shaking their heads. Oblivion is something of the red-headed stepchild of the series. From the three "modern" TES games, you have Morrowind, the beloved classic, Skyrim, the stupendously popular latest entry, and then you have... the potatoes.

Pictured: A screenshot of an Oblivion NPC.

I've seen Oblivion described as "the worst of both worlds" between Morrowind and Skyrim, an awkward stepping stone between the more traditional RPG of the previous game and the more action-oriented experience the series was trending towards. It suffers from an incredibly un-fun levelling system, an overuse of random- and procedurally-generated content in a bland setting (made even more so in contrast to the alien environment of Morrowind), a laughably small cast of voice actors, and of course, the infamously ugly characters of the FaceGen system.

Of course, you can mod most of these problems away, and end up with a much improved game experience. But a common opinion is that even considering mods, Oblivion comes up short- that, while you might want to smooth out the wrinkles of Morrowind and Skyrim with mods, you need an industrial-strength hot iron to mash Oblivion into something good.

I don't agree with all of these opinions. I think Oblivion does genuinely have its own strong points compared to the other games in the series. I think it is still a game worth experiencing. But honestly, I find it hard to disagree that Oblivion is a deeply flawed game. So why is it my favorite?

Well, the honest answer is that it was my first Elder Scrolls game, and so my nostalgia goggles probably warp my perception of the game's true quality.

But I think I also really do enjoy the game for what it is. I love the atmosphere, the coziness of the countryside, the beautiful score complementing the game's ambiance perfectly as I stroll along the roads. I love the writing; I genuinely believe that many questlines are among the strongest in the series. I even love some of the sillier bits, like the random conversations NPCs have that seem inexplicably focused on mudcrabs. They make for a nice background chatter, in a more realistic way than the same scripted conversations of Skyrim cycled over and over. 

I love this dumb game. And modding makes it even better.