A New You - Creating a Character in Oblivion

The character creation in Oblivion is as easy as a few button clicks, or as detailed and time consuming a process as any obsessive compulsive could wish it to be. First you choose your gender and race. I greatly appreciate being able to decide to play as a female character, instead of another Nathan Drake clone with an untucked shirt. There are 10 races to choose from, and while the standard elves are present there are also more creative fantasy races such as the cat-like Khajiit. All in all the world of Oblivion is an amazing tolerant place, and choosing to play as a certain race will not bar you from completing any major (or minor) quest lines due to bigotry on the part of citizens. the special skills and attributes of each race are outlined in the game manual. You are also asked to choose a name, but it serves mostly as a place holder and way to identify saves and doesn't show up again in the game.

You can then simply choose a preset character design, or can go through an incredibly exhaustive menu of choices to alter almost every aspect of your character. The sheer amount of choices simply for cheeks or eye shape and placement is almost overwhelming. You are also able to set the age of your character - from a fresh faced youth to a grizzled old man. You manipulate sliders to change setting n features, and are able to rotate the camera around to get a good view of what your changes look like from any angle.

I finally settled on a Nord - for the inherent shielding ability since I am planning to play a melee combat character. I made it a woman, young, with blond hair up in a bun. I gave her a male name however - Theseus - since I figured she was actually going to be wondering through the labyrinth of the game rather than already knowing it secrets.

A nice feature of the game is that after you choose your race and look, and go through the opening sequence of the game, you are given the opportunity to change everything before stepping out of the sewers and into the outer world.

It is sad that, after going to so much effort, you will hardly see the character you created again outside of the item selection screen. While it is an option to play in third person perspective, it is awkward to do so and you quickly realize things were meant to be seen and dealt with from a first person point of view.