Challenge #1: Finish The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Ok so this game came out way back in 2006 and everybody lost their shit. It had been four years since The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind came out and people had been anxiously awaiting a sequel that promised an even larger world with the same sense of adventure and discovery that the former had provided. Certainly a sequel to the visual powerhouse that was Morrowind would be so mind-blowing that the graphics alone would make the game worth a purchase.

Here's an example of Morrowind's tippy top-notch visuals:

This was the pinnacle of old man pectoral technology in 2002.

So to reiterate, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion came out four years later and blew the pants off of just about everyone who played it.

Except me, because I didn't own a machine capable of running it.

Sorry, ILLUMINATI!

It would be a few years later that I finally got an Xbox 360 and found myself able to play all the games I'd been reading about for months but never had the chance to play. Oblivion was on that list.

Now let me change the subject for a second because I suppose it's important to mention something about myself. I am a lazy gamer. I love the technology behind them, the philosophy and story behind them, even the business side of the industry interests me, but I am an incurably lazy gamer. If your game is slow or buggy or difficult at any point, I will more than likely not finish your game. When I say that, understand that I don't mean 100% completion, because I'll never do that ever no matter what. I'm talking about bare bones game completion here, single player main story line shit. On Easy. I started a Batman: Arkham Asylum game on Normal instead of Easy, and I have regretted it ever since. I am so close to finishing it that I'm not willing to restart it and change the difficulty level, but goddamn it I've been close a couple times.

Seriously just... fuck you.

My point is that games like The Elder Scrolls series involve a lot of exploration and are a HUGE time investment. I have never finished one for this reason. I spent so much time on Morrowind without having any idea what I was doing or what I was supposed to be accomplishing that I got completely bored and gave up on it. This goes for most open-world games, but we'll cover those another time.

Will Oblivion be any better? No probably not.

Let's begin!

BEGIN

One of the perks of being a cheap, lazy gamer is that I almost never buy games new, so when I do buy them they're half the price with all the extra DLC included. This is why I own the Game of the Year edition. It comes with a couple extra pieces of DLC, which appeals to the collector in me, but frightens and intimidates the lazy game player in me.

Let's load this bitch up.

So far so good.

I should also mention at this point that I haven't yet found a Capture Card Tree to pick a capture card off of and I definitely haven't bought a capture card, so you get digital pictures of my mid-grade Vizio and you will like it.

Gimme dat capture card DEKU!

Ok so we're loading the game...

Not sure why you couldn't have merged your two logos that said the same thing on them, but what the hell my time isn't valuable right? 

Ok FINALLY I get to stop looking at Bethesda logos. OBLIVIOOON!!!

... aaand now I get to wait five minutes for the extra DLC to finish loading. The DLC I am almost guaranteed to never seek out or experience.

I'm not kidding. Why does it take longer to load the DLC than it took to load the entire goddamn game?

Alright this is great, Patrick Stewart is speaking some sort of gobbledygook about Tamriel and Oblivion...

Why do people look so weird in this game...

We get a quick look at some hills that in all honesty DO look like something I want to explore...

How could this go wrong?

Aaand we zoom into a goddamn dungeon with no hills or water or anything interesting. It's now time to create our character with an unprecedented level of customization. You can be whoever you want!

Or you can spend an hour creating something that looks like nobody you've ever seen:

Default Oblivion Male

A female the same age and race for some reason will look 20 years older and even more masculine:

Dat Mustache

Since Oblivion basically promises complete customization but delivers a never ending parade of freak-show monsters, it only makes sense to start with an obvious monster:

Now we're talkin'

I am extremely wary about this headband's ability to stay on my head.

I'm locked in a dungeon, confused and alone, except for this orange asshole who wastes no time in calling me a dirty piece of shit.

Flaunting his dance moves at me, dick.

Cue the king and his guards who want to take a shortcut through my cell and complain that "Ooh there's some dirty orc in here, ewww stand by the window you dirty orc while I escape and let the rest of you prisoners deal with trained assassins!"

Oh I'm sorry, did my wrongful imprisonment make your cowardly escape inconvenient?

Well guess what bitches, the king literally had a dream about me so I guess you dicks get to act like you aren't totally racist while I follow you out of this shitpile.

Yeah this is going to be awkward...

The king and his Racist Squad run way ahead of me since they "have reputations to maintain," and lock the door behind them. Lucky me, I get to slowly make my way through some dank tunnels cutting down the rats and goblins that those assholes didn't even have to deal with.

Somehow I know eating this will have four effects on me, but I can only identify one of them.

Alright so I go through this dungeon for a while, fighting rats and goblins and for some reason one zombie.

Before everyone on the planet was tired of zombies.

Finally I meet back up with the King and his goons. THANKS FOR WAITING UP, PENISDONGS! And even better, the King won't shut up about how we're all basically wasting our time and that he's going to die no matter what.

Why don't you and I take care of this little problem right now...? He's clearly given up.

Just look at his cold, dead eyes.

So ok we're almost out of here, maybe there is something to this whole "Oblivion" thing the King is upset about, we'll just creep our way out of this dungeon and everything will be...

SURPRISE MUTHAFUCKA!

Ok so this assassin just murdered the king, and I'm beginning to realize that if I had just stayed in my cell for an extra ten minutes, I could have avoided this entire ordeal and let the king die since he was clearly trying to get himself killed in the first place.

Oh you had a dream about this whole thing? Thanks for coming to my cell with a key to release me instead of making me slog through a rat/goblin/zombie infested dungeon... OH WAIT!

So the king is dead. I am so bored already and I haven't even had a chance to SEE those hills and trees I saw in the intro. One of the guards gives me a key and tells me it basically leads me to even more goblins and rats and filthy shit I didn't have to deal with in jail. FUCK this I'm going back to my cell.

After playing some of Skyrim and even after playing some of Fallout 3, Oblivion feels completely unplayable to a lazy gamer.

CHALLENGE FAILED

Next up:

Please don't make me fight rats.