It is a glorious day.

I got out of bed at 5:15am. By 6:00am Oblivion had been installed on my PC.

(I’d downloaded overnight. I have two copies arriving some time this week, one PC, one 360, so I don’t feel guilty about downloading it a day or two early. I had to install some software called Daemon Tools to run it. I hope it’s not going to do anything nasty to my PC. I don’t know much about downloading games and that. I was so worried I actually deleted all the personal information – e.g. Firefox passwords – off my PC before running anything.)

I played it for just over an hour, through the helpful tutorial section (that will no doubt get annoying when starting new characters) and out the other side. On my PC it looks great. Once out in the world I died, a lot. I only had about ten minutes out there and about five deaths. It’s no less harsh than Morrowind in that respect. Do stupid stuff, you die. And I did a lot of stupid stuff, just to test things out. In fact, everything about it is very Morrowind. The combat system’s been changed a bit, the interface has been mucked about with, but it feels just like Morrowind to me. I didn’t, however, see any enemy health bars. Hopefully I just didn’t notice them because I was gawping at the graphics. If they’re not there then I may cry.

Anyway, I had to leave for work, but it’s a lovely sunny day and I read great interviews with Peter Ackroyd and the Pet Shop Boys on the bus and after all the anticipation and build up to Oblivion I now feel sated. Itching to leave work, go home and plunge back in, but at a manageable level. The wait to play it at all was sending me slightly crazy, I must admit.

Now I’m okay. I’m fine. It reminds me of when I used to be a hardcore smoker and lit up a fag after an enforced period without.

And I’m rubbish at sneaking.