Yeah, if by “first basement” he meant the dungeon in the beginning you’re escaping from I think that door was part of the tutorial. Learning how to pick locks and all that.
Of course it’s been a few years since I played Oblivion, (gave up after only 30 hours :p) So if I’m mistaken, my apologies. 
I suppose Deus Ex and Mafia’s “hold down right mouse button until bar fills” lockpicking methods don’t really count as “interactive”?
Yes, that’s the dungeon. If I recall correctly, I came upon the door and the game said it was locked. There wasn’t any tutorial for picking it that I remembered. How do you get past it?
Safecracker is an older game based around cracking various puzzles and locks. I had a lot of fun with it, but if you’re looking for plot, this isn’t the place for it. http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/safecracker2006/index.html
It’s now available from several sites as a download if you want to poke around for it – the link goes to gamespot’s review.
**lizardling **posted the bit about Safecracker, which is good because even if I’d gotten here first, I’d forgotten its name! My husband bought me this for Christmas, and it’s not too bad of a little game. Not great, but not bad. It’s fun enough, and you should be able to find it for cheap (if not free download).
I have it for the Wii, so it should be pretty much available for anything.
System Shock and System Shock 2. The first game had two different kinds of lockpicking (three if you count cyberspace).
Betrayal at Krondor was memorable for its riddle-based chest locks. For example: “The more you wet it, the more it dries”. Answer:Towel
If it’s the door I’m thinking it is (the Emperor and his guards go through it), you don’t go through that door. You go through a hole in the wall nearby.
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey has a little bit of lockpicking (more like hacking).
In the original Everquest, rogues could train up a lockpicking ability. Required you to have lockpicks, as well. It wasn’t much, though - just click on the door/chest/trap/whatever and hope it worked.
But on the opposite side of the hole in the wall, there is another door that is set on a higher level, which your character can just barely jump over to.
Er, I don’t remember that.
From the top:
You get out of your jail cell and follow the Emperor and his cronies. In one area one of the cronies gets killed; you take her stuff and move on. Then the Emperor and his guys go through a door which you cannot go through. They tell you to stay away. Some rats jump out at you. To the right of the door is a hole in the wall, which you step through by going up to it and pressing space.
You go through the dungeon and find another door. Near the door is a dead goblin. You take the key which opens the door. The rest of this cave system is fairly straightforward.
Then you rejoin the Emperor and his dudes. You select your birthsign at this point. You follow like in the first part until the Emperor is killed. There’s a gate in the nearby room, but you don’t go through that–you go through the hole the assassin came through near the Emperor’s body. Find the entrance to the sewer on the ground (think it’s through a door), and enter the Sewers.
Thanks, but this answers my question about as well as “There are three muffins in the basket on my dining table”.
Try looking up “ZZT Games”, cute little DOS-era games that use ANSI characters instead of graphics. Some of the puzzles were very lock-like.
It’s a beautiful-looking game, based on the early adventures of “Rorschach” and “Nite Owl” from “The Watchmen” book & film.
A pretty generic 'beat ‘em up’, with a few sections requiring locks be picked to advance to the next.
Both “No One Lives Forever” games as well as the spin off “Contract Jack” involved lock picking. They incorporated cool tools in general. Rifling through drawers to obtain secrets was always a fun surprise. “You have found a piece of bubble gum and some lint.”
Still makes me chuckle.
Curse of the Azure Bonds by SSI.
CSI: Miami. The mobile version by Gameloft has it, not sure about the PC version by Ubisoft.
Wasn’t Myst all about locks ?