The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

[Revan Jast]

Mature: Blood and Gore, Language, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol, Intense Violence (rerated from Teen)

Developer: Bethesda Studios

Platforms: PC, PS3, Xbox 360

Review Version: Xbox 360

Graphics: Believe it or not, they hold up to todays standards pretty well. Great enviroments, monsters and NPCs.

Animation: Third person is not very fun to play in, because the walking and running animations suck. Plus combat looks simple and bland, unless you're in First Person, which is how you ought to play the game.

Sound: Great music really immerses you in the game world, and the monsters can sound scary. A large minotaur in a small cave, chasing you? HELP! However, the people all sound like everyone else. Get more voice actors, Bethesda!

Controls: Perfect, with the exception of the hotkeys. They are linked to the d-pad, and the 360's d-pad sucks. I only use 4 out of the 8 hotkeys (up, down, left and right). Trying to use the diagonal ones usually end up rewarding you with one of the aforementioned directions.

You're in a prison cell, and this smart ass got put in the one across from you. What's that? The guards are coming? Great, you're going to die and your last moments had to be spent with the guy across the way.

Not exactly. Apparently the Emperor is targeted for assassination, and the secret escape route just happens to lead through your cell! I bet the guys on death row wish they were in this game.

After creating your character (lots of facial options, and you have 9 races to chose from), this is the situation you're presented with. Long story short, the Emperor is killed, but before that, you go through the underground route to the outside, presenting itself as the tutorial. You'll learn how to sneak, use weapons, cast spells, and more. At the end, as he is dying, the Emperor gives you the Amulet of Kings, and tells you to find his lost heir and close shut the jaws of Oblivion!

Well, this Oblivion guy sounds like he has some pretty big jaws. Actually, the "jaws" are gates, and with the Emperor dead, the magic keeping them closed has weakened, and a bunch of demons are coming through them. If I ever go to prison, I wont take the secret escape route, thank you. I'll stay in my cell.

Well, once you get outside (after a trek through the sewers...) you'll discover an open, seemingly peaceful world. Not for long! Even as we speak, a city is under attack!

Sadly, Oblivion doesn't rush you to beat the main quest. Any "urgency" you may feel is all for nothing, as the game won't progress at all till you reach certain points in the main quests, so you're more or less free to roam around and do whatever you want. You can do side quests, you can join the guilds (the Dark Brotherhood is awesome!), all while this impending doom is hanging over everyones head.

The open world is expansive, with 16 square miles of woodland and cites to explore, not counting caves and dungeons and whatnot, not to mention the Oblivion realm itself (ES version of Hell). Leveling up is fairly easy. When creating your character, you're presented with classes and whatnot, and each class has it's own major skills, 10 of them in fact (you can also make a custom class!). Leveling up these major kills 10 times (one skill 10 times, 2 skills 5 times each, or each skill once, doesn't matter) gains your character one level, with a max of level 53 (only if each major skill starts at 25, which is rare as certain races have certain skill bonuses).

Also, certain races seem to fit better with certain classes. You can make an Orc Wizard, but a Breton or High Elf fits better, and you can make an Imperial Assassin, but I can't use anything but Dark Elves for that class. Just my personal preferences!

Oblivion has oodles of quests to do after the main quest (no, the game does not end after the main quest, you are free to do as you want). You can help a farmer with some bears, hunt down Alyeid statues, or go rescue some potatoes! (I'm not kidding, there's a quest pertaining to potatoes...). Also, there are Daedric Shrines scattered around the world, and they each have their own quest, provided you meet the neccesary requirements.

All in all, after all my time playing Oblivion (over 200 hours on all my characters!) I've never gotten bored. Yes, a lot of people sound the same, and the animations are somewhat lackluster, and, as expected, there are the occasional glitches, but the rich, detailed world and the people in it will bring you back, time and time again. Be a monster slayer, a hero of the people! Be an assassin, hide in the shadows, waiting to strike. Wield magic, destroy with the flick of a finger, or command others to follow you! Whatever you do, you'll find TES IV: Oblivion is some of the best time you'll ever spend in a game. It may even almost be your other life...

And with that, I give this game a 10 out of 10.

Thank you for reading this review!

-RJ

[Rain]

Oblivion is epic!

[Junk Angel]

You are kidding me.
Oblivion deserves a 6;10 at most.
The optimisation utterly sucks, the animations were done by a first year 3d student and the scriptwriter took a few levels in mental retardation.
The main storyline is even worse than that of fo3 and that's a lot to say.

The enemy scaling is awful. The goblin from the beginning is always the same threat, and the one goblin in the sewers would probably be able to wrack the whole city above him if he wanted.
At least make natural scaling. Make the player engage higher level monsters instead of bugging all of them.

The world is far from immersive due to the lack of immersive characters. Really I feel like an alien these days. And get the grim feeling that old school rpgs will never ever resurface.

Even morrovind is better than oblivion. By quite a lot.

[Rain]

I must start up a new game of Oblivion some time... got that game craving!