Summary

Ok, I guess I'm cheating on this review, as I've only played the Xbox 360 version, but I'll assume the PC version is essentially the same game. I'm not much of an RPG junkie, but this extraordinary game may just be enough to convert me. It's not so much about playing a fun game as it is about starting a separate life on the side. Don't buy it if you only have time for one life. You start out by creating a character, customizing nearly every aspect of his or her appearance. You immediately find that your newly minted alter ego is in prison for unknown reasons, but that doesn't stop the Emperor of Cyrodiil from appointing you as the world's new savior. After getting out of prison, you can either go head to head with the forces of evil and save the world, or you can start your new life as a gladiator, a mage, a sly thief, or a cold-blooded assassin. All of these are a blast, and you have endless hours of gameplay available as you complete the side quests for every mission. And then there's the main mission, which lives up to every conceivable expectation. The plot is deep and layered, the characters are fairly well developed, and you never see what's coming next.

Sound

Just as good as the graphics. The work that went into recording all the dialogue and sound effects is impossible to imagine. Sure, you'll hear plenty of repeats, but compared with hearing, say, Halo marines yelling "save some for me!" five times in two minutes, it's amazing that anyone had the patience to put it all together. The sound effects are equally impressive-- the unique clanks and thumps of different weapon impacts give you enough detail about how that last blow connected and how you should plan your next that you can practically fight with your eyes closed. In addition to the sound bytes, the score is beautiful-- another happy change from Morrowind.

Gameplay

It's all about choices. You have a lot of options in how to play, starting with your race. Bretons and High Elves make good mages, catlike Khajiits can sneak around anything, and Orcs and Redguards are well suited to breaking skulls. You also choose (or create) a class with a specialty in stealth, magic, or combat. You can dabble in any and all of those if you so choose, but if you pick a specialty, you'll do well in it. A fighter can go head to head with anything but can't cast powerful spells too effectively, while a sneaky thief will be overwhelmed when fighting multiple enemies. Even within a specialty, you have a staggering array of choices. Mages can elect to cast spells to spot distant enemies or to avoid detection, or they can put all their energies into a more powerful fireball. A fighter can choose to wield a two-handed weapon like a claymore or warhammer, but that doesn't let him carry a shield or a torch. When you've made your choice about how to arm yourself, you choose how to approach each fight. Do you go head to head with everything you see, or try to avoid confrontation? Do you use your shield to avoid that powerful incoming blow, or do you flip out and counter it with another skull-crushing swing? When the combat ends, you'll have to deal with friendly people at some point. The "persuasion" minigame, in which you judge people's reactions to different remarks and adapt them accordingly, is a poor substitute for human interaction, but it does add another layer to the game. Ok, you get the point. Even like-minded players will probably have unique strategies; my friend Kyle has a fighter with a big sword and a keen sense of style, while mine just likes to beat some faces in with a mace.

Summary

Morrowind is perhaps my favorite video game of all time. Thus, I eagerly awaited the sequel, Oblivion. In most ways, this game either met or exceeded my expectations. The developers took the reviews and fan feedback about Morrowind seriously and have made a game that will likely be regarded as a classic many years from now. Oblivion is by no means a perfect game, but it packs in so much gaming goodness that it's hard to find much fault.

Sound

Well done for the most part. Many of the voices from Morrowind are back, but in much greater quantity since all dialogue is spoken. There are many creature sounds and environmental effects, all of which are appropriate. While I loved Jeremy Soule's music for Morrowind, his efforts here are lackluster. The game's soundtrack is very understated and fails to adequately set the tone in many situations. Actually, I had to purposely listen for the music a lot of the time, which shouldn't be the case.

Technical Issues: Fortunately, this game goes against the grain for this particular developer. Up until now, Bethesda had a well-deserved reputation for releasing buggy games. However, Oblivion was remarkably stable on my computer and very well-polished. Admittedly, it did crash about 10 times, resulting in a few corrupted saved games. However, most of the crashes took place as I tried to reload saved games, which is not a big problem since I save very often. There were none of the Morrowind-style crashes where you're just walking along and... BAM!!!--desktop. Ten crashes in 100 hours of gameplay is a ratio that I can definitely tolerate.

The game comes with a good manual and a map of the gaming area. The opening sequence serves as a tutorial and is well done. Also, it is much quicker to get into the game than Morrowind, which required you to listen to the opening theme music as the game loaded.

Replayability/Value/: If you buy into the premise of the game (openended exploration and questing), this is a great value. I've played a lot of games, and nothing quite touches the bang-for-the-buck that Elder Scrolls games have. There is a construction set for the PC version that can be downloaded for free at www.elderscrolls.com. Also, like Morrowind, modders are going to have a field day with this game, which should lead to some quality third-party mods for downloading. Overall, if you liked Morrowind, you should really like Oblivion. If you have never played an Elder Scrolls game, this is a fine one to start with.

Overall rating: 4.5

Gameplay

Like Morrowind, the concept here is free-form, openended exploration. The gaming world is absolutely huge with tons of stuff to do. Want to explore caves, dungeons, and ruins? Go ahead, there are dozens. Like questing? Join the Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, Thieves Guild, Arena, and/or Dark Brotherhood. Or, just talk to the locales who'll have plenty for you to do. The main quest centers around finding the heir to the throne of Cyrodiil, which will require you to visit the hellish realm of Oblivion and close various gates. It's a decent storyline altogether, but nothing as epic or absorbing as Baldur's Gate 2 or even Morrowind. Overall, the various quests in this game are much improved over Morrowind's, and many have multiple parts and interesting background stories. Unless you blast through the main quest (about 30 hours) without doing any other tasks, it would easily take 200 hours to see and do everything this game has to offer.

The controls for the game are typical for first-person shooters, although the game can be placed a bit awkwardly from a third-person perspective. There are several hotkeys for weapons and spells. Combat is very engaging and will require some practice to get used to. Opponents will block, dodge, use power attacks, and generally fight in an effective way. Stealth is improved a bit over Morrowind, with a lighting/awareness system much like that of the game Thief. Also, being a mage in this game is a viable option, and the alchemical system should even appeal to non-mages. And like Morrowind, you can create your own custom classes, and the face generation system is very detailed. The user interface is easy to read and organizes items, spells, skills, and so forth in a logical way. It can't be scaled by resolution, so when it's open it covers the whole screen.

Thankfully, there are many improvements over Morrowind (and most any other computer RPG out there). Dungeons and caves are creepier and have traps, multiple areas, and lots of loot. One complaint about Morrowind was that it got too easy too quickly. Few people will have that complaint about Oblivion. Most creatures are leveled, meaning that they get stronger as the player character advances in level. This keeps the game challenging throughout, though it still seems a bit weird to have a 25-level warrior with the best weapons and armor having trouble with a goblin warlord or dread zombie. Anyhow, NPCs in this game are rather lively, living their own lives, having somewhat dynamic conversations, all-spoken dialogue, and many animations (eating, sleeping, horse riding, etc.). And then there are the nice little touches, such as houses to buy, display cabinets for your loot (or to be looted), a solid bartering system, the lockpicking minigame, and the exhilarating arena matches (you can fight or just bet). Also, the journal is great and sorts your quests well.

Given all of its strengths, the problems with the game are mostly minor and annoying, nothing major. I would have liked to have seen a bit more variety in the Oblivion plane. Once you've closed one gate, it's wash, rinse, and repeat for the others (you'll have to close at least 10). It gets old quick. This also goes for the dungeons, caves, and other adventuring areas. The best way to keep things interesting is to do various tasks at the same time--some guild questing, dungeon crawling, and miscellaneous quests. Otherwise, any single activity can get a bit monotonous. Sadly, the horses are not as fun as they could have been. There are different breeds with different characteristics, but in the end they are largely a cosmetic addition. You cannot fight while mounted, they cannot carry items for you, and they are somewhat expensive. Also, opponents have a knack for targeting your mount, even once you've dismounted. In about 100 hours of gameplay, I purchased over a dozen horses due to the fact that they died so frequently. Ultimately, since there are other fast travel options and since a character with a high Speed skill can outrun some horses, a steed is a questionable purchase.

Summary

With Oblivion most of us have found a deep, engrossing game. The gameplay is similar to Morrowind but improved. The game will give you at least a hundred hours of fun for the money.

The quests are well thoughtout and working for the different factions puts a twist on things. You deside to be a nice guy or a bad arse. Challenging warriors in the Arena is great fun but so is becoming a dark assassian. Become a powerful magic user or a master theif or mix and match your skills to your personality. Obivion puts little restrictions on what you can be.

So far I would have to say Oblivion has surpassed my expectations and that is saying a lot. I loved Morrowind and Obivion is superior.

Strength

Visually, the game is stunning. With those capable of using HDR you get the high end graphics and even though I can not use HDR as I have a ATI x850xt I still get some of the best enviorments I have ever seen in a game. You can tweak the visuals up or down via many means, ini tweaks, mods etc.

Obivion unlike Morrowind has all spoken dialoge which is a huge plus. I get so sick of reading dialoge all the time. The use of a few big stars to do some convincing voice acting also improves the quality of this title.

Still there is a reason I love RPG games. You get a hundred plus hours of gaming goodness from this fifty bucks ! It is a game for serious rpg gamers to complete but even the newer rpg player will appreciate the sheer scope of the gameworld and many quests. Also the quests are much improved over the "fed ex" quests in most games. There was some thought put into the quests and that makes it all the more fun and less tedious to level up.

Weakness

As with Morrowind I think the team at Bethesda pushes the envelope just past current hardware. Even high end machines must stumble some on this game. I don't know why they do not tighten the code up or make it more scaleable for performance. In there latest patch they did enable lower performance machines able to run the game.

If you pc is not to spec to not complain that the game sucks as it will not work. Better buying the xbox 360 or time for a new pc.

Summary

The "Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" is a game I looked forward to greatly; a more compelling and involved story, a truly living world (quite unlike the cardboard characters from the previous game in the series, "The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind"), and exciting combat.

While my first impressions of Oblivion were altogether negative, it does have a lot to offer for both casual fans, and roleplayers alike, with a good 100 hours of quests to go through.

Strength

The game gets off to an action-packed start, as your character bears witness to several attacks on the Emperor (voiced by Patrick Stewart), before he is assassinated by agents of a mysterious cult. As always, your peculiar status as a former convict is ignored, and you quickly become embroiled in the effort to save Cyrodiil from certain destruction.

The main quest has it moments, to be sure, from the desperate assault on the ruins of Kvatch, to the final defense of the Imperial City, but the real draw comes from the various groups and factions you can join. Although the number is greatly reduced from Morrowind, Oblivion's five main factions (the Arena, Dark Brotherhood, Fighter's Guild, Mage's Guild) are much more involved. The Dark Brotherhood, in particular, has you carry out several memorable assassinations, and the climax of the last few missions is not to be missed.

Cyrodiil also has many villages and inns spread across the various regions, making it seem like a world that's truly inhabited. Imperial Legion soldiers and foresters roam the roads and wilderness, as do bandits and marauders. And there are plenty of caves and ruins to explore.

In terms of gameplay, the combat is greatly improved.

Weakness

While Oblivion is definitely fun, for the most part, there are several dissapointing aspects to the game.

The main quest, though having some great moments, is not particularly original or memorable. Martin's character seems wasted; although he hints at having been involved in Daedric magic at one point, you never learn much about it, or anything else about Martin. It seems strange that he would consider you a close friend, as well, considering you were formerly an inmate in the largest prison in Tamriel, and you've spoken to him all of five times. (Slight exaggeration).

Dialogue is definitely a major weakness in the game. While Morrowind relied on vast paragraphs of text, Oblivion's dialogue is fully voiced. Unfortunately the writing is mostly of poor quality, and the voice actors are often re-used.

The player character gets few chances to choose different responses (and when you do, it's usually a yes or no answer to accepting a quest). The Speechcraft minigame is also fairly boring, and doesn't add any value to the game whatsoever.

Also, the skills you can choose from have been diminished. Enchant, Spear, and Unarmored have been removed from the game, and the only type of ranged weapon you can use is a longbow. All three melee types of weapons (Blade, Blunt, and your fists) function pretty much the same, so combat can get a bit repetitive.

The vaunted "Radiant AI" is also not all that innovative; it's basically just like any other game, only the NPC's move around and sleep. Guards will sometimes fight each other for seemingly no reason, NPC conversations are beyond excruciating, and the soldiers of Cyrodiil seem to have a penchant for jumping into lava. Other than that, they function adequately.

Overall, the game's flaws are noticeable, but don't detract from a fun experiance. It's a great action game, and definitely worth playing.