The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Reviews

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11.4.2006

Oblivion is the fourth game in the veteran Elder Scrolls series, which began in 1994 with Arena and continued through Daggerfall (1997) and Morrowind (2002). Like the earlier games in the series it is self-contained, with no need for any familiarity with the other games.Oblivion is a broadly freeform game where you decide where to go, what to do, who to see, what missions to perform and what ambitions to pursue. There is a central quest, but there is no pressure to follow this quest. You can follow it or ignore it as you see fit. In this sense the game is essentially Grand Theft Auto with horses instead of cars and swords instead of uzis (although Elder Scrolls predates GTA by some years).The game is very streamlined,with little of the standard RPG stats to understand and master. However, some minor digging through the menus brings up the stats for those who really want to get into that side of the game.First off, the visuals in the game are amazing. The detailed texturing, lighting and shadow effects are astonishing. However, there are some flaws. The draw distance is not very impressive (even at the highest setting), so objects far away sometimes appear blocky and unrealistic. In addition, facial animation on NPCs is virtually non-existent, limited to frowns or smiles. Half-Life 2's nearly 2-year-old expression system is vastly superior and more believable. The plane of Oblivion, which was hyped up before release, sadly turns out to be a fairly obvious knock-off of Hell in Doom 3 and the sections set in Oblivion are the most tedious of the game.In terms of sound Oblivion boasts an astonishing soundtrack and some marvellous nature sounds which draw you into the game. Unfortunately, there are a very limited number of voices for the NPCs in the game. The facial construction system means that no two NPCs look the same (although a lot of them do look similar) but the fact that there only appear to be 5 male and female voices wrecks the level of believability in the game and renders the astonishing achievement of giving every NPC in the game a voice rather pointless. The fact that the minor NPCs often share the same voices are major NPCs critical to the main quest also doesn't help, although there are two unique voices, provided by actors Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean for the Emperor and his son, which are excellently acted throughout.Combat is fast, furious and logical. Betheseda may have cracked the holy grail of FPS RPGs by finding a solution to the "I hit it but I missed!" problem which has dogged the genre since Arena. Now if you physically hit something, you hit it. Your skill merely determines how much or how little damage you do. A major flaw is that the AI of any NPC allies you have in a fight is nearly non-existent, as they happily leap in front of your sword or arrows and make fights far more difficult than they should be. However, magic is streamlined and works well in the game.Controls and the interface are fairly good, although the X-Box 360's limitations have carried over to the PC version, namely a somewhat overly-complicated menu system which never really becomes intuitive. Seperate buttons and different menus for quests, maps and inventory would have been far more preferable, rather than one menu with lots of confusing tabs.The game's central quest is a reasonably entertaining, if generic, tale of murdered kings and portals to hell opening all over the land. This quest is fairly varied, taking in dungeoneering, countryside rambling, stealth, covert infiltration and large set-piece battles. Side-quests are more usually simply courier or assassination jobs, but more inventive ones include climbing into a world within a painting to track down a missing wizard and liberating a floating inn from the brigands who have captured it and sailed it out to sea.Oblivion is a fairly huge game, with plenty to see and do even when you complete the main quest. It's solid and enjoyable. However, there are significant flaws in the game. NPCs tend to be fairly lifeless, lacking character or individuality. They certainly seem very hollow when put next to the interesting, varied, larger-than-life and frequently hilarious NPCs from the likes of Baldur's Gate 2, Anachronox or Planescape Torment. The 'radiant AI' simply works out to little more than them having a schedule of when to go to work and when to go home, something Lure of the Temptress had 15 years ago. The game can also be somewhat po-faced, with occasional flashes of humour. The extremely generic, seen-it-all-before fantasyscape of Tamriel and its D&D-dervied races are also fairly uninteresting, lacking depth or believablity.So Oblivion is an enjoyable game with hints of where the RPG genre could go next. It has some hugely significant flaws which prevent it from claiming the crown of Best RPG of All Time (still fairly secure in the joint hands of Planescape Torment and Final Fantasy 7), but as an impressively huge game that will keep you busy for a few weeks, Oblivion takes some beating.

27.3.2006

I am a huge fan of the previous elder scrolls 3 game "Morrowind", and have been bursting with excitement to get my hands on oblivion since I first heard it was on the way (I've written this review mainly with fans of Morrowind in mind). The game begins with a rather long introductory section where you will learn the plot, basic controls and decide on what attributes your character will have as you go through, This is much more fun than having to trawl through lists of stats for half an hour before playing, as in many other role-play games. This feature also gives you chance to try out different skills you can imbue your character with before beginning the game proper.Even so I found after a few minutes of game-play that I had made a couple of bad choices for my first character and wanted to start over, annoyingly there was no way to skip the introductory section, which is a lot longer than it was in Morrowind and had to be played through in full.The game play is very similar to that of "Morrowind" and elder scrolls veterans will need no time at all to get back into the fundamentals. The really major changes appear during combat which has got slightly more arcade in it's style, involving the player a lot more. Although a step forward for some players this is a fundamental step away from what people normaly expect from an RPG and therefore won't be to everyone's taste. A useful feature though is a slider to adjust the level of difficulty at any point during the game so even someone as kack handed as myself will have no trouble bashing those badies! Also new and improved are the stealth and lock-picking systems which owe a lot to the "Thief" games, again the new system involves the player a lot more and in the case of stealth makes it genuinely possible to use. At last it would appear to be possible to play an RPG as a thief or mage without being at a severe disadvantage. Also new is the option for players to buy a horse for their character to ride and even buy a house. I found the horse wasn't massively useful because the player has to dismount in order to fight, it would have been better to allow some charging around with a spear! Having said that the horse is very well integrated with the fast travel system meaning you don't have to worry about losing it. The mapping and fast travel systems are both extremely good and I would say the biggest single improvement over Morrowind. Once you have found a location it appears on your map, on subsequent trips there all you have to do is click the map and you're there! Exploring is still very much a part of the game but this stops you from having to make those long tedious hikes across country to somewhere once you know where it is.The games plot line is good and very involving, and the quest system is more focused than Morrowinds. The player gets the chance to visit the plane of oblivion (hell) very early on, while visually stunning these levels feel a bit repetitive and after a while I was glad to just get them over with! In fact the game all over felt a bit repetitive and clichéd, where Morrowind had interesting ideas like the slightly alien scenery and very distinctive towns. The towns in oblivion did have the saving grace of the radiant AI system controlling NPC's, which adds a definite layer of realism, I particularly enjoyed listening in on the unscripted conversions going on in the Inns!My PC falls somewhere in-between the minimum and recommended system requirements with an older type of Pentium 4 2.8Ghz processor, 1GB budget RAM, and ATIX1300 graphics card, by no means one of the slowest PC'c around and I would like to think fairly representative of the sort of PC the game will played on. The game did a video test on first start up and promptly set the visuals to "High Quality", and although the game does have some very advanced lighting effects I found myself thinking that although Oblivion is very much superior visualy, the graphics of Morrowind still look good even now but are produced with a fraction of the system requirements. I found the games performance a little erratic and at some points the frame rate seemed to drop very low even though there wasn't a lot going on on-screen.IN CONCLUSION, I would say that oblivion IS a very good game and is easily worth the asking price. A worthy sequel that, despite the size of the playable area, doesn't quite supply enough new ideas, lets wait for some expansion packs! It must be said though that even after afew years elder scrolls 3 Morrowind still looks very good. If you are new to the Elder scrolls series or somehow missed out on number 3 I would recommend that you buy the Morrowind game of the year addition (which includes two expansion packs immediately! particularly if you have a PC that only meets the minimum specification for Oblivion. Everyone else should buy Oblivion, just remember it's very good but not perfect.Pete

4.4.2006

If you liked Morrowind, and have a high specification PC - buy this game now! It makes Morrowind look like a playstation one game!It's the most addictive, picturesque, lifelike game ever created. I now realise why it was delayed, the programmers wanted everything just right, and boy was it worth the wait.Liked the Lord of the Rings films did you? Ever wanted to be Aragorn or Gandalf? Well this is as close as you will currently get to appearing in the films. All the old school villains are here, Orcs and Goblins etc, and classic Dungeons & Dragons type spells, Fireball etc. and an endless list of weapons, armour, and other essential (and some non-essential - what do you do with those tongs?)items.When I first walked out of the oppressive dungeon at the start of the adventure - into the sunlight, and viewed the vista before me, my lower jaw hit the floor! Rolling - grass, shrub, rock and tree covered hills and plains, gorgeous rippling reflective lakes, a multitude of plants varieties growing all around. (Yes I said trees, no more huge mushrooms as in Morrowind), and distant fading mountain tops just waiting to be explored. There isn't just flora around either - there's plenty of fauna also, including deer, wild boar, brown and black bears, wolves and mountain lions!Notice I stated 'when I walked out', this is how good this game is, you don't control a game character - you are in the game!When night falls, you can watch the stars and the twin moons slowly traversing the heavens, and later get soaked in a violent thunderstorm or snow shower.You have complete freedom, to do anything you like, when you like, and all your actions gain rewards, in both gold coin and levelling up experience.I have been playing this game now for 40 hours plus and haven't even started the main story quest!There are hundreds of side quests activated by speaking to townsfolk, and a similar number of hidden dungeons, mines, and forts waiting for you to explore out in the wilderness.Pssssstt........want to be a thief? Want to sneak around backstabbing people... OK then LIVE IT! Prefer to be a macho Knight or Barbarian with rippling muscles....LIVE IT! Have a penchant for wearing robes and frying your enemies with spells.....LIVE IT!If you haven't already gathered, this is not a game - it's living your life in a fantasy setting.As I stated earlier, to get the best out of this game you really do need a high end computer, even though my computer is I have still turned down some of the sliders on the graphics to increase performance. Virtually everything you see on screen is adjustable, shadows, fade distances etc, so you are bound to find a setting for your PC.This game is hard too. You can reduce or increase the difficulty slider from it's central start position, and the temptation is to set it to easy from the off, but it is far more rewarding to dedicate some time to levelling up and leave the difficulty level where it is. Early on even large rats and wolves make you run away, but with perseverance (and a magic weapon or two) you will soon be smiting Trolls and Ogres like a Berserker!No statistic tables or visible dice rolls here either, levelling up is common sense - use a sword enough times and you become an experienced swordsman, prefer the bow and over time evolve into an archer, or spread your talents and become a fighter who uses a smattering of magic. The good thing is that if you choose to be a knight at the start your major skills will be based around fighting and you will never have enough magic power to cast major spells, and likewise if you choose to be a mage you will have loads of magic power but not have the strength to lift a sword!The game world is vast. I have been riding around for 35 game days and not seen half of it yet. A major improvement on Morrowind is the revamped quest log, click on a quest and a coloured marker appears on both the map and compass informing you where you need to go, a red mark when far away, a green one when you are close to it's vicinity, or a blue one which you can set yourself as a guide. Also there is a fast travel option (only to places you have previously discovered) you simply click on your destination on the map, and you are instantly taken there (after a short load). Personally I prefer not to fast travel, as you miss discovering many wonderful hidden places!Finally, I have heard that the X-Box 360 version crashes frequently (and it's more expensive than this PC version), just to set reader's minds at rest, I am playing an un-patched version one of the game straight out of the box, and 43 hours later the game still hasn't crashed once.Buy this game - and live another life in a new world!Must be off now, I have a mine to clear of goblins and trolls, and I still haven't cleaned that annoying dried Minotaur blood from my armour!

21.4.2006

Oblivion is a pretty impressive achievement, and without doubt one of the best and most "next generation" games to appear thus far on the Xbox 360.Oblivions prequel, Morrowind, was pretty compulsive stuff despite having rubbish magic, combat and stealth systems. It also offered no challenge. Oblivion consistently improves upon these and as a result is a far more polished game.Its not perfect however. Its flaws include.The levelling system ensures that the game always provides a challenge. However when you can become the Arena grand Champion at level one, it seems a little ridiculous. In addition to this the loot (for the most part) levels with you too.This means that there is little reward in pushing the envelope early on when high level armour and weapons become almost childishly easy to obtain later on. Hell your average bandit wears armour that costs the earth, while ambushing you for 100 gold!The Radiant AI is a little overhyped. Sure the NPCs seem more lifelike but ultimately their schedules have been done before. In addition to this you rarely have much choice in what you actually say, and the speechcraft minigame is a joke. It makes no sense, and is waaay too easy. The character faces also just look wrong.You can do everything. Yeah, I know this sounds great, but actually when you can become head of the mages guild without being able to cast a spell, and top out all your stats, it starts feeling a little off. There's not always that many different resolutions to quests, and not too much in the way of lasting consequence.It's a little on the buggy side, and seems to get worse the more you play it, and the horses. They just don't work.But all this is worth putting up with, as Oblivion is, quite frankly, the best game I've ever played. Admittedly I'm a sucker for action RPGs with loads of exploration, but never have I seen such a beautiful game, that's so much fun to play, with so much to do.Even after 100 hours plus of play, I still stop to gawk at the sunrise occasionally. The insides of dungeons are stunningly atmospheric, and the outsides, while occasionally patchy, surpass anything that I've yet seen.The music too is spot on, changing tune at the right moments. The sound effects are beefy and really contribute to combat, and the voice acting is generally great - in particular Sean Bean. They could have hired a few more actors though.The quests rarely resort to the standard go fetch type quests, and often evolve in ways you don't expect. Much of these revolve around combat, but then that is the focus of the game - and this time it deserves to be.If you want a feel for the way in which Oblivions combat works - download the condemned demo. The ducking to and fro, with manual blocking, and power attacks feels particularly good - especially when fighting against humanoid opponents. Things get a little more basic against monsters, but often-different tactics are needed. Bears for example can be circled around, as they are slow but powerful whereas Xivialis need to be attacked aggressively before they summon other monsters to fight for them.The magic system works nicely, and can actually be played alone, and the stealth and marksmanship is nicely handled too, with sneak attack bonus multipliers. The stealth system is no Thief, but given its size and open-endedness and the fact that its not just about stealth it does a damned good job. You can tell that one of the Thief designers worked on it. He also created the Dark Brotherhood series of quests, which is probably the most unpleasant, sinister and downright great set in the game.I'm a bit of an exploration junky, and still enjoy finding new places and new loot in the packed wilderness. There's just so much to see and do, that its just as well that you have quest compass linked to your diary that can give you direction when you need it. You'll sometimes regret its existence as it borders on the hand holding, but overall it's a worthy addition.Such is the size of Oblivion that the fast travel feature that enables you to instantly travel to a location that you have already visited is almost essential. Time in game passes as if your character was walking, and sometimes it feels like cheating but it can really cut down on the long boring slogs that are sometimes necessary. I'd rather be playing the game - and I can still explore if I feel the need.I haven't even touched on the detailed character building exercise at the start, or the skilful way the game slowly eases you into the action, or the joy of the levelling system that increases your stats based on how much you use them.Damn, I'm going to have excuse me, as I need to play this game some more.Seriously - if you have an Xbox 360 - do yourself a favour and buy it.

24.6.2007

I waited six years for the Lord of the Rings Trilogy Extended Collector's Edition and when I finally got my hands on it, I felt like Gollum with the Ring of Power. When I heard that Bethesda were to release a sequel to Morrowind - one of my all-time favourite games of any genre - I once again felt that "My preciousssss" tremble in my soul.After a long, long wait, the game was released and I equipped my trusty Daedric laser mouse, inserted the game disc with surgical delicacy, and prepared to feast upon a whole new episode in the The Elder Scrolls series...The installation process is quick and easy enough - as was the options setup - despite the game's hefty 4.7 GB - and a few minutes later we are into the game.The very first thing that leaps out at you is the HUGE improvement in graphical detail compared to Morrowind. Textures, lighting effects, object physics and overall aesthetics have been taken to new heights with this title, although this means that its full capabilities are inaccessible to all but the highest-spec hardware setups. The character creation stage is the most complete (and time-consuming) I have ever seen in a game. This includes customizing every aspect of the Player's physical appearance, right down to the last detail. The inclusion of the Havok physics system is also evident from the outset, as we are able to freely move objects such as bottles, chains and even corpses. As the game progresses, this can make for some highly amusing scenes of drunkards throwing flagons of mead across the tavern, and felled opponents tumbling down mountainsides, but above all adds to the vastly improved feeling of immersion and environmental interaction that was so distinctly lacking from Oblivion's predecessor.Starting off in a prison cell in Cyrodiil's Imperial City, we are approached by Emperor Uriel Septim himself, and he speaks. Yes, speaks! All dialogues and comments throughout the game are spoken, as opposed to the endless reams of text dialogue of before, and are brought even more to life with a near-perfect system of lip-sync and facial expressions that again heightens that feeling of being "there." After a brief, but rather "hairy" tutorial stage, we're off out into the big wide world of Oblivion. And believe me, it's BIG. We have almost limitless freedom of movement in a huge, sprawling country the size of - erm - a country, although as we find new locations we are able to "Fast Travel" to them, and the clock jumps forward the amount of time it would have taken us to get there on foot, or on horseback.Another thing which is immediately noticeable is the more instantly accessible gameplay. Even at Level 1, we are able to move at a reasonable pace, and not get beaten to a pulp by kwama scrubs like we did in Morrowind. Bethesda seem to have struck a fairly happy medium between the more "purist" roleplay system of their previous productions, and the "jump-right-in" approach of games like their recent Call of Cthulhu; all the while retaining in us that omni-important urge to "level up." Having said that, as the game progresses there are times when the "leveled creature" spawning detracts somewhat from the scare-factor, if we venture too soon into what should be forbidden territory - teeming with adversaries beyond our current capabilities - only to find a couple of Level 2 skeletons and a snow wolf. But dismay not! For the dangers are many and myriad-kind, and you'll get your fair share of umber loincloths!So where was I? Oh yes, outside. As the sun sets slowly in the west, we bear witness to one of the most spectacular sights of any videogame ever: the rich crimson glow over Lake Rumare outside the Imperial City at sunset - and the subsequent fading hues of the Cyrodiilic dusk - caused me to gasp in awe in much the same way as I did the first time I crossed Hyrule Field in Ocarina of Time. But enough of my banter! What you really want to know is "is it any good?!?" And the answer is yes; yes, if you want stunning, sprawling lands in which to roam and complete quests and explore and fight mythical beasts and save the world. Yes, if you like an instant-gratification-fantasy-action-RPG with potentially hundreds of hours of gameplay. But if your cup of tea is hardcore roleplay and the satisfaction of sweating your way up through the leveling system (and if, like me, you wanted more Morrowind) then you're in for a bit of a disappointment. But comparisons are odious, and if we take Oblivion as a whole new game in its own right, it more than makes up for its shortcomings by being a great game, and will undoubtedly attract thousands of gamers old and new, of all ages and preferences - which is a definite notch on the bedpost for Bethesda.

3.6.2006

Oblivion is a superb game. Open-ended, with a huge playing area rendered in gorgeous graphics and with so many options available a player's just spoilt for choice. So why am I only giving it four stars?I wanted to love this game. I looked forward to it for months, bought it as soon as it came out. Why? I'd played through TES III (Morrowind) several times and wanted more. And while Oblivion brought me a beautifully rendered, open and enjoyable game... something didn't quite carry over.One difference is, oddly enough, the Oblivion of the title: the eponymous gates that have opened across the land, which open into the local version of Hell. Going in, as you repeatedly have to do,you meet enemies neatly matched to your current level of ability... which is the problem.In Morrowind, you had to be careful, because some areas were just Too Dangerous for low-level characters: you heeded warnings or ignored them at your own risk, and considered "come back once I've got more skills, better armour, more spells" - but if you managed to pick a couple off, their good kit and some rich loot was yours. In Oblivion, wherever you go the enemy is squeezed down to your level in skills, equipment, wealth, whatever: it might make for a simpler play experience but it's somehow less satisfying. No need to tread carefully, no need to avoid any areas, wherever you go you won't have to fight anything too much better than you.The Oblivion Gates offer another problem: they all require the same approach. Go through the gate, fight through almost-identical enemies in almost-identical terrain, grab the Sigil Stone. If there was some sort of graduation - some smaller Gates opened to backwaters of Oblivion populated with weak enemies, others led you to the Elite Training Room of Hell - then it might be more interesting, but there's too much of an identikit feel to the Oblivion Gates. After you've cleared one or two they become a chore rather than a challenge.The guilds and groups are carried over, but have likewise lost a little. In Morrowind you had guilds, brotherhoods and political factions to join, some of them mutually antagonistic; sign up with one organisation and others might reject you, and as you worked for one you'd sometimes attack another. In Oblivion, there's no apparent reason why you can't join all the factions and no noticeable tensions between them. Simplifies the gameplay, but I *liked* coming to grips with the backstory.So, having complained at length about the game, do I enjoy playing it? Very much. There are many, many points of excellence about it, from the entertainment of designing your character at the start to the childish joy of mounting your horse and riding off far faster than shank's mare ever allowed. The huge and varied game world - the geography and scale are worthy successors to, and improvements on, Morrowind - can be explored quickly and easily by point-to-point rapid transit between cities and known locations, or simply explored to see what's there. And the graphics, on a system recently upgraded, are some of the most convincingly beautiful I've seen.For every complaint about how the game isn't as good as its predecessor, there's something else it does better, and I don't just mean the eye candy. There are fewer types of armour and weapons, but the skill system has been simplified: no more fretting about whether to use "spear", "axe", "short blade" et al, you're now down to three close-up choices (blades, blunt weapons - including axes - and bare hands) Magic works better, and even a poor magician casting a weak fireball feels like they actually *connected* with that spell! NPCs interact and converse - imperfectly, but better than anything I've seen previously outside pre-planned scripts - and cities feel alive, closing up at night and coming to life by day. NPC shopkeepers now eat, sleep and go walkabout, rather than being tethered to their counters around the clock.It's not exactly what I wanted. But it's very good. If I had to choose, I'd prefer the less coddled gameplay and more complicated world of Morrowind, but I don't regret buying Oblivion at all.

25.10.2008

I am what might be described as a more 'mature' gamer. I'm also female. Now, I don't want to be accused of being ageist or sexist BUT I wanted to write a review specifically for the older person who might pass over this game because they think that it's all about fighting, war, death, destruction etc.Well, not the way I play it, it isn't...This is a brilliant, immersive game that has kept me happily engrossed for eighteen months - and I haven't finished it yet! (Well I never said I was a 'hardened' gamer...!!)The graphics are absolutely brilliant if you have a PC with a good graphics card: if you have a slower PC, then you'll need to tweak with the in-game settings to ensure it doesn't stutter.Even then, playing with the graphics at its lowest level, the graphics are good.I recommend you turn off everything that runs in the background of your computer before you start the game (you can do this by pressing CTRL/ALT/DELETE and bringing up Task Manager). Also unplug your printer and turn off your screen saver (this is one greedy game!!)During the first few minutes of the game (or the first few hours, depending on your ability. Or the first few days, in my case...), you go through a kind of tutorial. This takes you out of prison and through a dungeon full of rats and nasties to be killed - finding out along the way how to use various weapons and spells. But - don't let this put you off. Because once you get out of the dungeon you enter the Province of Cyrodiil - a kind of medieval land where magic is common and the gun hasn't been invented, so you must use swords or fists if you want to fight - and thereafter you can wander around and do just as you please. You also design your character: goody or baddy, male or female, human or non-human - the choices are many. You also choose your skills and attributes, and you can spend as long as you like fine-tweaking your characters physical appearance.By making your way to different towns, you can pick up various quests (missions) along the way. Some of these are simple, some of them are difficult, most of them are good fun - and most earn you money or goodies if you complete them. You might be asked to find out who stole a painting, or re-unite a couple of estranged brothers, or help clear a farm of horrible trolls... There is some thwacking and killing along the way, but mostly of scamps or trolls or wolves, so it's not too gruesome.(You can play a wholly different game of course - you can be a murderous warrior if you like...)Overall, this is a really, really great game and can be anything you want it to be. You can become an expert in magic and cast spells, or you can become a thief and an expert at sneaking around. You can be Mr Good Guy or Girl and go around helping everyone so they all like you, and spend your money on new clothes and houses, furnishings and even your own horse. Yes - you can ride around on a horse if you like - cantering through the woods stopping to collect herbs and flowers along the way, before standing by the water's edge to have a glass of wine and a bite of bread... no finer way to spend your leisure hours.....There are lots of cheats on the Internet as well, so you can have endless health and endless money, for example, and can play a very easy game if you want!I have now bought myself a Playstation 3 to play Oblivion, and I actually think that the visual aspect of the game was better on the PC (although I'm told this will not be the case once I've got an HD TV). But the game is awesome everywhere - and I just wanted to write a review for people who might pass this game by, thinking that it was merely another violent war game. Well, it CAN be, but it doesn't have to be.Try it and you'll be enthralled!

7.4.2006

I've had the game for a week or so now and it is simply stunning!The idea of the game is to give you a totally free form RPG and to fit a story line on top of that that you can choose to follow of you want.From the start of the game you get a feeling that this is something just a bit different (unless of course you played Morrowind in which case it is very familiar). If you've followed the progress of the game during development you will realise that you start off in a prison and the emperor comes through your prison cell and at that point your game starts. You follow the emperor and you can choose to branch off and follow a small scale dungeon and it is your choices here that get the computerto select a character class based on your style of play - obviously you can completely disreguard the choice and select a different class or make your own.You no longer have to walk around as much as you did in Morrowind for two reasons. One is horses, you get from a to b fast on a horse and there are various different types of horses to be purchased near the different towns. The second reason is fast travel, if you have been to a location before you can select the location and travel there instantly in game time.All the guilds are there (fighters, mages, thieves, dark brotherhood) and you can still do missions to advance within them, but the way in which you join all bar the fighters guild has changed. You need to FIND the thieves guild and pass an initiation before you can join. For the mages guild you need 6 recommendations prior to advancement and for the dark brotherhood you need to commit muredr BEFORE you can join. There is also an area where you can fight to the death for fame, glory and money...and if you look hard enough you may also find soem other factions to joinThe graphics are a delight to behold, I've got a radion 850 XT graphics card P4 3.2GHz 1GB RAM and it plays everything on high resolution quite happily at 1024x768. The reflections off the water are great, and some of the lighting effects are amazing.As with all these types of free form games you must talk to the people around you to pick up side quests that will keep your skills improving.The voice acting is also pretty good as well.Combat is now much more involved. You now have to choose to block (rather than it being based on your block skill) and strike at the right moments in the fight and you can also cast spells at any time without having to change to the casting position (be aware that if you cast you cannot block at the same time).The quest system is now stunningly simple to follow. You have a list of available quests that you have found, you then select the one that you want to be active and you get a marker on the compass to show you the direction to head in - you still must be able to find the location, but you don't need to wander for days looking for a door on an island off the coast like I did in Morrowind whilst looking for a particular dungeon for one quest. It sounds like it kills some of the enjoyment, but is doesn't.Most of the reviews on here mention the features that are new, but none of them mention the gameplay. To put it honestly this is the most addictive game I have played in ages. It is a completely involving experience and I imagine that I will be playing it through a few times with different character classes already.This is a must buy game, BUT you must like your free form adventure games - if you cannot get your head around doing what you want, wandering aimlessly looking for things to do and just looking for dungeons for plunder then this is not for you. If you loved Morrowind then BUY IT NOW!!!A simply stunning 10/10.

16.5.2006

Before you read this, (please do) I tell you now that YOU MUST BUY THIS GAME!!! .........I don't know anyone who has said Morrowind (the 3rd Elder Scrolls game) was not amazing. It was open ended, and let you do exactly what you wanted. There were thousands of weapons, armours, etc... it was so real. And they were the best graphics around in 2003, when it came out.When I heard Oblivion was coming, I didn't think Morrowind could get any better. BUT IT DID! I finally bought it and it arrived several days earlier, on a Saturday morning. And since I have played it enough to know enough about it, I wrote this review.SO, first, I will tell you THE only main problem about this game. In fact it is not a game problem.You'll need a good graphics card. A very good one for it to make it look as good as it was designed to be. I spent a good £25 for this, then ended up paying £60 odd for a new card, and it is still not even top notch. (Before buying, it would be a good idea to visit the website, www.elderscrolls.com, where you can find out a lot of info about ratings and also especially the specs for computer to run it), but even without the graphics, it is still an amazing game.It is not just a game. It is an experience. As PC Gamer said in a review, "forget everything. your girlfriend. your life. you will lose yourself in this game". They are right. mostly... It is impossible not to be amazed by this.The world is massive, with many different towns and villages of course and big forests to explore. There are thousands and thousands of different weapons, armour, items, people. All this is like Morrowind.But the differences from Morrowind are important. Firstly, it is set in a new world, but still remains amazing. Also, every single line spoken by other people is real speech. You hear everything they say. Also, some smaller things have been reodne, such as you don't need to swap weapon away to cast a spell, you can tdo it easier here.The other main reason is that when you shoot an arrow for example, whatever you hit, it sticks in there. Oblivion has great new Havok physics, a game thing that makes objects and people react to physics. If you shoot a bucket hanging over a well, it shakes violently from the power of the shot, and the arrow sticks out. You can even go and get back fired arrows. I love this feature. I shot a rat in the sewers, and it did a back flip, then fell into the water off the edge. I shot a man when he was sleeping in bed, and he rolled over and smashed into the floor.Also when you bump into say, a shelf, objects can fall out of it. They fall to the floor with a clang and roll around. Once I dropped some berries on the ground, and they rolled down the hill I was on. The game is SO realistic. When you stalk deer and animals in thick forests, they stop eating, instantly look up at you and run away before you get the chance to shoot them.Also, even better, you can ride horses. You can buy them and gallop across the beautiful countryside. You can see the watery reflections over the lake, you can see the White Gold Tower in the Imperial City from miles away, the grass waving in the wind and the amazing swaying trees; the rolling green hills in the distance. It is an experience.Oblivion's review here could go on for pages describing everything. I have said only the main points of the game. To experience it for yourself to understand things that you can't describe in words, you have to play the game.Whether or not you have Morrowind, this is still a worhty game. If you play PC games, get this. If you have a PC, get this. It is even worth buying a PC for this beauty.

10.4.2006

Bit surprised no-one seems to have written a review since the game was released. But perhaps that's because they're all playing it. This game is VAST. And the game designers have made a very interesting design decision, which means that if you want to, you can go and complete the whole damn thing with one character. This is because monsters level up with you. They either go up in level with you, or you just stop meeting the wimpier ones.I personally can't decide if I think this is an act of genius or stupidity. I guess I'm leaning towards the former, I've given the game five stars after all. I like being able to complete every single quest in the game, it appeals to the completist in me.Playing Morrowind, if you'd played a significant number of side quests before you got to the end, the Big Boss was a complete pushover. This is not going to be the case in Oblivion, where you can expect that boss to have increased in level as you increased in level, so should always be roughly the same challenge.This has good and bad consequences. I've mentioned the good ones- every quest should be a challenge. There are bad ones though. I'm now a 15th level vampire nightblade, and two goblins can kill me. In fact two of just about anything can kill me, I'm usually reduced to trying to get them to attack me one at a time. I haven't particularly set out to give myself a super powerful character, but I hadn't expected to need my hand held when taking a walk in the woods, for goodness sake. Experience with the combat system and lots of magical items helps to give you an advantage, but you do occasionally feel the urge to let rip and just show those goblins who's the boss.There are also realism hits. At a certain point, everyone starts wandering around wearing elven and ebony armour. While it certainly solves your money problems, you do wonder where they suddenly all got it from. Also, as has been commented on by other people, you can become Grand Champion of the Arena at a ridiculously early level. And perhaps most seriously from a gameplay point of view, if you choose a less combat oriented character, you will get creamed, as you'll be going up levels without improving your ability to fight. This also happened to some extent in Morrowind, but in Oblivion, every time you go up a level so do the monsters, which makes the problem infinitely worse. In Morrowind, you could rise to high enough level that you had enough hit points to take the bad guys on, even if your combat stats were a bit rubbish, but in Oblivion, every time you rise in level so do your opponents, and without decent combat skills you will take a beating.So how can I say all that and still give the game five stars? Because the level system means that the hundreds of quests should be challenging to complete, and I just love the quests. The last five I did, off the top of my head, were: put two long-lost twins back together in their family home, find 30 of a rare plant, steal a ring from a countess's bedroom, find a man who'd gone missing owing debts, and get some jobs for a group of out of work fighters. (It's not all dungeon crawling either, all of the characters have their story. I loved the woman who had left home to find the perfect tomato!) The quests are often in multiple stages as well, meaning that there's always something to do, it's going to take a very long time to clean an area out of quests. Oblivion has given me a serious case of 'just one more hour' in a way I haven't had in a very long time. And that's why it gets five stars.

4.4.2006

Yes, I know Zelda is an old dusty game now, but it was always high above any game I had ever played since. I used to play Zelda on my brothers trusty SNES, and it was all I could think about while I was at school, or doing anything for that matter!This kind of addiction can be found in many of the top games, granted, but not the feeling of sheer wonder and excitment that you are actually touching another world. Together with this interaction though, like Zelda, Oblivion makes you feel as though it would be a nice place to actually live and breathe!Oblivion is a standalone saga set within the world of Morrowind, but totally remote from the previous quests. Morrowind is still one of my all time classics,however I believe Bethesda tried for a little too much in that case and disappeared up their own backside. There were times for instance where you could take, drop, and then subsequently loose forever items that would greatly affect future quests.In Oblivion you feel a certain ammount of awareness to your aims and goals. Small notices will be prompted if you find key items to your quest, pop-up's alert when you find an item to start a brand new quest.Just like Morrowind, there is the feeling of total freedom, there is no door to ANY building that cannot be opened in some way, an then explored/plundered.Sound and vision is superb. I am personally happy to find a landscape not unlike rural England, with forests, lakes, butterflies, blackbirds and Magpies chattering away and enough grass land to satisfy Alan Tichmarsh. Above all the distance is absolutely astonishing! Cities are spied on the horizon that'll take you an age to reach on foot. Gain the right perspective and you can see lakes, rivers, large Brunell'esque bridges in the far ditance, shrouded by a light fog some days, clear as a bell others, and sometimes covered in heavy rain (the lightening sounds are just a little too real, its startling)All this good old English weather and surroundings adds a certain Tolkien tinge to the experience, and really does draw you into the world. I have not managed to have a sitting less than three hours yet, not that I'm complaining!All this does come at a small price, it is quite system hungry. Im running 3.4GHz with ATI Radeon X800 and 2GHz RAM and environment wise Id say its only set on medium to run smoothly. It stutters a little when there are alot of NPC's in a tavern together, and there are some small bugs here and there. Unavoidable im sure in such a vast world.The Radient AI is awsome, each NPC goes through their own daily routine. One quest required me to watch a women through her day. She got up at 6, went to pray in the local chapel, then went to work picking grapes all day before she then went for supper at the local tavern!When you are'nt playing this game, you are constantly thinking about it, whats my next quest, how shall I level up this time, is it time to buy a house, I wonder if the small party I helped have managed to set their town up yet (they said to check back in a month)?????????????????????????????????????????????????I could go on forever about the little touches that build up to what I believe is the greatest achievment in the modern gaming experience, suffice to say that if you are lucky enough to have a powerful enough PC/Laptop to run this, then buy it, you are about to experience a true alter-ego!

16.2.2007

I was very excited when this game was announced. As a big fan of its predecessor, Morrowind, I greatly anticipated Oblivions release and I feel that I was not disappointed. The graphics are incredible, even on my three-year-old computer, (note to others - If you experience jerky graphics just turn of the grass, makes a big difference). The design is amazing, the towns and cities are beautifully textured and each has its own personality, just like places in the real world and forests are highly realistic, the characters are also highly lifelike, especially the lip-sync with the dialogue, and again the textures are excellent, hair shines, faces have wrinkles,facial expressions mirror a characters emotions etc.The gameplay is very good, the combat system is better than Morrowind, with the ability to block and perform complex attacks which takes practice but that just adds to the realism. Other skills like lockpicking are also much more involving for the player and the `sneak' function is far more useful than in the previous game.Missions and quest are varied, from the usual hack and slash to stealth to detective work, and the quest system is more versatile than in morrowind.However:I said it's nearly perfect, I do have some reservations.The levelling system is dreadful, as other reviewers have noted, when you start out you are often attacked by rats and bandits, which are difficult to kill with the simple weaponry you start with, you would assume that once you level up it would be easier but no, when you reach a high level the rats disappear and are replaced with deadly tough minotaurs and the bandits suddenly have better weapons and armour than you do, in fact it is often a good idea to put off levelling up until you've completed certain quests as it often negates the usablity of the combat system and you resort to clicking the mouse as fast as you can and hope for the best!The spoken (audible) dialogue is great but it seems to have placed limitations on how many topics you can discuss with other characters, in morrowind any character you spoke with could have upwards of 15-20 topics to ask about, in oblivion most characters have 3 at the most, and most of them just say the same old thing, and there is no challenge to getting info out of them.Fewer factions. In morrowind you could join over 15 different factions each with its own type of quests and ranks, in oblivion there are half that number, which means fewer missions and therefore less gameplay time, now I may be wrong about the number of quests but it seems to me that it took a lot longer for me to complete morrowind than it has for me to reach the final part of oblivion.Lastly, oblivion seems to have been designed for people who are new to RPG's, this is good for newcomers, but for anyone used to this type of game it does seem a bit easy, the quests are very linear, you don't have to work anything out yourself, the map is too good, with waypoints marked clearly and the option to quick travel to them takes all the fun out of exploring, in fact using quick travel exclusively would mean not exploring 90% of the map!To conclude - overall a very, very good game with some bad points, but these shortcomings can be overcome as the modding community has provided an large number of modifications that you can download, andthat can make the game a whole lot better

14.4.2006

The first thing to say, is that this game is an outstanding effort and will mean all role playing games and adventure games will need to 'shape up' as someone famously put it. But...all action junkies might not like some of the slow paced exploration.The game looks wonderful even on a standard definition TV like mine. Don't think because you don't have a high definition TV, you won't like the look of this game. On a tall hill, I peered down over the land below looking across the fields and super moat at the Imperial city with its palace tower far in the distance. Fantastic!The world is beautiful. The towns are also nicely detailed with plenty of houses and shops and other interesting buildings to explore.The countryside is better still and the best I've seen in any game. You can travel from the darkest sewer to the top of a snowy mountain, from someone's secret basement to the top of a tower. Oh, and there's the dimension of Oblivion too.There's a main quest, countless sub quests and lots of places throughout the land to explore. There's probably more to do in this game than in any other single player game - and that includes the GTA games.All the npcs seem to have their own detailed life cycle. Even the guards follow a routine although it would be wrong to say that they are completely individual like other characters. Characters chat in the street discussing the latest in game events, people or services. Others go off for secret meetings and if you follow, as part of a quest, you can listen in.In most rpg games, you can take whatever you want no matter where you are. In this one, if seen, you'll get punished, although some gamers have said that home owners sometimes ignore blatant stealing. Commit a murder and again you'll be made to suffer if caught. But such bad behaviour can lead to some interesting offers and another line of game play.The Black Horse Courier newspaper lets you keep up with news in the world and gives clues to some of the activities that you might want to do.One strange event was that after a period of rest, I 'woke up' and found a man and woman in bed beside me. Didn't realise that the pair were lovers and I was in their bed!!! I've seen a group of my knight brothers all asleep in their beds too whilst others mooched about at night.Some quibbles though. The game is constantly loading as if there's a shortage of RAM. This might not be such am issue with the PC game, if you have lots of RAM but I don't know for sure. I don't like the melee fighting system. You attack and block in real time but I found it hard work at first and still don't really like it. Magic users have it easier. Also when fighting you'll often find yourself alongside npcs who are usually good back-up, but a little bloodthirsty at times attacking when perhaps you'd rather they didn't.I would also have liked to see a co-op mode. It does feel a bit lonely to this MMORPG gamer. I know Bethesda want to make 'you' the hero but you and your mates being a group of heroes would have been fun too. But an online game might have meant restrictions in game play.There so much in it that I could go on and on but I won't. I must admit that I didn't find the game that groundbreaking and it felt like the old Morrowind at times but nevertheless Bethesda's western rivals and the big Japanese rpg makers have a lot to live up to now.

10.4.2006

There are few games that make you change your mind about an entire genre. I've never liked games in fantasy settings, where a predictable list of dwarves, elves, and orcs compete over who can have a name with the most consonents. I've always opted far more for the traditional guns n' ammo approach to video games and that's suited me just fine. Up until now...It comes down to one thing: Freedom. The world of Oblivion is just that; an entire world. Many games have claimed to have a "perpetual world" where AI characters have daily routines, but this is the first game I've seen that really follows through on that. Follow a shopkeeper at closing time and he actually has a home,which you can enter and mess about in all you want. So if you want to be a thief you know when to break into his shop, if an assassin you know where you can catch him unwares.Some games give you the illusion of choice by letting you approach a problem in one of a few ways. The classic divide over in shooter-land being stealth vs. all-guns-blazing. That's certainly an option in Oblivion too as several classes excel at sneaking around in the dark, whilst others charge in with mighty hammers to bash in goblin skulls. But there's so much more than that. A thief could sneak in, an illusionist mage could make themselves invisible, a conjuration mage could summon a hoard of beasties to defend them, a warrior could skewer everyone on the end of his pointy stick, a monk could kung-fu everyone to death, a scout could sneak up and shoot them with a posioned arrow unawares, or even better: You could skip that bit altogether.Doing as many quests as possible will of course improve your character in the long term and give you more gizmos to play with. But there are just so many hundreds of quests to choose from that there's no need to do them all, so you can stick to the ones you enjoy most. For some, running around the outskirts of the world picking exotic flowers to alchemically mix into potent magical compounds would be great; for others they would die of boredom, and the great thing is there's no need to do these if you don't want to.OK, so freedom's great n' all, but what about the game? Well, it's got this going for it: It's fun. A game with so many options and possible routes to a goal is at risk of being pointless and meandering, but not this one. You take on quests because you're actually interested to do so, for the challenge, for what you might see that's new, and there almost always is. Combat is fun. Spells are fun. Sneaking around is fun. Shooting people with bows is definitely fun. Riding your own horse is very fun. This is a highly intelligent but very fun game, and that isn't a combination you see a lot these days.The graphics are truly great and I will admit to taking a little horsie ride around the countryside just to admire the scenery. The firey volcanic sky that accompanies an Oblivion gate is awesome.If I had to make one criticism it's that you'll need a fairly powerful PC to get the most out of this. There hasn't been a patch yet to optimise the graphics routines but hopefully this should be on its way shortly. It's not been since Doom 3 that I've upgraded my PC and this game makes me feel like doing so again. The nice thing is that I know it'll be worth it.See you in Cyrodiil.

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