The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Xbox 360, 2006)

So you like magic, melee combat, realistic gameplay, smart AI, amazing graphics, soothing and motivating music, slicing, archery, murdering, stealing, in-game clans, swimming, persuading, working for money, hunting, looting, investing, getting drunk, and quests, do you? Well get your lazy bum off that seat and go out and buy Morrowind's amazing sequel, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Oblivion is probably the largest RPG ever designed, and is now playable for the Xbox 360 and PC. The storyline is Emperor Uriel Septim, emperor of the province of Cyrodill, was assasinated by a group of mysterious assasins known as the Daedra Cult. You start out as a prisoner within the Imperial City prison, who happens to be a man seen in the Emperor's dream about saving Cyrodill. He comes to get you along with his will to escape from Cyrodill to avoid his danger. Uriel is later murdered by the Daedric Cult and you are a witness of it. B4 his death, he tells you that even though everyone knows that the emperor's heirs have all been murdered too, he kept secret about one son who is still alive to inheiret the throne. He hands you the Amulet of Kings, which is an amulet that the emperors wear. He tells you to find his son, give him the amulet, and convince him to become emperor of Cyrodill before it decends into darkness. Ever since Uriel's death, the Dragonfires have dimmed and the Gates of Oblivion have opened, releasing hidious creatures all around Cyrodill. Until a new emperor is crowned and the Dragonfires are re-lit, Cyrodill is now under grave danger.
What do you do? You help Uriel's son throughout the process of becoming emperor.

What can you do? Alot of real-life things, like hunting, stealing, murdering, fighting, quests, alot more stuff. You can pray at shrines, close the numerous Oblivion gates that have spawned up, do tons of quests, join clans, the world of Elder Scrolls Oblivion opens up almost unlimited opportunities for players to experience. Many of the things you can do are based on experience for that particular skill. For example, you can train your sneak skill, which helps you sneak around unseen or unheard, pickpocket without no one noticing, picklock people's houses and rooms, etc. Or your Alchemy, which allows you to take the hundreds of ingriedients Oblivion has to offer and mix them together to make potions for disease cure, attribute restoration, etc. There are many other skills to experience. The graphics are absolutely incredible and the world of Cyrodill is GIGANTIC. Hundreds of locations to visit, few towns and cities to visit, tons of items to sell or use, horses to ride, houses to own, friends to make, training to be done, sightseeing, and many more. The AI is very realistic. They have good word-mouth sync, side-conversations that may lead you to treasure or quests, help you fighting or quests, and alot more.
So get up off that seat, grab $60, and go buy this amazing game to enjoy for centuries (if you live long enough, lol).

My rating: 20/10

It's an unfair trade, but we can't have it all. Some in the east call it "Yin and Yang". Everyone else calls it "give and take". Unfortunately Oblivion follows both rules regardless. As glorious and magnificent as Oblivion looks and plays, it still has it's faults. For starters the voice work is seriously lacking, badly. All NPCs sound rediculously the same. You'd swear they got just 3 people doing all the voice overs.

The "price" as stated before is the glitches and loop holes. A game of this scale is bound to have them, its actually expected and it happens. More often than not, you'll find you can't complete certain quests because of a bad glitch. If you don't do a certain quest just right, you can pigeon-hole yourself into unescapable limbo. Thus forcing you to start all over again from an earlier save. Lesson #1 with this game...SAVE OFTEN! Anyone who's had to do the Vampire Cure quest will know exactly what I'm talking about.

Glitches aside, this game brings something awesome to the table. With 100+ hours of standard gameplay, not counting downloadable content. Right out of the box you'll be busy for weeks on end. If you're a casual gamer, months. I love the pure open ended gameplay, real freedom to do what you want when ever you want. Much like GTA3 gave us back in 01'. Only now it's next gen. Want to further the story by traveling to the next town you were directed to? Great, have at it! Don't feel like it? Even better, explore the country-side instead. It's all up to you. Either way, you'll notice how lush, detailed and beautiful the landscape is. Everything from the trees to rocks look insane. Than there are the native people and animals. They live everywhere. Often times you'll encounter grazing deer or bear, which you can hunt...yep, you can use their meat and hide. Other times you'll encounter bandits who'll want to bully you into paying a toll to cross a bridge or road they hang out at. You can pay it and move on peacefully or fight it out to save some gold. It's up to you! It's little things like this that separate this game from the others. Nicely implemented.

Nearly everything can be manipulated in the Oblivion Universe. Want to steal something off a shelf in a shop, take coins from an NPC's pocket?...go ahead, just don't get caught! Pick some flowers to make some medicine? Welcome to the world of Alchemy! Scavenge a fallen enemies personal effects, loot a bandits camp? It can be done! Again, that's the beauty of this game. Nearly anything can be done. All that aside, we can't forget about leveling up as a character. Through out the game you'll encounter guilds and Quests that will help you grow as a character. Take on a guild quest and level up in that guild skill. That simple. It'll be harder to change up your skills as you progress, but it can be done. Start out as a strong Melee character? Not a big deal, you can still do magic, but it'll come at a cost. You'll have to work twice as hard, but it can still be done. What ever you decide early on with your character, I suggest you stick with it, but you won't be forced into it.

Oblivion is probably the most fantastic RPG you'll play to date. There is no equal at this time, not even Final Fantasy can touch this when it comes to things to do. You won't get the amazing cinematic cut scenes like FF, but Oblivion makes up for it with huge content. I've already logged 118 hours and I'm barely into the Main Quest.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a Fantasy RPG, just like Grand Theft Auto is a racing game. Why do I say that? Because just like GTA, there is SO much more to Oblivion than that, and like GTA its a sandbox, yes a medieval fantasy sandbox!

The game is set in Tamriel, and dark times are coming, The Emperor has foreseen his death, and terrible foe approaching. Fortunately he has seen something else, YOU! The player starts out in the most humble fashion, in prison for an unknown crime. Fate casts the player on an adventure of enormous scale to find the Emperor's only surviving son, and heir to the throne. The new Emperor will relight the Dragonfire and close the gates of Oblivion.

The game takes the form of a First, or third, person game, you design your character, with a choice of races, abilities, and classes. The combat system is well executed with a massive array of spells, weapons, and items to use. The world is so beautifully done, and remarkably huge, that a person could play for weeks without ever touching the main quest!

Alchemy is an interesting diversion to the game, everyday items can be mixed to create powerful potions and poisons. Later in the game, players can create their own items and spells, adding a great customization feature.

As already mentioned, the world map is huge, with towns, castles, forts, ruins, caves, and mines to explore. Terrain ranges from towering mountains to forest, even underwater. All are presented in beautiful detail. The player, characters, enemies, and monsters are incredibly lifelike (if you can say that about zombies and skeletons ;o) ) Enemies are varied, and adapt, getting more powerful as you level up.

With a huge map, innumerable side missions, and incredible graphics, this must be the perfect game right? Alas, there is a major drawback, there is NO MULTI-PLAYER! How can a developer publish a next-gen game w/o multi-player? I don't know, but 2K did.

Fortunately the game is well supported with downloadable content, mission packs, add-ons, and huge expansion packs increase an already formidable quest. This gives the game enormous replay value.

In short, I love this game, I just wish it had multi-player, That said I'd give it an A/A+

The Good

* Huge, lavishly detailed world offers tremendous amount of action and adventure
* Main mechanics like combat, stealth, and magic are fun and well designed
* Impressive artificial intelligence and hundreds of believable characters
* Outstanding symphonic score, as well as excellent voice acting and sound effects
* Tremendous replay value, plus gorgeous graphics to make it easy on the eyes.

The Bad

* Frequent though fairly brief loading times
* You might run into some technical issues with performance.

This is a rare and remarkable achievement--a huge, open-ended, complex, detailed role-playing game that's fun to play and a pleasure to behold. Oblivion not only delivers everything that earned the Elder Scrolls series the devoted loyalty of a huge following of fans, but also significantly improves on the weaknesses of its 2002 predecessor, Morrowind. Morrowind earned recognition for being one of the best role-playing games in years, but the immersive and long-lasting experience it provided wasn't for everyone. Oblivion is hands-down better, so much so that even those who'd normally have no interest in a role-playing game should find it hard to resist getting swept up in this big, beautiful, meticulously crafted world.


Morrowind was a tough act to follow, but Oblivion isn't just better--it's a lot better.

The Elder Scrolls series is known for its sheer size and depth. These are games that you could lose yourself in, spending hours exploring a fantasy world, traveling for miles, or just looking for minutiae, such as rare plants or hidden treasure. Oblivion lives up to this pedigree, putting you into a massive, cohesive, highly immersive world. You get to create your own character--the possibilities for customization seem limitless--and then explore the world as you will. There's a compelling main quest for you to follow, which takes about 40 hours to finish the first time through, but the majority of the game's content is peripheral to that main quest. You can root out evil in hidden dungeons, join and climb the ranks in a number of different guilds, visit all the different towns and try to solve everybody's problems, compete in a long series of gladiatorial battles to the death, break into someone's home and rob them in their sleep, get caught and face the consequences, contract a disease that leads to vampirism and then try to find a cure, buy a house, steal a horse, invest in your favorite shop, and, if you can believe it, there's much more.

So the breadth of content is as remarkable as ever, but the most important thing is this: The many types of gameplay in Oblivion are well-designed and deeply satisfying, even when taken on their own. That's the main difference between this game and Morrowind. This may be a role-playing game, but you could play it like a pure action game, or like a stealth game, or like an adventure game, and it'd still be at least as good as, if not better than, games that are specialized in these regards.

Oblivion does a great job of quickly introducing you to all these different aspects of play, successfully engaging you rather than overwhelming you. You see the world through your character's eyes, but a behind-the-back perspective is also available. Initially you just pick a name, race, and gender for your character, and the game opens with you stuck in a dungeon cell, being taunted by a fellow inmate.

Overall Rating: An 11/10

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is the fourth game created within the Elder scrolls series. This game not only made the series famous throughout the video game industry, but surpassed many other games available on the market today, not only through it's jaw-dropping graphics, but also through it's exhilarant storyline and charismatic side quests that it entices you into the world of Oblivion.
Oblivion starts you out as a prisoner, in your cell, where the emperor of Cyrodil comes to find you, saying that he saw you in his dreams. As you follow the emperor with his guards, he is killed, but before he dies he gives you his amulet, his most prized possesion. He tells you to give the amulet to Jauffre.
In Oblivion, much realism is included to take note of. The characters in the game were created with advanced artificial intelligence unlike other role playing games before it. Characters don't just walk around in a set path. They live their lives: going to work, eating, sleeping, talking to other characters, etc. Not only do the characters interact with their environment, but no character is the same. Each character looks different from another. Even the Imperial Guards, who all wear the same armor, have different characteristics within them, not only physically, but also mentally. Characters will react to you in different ways, depending on whether they like you or not.
You yourself in the game can buy a house in each city, and store your items that you collect inside.
You can barter with other charaters to buy items, or earn some gold yourself. Shops are scattered around each city, each offering different good depending on their specialty. Jewelry, swords, sheilds, potions... the list goes on and on.
If you don't want to, or don't have the gold to buy goods, you also have the option of stealing them. Any item you see in a house, shop, or other building can be stolen. If a person sees you stealing, they will notify the guards, in which case you will either have to pay a fine, go to jail, or resist arrest, in which case the guards and even citizens will start to attack you. This will happen not only for stealing, but for any felony you commit, such as attacking someone, unless of course you are in the arena of Imperial City, where you can fight to the death against another combatant of the yellow team, winning gold for each victory and advancing in level until you become the Grand Champion of the Arena.
Another great feature included in oblivion is the many guilds you can join. Each guild will give you quests to complete, and rules to abide by, which if broken, will result in being banished from the guild, although some guilds will let you back in by doing them a favor. The guilds have branches scattered Some examples of guilds are the fighters guild(a guild for increasing your skills with combat), the mages guild (for helping you obtain superior magic skills), the theives guild (where members give you missions to steal things to be rewarded with gold), and my personal favorite, the dark brotherhood, where with each mission you must kill a person, in return for gold.
There is much more I could tell you about Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, as I have only scratched the surface of all of the features, but I was limited with the amount I could type in this review. As for now, I reccomend you buy it, as I believe it is one of the greatest games ever developed.