Oblivion, Bethesda’s fourth and latest edition of The Elder Scrolls saga, released March 21st to this author’s delight.
Oblivion is a role playing game, like the previous editions, that is so vast and open the developer claims it takes over 200 hours of gameplay to complete everything the game has to offer. This is a conservative estimate. So far I have played for 60 hours and I feel as though I’m no closer to the end of the game then when I began.
While it is true I’m a huge fan of this game, the same can not be said of its genre. I generally despise RPG’s. I hated KotOR, I can’t stand the Zelda games and Final Fantasy makes me feel “like a woman”. Oblivion is the only RPG I can say is worth it.
What makes Oblivion different from the previously mentioned games? One thing…it plays like an MMORPG. You are not lead by the hand and forced to complete any one piece of the game. The main story line does not rely upon you completing other quests in order to be strong enough to beat. The joinable factions in the game are not forcing you to complete their quests. NPC’s, while computer driven, never say the same thing to you each time you complete something in the game. While their habits are predictable, and can never be properly compared to human interaction over MMORPG’s like WOW, they are still interesting to watch. They have quirks of personality like infidelity, some pickpocket you, and some accuse you of crimes and are paranoid schizophrenics. Oblivion is a world in which you can become completely immersed.
So if this game is so great, why do some people dislike it so, and why would you, the reader, plunk down some hard earned duck-ets to purchase this game? Well, I’ll tell you straight off…if you disliked their third edition, Morrowind, then you will feel the same about Oblivion. If you love FPS’s because they are fast paced, then chances are you might not want to run out and buy this game. Instead rent it to see if you dig it or not. If you do like it, buy it immediately cause you’ll end up spending more in rental fees playing it than you would if you just bought it.
But if you do like RPG’s, and are offended at my stance on other games of the genre, why should you listen to a word I say and skim a bit off the kids’ college fund and buy this game? Because it is great and I said so. If you need more substantiation than that, read further.
The graphics in Oblivion are unbelievable. You’ll find yourself staring up at the stars at night and saying, “Wow!”. You can climb the mountain to the north and look at the Imperial City, almost 2 hours of foot travel away. This is by far the best any game developer has utilized the capacities of the 360. The PC version is even better I’m told. Graphically though there are some missteps. 3rd person view is unwieldy, and often gives you the feeling your character is floating on air. This is easily fixed by staying in 1st person view. This problem is minor though, and is incredibly nitpicky on my part. It doesn’t detract from the overall wow factor of the game visually.
Customizing your character is probably where this game falls short. They should have mimicked EA’s character creation, or at least 2k games who is a partner with Bethesda in this production. In all reality you always look the same because all the sliders affect the other sliders for appearance. There is a reason for this though you’ll find at the end of the game, but still, it would be nice not to make myself look so butt ugly in the game.
Character Creation is where this game really shines. I know this is the reason many people will end up playing much more than 200 hours, mainly because they will have to beat the game with every character race, sex, and class. Each race has its upsides, and some are better than other for certain styles of play. Magic users will want Bretons or High elves, Hack and Slashers will want Nords, Redguards or Orcs, thieves will want Khajits or Wood Elves assassins will want thief types or Dark elves, and no one want to be Argonian. They are the weakest of the weak stat wise. The sexes are different, magic and stealth players will want females generally and fighters, males. Certain missions are more easily completed by females, but as yet I’ve not found anything females can do that men can’t like in Morrowind.
The Classes are a bit different. Each has its good points and bad. You seem to level up much faster as a fighter class than anything else. Magic users take some time to level up. You can create your own class as well, but remember, only your 7 major abilities allow you to level up and give more than a +1 modifier to your stat improvements. So, it is not wise to put all three abilities that govern one attribute as a major skill. You’ll also wan to check the plus modifiers each race bestows upon certain skills when making your choice. Overall though, the ability to have countless different options to play is appealing, and will be a large reason this game holds its lasting appeal and replay ability.
Interaction with NPC’s is easy to do. Just walk up to them and use the activate button. It will seamlessly give you options to choose while you speak with them. Sometimes these characters don’t want to speak with you unless they like you enough. The game gives you two solutions for fixing this problem (really three because your fame rating dictates this as well, but the other two options are more immediate), you can bribe them to an agreeable level, or play one of the mini-games and use your speech craft ability to force them to like you. This game requires a little thought as you have four options in a circle that can be manipulated to elicit a positive outcome. One of these options is the most favorable, or most positive, one is still positive, but not as much as the best option, one is negative, but not incredibly so, and one is extremely negative. Using a basic tic-tac-toe game operation, you must at some point choose all four of these options with a modifier….the problem you face in this is limiting your negative feedback and maximizing your positive. This can be done by selecting the speech modifiers within the circle when they agree most with whatever outcome you are trying to achieve. Its not as simple as it sounds though, once you select an option, you can never use it again in the same term, and the modifiers appear randomly each time you attempt to play this game. With a little practice though, this game becomes easier though as your ability to do speech craft increases and the game allows you more options when conversing.
Of course you’re thinking, “But how does my guy fight? Is it the same as Morrowind?” No, it is altogether different. Instead of a die-roll engine the last edition used, this time you’ll be able to controll every aspect of fighting except the maximum amount of damage inflicted and your speed of attack which is dictated by strength and speed respectively. You can, as you advance in proficiency with your weapons, perform advanced moves such as disarming moves with a blade, paralyzing attacks with blade or blunt weapons which stun your enemies for a short while, and if you’re quick enough, allow you to kill them off in short order. I’ve found these moves to be tough to pull off in 1st person mode, so when I decide to do one I switch to 3rd person, perform the manuevar and switch back to first immediately after. It takes some getting used to, but it does make you feel as though you are more involved than the previous games. Just be sure to take the weapon you knock out of the guy’s hand immediately so he doesn’t pick it back up.
If you’re not one for the whole fighting thing, and can’t get used to it, no fear, magic users and archers are much easier to control, and in my opinion in the later stages of the game, much more powerful. The same spells in the previous games appear in this game as well, and its quite obvious what you must do to use them. You still have to aim things like fireballs though, cause you can miss with them, but after awhile you’ll get so you rarely miss. The same goes with archers, you must aim well with them, but as you progress in proficiency with that weapon, you’ll find it no problem to drop an enemy in anywhere between 1 to 15 shots depending on the enemy’s life total. Just stay away from the bigger guys and shoot them, up close they’ll kill you no problem.
Enemies also learn as you learn too. As you level up, so do they. The exceptions being animal enemies such as rats, wolves and bears….beware the bears. Everyone else in this game levels up so, like in Morrowind, you don’t feel as though you’re breezing through missions and the challenge remains. So, you should level up to your maximum ability. This means waiting to level up until you have maxed your level up ability to five in at least one category. Otherwise you’ll just be falling behind future enemies in future encounters.
Quests are a bit different in Oblivion than its predecessor. In Morrowind there were many caves/dungeons/areas that were related to nothing in the game. They were merely there for you to find and do as you see fit. Oblivion has those as well, but not as many. Most everything is linked in some way to a quest. The quests themselves are sometimes level related. The Daedric quests are an example. You can not complete sertain Daeric quests unless you have leveled up enough to either be allowed to even start them, or leveled up enough to fight the creatures these quests ask you to find. While this may frustrate some people, it is an incentive to go gallivanting across the map killing deer, hogs and bears to up your skill levels enough to level up.
Speaking of traveling across the map, Oblivion has the ability to “fast travel” from one location to another. This ability is limited to major cities, or locations you have already visited. This makes the game go much faster than any of the other Elder Scroll games, and has its pluses as well as minuses. On the positive side, people who are solely quest driven will have the ability to just do whatever suits them whenever they feel like it, which is good. In Morrowind it did get a bit tedious covering the same amount of ground over and over again just to do something as mundane as buying health potions for a favorable price. Oblivion makes this easy. On a negative note, fast travel eliminates the ability to explore as much as you would have in the past. People who want to explore will still be able to, its just harder to know where you have been and where you haven’t now.
Maps or map usage isn’t like it was in Morrowind either. Morrowind’s “black out” type of map was something I enjoyed. It let me know where I had been by unblocking that area. Oblivion doesn’t even allow me to view the whole map of the province. This I don’t like. Instead I have to move my cursor around to see where I want to go, and the cursor moves slow and always seems to be where I don’t need it at first. On close up views, of specific areas my map doesn’t contrast where I have been very well. The color of roads on maps is very similar to the color of areas I haven’t traveled to. For an older fogey like myself who has bad eyes, this isn’t very user friendly.
Factions are much the same as they were in Morrowind as well, minus a few. The four major factions are still there; Mages, Fighters, Thieves and Dark Brotherhood (assassins). Missing are the various “house” factions Morrowind employed. Bethesda made up for this by giving out tons of side quests that have no relation to main game objectives or faction quests, but it just isn’t the same in this author’s opinion.
There are many new abilities in Oblivion. Players can buy houses, invest in shops, ride horses and for the adventurous player, find the only unicorn in the game, ride it, or kill it and harvest its horn if you so desire….and then tell your daughter you killed the last unicorn and watch her eyes well up you sadist.
If there is one main fault for Oblivion, it is in the load times. Going through doors into new areas can take upwards of one minute sometimes if it is the first time you’ve visited the area. Each subsequent visit is usually around 20 seconds or so. Running around outdoors you’ll sometime see the framerate drop and get a loading message while you freeze in place for 5 secs. Dungeons and caves don’t have these problems because there is less to process for the computer. Occasionally you will have the game freeze up on you and will be forced to restart your XBOX. 360. This is not a problem with your console, it should be fine, its just that Oblivion is such a huge game it will have that effect from time to time. Morrowind did the same for regular XBOX’s, no one should be surprised Oblivion would be any different.
Overall Oblivion is a must have for RPG fans who happen to own the 360 console. The game play is top notch for RPG’s, the environment is huge so you’ll get your money’s worth in that department. Graphics are visually stunning. You will, and I mean you will, have your O face on when you get outside, day or night.
The physics are such that dead things float and roll down hills. Rag doll physics are in effect when rolling down hills. Menus are generally easy to read and figure out. There are mini-games like the personality game mentioned before and the security game when you use lock picks, which if that frustrates you, you can auto pick and depending upon your skill level is how many lock picks you will lose. The soundtrack is good, and sound effects are in synch with gameplay, and well done. The voice acting is superb with Jean Luc Picard as the Emperor and the writing is at times laugh out loud funny. My over all ratings are as follows on a 1-10 scale:
Graphics - 10 Really something to behold and the game’s main selling point
Customization - 7 Leaves a lot to be desired, but you really only notice it when you’re creating your character‘s face the ability to choose class and sex is what keeps this afloat in my opinion.
Gameplay Controls - 8.5 Clunky at first and has a bit of a learning curve, but if you stick with it, it become intuitive.
Writing and NPC dialogue - 10 Funny as get out at times, melodramatic when it needs to be
Soundtrack - 8 Is good at first, but doesn’t change to your character’s mood and sometimes changes to eerie track when you’re chatting up people in a garden…in the daytime. Can also grate on your nerves if you’ve heard it enough, or eventually becomes elevator music and you never notice it.
Overall - 9 to 9.5 It has revolutionary graphics, and a new method to fighting, but is essentially the same game Bethesda’s been putting out since the first installment of the Elder Scrolls. If you loved them, there’s no reason for you to read this review, you’ll love Oblivion. If you hated them, the same goes, you’ll hate it. Overall the load times are distracting, especially outside, but not so much to make me want to stop playing.
This game does not rate a 10 because it does not have lasting appeal like Halo 2. People have been playing Halo 2 for 18 months now, I played Morrowind for 3 or 4 months until I tired of it. I’m guessing the same will be true for Oblivion unless Bethesda has some great new downloadable content on the live marketplace.
While it is true I’m a huge fan of this game, the same can not be said of its genre. I generally despise RPG’s. I hated KotOR, I can’t stand the Zelda games and Final Fantasy makes me feel “like a woman”. Oblivion is the only RPG I can say is worth it.
What makes Oblivion different from the previously mentioned games? One thing…it plays like an MMORPG. You are not lead by the hand and forced to complete any one piece of the game. The main story line does not rely upon you completing other quests in order to be strong enough to beat. The joinable factions in the game are not forcing you to complete their quests. NPC’s, while computer driven, never say the same thing to you each time you complete something in the game. While their habits are predictable, and can never be properly compared to human interaction over MMORPG’s like WOW, they are still interesting to watch. They have quirks of personality like infidelity, some pickpocket you, and some accuse you of crimes and are paranoid schizophrenics. Oblivion is a world in which you can become completely immersed.
So if this game is so great, why do some people dislike it so, and why would you, the reader, plunk down some hard earned duck-ets to purchase this game? Well, I’ll tell you straight off…if you disliked their third edition, Morrowind, then you will feel the same about Oblivion. If you love FPS’s because they are fast paced, then chances are you might not want to run out and buy this game. Instead rent it to see if you dig it or not. If you do like it, buy it immediately cause you’ll end up spending more in rental fees playing it than you would if you just bought it.
But if you do like RPG’s, and are offended at my stance on other games of the genre, why should you listen to a word I say and skim a bit off the kids’ college fund and buy this game? Because it is great and I said so. If you need more substantiation than that, read further.
The graphics in Oblivion are unbelievable. You’ll find yourself staring up at the stars at night and saying, “Wow!”. You can climb the mountain to the north and look at the Imperial City, almost 2 hours of foot travel away. This is by far the best any game developer has utilized the capacities of the 360. The PC version is even better I’m told. Graphically though there are some missteps. 3rd person view is unwieldy, and often gives you the feeling your character is floating on air. This is easily fixed by staying in 1st person view. This problem is minor though, and is incredibly nitpicky on my part. It doesn’t detract from the overall wow factor of the game visually.
Customizing your character is probably where this game falls short. They should have mimicked EA’s character creation, or at least 2k games who is a partner with Bethesda in this production. In all reality you always look the same because all the sliders affect the other sliders for appearance. There is a reason for this though you’ll find at the end of the game, but still, it would be nice not to make myself look so butt ugly in the game.
Character Creation is where this game really shines. I know this is the reason many people will end up playing much more than 200 hours, mainly because they will have to beat the game with every character race, sex, and class. Each race has its upsides, and some are better than other for certain styles of play. Magic users will want Bretons or High elves, Hack and Slashers will want Nords, Redguards or Orcs, thieves will want Khajits or Wood Elves assassins will want thief types or Dark elves, and no one want to be Argonian. They are the weakest of the weak stat wise. The sexes are different, magic and stealth players will want females generally and fighters, males. Certain missions are more easily completed by females, but as yet I’ve not found anything females can do that men can’t like in Morrowind.
The Classes are a bit different. Each has its good points and bad. You seem to level up much faster as a fighter class than anything else. Magic users take some time to level up. You can create your own class as well, but remember, only your 7 major abilities allow you to level up and give more than a +1 modifier to your stat improvements. So, it is not wise to put all three abilities that govern one attribute as a major skill. You’ll also wan to check the plus modifiers each race bestows upon certain skills when making your choice. Overall though, the ability to have countless different options to play is appealing, and will be a large reason this game holds its lasting appeal and replay ability.
Interaction with NPC’s is easy to do. Just walk up to them and use the activate button. It will seamlessly give you options to choose while you speak with them. Sometimes these characters don’t want to speak with you unless they like you enough. The game gives you two solutions for fixing this problem (really three because your fame rating dictates this as well, but the other two options are more immediate), you can bribe them to an agreeable level, or play one of the mini-games and use your speech craft ability to force them to like you. This game requires a little thought as you have four options in a circle that can be manipulated to elicit a positive outcome. One of these options is the most favorable, or most positive, one is still positive, but not as much as the best option, one is negative, but not incredibly so, and one is extremely negative. Using a basic tic-tac-toe game operation, you must at some point choose all four of these options with a modifier….the problem you face in this is limiting your negative feedback and maximizing your positive. This can be done by selecting the speech modifiers within the circle when they agree most with whatever outcome you are trying to achieve. Its not as simple as it sounds though, once you select an option, you can never use it again in the same term, and the modifiers appear randomly each time you attempt to play this game. With a little practice though, this game becomes easier though as your ability to do speech craft increases and the game allows you more options when conversing.
Of course you’re thinking, “But how does my guy fight? Is it the same as Morrowind?” No, it is altogether different. Instead of a die-roll engine the last edition used, this time you’ll be able to controll every aspect of fighting except the maximum amount of damage inflicted and your speed of attack which is dictated by strength and speed respectively. You can, as you advance in proficiency with your weapons, perform advanced moves such as disarming moves with a blade, paralyzing attacks with blade or blunt weapons which stun your enemies for a short while, and if you’re quick enough, allow you to kill them off in short order. I’ve found these moves to be tough to pull off in 1st person mode, so when I decide to do one I switch to 3rd person, perform the manuevar and switch back to first immediately after. It takes some getting used to, but it does make you feel as though you are more involved than the previous games. Just be sure to take the weapon you knock out of the guy’s hand immediately so he doesn’t pick it back up.
If you’re not one for the whole fighting thing, and can’t get used to it, no fear, magic users and archers are much easier to control, and in my opinion in the later stages of the game, much more powerful. The same spells in the previous games appear in this game as well, and its quite obvious what you must do to use them. You still have to aim things like fireballs though, cause you can miss with them, but after awhile you’ll get so you rarely miss. The same goes with archers, you must aim well with them, but as you progress in proficiency with that weapon, you’ll find it no problem to drop an enemy in anywhere between 1 to 15 shots depending on the enemy’s life total. Just stay away from the bigger guys and shoot them, up close they’ll kill you no problem.
Enemies also learn as you learn too. As you level up, so do they. The exceptions being animal enemies such as rats, wolves and bears….beware the bears. Everyone else in this game levels up so, like in Morrowind, you don’t feel as though you’re breezing through missions and the challenge remains. So, you should level up to your maximum ability. This means waiting to level up until you have maxed your level up ability to five in at least one category. Otherwise you’ll just be falling behind future enemies in future encounters.
Quests are a bit different in Oblivion than its predecessor. In Morrowind there were many caves/dungeons/areas that were related to nothing in the game. They were merely there for you to find and do as you see fit. Oblivion has those as well, but not as many. Most everything is linked in some way to a quest. The quests themselves are sometimes level related. The Daedric quests are an example. You can not complete sertain Daeric quests unless you have leveled up enough to either be allowed to even start them, or leveled up enough to fight the creatures these quests ask you to find. While this may frustrate some people, it is an incentive to go gallivanting across the map killing deer, hogs and bears to up your skill levels enough to level up.
Speaking of traveling across the map, Oblivion has the ability to “fast travel” from one location to another. This ability is limited to major cities, or locations you have already visited. This makes the game go much faster than any of the other Elder Scroll games, and has its pluses as well as minuses. On the positive side, people who are solely quest driven will have the ability to just do whatever suits them whenever they feel like it, which is good. In Morrowind it did get a bit tedious covering the same amount of ground over and over again just to do something as mundane as buying health potions for a favorable price. Oblivion makes this easy. On a negative note, fast travel eliminates the ability to explore as much as you would have in the past. People who want to explore will still be able to, its just harder to know where you have been and where you haven’t now.
Maps or map usage isn’t like it was in Morrowind either. Morrowind’s “black out” type of map was something I enjoyed. It let me know where I had been by unblocking that area. Oblivion doesn’t even allow me to view the whole map of the province. This I don’t like. Instead I have to move my cursor around to see where I want to go, and the cursor moves slow and always seems to be where I don’t need it at first. On close up views, of specific areas my map doesn’t contrast where I have been very well. The color of roads on maps is very similar to the color of areas I haven’t traveled to. For an older fogey like myself who has bad eyes, this isn’t very user friendly.
Factions are much the same as they were in Morrowind as well, minus a few. The four major factions are still there; Mages, Fighters, Thieves and Dark Brotherhood (assassins). Missing are the various “house” factions Morrowind employed. Bethesda made up for this by giving out tons of side quests that have no relation to main game objectives or faction quests, but it just isn’t the same in this author’s opinion.
There are many new abilities in Oblivion. Players can buy houses, invest in shops, ride horses and for the adventurous player, find the only unicorn in the game, ride it, or kill it and harvest its horn if you so desire….and then tell your daughter you killed the last unicorn and watch her eyes well up you sadist.
If there is one main fault for Oblivion, it is in the load times. Going through doors into new areas can take upwards of one minute sometimes if it is the first time you’ve visited the area. Each subsequent visit is usually around 20 seconds or so. Running around outdoors you’ll sometime see the framerate drop and get a loading message while you freeze in place for 5 secs. Dungeons and caves don’t have these problems because there is less to process for the computer. Occasionally you will have the game freeze up on you and will be forced to restart your XBOX. 360. This is not a problem with your console, it should be fine, its just that Oblivion is such a huge game it will have that effect from time to time. Morrowind did the same for regular XBOX’s, no one should be surprised Oblivion would be any different.
Overall Oblivion is a must have for RPG fans who happen to own the 360 console. The game play is top notch for RPG’s, the environment is huge so you’ll get your money’s worth in that department. Graphics are visually stunning. You will, and I mean you will, have your O face on when you get outside, day or night.
The physics are such that dead things float and roll down hills. Rag doll physics are in effect when rolling down hills. Menus are generally easy to read and figure out. There are mini-games like the personality game mentioned before and the security game when you use lock picks, which if that frustrates you, you can auto pick and depending upon your skill level is how many lock picks you will lose. The soundtrack is good, and sound effects are in synch with gameplay, and well done. The voice acting is superb with Jean Luc Picard as the Emperor and the writing is at times laugh out loud funny. My over all ratings are as follows on a 1-10 scale:
Graphics - 10 Really something to behold and the game’s main selling point
Customization - 7 Leaves a lot to be desired, but you really only notice it when you’re creating your character‘s face the ability to choose class and sex is what keeps this afloat in my opinion.
Gameplay Controls - 8.5 Clunky at first and has a bit of a learning curve, but if you stick with it, it become intuitive.
Writing and NPC dialogue - 10 Funny as get out at times, melodramatic when it needs to be
Soundtrack - 8 Is good at first, but doesn’t change to your character’s mood and sometimes changes to eerie track when you’re chatting up people in a garden…in the daytime. Can also grate on your nerves if you’ve heard it enough, or eventually becomes elevator music and you never notice it.
Overall - 9 to 9.5 It has revolutionary graphics, and a new method to fighting, but is essentially the same game Bethesda’s been putting out since the first installment of the Elder Scrolls. If you loved them, there’s no reason for you to read this review, you’ll love Oblivion. If you hated them, the same goes, you’ll hate it. Overall the load times are distracting, especially outside, but not so much to make me want to stop playing.
This game does not rate a 10 because it does not have lasting appeal like Halo 2. People have been playing Halo 2 for 18 months now, I played Morrowind for 3 or 4 months until I tired of it. I’m guessing the same will be true for Oblivion unless Bethesda has some great new downloadable content on the live marketplace.
