Tired of Real Life? (The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC))

Member Name: Brumak

Product:	The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC)
Date:	30/01/08 (80 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautiful graphics and brilliant game-play - an immersive experience with great replay value.

Disadvantages: Some repetitivity.

You are nothing. Nothing but a lowly prisoner in a cage, alone with nothing to do. Maybe toss a few bones around, maybe rattle those hanging chains. Contemplate the best way to kill the jerk in the cell across the hall, perhaps. Your life is at an absolute low, and shows no signs of improving any time soon.

And then, disaster strikes.


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T H E - S T O R Y
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The Elder Scrolls series never lacks in story. In this latest installment, as always, you start off as a nameless prisoner - you're locked up in a cell in the Imperial City Prison. After you create your character, choosing from one of ten unique races (Argonian, Breton, Dark Elf, High Elf, Imperial, Khajiit, Nord, Orc, Redguard, Wood Elf) the game wastes no time in plunging you right into the action. Once you listen to the insulting little speech from a prisoner in a nearby cell, you find yourself in most unexpected company.

Three guards are escorting the emperor of Tamriel, Uriel Septim himself, to safety through a hidden route under the prison. Septim's sons have all just been slain by assassins, and the guards fear that the emperor is next. By a godly twist of fate, the secret escape tunnel begins right there in your cell, hidden from view. As one of the guards puts it, "Looks like this is your lucky day." But wait. Something is wrong.

The emperor stops you and looks your face over a few times. He recognizes you. He claims he has seen your face in the prophetic dreams that have haunted his sleep as of late. By chance, he finds you here in the very cell that will lead him to safety (or so they hope). You converse shortly with him and he tells you to follow him for a little while. He trusts you, despite the opinions of the guards that are made quite clear. The captain pushes in on a brick, opening a hole where your bed had been just moments earlier. Unfortunately, the assassins had found their way into the escape route as well, and you are forced to part with the escort party.

From there, the game walks you through a tutorial in the form of an expansive dungeon, explaining almost every aspect of the game to you in great detail. You are pitted against goblins and giant rats, and even the occasional zombie, until you come out of the other side and meet up with the emperor. You continue at his side until he is tragically killed right before escaping. With his last breath, he gives you the Amulet of Kings and sends you on a mission to seek out his illegitimate son, relight the Dragonfires that kept the mortal/immortal balance in check, and stop the Prince of Destruction and his otherworldly demons from entering the living plane of Tamriel.

"Find him, and close shut the jaws of Oblivion!"


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T H E - G A M E P L A Y
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If you haven't experienced the game by now, there is something wrong with you - Oblivion is utterly amazing. Even the infinite possibilities laid out by the character creation feature at the very beginning can occupy hours of your time. You can change your character's face-shape, skin color, eye color, hairstyle (as well as length and color) and much more. You can play as a male or female version of any of the the ten races, and have as many different characters as you want.

One of the first things you'll immediately notice about Oblivion upon creating your avatar - the graphics are amazing. To date, they are some of the best I've seen. From the texture in your cell walls to the wrinkles on your face, everything looks polished and oozes effort and production value. The dynamic lighting plays a big part for stealth gamers. Magic will radiate a mystical aura when cast. The weapons even reflect light flawlessly depending on the time of day and means of illumination in your environment.

Combat in Oblivion runs so much smoother than it did in its predecessor, Morrowind, that it makes me want to vomit with joy. Now, you can actually see the blade making contact with your foe as you hack at him mercilessly. You can see arrows protruding from fallen victims. And magic looks and feels so much more real that I find myself often making the motions along with the character as I cast it. Satisfaction mounts as baddies crumble and reanimated skeletons burst into bits before your unstoppable onslaught. Then, you meet a new, high-level enemy and get torn to ribbons. While the difficulty of the game is tethered to your level, there is challenge meter that you can slide up and down, giving the game even more replay value than it would have had without it.

Your skills improve based on what you do, so the game is directly tailored to your style of play. There are three main game-play focuses - combat, magic, and stealth. Each significantly differs from the others and has its own guilds and factions supporting its style. Join the Fighters' Guild if you love hacking and slashing. If you prefer the arcane approach, try the Mages' Guild. Stealth-types belong in the Thieves' Guild or the Dark Brotherhood. And there are even more out there to be discovered. Each faction is different and has enough story behind it be made into a separate game on its own. And there are more side quests than you can shake a stick at - you can play for days without even scratching the surface of the main quest.

All NPC's (non-playable characters) in the game have schedules that they follow daily. It makes Tamriel feel like a real place. They will go home, open up their shops, go on walks, sleep at inns, go to church, and sometimes even rob you. Crimes against them (except of course the outlaws and bandits) are punishable by fines, a prison sentence, or if your bounty is high enough, death. The guards show no mercy.

The voice acting in Oblivion is mostly great. There are only a few I could really complain about (female Orcs, Nords and Redguards). You will often have companions in your quests who you'll need to speak with frequently in order to stay updated on the situation. There is no multiplayer mode in Oblivion, but I believe that this is all for the better. I feel the Elder Scrolls games should remain strictly single-player until Bethesda creates an MMO.

What truly sets the PC version of Oblivion apart from the 360 version is the downloadable construction set. A traditional Elder Scrolls that allows you to open a game editor and create your own environments to be added into the game. I'm personally a mod freak and I use this feature regularly. It's extremely addictive, exploring all the creative possibilities, so I suggest you play through the game at least once before trying it. Once you've gotten into creating mods, you can put them online for others to download, and have them tell you whether they think you're a crafty mod master or someone unworthy of using the word "edit".

I could go on forever about the positives in Oblivion. So it's only fair that I explore the negatives as well. The game can feel a bit repetitive at times. It's easy to get bored if you continue to do the same thing over and over again. Morrowind fans will find that Oblivion lacks the variety its older cousin gave us. There are much, much fewer armor, weapon and enemy types to play around with, although it still provides more than enough to be interesting. Early copies of the game contained bugs and glitches that were later fixed by patches, and the fact that you cannot fight on horseback was a bit of a letdown.

But the good far, far, far outweighs the bad. If you're like me, a huge RPG gamer with a wide variety of role-playing tastes, you will certainly enjoy this title and most likely find that it greatly exceeds anything done in the past.


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C O N C L U S I O N
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To be short, Oblivion is the best RPG that I've ever played. You will been enthralled for 40+ hours if you plan on finishing the whole thing and you will have to create new characters better suited for certain types of missions to succeed. Buy it. Now. Kiss your girlfriend, boyfriend, children, parents, whatever... kiss them goodbye. There's a shiny new seductress occupying your life and time, and her name is Oblivion.

5/5

Summary: Oblivion can be described in one word - amazing.