The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion (360/PC)
Rating: EPIC
Likes: Large world, improved skills, fast travel and horses, quest pointer, more guilds, voice acting.
Dislikes: Voice acting, short dungeons, selling LOTS of things on the PC, leveled lists.
Oblivion is, like Morrowind was before it, an odd mix of a FPS and a RPG. Made by Bethesda Softworks (who are now working on Fallout 3), The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion is an awesome game. The graphics are top notch and dialogue is now spoken, with captions. The game world is also very big, and it contains several towns, the Imperial City, and about 150 dungeons. Thankfully, Bethesda listened to Morrowind critics, and has implemented two ways of travelling across Cyrodill. First, horseback. Horses can be bought at (by my memory) every town except the Imperial City. Second, there’s a new feature called “Fast Travel”. Instead of having to walk or ride everywhere, you can open up your map, and find a place you’ve been to before. You then simply select the icon of the place, and you’re instantly teleported there. This speeds up the game, and if you don’t like it, it’s not a required feature. The majority of Oblivion’s quests are well written and varied, so you’re not likely to be easily bored. However, most of the quests will fit into the classic “go here”/”kill this”/”retrieve this” mould, but there is always a story behind your motives. You’re never just told to do something to do something. The dungeons in Oblivion are well made and give off a dark, foreboding atmosphere. The dungeons are usually short, but the traps inside the dungeons aren’t utilized in the smartest ways. Most of the traps you can dodge, and to make it easier, some you don’t need to. A deadly mace that would love to bash your brains in can be dodged completely by not moving once you’ve triggered it. All the traps can be utilized by both you and your enemies, so dodging a trap and leading a pack of enemies back over it can result in easy kills. Now, the loot that you obtain through trading and questing is generally pretty good. All the armors and weapons look nice, and nothing’s been messed with since Morrowind, except that there are a few different types. For example, there is no longer Chitin or Bonemold, instead there’s Elven and Mithril. My only complaint is that in an effort to fix an issue from Morrowind, they caused an issue in Oblivion. In Morrowind, if you knew where a very strong sword was, you could run there at level one, find it, and have an easier start. In Oblivion, you can do that, but when you find the sword, it will be tailored for your level. It wouldn’t be super strong; it’d be a newbie weapon. This is called using a leveled list. Using them for some things is almost required, but Oblivion uses them for EVERYTHING. Here are a few examples: NPC Inventory, Quest Rewards, NPC Armor, Trader’s Wares, stuff in containers, Bandits armor, Bandit’s weapons, Gold in Containers, and Weapons available to you. The whole time you’re out questing, you’re constantly given the feeling that Oblivion’s doing its best to shield you from better equipment. I haven’t been given the liberty of seeing any of the best armor in the game until level 21. It’s annoying, very, very, annoying, and is the worst feature of Oblivion, because it works too well. The skills system has been partially redone, and there are now different tiers of mastery, each one giving a different perk. For example, reaching Master level in Armorer now grants you the ability to never ever be able to break a hammer. Mastering different weapons also grants you different attack power-ups. Spells are now easier to use in battle, because it’s more passive. Instead of having to put away your weapons to cast, now all you do is tap a button, and you’ll quickly let off a spell. It’s quick, it’s fluid, it works well, and Melee fighters will like it as much as Spellcasters because it very rarely leaves you open to attack. The archery portion has been simplified, but for the better. Instead of the crappy and hardly used Ninja Stars, Crossbows and other forgotten ranged weapons, there are now just bows and staffs. Staffs are simple. You attack, and it fires either an offensive attack, or somehow helps you, such as by casting Charm or Telekinesis. Generally, they’re helpful at the beginning, but as the game wears on, they’re not needed. Bows, on the other hand, are engineered brilliantly, with only one big problem. The arrows react to objects, so they no longer disappear when you shoot them like in Morrowind. Instead, you can shoot things off of walls, or shoot targets and be able to retrieve them. The only bad thing is that the arrows are slow. I’ve been able to dodge arrows being shot at me from about 20-50 feet away, and it’s not until the NPC’s reach about level 10 when they gain the skill to lead their shots. Overall, Oblivion is the successor to Morrowind, but adds a whole other level of realism, and tweaks a variety of things for the better. While Morrowind felt rushed and incomplete, Oblivion feels polished. It does suffer from its fair share of bugs, but recent patches have fixed about 80% of them, while mods have done the rest. If you must pick between the Xbox 360 and the PC version, pick PC. (I don’t own a PS3, but it seems exactly like the 360 version) My PC (2.4 GHz Pentium 4, Geforce 6200 256mb, 1.5 GB RAM) runs it at medium-low with 20-40 fps, so a slightly dated gaming computer will work just fine. Plus, the PC version has access to the modding community, which has fixed pretty much every complaint you could have for this game, and has added new weapons, armor, spells, and quests, anything you could think of. Also, the PC has access to the Downloadable Content that you can buy for the 360 and PS3 versions.
Final Thoughts: This is a game that I thoroughly enjoy, and will appeal to FPS and RPG game lovers. It will keep you playing for hours on end (one of my saves has 80 hours logged in it).
Good Sites for Oblivion Mods:
www.planetelderscrolls.com — My personal favorite.
www.tesnexus.com — A good site, but doesn’t have as many.
Screenshots:
A New Enemy -- The Land Dreugh
Showing Off The New Skill Menu
Zombie. 'Nuff said.
Oblivion Trailer
October 18, 2008 at 4:05 pm
ya no the black nd gold armour he’s werein how do i get it?