When I was thinking of trying to sit down and write a review about this huge & amazing game, I was actually kind of intimidated. How do you explain without going on for ten pages how cool & huge Oblivion is? Well I guess I decided to give it a shot.
The Elder Scrolls series is well known for being gigantic, immersive RPG's that eat up your time like no other game in the genre. Oblivion follows along those lines, of course. I think the best way to describe how cool this game is by saying it took everything I loved about Morrowind (the previous entry in the series) and made it better. Then they took almost everything I hated about Morrowind and fixed it.
The previous game, Morrowind, was a gigantic game like no other game before it. And while I loved playing it most of the time, the game felt too 'open' for me. I was often lost at what to do next, where to go, and how to get there. The game wasn't that great looking (even at the time it was made) and it was VERY buggy even after it had been out for awhile. In fact, in the Xbox version I had to stop playing the game because one of the main quest items just never appeared after I killed a certain enemy. Very annoying.
Oblivion takes all of those problems and tosses them out the window. While the game is absolutely huge & there is an open world to explore, they streamline the process by giving you an excellent quest tracking system that will never have you lost at what to do next. On top of that, the game is gorgeous. There were many times I where I chose to head to my next quest on foot (instead of 'fast-traveling') just so I could look at the beautiful enviroments. The game has some definate technical issues (which I will get to later), but this was the best looking game on the 360 when it was released. And I have always ripped Bethesda Softworks for releasing games that are buggy. In reality, it would be almost impossible to find every bug in this game due to the enormous game world and you can literally play the game any way you want, so play testing this sucker must have been a chore. I have played the game for about seventy hours, and I have yet to find a significant bug. Very nice.
The main storyline that you follow throught the game isn't going to win any awards, but it's still pretty good. Like most RPG's out there, this has good battling evil and so on. It should keep you interested up to the end, but it's nothing that will suck you in like the Final Fantasy games. The main quest also features some excellent guest voice work by people like Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean, who is one of my favorite actors. If you play the main quest all the way through, it should probably take you around forty hours or so if you don't actually travel everywhere by foot.
Things get really interesting when you start joining all of the guilds available in the game. Combinded with the fact that moving up in rank gets you achievements, the four different storylines will keep people hooked for awhile. While it's fun to play through the Fighter, Mage, & Thieves guild quests, it's the Dark Brotherhood that really shines here. In fact, I think the storyline that goes along with the Dark Brotherhood guild quests is better than the main storyline. Plus you get to be evil, which is always a big plus for me.
During the very first part of the game, you will get to create your character however you want. This alone, is one of the best parts of the game. You can literally make any kind of character you want. The sheer number of skills and spells available to you is outstanding. And unlike most RPG's, you gain levels by actually doing the skills you pick for your top ones. There are no experience points here, and I really like the way leveling up is handled. And as you level up, so do your foes. If you went into a crypt at the beginning of the game and just fought a bunch of weak skeletons, you should check out that same crypt later on after you have leveled up a lot. You will find Liches running the joint instead. I like the way Bethesda did that it continues to give you a challenge even after you have leveled up quite a bit.
As I mentioned earlier, the game is gorgeous. Just looking at the enviroments that you travel in can get addicting. The characters all look fantastic especially in their facial animations when you are speaking to them. My main problem with the game, however, comes along with these nice visuals. Oblivion has some serious pop-up or drawn-in issues that I haven't seen since playing games on the original Playstation. While you are travelling in the outdoor enviroments, it's pretty normal for you to see actual structures or tress literally load on the screen twenty feet in front of you. And when you get attacked by multiple enemies or when there is a lot going on at the same time, the frame-rate plummets so bad it's shocking. I know Oblivion uses the hard-drive quite a bit during the game, but these technical issues really hurt the performance. It doesn't really hinder you in any gameplay sense, but it's a problem nonetheless.
And when I said the game loads from the hard drive a lot, I wasn't kidding. It literally loads while you are walking in the enviroment. The times I was just walking along and the game paused with a "Loading area....." phrase popped on my screen are too numerous to count. Then there are the actually loading times themselves. While most of the load times aren't generally very long, some are EXTREMELY long. There were a couple times I wondered if my 360 froze and I had to hit the dashboard button on the controller just to make sure. And it seems EVERYTHING you do in the game requires you to watch a load screen. At least 90% of the doors you open trigger a load screen. Even when they are very short, it can get annoying at times. Obviously the fact that the game looks great helps make up for this, but it's something I should definately mention.
While this game is one of the best games I have ever played, it's definately not for everyone. This is a game that you have to invest massive amounts of time & patience in if you want to see what makes it so good. And while going through all of the guild quests is fun, the dungeon crawling can get very repetitious. It's fun to level up and kill monsters, but after you have played the game for over seventy hours, you will dread going into your next Oblivion gate. Make no mistake, this is a dungeon crawling hack-fest of epic proportions and if that's not your thing then this game might seem boring to you.
Other than those minor problems, I could not find anything else I didn't like about this game. The game looks fantastic. The music and voice acting are some of the best in the business. You could literally play this game a year and not see everything it has to offer due to the excellent character creation. There is downloadable content available (including the first expansion, 'Knights Of The Nine') to download online, if you so choose. The achievements are well placed and are very addicting to try to aquire. And most importantly, the game is really fun to play. It takes everything I hated about Morrowind and made it SO much better. This is a must-own for any fan of role-playing games and even if you aren't, you should give this game a shot. Just be sure to say good-bye to your girlfriend, friends, and family for awhile. They won't be seeing you much after you start this amazing game.
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