... The playtime on this, at the maximum, is 300 hours. 300 hours to do EVERYTHING in the game. Now, while 300 hours on a computer game is the stuff of divorce/break-ups, it goes a long way to explain how simply gigantic the world of Oblivion is.
There's so much to see and do, and I defy ... Read review
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With the Empire ready to crumble, the gates of Oblivion open and demons march upon the land-laying waste to everything in their path. To turn the tide of darkness...
With the Empire ready to crumble, the gates of Oblivion open and demons march upon the land-laying waste to everything in their path. To turn the tide of darkness...
with huge improvements in graphics and accessibility, including a completely real-time combat system and the largest, most detailed game world ever seen. Phew.The lo...
quintessential role-playing game for the next generation and another leap forward in gaming. Step inside the most richly detailed and vibrant game-world ever created. Oblivion is the latest chapter in the epic and highly successful Elder Scrolls saga and utilizes next-generation video game hardware to fully immerse you into the experience. With a powerful combination of freeform gameplay and unprecedented graphics, you can unravel the main quest at your own pace or explore the vast world and find your own challenges.IntroductionThe goal here was to create a game that offered unlimited possibilities. A game where you could be whoever you wanted and do whatever you wanted. "Live another life, in another world" was the Oblivion teams motto; this is exactly what they have created. If you love games that allow you to explore, wander amongst the beauty of the landscape and engage in combat with weapons or magic then this is truly the game for you. With lots of industry awards won and huge critical acclaim achieved, role playing adventure games dont get any better than this!StorylineYou live within the stunning capital province of Tamriel, called Cyrodiil. As a brave and noble warrior you set on a dangerous adventure, to find the hidden heir to a throne that sits empty, the previous emperor having been killed by an unknown assassin. With no true Emperor in place and no guidance for the people of Cyrodiil, the gates of Oblivion open, bringing only death and destruction upon the humble towns and villages.It`s up to you to find the lost heir to the throne and unravel the sinister plot that threatens to destroy all of Tamriel. Turn the tide of darkness before its too late.New on PS3All the updated patches and downloads for Xbox360 and PC are available in the
with huge improvements in graphics and accessibility, including a completely real-time combat system and the largest, most detailed game world ever seen. Phew.The lowdown:Although previous Elder Scrolls games have enjoyed something of a like it or loathe it reputation, this latest sequel has the means to appeal to everyone thanks to one simple improvement: its incredible new graphics. Unlike many role-playing games it is viewed from a first person perspective, with a game world portrayed in a staggering amount of detail, and realistic psychics and characters that genuinely seem to be going on about their own separate lives. The games real appeal though lies in the huge freedom: play it exactly how you want.Most exciting moment:Using the new combat engine to fight off dozens of enemies, then stealing one of their mounts and riding off into the sunset.Since you ask:Emperor Uriel Septim VII is voiced by Star Trek and X-Men luminary Patrick Stewart, but all the characters in the game have full spoken voiceovers instead of just onscreen text. This is the next generation, you know.The bottom line:One of the most realistic and accessible role-playing games ever made.Harrison Dent
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quintessential role-playing game for the next generation and another leap forward in gaming. Step inside the most richly detailed and vibrant game-world ever created. Oblivion is the latest chapter in the epic and highly successful Elder Scrolls saga and utilizes next-generation video game hardware to fully immerse you into the experience. With a powerful combination of freeform gameplay and unprecedented graphics, you can unravel the main quest at your own pace or explore the vast world and find your own challenges.IntroductionThe goal here was to create a game that offered unlimited possibilities. A game where you could be whoever you wanted and do whatever you wanted. "Live another life, in another world" was the Oblivion teams motto; this is exactly what they have created. If you love games that allow you to explore, wander amongst the beauty of the landscape and engage in combat with weapons or magic then this is truly the game for you. With lots of industry awards won and huge critical acclaim achieved, role playing adventure games dont get any better than this!StorylineYou live within the stunning capital province of Tamriel, called Cyrodiil. As a brave and noble warrior you set on a dangerous adventure, to find the hidden heir to a throne that sits empty, the previous emperor having been killed by an unknown assassin. With no true Emperor in place and no guidance for the people of Cyrodiil, the gates of Oblivion open, bringing only death and destruction upon the humble towns and villages.It`s up to you to find the lost heir to the throne and unravel the sinister plot that threatens to destroy all of Tamriel. Turn the tide of darkness before its too late.New on PS3All the updated patches and downloads for Xbox360 and PC are available in the
Isles, Knights of the Nine, and downloadable content. -Detailed maps for every part of the world and every major city, plus special maps for every key...
A review by petebrolly on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Xbox 360) February 2nd, 2007
Author's product rating:
Gameplay/Playability
Excellent - great gameplay & playability
Graphics
Excellent Graphics - visually stunning
Sound
Excellent - makes full use of my speakers
Value for Money
Advantages:
Huge world, well worth the money, beautiful
Disadvantages:
Very time consuming, initially overwhelming
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
Every so often there comes along a game that despite how you may have built it up in your head, it still manages to astound you. To put it simply, this game is a masterpiece. And you know, since I'm here, I'll explain why.
But first, when reviewing a game, everyone's criteria are different, obviously, but the main convention is to look at the following aspects:
Longetivity: How long the game lasts. Playability: How fun the game is to actually play Graphics: How nice the game looks and how well it takes advantage of the machine it is running on Sound: How nice the music is and how well the sound effects are implemented.
Obviously, there are more than this usually and some are more important to people than others, but for the basis of this review, let's just assume all four aspects above are equal. So without further ado, let's tear this game apart:
Longevity: In recent times the length of your average game would teeter around the 12-15hour mark, and yet have the cheek to ask for your hard earned 40-50 pounds. In this respect, Oblivion is like your over-generous best friend, on Prozac, at Disneyland and who just won the lottery. The playtime on this, at the maximum, is 300 hours. 300 hours to do EVERYTHING in the game. Now, while 300 hours on a computer game is the stuff of divorce/break-ups, it goes a long way to explain how simply gigantic the world of Oblivion is.
There's so much to see and do, and I defy you not to be amazed the first time you crawl out of the sewers and catch glimpse of the wonderful world that awaits you. The feeling that this is the beginning of a wonderful and time-consuming adventure is one that I had forgotten in my recent years of computer gaming and growing cynicism.
To illustrate my point of how long this game is, my Xbox 360 tells me I have 80 hours clocked up on this so far. I'm nowhere near the end of the main quest, and I have explored, really, very little of the world, as the "Fast Travel" option between cities or places you have already visited, seems to tempt me all too often. I really shouldn't use it though, as the walk between areas in the game, whilst lengthy, is breathtaking. From rolling fields with grass and flowers lightly swaying in the breeze, to immense mountains and chasms, to which I have lost many an over-trusting horse to. The pain of losing "Sparky: the wonder horse" is still with me.
A moments silence please.
Ok and back, the "guild quests" and mini-quests that you can choose whether or not to undertake, even outweigh the main mission, so its all to easy to go roaming through forests and looting caves based on a conversation you have overheard between one or two of the NPCs (Non Player Characters).
Which brings me to my next point: The sense of believability that this is a real, breathing world is unparalleled. The computer controlled characters have their daily routines, they go to work, meet with friends on certain days, go to restaurants, and sometimes embark on rather "shady" outings. I almost believe the characters are getting on with things when I turn the console off, as if my being in the game is of little consequence to them, that I'm merely a tourist in this beautiful world for the length of time I choose to play. Its hard to believe this really when most other games can't half convince you that the whole world isn't there just for you and that every action the characters take isn't somewhat scripted and in direct relation to whatever you're doing. Oblivion doesn't make you feel "special", but that's exactly what makes it special.
Playability: The thing that will put many off initially is the huge amount of menu screens, bars, icons and widgets. Its initially extremely overwhelming being confronted with so many options to set up your character, where, for example, "race", "birthstone", "specialisations", "major skills" and "minor skills" are all to be chosen and tinkered with by you, and each has a very different impact on how you will play the game from the get go. There is an option to auto create a character and the game will also offer advice on character creation based on how you've played the game for a while, but after that you're stuck with what you've created. Not that this will limit you forever, as there are always other options in the game to do everything, for example, one race allows water breathing, but later on you can create spells, potions or enchantments that will let you do this. I would not recommend playing this game without the accompanying guidebook you can buy, as it points out some things that you may never see or do or realise in the game. Think of it like a "tour guide" (again, a testament to the games sheer size), as opposed to a game guide and you don't feel quite so much like cheating.
The combat is pretty simple really, hack with swords, shoot with arrows etc, so it's not hard to pick up all these actions and other actions such as jumping, swimming, sneaking etc. The best thing is, the more you do something like swimming or jumping or sneaking, then the more a skill related to this increases. For example, swimming increases your agility, whilst getting hit with large pointy swords increases your armour skill, unless you're in the nip. It will take maybe too long to explain the whole levelling up system but generally, you have "main skills" and "minor skills", the more you use your skills the more you will gain experience in these skills, with increases in "major skills" allowing your character to increase a "level", which in turn gives you more points to attribute to any "major skill" you wish. Sounds complicated, and it is initially, but after a while you'll be creating your own spells, just for purposes of training, or finding sneaky ways to increase skills, such as by waiting for people to go to bed and "sneaking" around them to increase your sneak skills. Very fitting indeed.
Bad guys are plentiful and varied, and in an attempt to stop you from being bored when you have an uber-powerful "level 33 mega-knight of fiery instant death" (my little pet name for my character), all enemies are linked to your current level. What this means is, obviously, the better you get, the better (and quite often, the BIGGER) your enemies get. This is a nice idea, but makes the game quite difficult in places, but you can always adjust the difficulty mid-game, if you're a wuss. Or me.
Graphics: Anyone who has seen this game in action will know what I'm talking about when i say blah?buahhaha,wha? But for the benefit of the readers who have yet to see the graphics, I will kindly translate: "magnificent", should do it, or how about "gorgeous", or "sexy" or perhaps other such words which really shouldn't be used outside of the bedroom. Yes, my girlfriend hates this game...
Every building, tree, rock or other screen furniture (including actual furniture!) is beautifully rendered and textured, and the amount of incidental items inside buildings, is amazing. Each room has your general everyday clutter such as books, cups, glasses, food, magic spell scrolls, you know, the usual. But everything can be picked up, and stolen (and later sold, if you know where to look, heh). Really makes you believe once again you are somewhere else. Obviously the views of the world when atop a mountain or large building are also breathtaking, with the draw distance going as far as you could possibly want. For the first time in a game, anything you can see (yea even that little speck on the horizon which is actually a huge castle complete with sword wielding skeleton warriors) can be walked to, and entered into.
Sound: If you have a surround sound 5.1 setup, prepare to be dazzled stupid. The orchestral score is beautiful and the sound effects from everything from birds chirping to the wind blowing, are spot on and very believable. Even if you don't have a surround sound system, its still great! Every line of dialogue is spoken, and whilst it does tend to repeat, it doesn't repeat as often as most games and its fun to see two or three NPCs just walk up to each other and have a full blown conversation as you walk by. Keen listeners can find juicy nuggets of information of the "where to find gold and cool stuff" variety.
Are there any drawbacks to this game? Well, when I first had it, the loading times were stupidly long, between walking from inside a house to outside. However, I found that in some cases the game needs to have its "cache" reset on your Xbox, by holding A button when the game boots up. This cured the problem and the loading times were basically non-existent since this. They really should have explained this in the manual as I had to do some trawling through forums online to find this out! It also can have a few little bugs from time to time, but nothing noteworthy, that I can't actually remember any in particular is testament to this fact. For a game of this scale, even large bugs could be forgiven, but the developers of this game have not rested on their laurels it seems.
I haven't really mentioned the story on this game much as I wanted this review to be more of a review of the "experience" it offers the gamer, which is what sets this game apart from so many others. It is without a doubt the best £40 I have ever spent, and although I play a lot of games on my Xbox 360, this is the one that I always come back to for more, and one that has earned itself a permanent position in my collection, a feat which, for me, is truely astounding as I usually sell games to buy new ones, what with not having money to burn and all.
At the time of writing there are also downloads and new levels and quests available for this game, should you need them, I think I will wait a while before my uber-powerful "level 33 mega-knight of fiery instant death" embarks on any of these new quests, he's busy enough here already.
Thanks for reading guys, and I hope that if you do pick this up, you can have many stories of your experience with this beautiful game to share with me.
Pete (aka "uber-powerful level 33 mega-knight of fiery instant death")
UPDATE 07/02/06: I forgot to note that you can see actual video footage of this game in my "Xbox 360" video review (its near the end so you don't have to watch it all :-p). So you can get an idea of how good this game actually looks whilst playing!
...she first acquainted herself with the province of Cyrodiil. She noticed me playing something new, and postponed her bath by twenty minutes to "give it a try". As far as games go, for her that's some commitment. "Well... what now?" She fiddled with the first-person controls and started the usual ritual of involuntarily staring at the floor. The sky would be next. I paused to formulate an explanation… In a nutshell, what do you do in Oblivion? In most ... ...this, jump that, drive round the other; all it takes is a grasp of the basic controls and you're proficient whilst employing minimal grey matter. Not so here.
"Well, erm, in a way you have to go and find what to do. It's kind of your choice."
That really fried her noggin. It needed some context.
"OK. Picture yourself as the main protagonist in a Lord of the Rings setting, only with more moonlighting and less homoeroticism. Beards are optional". ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Great Graphics, Quests, Sounds Disadvantages: So Darn BIG
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is the fourth in the series of Elder Scrolls games. Its predecessor Morrowind was a huge hit in western markets and it had a huge cult following throughout the world with many fans of all ages. I was not one of these fans. I could never get into Morrowind no matter how hard I tried. ( And I've tried various times over the years). This gave me doubts when it came to the release of The ... ...would it just sit on the shelf next to Morrowind? After a few days of uncertainty I decided to give in a buy myself a copy of it on launch day. Here are my thoughts and feelings towards The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
From the moment the game beings you are dropped into the world of The Elder Scrolls. A medieval world of fantasy and magic. You start the game in jail. An unusual start to a game I have got to admit. Your are left to walk around your ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Breathtaking vistas, compelling atmosphere, hours of exploration Disadvantages: Repetitive, time consuming, flawed systems
For the uninitiated, the Elder Scrolls games are massive, freeform, first person dungeon crawlers. The basic premise, in every game, is to create your character and then wander the land doing... well, whatever the hell you want, really. There's a story to follow of course, if you want to. More on that later though because, true to form, MORE work has gone into everything outside of the main story, and the quests involved in the arc itself account ... ...the game. There are various guilds you can join, with varying goals and differing ethos. You have a plethora of NPCs you can talk to, kill, or rob. You have a throng of dungeons that you'll no doubt want to explore, killing the inhabitants and taking their (randomly generated) treasures. And there's a whole range of cities, towns, villages and farms with their own looks, styles and atmospheres. Oblivion accomplishes all of these things very well, ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: There is nothing like this, a piece of art which demands respect Disadvantages: Do not play this if you want a social life, it will suck you in
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, or more simply Oblivion, is a single player fantasy-themed action-oriented computer role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks and the Take-Two Interactive subsidiary 2K Games. It is the next game in the Elder Scroll Series after Morrowind and was released on Xbox 360 and PC, later followed by PS3. Oblivion is a hard game to genre as it touches on so many aspects and types ... ...have to say, stick to the first person as it makes the game much more atmospheric. I'd say Oblivion is a RPG at core, you create your character at the beginning of the game and you increase and learn skills as you fight the enemies of the game. Oblivions story is a deep and vast one, so I'm not going to ruin it for anyone as it is brilliant in a word. The game begins with the arrival of Emperor Uriel Septim VII, accompanied by a troupe of Blade bodyguards, ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Gameplay/Playability
Graphics
Sound
Value for Money
very helpful
06.09.2007
A really great RPG. Review ofThe Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Xbox 360)by
donnabroom
Advantages: Vast world with amazingly open ended gameplay. Disadvantages: Time consuming.
...decided I had to get the game for myself. Obviously I didn't want to get a 360 to play it so I gave the PC version a try and I was so disappointed - the controls are so complicated that I just couldn't play it and the decision was made to buy an Xbox 360, (PS3s are too expensive still); that should give you an idea of how good the game is.
~
Oblivion is the 4th game in the popular "The Elder Scrolls" series; ( Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion). ... ...admit that I haven't played the other games in the series but as ever wikipedia has loads of information about them and there are bound to be reviews of them about too.
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You start the game in a prison cell, and the storyline takes you through the tutorial and lets you create your character. This is the least boring tutorial on any game I have ever played. You jump right into the plot and the game is never dull from start to finish, (if indeed ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Amazing Online Play Lots of Great Games Good graphics Disadvantages: Tendency to Break.
...and turned it back on when i got 3 flashing red lights (ring of death) I emailed microsoft and got a reply within 24hours which told me to take the harddrive out and try it but it still wouldn't work so i called them and after being on hold for about 20minutes i was told i would have to send it to them and they emailed me a UPS label to put on the box for my XBOX360 they came the next day and i am waiting for it to be returned at the moment.
On the Upside the XBOX360 is a great console with outstanding games such as Gears of War, Dead Rising, ElderScrolls4Oblivion and Rainbow 6 Vegas. The 360s online play is outstanding through XBOX Live which is easy to set up and use and with the recent update which allows MSN Messenger to be used makes it even more user friendly.
The competetion: First of all there is the Wii I belive the Wii is fun...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: Excellent modding community, Great graphics and gameplay. Disadvantages: Hardware intensive, various bugs.
...(This review has been re-written after reading comments)
The ElderScrollsIV: Oblivion is the fourth iteration of Bethesda Softworks' stunning roleplaying series of computer games, and is available on both the OC and the XBOX360. If you like to get a good value for money, then this game is well worth the price, because it is simply huge.
Oblivion takes place in Cyrodiil, which is essentially the main country in the continent called Tamriel that the game is set in. Cyrodiil is a beautiful province, home to the Imperials, which are the race of people that most resemble humans in the game. The other races featured are Khajiit (cat-people), Nord (buffer humans), Dunmer (dark elves), Altmer (high elves), Orc (bff, green humans), Bosmer (wood elves), and Argonian (lizard people). Every one of these races is playable, and you can choose...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
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22.07.2007
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