Oblivion is a game to keep you up all night, and probably the next night, too. An engrossing RPG, this addition to the Elder Scrolls oeuvre offers you endless variables in a nearly endless environment. Take your time with the pre-game character composition, you'll be clocking a life-shattering number of hours with that thing. You'll choose everything from your race to your sign, each with their own unique characteristics, talents, and weaknesses. How you grow from there is really up to you.
Inconveniently enough, Cyrodiil is in peril and daedra are invading; it is for you to stop the Mythic Dawn cult from plunging you and all the cute romping deer from being overtaken by dark nastiness and things like "Blood Corridors". Or you could just kill the deer and rob them of their venison.
In addition to the main quest (finding the king's heir, saving the world, all that rot) you can join up to four guilds. Completing missions for the main quest, Fighters Guild and Mages Guild will earn you fame, while work performed for the Thieves and Assassins Guilds will garner you some respectable infamy. While profitable, the Fighters Guild quests lacked intrigue, and I much preferred the Thieves and Assassins Guild quests. Sadly, the worst quests of all are from the main storyline. The Plane of Oblivion is so redundant you will find yourself just plowing through as fast as you can, with little regard to the goodies along the way.
In addition to the guild and main quests the citizens of Cyrodiil need help with all sorts of tasks, from finding their children to reclaiming their home from ogres. They're like that really irresponsible friend. At its heart, what is a good RPG but glorified fetch quests? Every good deed - as well as some downright nasty ones - has its reward. The guild quests will be the most profitable, materially anyway. Word to the wise: save often, Cyrodiil is perilous and missteps such as getting caught stealing can be a real pain.
Leveling up will be a source of amusement, since everything you do contributes to your various skills. For example, jumping from place to place will increase your acrobatics, and casting spells while you jump will improve the corresponding schools of magic. Your overall skill level will increase as you develop your Major Skills (determined by race, sign, et cetera). Word of advice: I leapt from Chorrol to Leyawin and back again to gain the ability to jump on water; this was a complete waste of time. Not only was jumping on water the lamest animation in the game, it's pretty useless. By the time you're a master of acrobatics you can outrun, outfight or out-magic anything in the game.
The AI is quirky, and rife with amusing blips. Fortunately, none of it dealt a critical blow to game play. One mind numbing downside is that while characters may all be unique in appearance there are about four different voices that you will hear over and over. And over. Since the game is so addicting you can count on clocking long hours, which is why I appreciated Bethesda including potty and snack breaks (intermissions, if you will) in the game. For example, you wish to reenter a town: go ahead, make yourself a sandwich and crack open a beer, it’ll take awhile. Seriously, the load times are epic. In spite of these quirky negatives, Oblivion neatly earns a spot on my OMG, Most Fun Games Ever list and is well worth the next-gen price tag.
Created by Bethesda Softworks, The Elder Scrolls is hailed as one of the most groundbreaking RPG franchises.
GF365: "If you’re a reader, this list of great games for avid readers is for you. Games are a form of art, and some have written literature in them."
Non-playable characters in certain games are meme material, thanks to their foolish behavior. These are the big-budget games with the dumbest NPCs.
Bethesda makes the most consistently stupid NPCs, like really bad... yet I still can't help but love playing their games. Guilty pleasure, I guess. *sigh* 😩
Every Bethesda game and Every Halo game. This list needed to have Cyberpunk somewhere.
This is still my all time favorite game on any console... and it probably will be for quite some time.
I've never played a game for so long, and had it impact me so much.
Great review for a great game... on all systems!! (though, I'd give it a 9.5)
I got my 1000 points from it.. hmm that reminds me I still need to do the Shivering Island! I loved the magic use in it ^^ and yes you get some of the best equipment from the guilds then from the main menu. The second time I played thru this game I hardly killed anyone in the Oblivion Planes and just ran thru those levels. They are dumb good call on that. Nice review.
im a huge fan of oblivion. i have it on ps3 and have completed EVERY SINGLE QUEST in the entire game including the shivering isles. im just waiting for the next one to hit ps3 like that fortress thing they were talking about.
well done for reviewing this classic .. & well written too.
i completely agree. On the 360 i played it two times through around 75 hours both times. And am hoping to put in a lot of hours on the ps3 version with the expansion packs.