Oblivion is the fourth installment in the Elder Scrolls series, it is developed by Bethesda and is easily one of the best games on the 360, but why is that? It is one of the best games because of four things. One, the 3 pronged combat system. Two, the exetremly impressive graphical quality. Three, the amazing writting and storylines. Four, the large amount of value in this vast game.
Combat makes or breaks an action game, if you don't have good combat, then you dont have a good 1/4 - 3/4 of a game. Oblivion is no acception to this rule, luckily, it abides by it entirely. The combat system in oblivion is very rubust and also quite fun. There is a huge tree of combat mechanics all branching off from three different types of combat. The first is melee combat; melee combat involves either a bladed weapon or a blunt weapon and attacking your foe with it. The second is bow and arrow combat which is fairly self-explanitory. The third is magic combat which does not just involve throwing fire balls and thunderbolts at your enemy, it stems out into five other schools of magic which stem out into many spells and spell combinations. The three original forms of combat all interwine to make the fighting in this game as exciting as ever. It is never a dull moment and I can guarantee with all these options avalible to both you and your enemies you will never have the same fight twice.
Graphics are becoming more and more thought through and the critical requirements for graphics have steered quite a ways away from just the classic "what looks good" approach. Now games need to have many great animations, smoother framerates, and detailed textures. Oblivion delivers fairly well in these departments, but what makes the graphics so amazing is the amount of space you have to play in. There are many animations in the game, but its value comes as a drawback here because the game has over 150+ hours of things to do and even with the vast amount of animations you will end up seeing them many times. Another problem with the animations is that they have a feeling about them which seems a lot less human and a lot more robot. Humanoid characters move very staticy with some motions and will look awkward doing simple things like sitting down or jumping. As for the framerate, it is generally good. It will dip slightly when the game is loading a new section whilst you are running through the world, and it will slow down when there are too many items on screen or too many things are moving in one area. Fortunately, these framerate hiccups are few and far between and will not make the game unplayable in any way. Everything in the game looks real to a certain extent (that extent being that always prsent barrier between real life and a video game, and the fact that this is a fantasy game). All in all the game's graphics leave just a little bit to be desired when it comes to animations, but the sheer scope the game more than compensates for that.
RPGs are always known for their stories. Whether it be some Japanese RPG where the main character has amnesia and there is a little girl who ironicly has powers beyond anyones imagination, or some Western RPG where trechory and tradegy await you no matter what. Oblivion has some of the best storylines on the 360 and in the RPG market. And yes, you read that right, storylines. Plural. There are so many different storylines in this game it is amazing. Each sidequest, the main quest, the tens of factions you can join, and the expansions all culminate into hundreds of amazing storylines to keep you busy for hours. Each one is unique and will take you on quests of sometimes epic proportions. To keep these storylines going there is some spectacular writting that is voiced by some amazing voice actors and actresses. The downside of this is that there seems to be only 13 or so different voice actors. Tha game's value draws it back too, but unlike the animations problem, this can get severly annoying. There are thousands of characters in the game and having only 13 people voice all of them is ridiculous. Luckily, those 13 actors are very good at what they do and deliver the writting well. The storylines in this game will leave you stunned, and I can assure you this: you will say, "WTF!" or, "OH SNAP!" or something along those lines many times through out your course of the game.
Finally comes the value, you may have expected this section to be the longest, but it is explained fairly well in the previous three paragraphs so this section will remain relatively short. Oblivion is a game with over 150 (probably 200) hours of gameplay, and this is in one sitting. With the 1000s of different ways to play this game, you will probably play it through more than once. That ends up with potentially over 400 hours of gameplay, which is over two weeks of video gaming! This game will definately keep you busy for a long time, and that long time is one you will for surely enjoy.
