The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a role-playing game created by
Bethesda Softworks, and is the follow-up game to the instant classic
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Oblivion takes place in the land of
Cyrodiil, which is a part of the Tamriel Empire. Oblivion allows you to
travel throughout Cyrodiil right when you first start the game, and
unlike other RPG games, traveling is not a tedious thing to do but is
quite fun. The one landmark thing that separates Oblivion away from the
RPG-pack is its wonderful usage of a first person view mode. Being in
first person, Oblivion really makes you feel like you're right there in
the action. For example, very early on in the game, you find a bow and
some arrows. A little ways down from the place in which you find the
bow is a Goblin Witch, which mainly uses ranged, spell attacks.
Oblivion coolly transitions into the ensuing fight, and your first
shootout with an enemy will leave you a bit shocked out of how real it
all felt; dodging behind pillars, narrowly evading fireballs, taking
pot shots when you can. You really take it all in straight from the
get-go, and the feeling of it all will leave you speechless.
However,
if controlling your character through a first-person perspective isn't
your cup of tea, you can also play it in a third-person perspective.
Unfortunately, the animations aren't as fluid as they are in the
first-person view mode and making contact with enemies is a little bit
harder. The jumping animation was also clearly meant for doing through
a first-person perspective, because your character will just jump in
the air, freeze in that position, and the controls allow you to move in
any direction you wish. The only time I ever play in third-person is
when I'm riding on a horse, because riding a horse in first-person is a
bit odd.
But enough on the third-person aspect, and back to the first. The most
exhilarating thing to do in Oblivion, as I've noted, is to fight. In
the game, most quests have you killing something eventually, so
Bethesda put a lot of effort into the fighting mechanics of the game.
Every battle is a complete blast, with dozens of weapons to choose
from, all based on your typical medieval RPG-type weapons (swords,
bows, etc.) The game also has several different spells to master, with
capabilities like draining your target's health or making them
exhausted.
But if you're not much of a fighter, Oblivion also has a short range of
mini-games for you to play at different places throughout the game. If
your the type of person who likes sneaking around places or becoming
one with the shadows, you can get most jobs done without killing a
single person. Helping you do this is a little lock-picking mini-game.
If a door you need to go through is locked, but if you have a lockpick
handy, you can attempt to break through the door. There are several
different difficulties to breaking locks, ranging from Very Easy to
Very Hard, so every new lock is a different challenge. If you mess up
while attempting to break a lock, your lockpick will shatter, and you
can attempt to break the lock again if you have another lockpick with
you.
Other than lock-picking, to better achieve your ambition as a shadow,
you can also persuade people. The mini-game to this is a little stupid,
for the point of it is to seduce people by either telling a joke,
admiring them, giving them compliments, etc. The mini-game is a bit
confusing at first, and not very helpful, so if you have trouble
playing it, you can always just bribe the person into liking you. The
only downside to this is instead of playing a stupid mini-game which
doesn't help much, you're paying large sums of money for the same thing.
But, if sneaking around in the shadows isn't really your thing, but if
you're more into spellcasting, there's also an alchemist mini-game.
Through this, you can create different potions made from ingredients
found throughout the game world. Potions in Oblivion are one of the
main staples to staying alive, so alchemy really comes in handy. But
not all of the potions you create have a positive effect on the main
character. Some ingredients cause a negative effect, and you can
effectively create poisons out of these ingredients, which are applied
to your weapon. Unlike the lock-picking and persuasion mini-games,
alchemy requires absolutely no skill required, and just has you mixing
up different ingredients to create an assorted mix of potions and
poisons.
But forget about the gameplay, and lets look at the graphics of
Oblivion. The game world is absolutely gorges and is incredible to look
at. Grass sticks up instead of being mashed into the ground, water
shimmers light off of its surface, the sky swirls realistically, and
more. Everything was done extremely well, and isn't overly glossy
looking like other next-gen games. There are, however, some issues with
the performance of the game, like random objects suddenly pop-in out of
nowhere, or some objects are flat-ironed out in 2D when they should of
been in 3D (for example, the rope masts of a sailing ship). The water,
in my opinion, is also incredibly cheesy. It looks great at a distance,
but offers no real-time physics or reflections, other than from light.
Meaning, if you jump off the top of a castle and fall into a lake
below, not only will you live, no water will splash up from your
impact, nor will it move away from you. The water looks great, but its
lack of physics is extremely disappointing.
However, to compete with its gorges graphics is it's outstanding
soundtrack. There are hundreds of different sounds, ranging from the
sound of things dropping or the sound of opening different types of
doors. Swords repel fiercely off of shield and blade alike, and you can
actually hear an arrow penetrate your armor and pierce through your
skin. This is just clear proof that Bethesda put an equal amount of
work into it's sound databank as it did with it's fighting and
graphics, and in turn, everything came out perfect.
A neat little thing about the audio in Oblivion is how the people
speak. Every word of dialog in the game is spoken, with the exception
of text in a book. The people's voices are recycled, meaning you will
hear the same voice come from several different people, but it is so
well done that it is hardly noticeable.
The great thing about Oblivion is that it never ends. There are dozens
of different side quests you can take part in, and all have a unique
feel to it. There are also several different guilds/factions to join,
which creates for the player both friends and enemies, but taking
contracts within a guild comes with huge benefits and a great challenge
to partake in.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has already gone down as one of the
greatest role-playing games ever created, as noted by it's highly
positive reviews and multiple awards. Bethesda has gone so far to
flaunt these awards that they are actually releasing a new version of
Oblivion, entitled The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year
Edition. The new version includes new bug fixes and includes the two
expansions already released for Oblivion; The Knights of the Nine and
the Shivering Isles. Through gorges graphics, exhilarating gameplay,
and incredible replay value, the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has been
embedded into my mind forever.
