Drumroll please, and the winner is..........
The Elder Scrolls IV : Oblivion
To say this is the best RPG of the century so far would be an understatement simply because it is so immersive and accessable.
There are many predjudices surrounding Role Playing Games and the people that play them. I for one was thoroughly convinced all people who played RPGs were permenantly segregated from the outside world. Of course for some it is true but any misconceptions about the gameplay of this genre being "boring" are merely stopping you from enjoying a fantastic game.
As soon as you enter the game you are able to fully customise your character's race, face and any other place. This takes a long time if you want it to. Then you enter the actual game.
You start off in a prison cell in the imperial dungeon just outside the imperial city. You aren't given much background but you soon get whisked off into a plot when the Emperor of the land enters your cell. His bodygaurds don't know why you are in the cell, it was meant to be off limits to anyone as it is an important secret passage. The gaurds open the passage in your cell and they and the Emperor go through it. You are told to keep back, but being in a cell all day isn't an exhiting concept for a game, so you follow them. The opening scene is a tutorial aswel as plot setter. You get to chose your character's star sign and specail abilities that you would like them to be best at. You also learn some of the cool features like stealing, killing and spell casting.
When you leave the Tutorial you are given a quest (I won't spoil the plot for you but it is very good), you can move between quests that you discover for yourself with ease. But the good thing is you don't have to do the quests. Theres miles and miles of travelling to be done, places to go, people to see/kill/steal from/help.
Thats one very appealing part about The Elder Scrolls IV. But if you don't want to travel you can just select the quick travel icon and get there instantly (but it is more rewarding when you discover new places by travelling the normal way). One other great thing that attracts people to this games is the astonnishing detail. Not just in the scenery character models but the story lines, the player customisation and the dialogue that are so vast you can spend hundreds of hours just completing side missions, let alone the main story or building your character's level up.
The gameplay is very simple. The fighting system works by blocking attacks with the right button on your mouse, and performing attacks with the left button. If you hold the left mouse button you peform a more powerful attack. These are basic controls but are very effective and fun.
I bought this game to see why Gamespot awarded it a 9.3 and on the basis I liked the look of the gameplay. My PC is a low end Radeon 9550 (ATI) with a 512 RAM but a rather decent processor. But the graphics were still relatively fine when i adjusted the resolution. One technical problem is the dreaded LAG you get with a 512 RAM. Of course it is compatible but it seriously affects gameplay. But i won't judge this game on the involidity of my computer. I trust if you get or have this game that you would have or plan on investing in a 1 Gb RAM so the gameplay is tolerable.
In Conclusion, this is a great immersive and vast game with a brilliant storyline and is worth every penny and more. "All its cracked up to be" couldn't have been more appropriate way of putting it. Just some advice. Purchase this game if you don't care about your socail life because this game will own it for a long time :D Also, upgrade your pc for this one because it definately helps.
