Is it truly the next-gen RPG that it's been hyped to be?
Unlike alot of 360 owners, I was extremely skeptical and even somewhat uncaring when I heard for the first time about Oblivion coming to 360. I personally played the previous entry in the series on the original Xbox, and was done with it within minutes. The first person aspect of it really didn't appeal to me and I just felt lost in general. However, that was long ago. Now fast forward to the current situation. I have an Xbox 360 and am quickly running out of games left to play on it. So, after hearing all the hype and doing a little research, I invested into a reservation for Oblivion. On launch day, I picked up my copy, drove home, and managed to squeeze in about half hour of play before I had to head to work. For the first time in a LONG time, I felt like I had a game I could look forward to playing when I got home. Here's my breakdown on the game as a whole.
Graphics: If you haven't heard by now (and I don't know how that would be possible), the graphics in this game are killer. I've stated many times previously that graphics do not a good game make, but they do not hurt in assisting to make a game great. The environments are the best I've seen yet...topping easily even Condemned's dark environments which I was and still am quite impressed by. The landscape is vast, and the drawing distance was done exceptionally well. You can literally look around and see miles and miles of grass, water, etc. on the game's MASSIVE world..and I do mean massive. Character models look great, a fix to my only real complaint of the other games I've played so far, as even the facial textures are superior to the other titles. This is probably the most you will ever hear me talking about the visuals of a game, but seriously, this one is unbelievable.
Sound: I found the sound to be fitting to it's purpose. If you're moving on different types of terrain, you will be able to hear the difference. The voice overs are exceptionally well done and fit the characters. Of course, you won't escape hearing certain phrases repeated by the populus of towns as they walk the streets, but you will probably barely notice due to the fact that everything else runs so smooth. One complaint here though and it's a total nit-pick and will NOT be reflected in the scoring I gave this game: When you strike an enemy with your weapon, I would have loved to have heard a good sound effect. Instead it's a bit generic. Most probably won't even notice this, but I'm a very picky gamer and I felt that it should be mentioned.
Control: Can be a little tedious at first but it's no big deal. I'd say fifteen minutes to twenty, and you'll have it down. The biggest challenge here are the "hot keys" that you can assign using the D-pad. A common feature on PC games, Oblivion allows the designation of hot keys so that a player may use an item without opening the inventory screen by simply assigning an item to a direction on the D-pad. That way, with one press, you can heal your health, etc. Just remember what you assigned to what key or it could come back to haunt you. You can always check the menu if you're not sure what you assigned, but I say remember because the whole purpose here is to NOT access the menu. And if you're nearly dead and hit a key that restores Magic and not health......
Gameplay: Things here are pretty smooth on the whole, with a good framerate and no-more-than-average load times. The ability to switch to third person at the click of a button is extremely handy, although the control in third person suffers a bit and quickly goes to show that the game is meant to be played in it's default first-person. The A.I. is pretty good, although a bit jumpy at times: For example (THIS IS NOT A SPOILER), at a point in the game you are told you may use a certain horse to escort two characters to the next town. When I went to the stable, I accidentally jumped on the wrong horse. Before I could get down from it, the two Non-playable characters I was supposed to escort were screaming "Thief!" and casting fiery death upon me. What's worse, when I did dismount, they continued to attack and since you can't kill them, only knock them unconcious, I wound up restarting my game and getting on the right horse. You could say that's realistic, but I thought it was a bit of an over reaction. Also, and this one really bummed me out, but, even with the excellent draw line (distance you can see when you look to the horizon) in world map mode, I found myself running into the inescapable "invisible wall". I would come to the base of a hill and, when I tried to run up it, I just ran in place. And you can go about halfway up some very steep hills in some places and find this same problem. It's a little awkward to watch your character in 3rd-person running along an embankment that would, in reality, be near-impossible to climb, much less run along. There's a TON of menus in this game and they take a while to get used to, as do the mini-games. On that note, the one thing I ABSOLUTELY HATED about this game was the lockpick minigame. What ever happened to "I have a key, and I open the box."? Why, all of a sudden, must everyone be a Sam Fisher and lockpick everything???? Not to mention, if you fail in the minigame, your lockpick breaks. I broke 23 lockpicks on a chest that had a difficulty rating of "Easy". Nuff said.
All in all, Oblivion is a great game regardless of a few glitches (There's NOTHING more annoying than standing in front of the person you are talking to, but not being able to see them because, right as you hit "A", a character walked between you two and is now totally blocking your view of the person you are speaking to..and for some reason, he/she just stands there through your whole conversation....). Let's face it, the 360 lineup is hurting for some new games. But even if it wasn't, I'd STILL recommend Oblivion. I know I harped on a few bad things, but I figured I should since everyone else, including myself, did give the game props for all it did right...which was alot. I wouldn't recommend this game as a rental, however, because if you do like it (and you most likely will), you have no chance of seeing everything this game has to show you in a simple rental period. The story is awesome and you will want to see it through to the end. I strongly recommend this game if you have a 360. Beware, though...it will probably be the last one you'll have to buy for a long time. Is the next-gen here? Oblivion says yes, and here to stay. Thank you for reading and enjoy Oblivion.