One of the best games of all-time, and best RPG so far this year.
Nearly everything about this game is perfect, or close to it. You really have to look deep into the game to find any “flaws.” In fact, the game is so accessible, that even people who don’t normally play RPG’s can enjoy it.
GAMEPLAY
Morrowind was a great RPG on the Xbox, but Oblivion takes everything that was great about it’s predecessor and makes it even better. Morrowind’s greatest feature was also its biggest flaw: it’s open-ended design. The problem with Morrowind was that it was too open-ended; to the point that it was sometimes difficult to know where to go next.
Oblivion fixes this by giving you a very well designed quest log, and the ability to map a quest to your compass so you know where to go next. You can also open your world map, and instantly travel to any of the major cities, or other locations you’ve already visited. Time still advances, and doesn’t make it seem like a cheap “teleport.”
The combat got a much-needed overhaul from ES3, too. Combat feels very natural, and intense. When you swing a weapon, you connect. When you hold your shield up, you block. It really feels like you’re involved in a melee fight.
The GUI and inventory looks much better as well. You can now access everything from one inventory screen. It’s easy to sort items, find quests, and check out your character stats. You can also map items and abilities to the 8 d-pad directions, but I did have some problems occasionally hitting the wrong key.
GRAPHICS
Easily the best looking game I have ever seen. Everything about the visuals is stunning. From the excellent lighting in dungeons, to the vast draw distance, and the incredible textures. Oblivion does an excellent job drawing you into the world, and making you feel like everything is real.
The character faces are perhaps the most detailed I have ever seen. The only problem with the characters is the animations are a little stiff. When talking to an NPC, they don’t show much body language, and can get into that “talking head” mode.
There’s also a fair bit of loading time while on the over-world, but it’s brief and not unexpected considering how great everything looks. You will also frequently encounter loading times when you enter a dungeon, town, or building. You also wont see very many characters on screen at once due to their high level of detail. But these “flaws” are forgivable considering how great everything else looks.
SOUND
The sound is also just about the best I have ever heard in a video game. The musical score is top-notch, and changes based on the mood of the environment. Ambient sounds have a musical quality to themselves. Birds chirping, footsteps, water under a bridge; all of it sounds life-like, and further draws you into the game.
The sound during combat is fast paced, and gives you a great feeling on intensity. Sword attacks, blocks, and spell effects sound amazing. All these factors blend together to give you a great feeling like you’re actually there.
VALUE
I’m told the main quest takes about 40 hours to complete. But there are literally hundreds of side quests, and dungeons to explore. You can even join a guild, fight in an arena, pickup a trade skill, purchase property, and own a horse. Because of these side elements to the game, you can easily spend 100+ hours engrossed in this game.
Leveling up remains mostly the same as it was in Morrowind: you get better at skills by using them, and leveling up your class’s primary skills will increase your character level. What’s different is the way it’s presented. Morrowind dropped you into the deep end, but Oblivion has a very natural tutorial. After the opening movie, you only pick your character’s race. After that you are plunged into the story as you escape from prison. Along the way you gain access to several spells, weapons, and armor. You’re free to use them as you like, and as you reach the end of the escape you’re given a suggested character class based on how you used the available skills and items. You can change it to one of the pre-made character classes, or you can make your own class.
All this feels very natural, and does a good job of moving away from the standard D&D style character generation. The only problem I have with this style is that you can’t plan your character’s growth, or pick specialized skills like dual wielding. All you can do is keep using the skills you want to get better at.
From the moment you leave the tutorial dungeon, the world is wide open for you to explore as you see fit. You can be both ends of the good and evil spectrum. You can just do the main story quests, or ignore them completely and just do your own thing. You don’t even need to be doing a quest to have fun in this game. Explore the many dungeons till your hearts content, or try to steal from everyone in town. It really is limitless what you can do in this game.
Nearly everything about Oblivion is very well done. It’s hard to find any faults in this game. It’s both accessible to new RPG players, and deep enough to satisfy hardcore fans. This is not only the first, and best RPG for the 360, but one of the best games ever made. 20 years from now, people will look back in Oblivion, and say that this game single-handedly changed the gaming industry for the better.