A Game that combines First person with all the wonderful aspects of RPG, this is simply quite extraordinary.....
Gameplay: The combat system is surprisingly quite deep. You get huge array of medieval weapons to choose from and even “modify” them by enchanting special spells to make them even stronger. The game has a very well Alchemy system that you can use to take ingredients from the world like flowers and beef and make it into a potion that you can use to restore health or even sell it to a merchant. This is where RPG kicks in, the more you combat and make potions and cast spells, the stronger you get in each of those categories. The entire land which the game takes place is just HUGE, in terms of both level of detail and size. You can either journey by horseback to the other side or if you feel you need to get there quick, a map is available which will allow you to teleport there (the game intelligently calculates how much time you would have needed to go there and based on that, it adjusts and the time and day).
There are many quests throughout Tamriel. You can follow the main quest which would take about 20 hrs if you are really good. The game also throws in various guilds which you can join and offer their own quests, progress them and you will eventually get to the highest rank each guild has to offer. Also there many other quests, you just have to explore Tamriel, talk with people and see how you can help them in their cause. In all, all the quests should take more than 50hrs, that quite a bargain for a 50$ game don’t you think?
Graphics: This is a next gen game and because it has no current gen console cousin, it looks outstanding. All the graphical effects you expect from a next gen game are present here. With the help of a certain mod, it even improves these things quite dramatically. One of my complaints is that distant textures look a LOT blurry and the transition to higher resolution texture is not smooth. I can understand Bethesda did this to run on a wide variety of systems, a slider of to adjust draw distance for the textures and objects would have been useful; none the less a mod is already here to correct this issue. Also the character models appears to be recycled a lot, even their facial features seams to be altered, you can tell the similarity.
Sound: The game employs great “medieval type” music throughout the game which really enhances the experience. Also a dynamic music system which changes according to the mood and the location. My only complain is that the voice actors, even thought they r really good, tend to deliver their voice on far more than 1 character, I think there are about 15 voice actors lending their voice to the thousand of Tamriel.
Physics: The game does follow Newton’s law even though he wasn’t even bore yet, get it:)…. I hope so. Anyways the game physics engine is powered by Havoc, the same engine which powers the physics heavy Half-Life 2. The physics engine of Oblivion comes very close to that of Half-Life 2, which is a phenomenal achievement.
Replayablity: Despite such a campaign in all, the game is huge replayable. For e.g.: I finished the main quest with a character who is good with sword but not with magic. I will start another game with a character that will be good with magic and maybe not so with weapons combat.
Also the community is developing great mods for PC users which are a plus. But 360 owners need not to worry, as Bethesda is making mods which 360 and PC users can download (some are free, some require small amount of money or Microsoft points for 360).
All in all I like to say Oblivion is one of my life’s best games and I have never been so much addicted to a game in my entire life. Buy it now! I promise you, you won’t regret it. I would also like to thank you for reading my review and Bethesda for this great game; I am already waiting for a sequel or expansion pack.