No other RPG compares to the amazing gameplay experience we are given in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
By now, we all pretty much know the gameplay of the Elder Scrolls games. It's a first person RPG, filled with lots if slashing and hacking swordfights to satisfy even the gamers that hate RPGS. Oblivion, as I said before, feels very similar to that of Morrowind, but it also has a few very obvious add ons. For example, blocking in Morrowind was known to be a big pain, but in Oblivion, you now use the right trigger to swing your weapon, while the left trigger blocks for you. So the swinging and blocking mechanics are a whole lot smoother now for one thing. As in Morrowind, you can change from a third person to first person view. It's your choice. But a little advice would be to stick with the first person view. The whole game itself is alot more satisfying to play while in first person mode. The visuals will obviously look a lot better that much closer up, and all of the action just feels better during that view. The aiming is alot trickier in third person view, like trying to pick up items, open doors, and even some of the combat itself.
There's so much to the ganeplay that there's just too much to write. Like in Morrowind, you can choose to either complete the main questline, or roam around the massive world of Tamriel and either explore, or find a whole lot of random sidequests to do. These sidequests can result in leveling up your character and getting tons of money, new spells and items, etc. When Oblivion was being advertised before it came out, they were saying it will contain over 200 hours of total gameplay. When people first heard that, it seemed completely crazy. But once you actually dive into the game and start playing, you'll instantly see how deep the whole thing really is. Oblivion, in no exaggeration, truly does contain what was advertised. Well over 200 hours of gameplay.
There's so much stuff to do in this game, I actually think it's not even possible to complete everything. It's hard to enough just to actually find all the hidden cities, caverns, and forts, much less complete all the quests within them. The game is just revolutionary. Once you start playing, you can just feel that you're playing a next gen game. Quite simply, there's nothing that isn't next gen in this game. Not one thing.
While we're on the topic of next gen gaming, let's talk about the graphics here. You're playing a next gen game. So normally you'd expect next-gen graphics. And oh boy, does Oblivion deliver in this department. I've never seen anything quite like this game in my entire life. The lighting and shadowing couldn't be done any more perfectly, and when you're on top of a mountain, staring into the distance on the top of Imperial City, your jaw will literally drop. I think I might have gasped the first time I experienced this. No matter what any reviews say, Oblivion is most definitley the best looking Xbox 360 game out there as of right now. There's just no way any of those other games top it. All of the weapons, armors, and cities are just amazingly detailed. I have stopped and stared at my weapon so many times while playing. And in fact, I've gotten myself killed doing that too, so be careful. I was gazing atop of a nice lake in the sunset, then going on to looking at my inredibly detailed sword, and then a Timber Wolf attacked me from behind. The funny thing is, I didn't even care, because I was going to sit there and look at my weapon's detailing until my eyes were completely satisfied. My eyes were then more satisfied when I saw what happened to my body after I had been killed.
This same story also covers the physics section of the game as well. After I was killed by that dang Timber Wolf, by body rolled all the way down the hill, and into the water. Oblivion contains some of the most amazing, life-like physics I've ever seen in a game before. When you hit a dead creature with your weapon after it is killed, it flails around crazily as you hit it. Ragdoll physics at their best! The same things happen with items as well. If you hop on the top of a table with items on it, all of the objects will fly off the table and some will even crash all over the floor. The physics are truly eye-popping like they've been described before. And sometimes, while your throwing items everywhere across the room, the extremely smart NPC AI will get angry with you, and even put up a fight every now and then.
The AI is also very well done. And this is just an understatement. There's just so many different things they can do...It's just mind boggling! You can even listen in on some random civilian's conversations and they'll look at you and say something like, "Quit eavesdropping!" All of the NPCs respond a lot like any human would respond to the current situation. You can obviously tell that Bethesda put a whole lot of work into the character AI. It's very, very impressive at the least.
This kind of feeds into the sound effects of the game. Voice acting is superb, and it's superb in all cases. There's never any spots where the voice acting or dialogue writing is bad. It's all perfectly done. No bad spots whatsoever. All of the weapon sound effects are great, too. Loud, brutal clangs are heard throughout swordfights, and there are some pretty good gory sound effects as well as you slice into a Zombie with your steel battle axe. These effects definitley make the game much more satisfying.
I'd say Oblivion really gives you that bang for your buck that gamers hunger for. It's the same price as any other 360 game. 60 big ones. But this game is worth every penny, as it's near perfect in every sense of the word. The main factor being the length of the game. Which is really, really long. You'll never finish it. Trust me on this one. It'll take you a heck of a long time.