The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Written by Glenn Wigmore  on May 05, 2006

Review: No need to wait (and hope) for what might be with Blue Dragon and Lost OdysseyЕ Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is an RPG that charms with its detail and overwhelms with its scope.

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After staggering around in amazement at how rich and detailed the land within Oblivion is, some town or city in the immediate vicinity will likely sidetrack you. Within these towns and settlements is a wide range of people from many different races. You will come across Argonians (lizard-like creatures), Bretons (mages), Redguards (a reverse stereotype of black men who are the most revered and noteworthy soldiers in all the land), Kajit (humanoid felines who break the law), and many other distinct races. Many of these people will immediately come to you and present their problems, pleading for assistance or guidance. One person in the city of Chorrol might want you to find a long-lost brother or maybe a villager in Skingrad thinks someone is following him with evil intentions Ц you'll get all manner of quests.

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The variety of quests really helps keep the experience of Oblivion fresh for hours and hours of playtime. You'll often be dispatched to abandoned (well, by humans, anyway) mines or deep caves where a missing item is supposedly located or where someone was last seen. These sequences are made quite creepy and memorable by the use of the torch; the item is selected by using the aforementioned inventory system, and it can be held aloft along with a blade for maximum cave-crawling tension. The end of many quests never usually turns into some sort of boss fight or large climax, but Oblivion is a game that understands that Уthe journeyФ is often more important than Уthe end.Ф Many of the quests have great twists and turns that provide all manner of thrilling, melancholy or even genuinely creepy moments. Characters often have ambiguous moral compasses, and you will likely find yourself helping all manner of unsavory individuals on more than one occasion. One particularly memorable quest led to the investigation of a bizarre cult in some small burg outside of a main city. An Argonian girl had gone missing there and investigating the town further revealed some strange happenings within (in more ways than one) the small locale Ц great twilight zone stuff, here.

Of course, all quests provide lots of Knights of the Old Republic-style moral choices. Oftentimes, it will be up to you whether a main character of a certain quest dies, and if they do it will potentially end the quest or alter the fashion in which you must complete the given task. In fact, you might find yourself doing many unconventional things to complete tasks. Maybe picking the pockets of a guard is the answer. But what if you persuade the guard by telling a few jokes (via the game's interesting, but still unnecessary, persuasion system)? Of course, you could just follow the guard by watching his schedule and attack him when he's vulnerableЕ sayЕ when he's asleep. All of these choices will be at your disposal, and there is often many ways to accomplish a problem.

What aids in making these quests and decisions so memorable is the attention to detail that has been paid to the characters that inhabit the land. They animate reasonably well, but moreover they possess a level of AI that is reminiscent of the Dreamcast release of Shenmue, but even more so than that. You will be able to follow people's daily routine and observe their habits; in fact, you may even have to wait until people are in certain situations in order to УdealФ with themЕ or just talk to them. And talking to them is something that you will also do a great deal, and this experience is made even more interesting thanks to the insane amount of voiced speech within the game. Sure, you've got notable actors like Patrick Stewart, Sean Bean, and Terrance Stamp doing certain main characters, but even the town bum, the legion guards, the innkeeper, the thief, and just about everybody you can think of from any walk of life has their own unique personality and verbal quirks. The game does use the same voice actors to do specific races, and while this may seem like a detractor, it actually manages to order the character classes for you so that things aren't as confusing as they could've been with far more voice actors involved. Certain characters are voiced so well that you actually have some sort of emotional investment whether they live or die, and you might even find yourself laughing at a story you overhear between two villagers or at the odd speech patterns of certain characters (one mansion-dwelling Orc comes to mindЕ).

Also get used to many people giving you tasks, as many of the cities also contain guilds. The main guilds to join are the Fighters Guild, the Thieves Guild, the Mages Guild, and the Dark Brotherhood, but there are a few Уone quest and you're inФ groups and organizations, as well. As you might expect, the Fighters Guild focuses on helping out people in tough situations, but in legitimate ways. The Mages Guild does much of the same, but often has concerns that reach into more worldly (or otherworldly) realms. The Thieves Guild will provide some Robin Hood experiences, but will also require you to do a few questionable activities. Finally, the Dark Brotherhood allows the evil part of one's psyche to shine Ц this guild specializes in assassinations. All of these guilds contribute to the game's many unlockable achievements, and you'll likely be anxiously awaiting a promotion from each guild since it provides more love for your Gamerscore itch.

But wait, there's more. Beyond the endless stream of guild and side quests, there are a few more side quests, and then a couple of more side quests, and then an equally substantial main storyline that has its own arc, but that does still tie into the themes touched on in the various cities and guilds. Before you know it, the very face of the land you're playing on will change a good deal, and you'll have an ever-increasing horde of adversaries to deal with. But honestly, while the main story does provide plenty of action and adventure, there's so much more to Oblivion that it's hard to break it down to just combat and action. This game does the combat so much better than the previous Elder Scrolls release, but even that is just a piece of the puzzle to what makes the game so great.

As said before, Oblivion really understands that the journey of the adventure is what really makes the adventure. You'll want to carry on because of the creepy storylines, the intriguing rewards, the constant level ups, and new achievements. It won't be uncommon to find yourself devoting quite a bit of time to finishing off a guild in order to complete that УchapterФ of the game experience. In fact, many of the guilds almost seem like the equivalent of some budget-priced games by themselves Ц a testament to Oblivion's insane depth and quality.

All of this gaming quality is teamed with the some amazing visual and audio detail that really rounds out the experience. The vastness of the landscape was detailed before, but think about the ridiculous love (from the developers) that was paid to putting individual strawberries in bowls or thirty some odd page books on shelves in the Arcane University library. There's so much minute detail in the small environments that it really hammers home the vastness of the game when standing out on the planes of Cyrodiil. When sitting on a horse contemplating what to do next, it's easy to get overwhelmed by what choices could be made; however, it's also easy to get overwhelmed at just how much effort went into making this game world what it truly is. Complimenting the visual details is the excellent voice acting Ц as mentioned above Ц and the awesome score that really reaches head-and-shoulders above what the previous game did. Of course, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind didn't actually have much of a score, but this game's music blows away even some of the best ever written for RPGs. The sweeping themes and memorable cave-crawling score/sound design are easily some of the best in recent memory and only minor repetition in some sound effects come to mind as a detraction Ц and this is totally forgivable with how monstrously huge this game is, even from an audio perspective.

How long will Oblivion last the average gamer? Probably in the region of 70 or 80 hours if you really let yourself succumb to the adventure Ц and this is quite an easy thing to do. Many people claim to have milked 200 or more hours out of the flawed Morrowind, but I'm sure many a gamer can easily accept half of that since so many aesthetic and mechanical features of this release are so vastly superior.

If you're an RPG fan by any stretch, check out this game if you haven't already. Even if you're not a fan of what was done in Morrowind, you might be pleasantly surprised by what has been accomplished for this release. The game presents an adventure that is so wide open yet it somehow manages to remain manageable in a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants manner Ц and the adventure will be quite different for each person who plays it. So many aspects of the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion are so well done that it sets the standard for next-gen RPGs and is easily a frontrunner for game of the year.