The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Either you hated or loved The Elder Scrolls. Especially since Morrowind, the third installment in the series, the gaming community has been basically broken up into two groups: Those who loved the huge environment and deep playability, or those who considered the game boring, slow, and overly big. Well, ever since the advent of the XBOX 360 tech demos (And now since it's out), Bethesda Software has been showing off The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, the fourth installment- which only needed to show the wonderful graphics to get virtually every single Elder Scrolls fan to upgrade their computers or buy a XBOX 360.

And three days ago, the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was launched for the PC and XBOX 360, marking the first time that the “Younger Generation” consoles like the XBOX and the PS2 were completely ignored for the newer generation- and with good reason. The Elder Scrolls IV is, first and foremost, a huge update to the kind of gameplay that was popular in the older games. And, as I'll go on to show, Bethesda has virtually done it all right- but significant question has to go to the actual gameplay mechanics.

In the Elder Scrolls IV, you really are taking on the role of a character in a MMORPG that isn't even Massively Multiplayer, or even online. The game itself is exactly what you would expect from any given popular MMO- you start off by customizing your character, the game has a huge list of different attributes to gain and use, and everything is done in a game style similar to what one finds in Everquest or World of Warcraft. In the version I tested (The slightly superior PC version), the whole game plays almost like a modified First Person Shooter engine, which the game utilized somewhat oddly in The Elder Scrolls 3, and it comes back again to haunt me and make me confused.


The first thing about this game I need to get off the table is that this game is absolutely beautiful, and probably one of the most graphically aesthetic (And graphically intense) games on the market. The game pushes the limits of ANY PC that you will touch, which is very evident by the basic requirements to play this game. Everything looks stunningly real, from the environments to the weapons, and everything has this style to it that even makes The Lord of the Rings look cheap. It doesn't matter if you are in first person or third person mode, your character and everything with him is painstakingly detailed and nice- especially when going into first person view with your weapon out, which feels so realistic I almost felt like swinging my arms around. The Elder Scroll's style best fits as what one would consider the "Real Fantasy" kind of style, the American style that many people see in Dungeons and Dragons art or the like. This means that all of the characters in this game are made to be realistic, but unfortunately, that's where this game ends up failing a little bit, as I'll mention below.

The world itself needs attention as well. As in the original game (And cited as a plus or a minus, depending on whom you talk to), Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion's world is absolutely huge in about every respect. Even games notorious for long worlds like World of Warcraft have nothing on this game, with huge mountains and long valleys passing between you and any given objective. Honestly, I felt this was too real (As 10 minutes to get from point A to point B is annoying, but thank god they have an auto-travel feature) for my tastes, but people wanting to truly immerse themselves will find this the perfect way to do so. I got lost in the world, the sheer expansiveness and detail of every single rock and tree is impressive, and it makes you wonder how Bethesda managed to pump this game out in under 100 years- because it seems like that would be how long it would take to actually finish this game and master it.

The presentation is spot on. From running around swinging your sword to talking to villagers, everything is intuitive and realistic. I felt overwhelmed by the sense of depth in even the conversations, as this game essentially throws you into a foreign environment and expects you to start learning of the world of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. This only ends up making the game feel more expansive, which is wonderful, because the more it does, the bigger the world seems, and by the time you're done you feel like a fish in the ocean- so much to do, so little time. As I mentioned above, I still felt this was somewhat of a negative, because I felt aimless- I was given quests and things to do, but it was not blatantly explained to me how I should go about doing them. Should I train midway? Were these introductory tasks? Was I just intended to go from point to point? Sure, it allows you to do about anything, but when you feel like you're lost, that's a problem. That would be somewhat fine if it were a MMORPG, because at least I could ask someone, but it seems like I just got lost and irritated through the game.

One fun part about the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is the battle system. Yes, believe it or not, a RPG has a reasonably enjoyable battle system. In the game, as it is in a first-person/third-person like setup, it actually makes the game what one could consider “Live”, as in, you-click-to-swing-the-sword. That actually helps the game immensely, because if this game had a mediocre battle system, it would probably get a 0 from me- the whole game needs that engine that bad. The battle engine itself turns this game from a bore fest to something more akin to an Action/RPG in some respects, which saves it from the depths of mediocrity in ways I can't really explain.

The character creation and control system is in depth, but I just have one very small complaint. The character models are probably the ugliest things on the face of the planet. It's not how they move, nor how they act, nor actually the model themselves- it's the textures and overall design. All of the characters are either needlessly pale or overly dark, and don't really have any kind of attractiveness to them at all, they all are quite ugly. In fact, it got to the point where after about 10 minutes of messing with my character, I just gave up- he was going to be ugly no matter what I did, so screw what he looks like. Considering my character ends up wearing a helmet through the majority of the game for that +2 armor and the rest of his body is clad in ultra-heavy iron, it doesn't matter anyway, he could be horribly deformed and I would never know.


Oh, and now it's time to go on a small rant about technical issues. You see, with such a high powered game, it seems that ALL reviewers assigned to this game, no matter what the site, are having issues with it. It's not so much crashes or bugs, it's just that Bethesda doesn't realize we all don't have $50,000 systems, and as such, we like to be able to see our graphics at more than 2 frames per second. The issue with The Elder Scrolls in this respect is that it gets overly ambitious in the graphics and gameplay department, and when it does, my top of the line Alienware PC, which runs Half Life 2 at maximum settings at 120 frames per second, ends up chugging the thing at four frames per second. The issue ended up boiling down to some odd light effects from the death of certain soldiers at the start of the game, but it pissed me off bad. So, I turned around and cranked it down and had ATI Catalyst do some of the harder work (Like AntiAliasing), and lo and behold, it could handle it. I don't know if it was necessarily Bethesda's fault here or just the fact that their game demands a lot from PCs, but either way, this will definitely prevent gamers with anything other than a gaming PC from playing this game effectively. Of course, even with the graphics cranked down the game is beautiful, but I have always felt you lose a little bit of the game when you crank it down so bad everything is blurry on screen, but that's just personal preference- if you can't help it, you can't help it.

If it isn't blatantly obvious already, this game is long- as in, hours to days worth of gameplay. Take, for example, your average Final Fantasy game. The average length of a Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion dungeon is about as long as aforementioned Final Fantasy game. You think I'm kidding- they are long and hard, and unless you bulk up, you're essentially dead when you come in. The best way I can really drive this home is to basically explain The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion as one big 3D version of Diablo II, complete with huge amounts of enemies, needless back-and-forth, and huge dungeons that you never think you'll get through, and really never DO get through. I can imagine in an alternate universe where I had all the time in the world to expend and nothing better to do me loving this kind of long gameplay, but the fact of the matter is a game this huge is such a substantiated undertaking that you might as well quit your job and/or drop out of school just to complete it.

What does this game end up being? It's like a huge book with a good story. You can go ahead and read that book, but to understand it and enjoy it, you're devoting so much time that you may feel better off just not reading it. That's how Oblivion comes off in about every respect, because the reward for continuing on this game is something only really comparable to a MMORPG- get more armor, get a better weapon, kill more things- and you don't even get the benefit of showing off your magical +9,000,000 armor. Anyone who can finish this game might as well pat themselves on the back- it's just a little geeky accomplishment, kinda like how people do speed runs through the original Mario Brothers, and I'm lost as to the whole guiding purpose of the thing.


That can apply to any game, I suppose, and I keep feeling like I'm not giving The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion the credit it deserves. After all, this is one HELL of an accomplishment by Bethesda, and probably deserves an award for the longest and most complex game out on the market there is. It's literally so big- and not randomly generated big, big as in they did every single pixel of it- that you will immerse yourself for hours. The only problem is that when you do get out of the proverbial immersion you got from this game, you will be left thinking “Wait, why did I spend all that time doing that?”. That's the impression I got.

At the end of the day, I recommend The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to anyone with an XBOX 360, hands down no doubt. Not only is it a great game to have on an XBOX 360 to make it less of an action oriented machine, but it will be the best way to truly harness the graphics of the system. Now, if you have a PC, it's a little different. This game is no different than if you were to take World of Warcraft or Everquest 2 and just make it offline and lonely, which means of course that if you want to play a game like this, go get one of the aforementioned games and at least be a little social. Still, this game is something for Bethesda to be proud of, a trophy to put on their wall, something to show and say “Yes, I did that- I created the biggest and longest game in history”. And it is- but it just might be too big for us mortals.

4.5 star(s) out of 5

Discuss More PC Games More RPG Games