The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Amazon.com Sales Rank: 559

Average Customer Rating:

UPC: 093155120600

List price: ~~$19.99~~

		Showing page 1 of 20


Reviews

First | Previous | Next | Last

Over-encumbered...I hate that., December 16, 2008

This is one of the best games I've ever played, seriously.
I think other games like Prince of Persia, Sonic or Metal Gear are pointless now. This is the future and this is what will become of video games. It's worth your money. I hate spending my money in arcade-type-boring-games, I played those games when I was a kid with my Sega Geneis...now it's just stupid to do that...I have a PS3 and I want something more, and this is it!
Games like Oblivion, GTA series or Fallout3 are the future. Games like Star Wars Force Unleashed, Ninja Gaiden, Prine of Persia....etc...are a waste of time and money. They are good games for a weekend, but not for spending 60 dollars for Christ's sake!
Can't wait The Elder Scrolls V!!!!

Oblivion vs. GOTY, December 1, 2008

I played the 'Game of the Year' edition on our PS3 and, before ordering the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Game of the Year Edition I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend the $50+ for the full thing or maybe start with this, less expensive, configuration and then add the Shivering Isles to it. It was a difficult decision to make because there wasn't enough information available at the time or I could not find it and, in the end, I decided to live dangerously :) and went for the GOTY. Now, that the happy Oblivion-playing days are behind me, I believe that it was the right thing to do but I would like to help, if I can, anyone who may not be so sure of what to order, make the right decision.

What you get in this edition:
-------------------------------
This edition has the plain-vanilla 'Oblivion' AND a relatively small expansion called 'Knights of the Nine' which was available separately on other platforms.

Knights of the Nine integrates seamlessly into the Oblivion universe and it's really a set of additional quests, all taking place inside the 'original' Oblivion universe.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles:
-------------------------------
Is part of GOTY but it is not included in this package. In the PS3 world, this represents the difference between the plain Oblivion and the GOTY.

The Shivering Isles are a different realm. The world's texture is different, the characters behave in a different manner, you encounter different monsters and you travel on the path of a different story line. While you can take you weapons and your skills with you, the Shivering Isles is a world onto itself and you go in and out of it through a gateway so you are either in Cyrodiil or you are in the Shivering Isles.

If you are thinking in terms of 'is it worth it?', you should be aware that the Shivering Isles does not double your universe. It is a relatively small world and it has a smaller number of quests. My estimation is that it's probably 1/5 the size of Cyrodiil proper, possibly smaller. In my view, purchasing the GOTY edition was worth it and I have little doubt that, once I was almost done with the main Oblivion I would have ordered the Shivering Isles, regardless of the price but, for anyone who's more cautious, there seems to be no price penalty for purchasing them as separate packages. However, given the convenience of having everything on one disk and given the likelihood that, if you love Oblivion you would buy the Shivering Isles anyway, I would recommend the GOTY.

See my GOTY review below.
_________________________________________________

Oblivion is EXACTLY how I imagined an RPG should be like back in the 80's, while playing Ultimas on Commodore 64s and Atari STs.

Oblivion has weather. While there is no wind other than a constant, gentle breeze, you do get rain/thunderstorms, fog, snow (no blizzards though, because there's not much wind). You don't slip and fall on ice but the sound of your steps is different whether you walk on the road, on grass, on snow or on ice.

The world of Cyrodill is not exactly continent-size, maybe some 20-30 miles in any direction from downtown Imperial City but... what a world this is. Cities, settlements, camps, estates, roadside inns, ruins, caves, dungeons, mines, shrines. The landscape is made up of plains, hard-to-climb mountains, rivers, swamps, waterfalls, seas. You can travel on foot or you can ride a horse. You can fight your way into fame and fortune while doing good or you can sneak into other people's houses or pickpocket the unsuspecting. The guards will chase you and throw you in jail if you do illegal things but, if they like you enough, maybe they will look the other way sometimes. Powerful gods or humble people will ask you do 'little things' for them and, if you can make them happy, they will reward you according to their abilities. You can raise to the top of your profession, as a fighter, as a mage, as a thief or as an assassin or you can assemble your own little gang of dreamy crusaders so that you can fight evil and recover the relics of a legendary knight. Or you can do them all and become all, in sequence or make progress in all paths more or less simultaneously while moonlighting as a gladiator as well and, if still bored, how about helping a lady take care of the rats in her basement (that's NOT what you think) or some drunk guy at the inn get rid of the Trolls that took over his daddy's country estate? Oh and, I forgot, there's a world to save or... wait... there's TWO worlds, thanks to the Shivering Isles extension.

This game is so huge, I can't see how you could really 'finish' it. After more than 2 months of almost daily playing, I am maybe 75-80% into the main quest, half a way through the Knights of the Nine, only started the Shivering Isles adventures. I did become the realm's Chief Mage (and the titles earns me no respect from the scholar mages) and the grand master at the Fighters league, got myself 350,000 gold coins in my pocket, 2 comfortable houses and 2 nice offices, completed close to 100 quests, slaughtered 2000 creatures and hundreds of humans, murdered 4 or 5 and all but one by mistake (friendly fire), didn't even come close to the Thieves guild and, foolishly, made it impossible for me to ever join the Dark Brotherhood (these are the assassins). Also, I've never been a vampire and didn't yet start my career as a professional gladiator. I did massacre the peaceful dwellers of a small village but I did that under the influence of some drugs that made them look to me like bloody Orcs - that was the price to pay for infiltrating and destroying the source of that scourge. Oh, and while briefly in the land of Dementia - or was it Mania? - I did, willingly, push buttons that caused a few careless adventurers to go insane and I watched as they were becoming so. I humiliated a lovely princess - or was it a duchess? - and I killed so many fearsome monsters, I lost count myself but the game does keep a count so it's easy to know. In fact, the game keeps track of so many things... I could easily find out how many jokes I told, how many potions I made, how many horses I've stolen (one), how many hours I slept or how many books I read.

Well...? What do you think?

On the 'not so good' side, the game does slow down when you are fighting 4-5 monsters at the same time or when there are other things that keep the PS3 busy while you are fighting the baddies - like a fire burning. Loading/saving times are a bit too long but, while this is happening, you do get to read some randomly selected good advice on the screen.

The other thing that saddens me is that I don't believe the good people at Bethesda are working on the next chapter yet. I do hope that, as soon as they are done with Fallout-3, they are going to get busy with another adventure in Cyrodill or thereabouts.

My other problem is that I am now fighting with my kids over time on the PS3. We have a bunch of other games but, since Oblivion came into our house, I would say that 95%+ of our PS3 time was on Oblivion.

Excellent!!!, November 3, 2008

I receive my package on time!! Perfect condition & the game is excellent, very satisfied with my purchase & looking foward for some more!!!!

Great Manual, October 29, 2008

My son loves this game. The guidebook pleased him greatly. He loves it!

The strangest kind of disappointment, October 26, 2008

Sometimes I feel there is 2 types of gamers: the ones that finish the game and experience all it has to experience before they can rightly say how they feel about it and then there's those who after awhile get the idea planted in their head of "I'm not going to be able to handle 25 more hours of this". Games like Assassin's Creed had some very bad gameplay choices and incredibly repetitive structures but I still beat it mainly because one part of my brain thought "it's tolerable" but in the case of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, after a few hours in, I thought there was no way I'm going to be able to handle any more of this and there's still 100 hours or more apparently and I have to tell you, I just couldn't handle any more.

Story: Instead of topics about existence and spiritual matters as seen in a lot of Japanese RPG's, Western RPG's tend to be about England in the Middle Ages with characters fighting demons and goblins from an evil realm, Emperors and heirs to thrones and the collecting of mystical artifacts. And that's Oblivion in a nutshell: the Emperor gives you a world-saving quest involving his previously-unknown heir and the realm of Oblivion and the dark forces that go on there. I think that's part of the reason why I couldn't really get into the story as it's too familiar and too close resembles other RPG's.

Graphics: I mentioned this in another review but it definately applies to Oblivion as graphics can be divided in 2 categories: the aesthetic and the performance. Oblivion as far as its look is quite gorgeous and there's many picturesque locales and sceneries that look quite striking (although there's not much variety in them either). On the other hand, despite the 5 gig install which isn't Bioshock/Devil May Cry 4-like where it does it at the beginning and does it through the gameplay itself, it still has texture pop-in where trees just magically appear, framerate dips and even pauses within the game and glitches. One time I wanted to ride my horse but apparently I was in the wrong spot as my character just walked against his side, forcing me to jump away and reposition my character.

Sound/Music: First I'll do the music as it's quite fantastic. Renaissance-esque music with flutes, violins, pianos and more triumphant themes show up and I just loved having the music on and listening to it which especially works well as your travelling the countryside. However, the voice acting is iffy as you'll literally run into people from different ends of the land with the same voice. One mission I had to save a village because its citizens were invisible. Going to a nearby fort and locating a man that gave me the item required to help out, imagine the confusion when the man who sent me on the quest in the first place had the same voice as the guy who gave me the item. Either they're part of a inaccessible cloning experiment or the voice actors didn't even have the common sense to change voices for new characters. At least Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean are here to make things better.

Gameplay: Games like the Grand Theft Auto series or an RPG like Final Fantasy reward players for doing quests off the beaten path. In GTA, it's driving a certain number of taxi missions, police car, ambulances, fire trucks, locating hidden packages and the like. Final Fantasy ranges from card games to ultimate weapons or fetch quests. Oblivion is similar as the main love many have for this game is the large amount of stuff you can do. From levelling your character's stats and equipment to taking on various quests from people to item collecting, it's fair to say if you're a completionist well this game will keep you busy. I, however, like to finish the main quest with the occasional optional stuff (Gold Chocobos let's say) but I didn't even bother taking on most of them and wanted to finish the main quest, which is sad cause there wasn't really a driving motivational reason to beat the game other than saying I "beat it".

The oft-maligned levelling system of Oblivion rightly gets it scorn as you don't progress by EXP to conquer your foes necessarily but rather repeatedly using one skill. Want to be a better swordsman? Cut down lots of enemies. A better sniper? Use your bow. Better your shield and armor? Get hit. Not only does this feel rather strange but it also makes it easier to work your way around the enemies who level up with you. Key is to better your stats so that a level 20 run-of-the-mill demon won't clobber you like your inexperienced level 1 self. I don't know about you but I prefer the traditional system of taking on multiple enemies so I can kick a level boss all over a room by the flick of my finger and not have the jerk bust my balls because I don't use my shield more often.

At a certain point, you have to stop trying to force a game and just take it for what it is. Unlike other games I initially didn't care for, only to keep playing because something kept bringing me in, the more time I thought about playing Oblivion more, the more thoughts of tediousness and general lack of motivation I had for completing the game. Sometimes bad games don't deserve such hatred but on occasion even the heavyweights aren't always for everyone.


First \| Previous \| Next \| Last

							January 8, 2009


Audio & Video	Books	Camera & Photo	DVD	Music	VHS	Video Games