Oblivion gives addiction a new meaning

I don’t normally endorse addictions especially with video game but with Oblivion I would be more than willing to make an exception. To be honest I never expected a video game to addict me so much, I don’t have a very addictive personality, but for the first month of Oblivion I could not stop playing, eventually the addiction eased and I found time to work in plenty of other games although I still play Oblivion a lot. It is one of the reasons I have not wrote here in a while and I did always plan to review it but kept putting it off since I don’t think it is possible to go over everything and because I don’t think I could ever give it proper justice, but I shall try my best.

Oblivion’s plot is well done and contains a good setup. After extensively creating a character and choosing just about everything about it, it is time to begin the game. You awake in a prison and find the emperor and his bodyguards arrive there, the emperor states you are from his dreams and sees great promise in you. The emperor is being followed by assassins who have already claimed his three sons and is coming for him. As you are lead past the prison walls the emperor is finally killed by assassins, but before he dies he gives you the amulet of kings and asks you to deliver it, as well as close the oblivion gates that are being opened up across Cyrodil. That is the basic setup of the game’s story, after that you find your way out of the sewers and can either deliver the amulet or do whatever else you want. That’s the main draw of Oblivion, there is no boundaries and you could play this game forever and never start the main quest since there is so much else to do and there is never really any incentive to do so other than you want the main storyline to progress.

Some may say that is a bad thing, never really having to do the main quest but Oblivion is one of those rare games where the main story is overshadowed by the side quests and the game itself. However the main story is actually pretty good and has some interesting quests. They could have easily made it just shutting Oblivion gates until you get to the final battle but they took time and made each quest as interesting as the last. But the main quest is not exactly why Oblivion got so famous, it is because there are hundreds of other quests to do and a huge world to explore. You can access quests by talking to certain people and perhaps being asked to help them with their problems or by more discreet methods where you have to do some exploring or by doing a specific act. A good majority of quest come from the four main guilds you can join.

The four main guilds comprise of two evil ones and two heroic ones. The Dark brotherhood and the thieves’ guild are the evil ones and give you infamy points for the quest. The mages guild and the fighter’s guild are the heroic ones and give you fame points. Each guild has its own quest line and most have very well throughout stories and are quite through. You keep doing quests to advance in the guilds earning promotions until you become the guild master. The Dark Brotherhood is by far the most fun guild; it is a secretive society where you assignments consist of murdering individuals. This is usually fun because you can accomplish it in creative methods and to try not and get a bounty. The guild also gives you some of the best rewards. The Thieves guild is not nearly as fun but provides fewer but more challenging quests. You are usually required to go steal an object that range from royal heirlooms to wizard’s arrows. The end of the guild gets challenging and the last quest takes a long time to finish. The mages guild is a public guild and they are committed to rooting out necromancy and teaching safe magic. The quests include going to forts and caves and killing necromancers. The quests are not as creative and neither is the storyline but it has its advantages and does provide some fun. The Fighters guild is the last guild and they are a group of people who do dangerous jobs for the public. There are three main guilds and most quest include going to certain places and clearing out the creatures that infest them. Towards the end of the guild it gets fun and creative as you must stop a rival guild called Blackwood Company. Those are the four main guilds that provide plenty of quests and hours of fun, even after you beat there are special advantages and have something to look foreword to. There are also several minor guilds that may or may not offer quests but still have their advantages.

To say this is a huge game would be something of an understatement. Never in my life could I have imagined a game this big, it is breath taking the scope of the whole world. There are nine main cities you can explore throughout and literally hundreds of caves, forts, Elvin ruins, mines, camps, and settlements. Your compass will always show symbols indicating what is ahead of you and very rarely is your compass blank for very long. There is always something to do. Even if you have beaten all the quests and guilds the fun never ends just exploring and seeing how many places you can fine. Besides being incredibly huge this game houses some of the best graphics I have ever seen. They are breathtaking and look amazing. The main city in the game is located at the center of Cyrodiil and can be seen from very far away, the water is realistic, and the grassy planes are nicely colored. Just looking at this game is amazing and everything is incredibly textured.

In Oblivion you determine your choices and you can choose to be either good or evil. By doing bad deeds from various quests or by killing will give you infamy points and doing good deeds such as most other quests gives you fame. By having more fame than infamy people will like you more and you can pray at Wayshrines. Infamy does not exactly have advantages but it is fun to see people respond to you when they see you. Perhaps the most astounding factor of Oblivion is the NPC’s. There are thousands of them and they are all programmed with daily schedules and routines. They might farm a little during the day and go out and walk around town a little and by the end of the day they return to their houses and sleep. It is incredible how many characters there are and how they all have something to do.

The control scheme works out nicely and is simple enough to use. To move simply move the right joy stick and use the left one to change views. A is your action button allowing you to open doors and talk to people. B pulls up your menu screen where you can select items and view them as well as look at your map and see your health, and other things. Y allows you to jump, and X equips and un-equips your weapon. R is your attack button and L is to block. Right Bumper allows you to cast spells, and left bumper doesn’t do much other than picking up objects and throwing them. You can also going to third person by pressing down on the left joy stick and go into sneak mode by pressing on the right one. The D pad serves as hot keys allowing you to quickly pull out a weapon or spell. You can also wait up to twenty four hours by pressing select and start pulls up a basic menu where you can adjust settings and such. All the buttons flow with ease and it is an easy game to get used to.

One of the key points in Oblivion is to level up. You do so by increasing your major skills. Your major skills are determined by the class you choose in the beginning of the game. As you level up so do your enemies to ensure that you don’t get killed in the first few levels before getting more powerful. There is also plenty of armor that is classified as either heavy or light. Heavy will protect you more but also weighs a lot more. There is a wide variety of tools at your disposal to get rid of your enemies. You can use swords, axes, maces, clubs, bow and arrows, staffs, and plenty of spells to achieve your goals. If you use swords a lot then your blade skill will increase allowing you do become more powerful in that skill.

Simply stated Oblivion is an amazing game. There is an almost endless supply of things to do and the game remains fun and exciting. It is incredibly addicting and it is easy to og in more hours than you would ever imagined. I have gone over a hundred and could probably play for another hundred. You can also get the expansion pack which includes Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles, both are fun and offer new quests and an interesting landscape. To truly complete this game is very tough and besides beating the guilds and main quest the fun never ends. There is tremendous replay value making this a smart buy since it is not worth buying games that only allow for ten or twenty hours of game play. The only minor complaints I would say would be the loading times are slightly annoying and the voice acting could be better. I doubt it was there fault they could only get one voice per race seeing as how this was probably a very expensive game to make. This game might also take over you life try to not get too addicted. This game includes just about everything you could ever want in a game, adventure, action, and stealth. This game basically defines the word non linear as you choose what to do and where to go. Although some of the quests are more linear than others the game itself is very non linear. Although I have not gone over every thing about this game I think that would be impossible. Oblivion is just a terrific game that I would recommend to any type of gamer, even if you don’t like RPG’s it will still appeal to you, I know I had never played an RPG before this and was downright amazed. Truly a great game, now my goal is to buy and get addicted to the Elder Scrolls three: Morrowind.

5 stars