Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is the sequel to 2002's Morrowind, a game whose lack of direction made it a bit of a disappointment for many RPG fans. So what is it about Oblivion that's raised it above the mire in a saturated genre to be an award-winner and one of the Xbox 360's biggest-selling titles?
Partly it's the graphical quality, both the PC and Xbox 360 versions taking full advantage of the hardware. The game uses the Havoc physics engine for combat and True HDR graphics with the SpeedTree Technology system adding depth and realism to the backgrounds. The flip side to this is frequent pauses for loading and occasional crashes, but at least the game is lacking the sometimes fatal bugs of its predecessor.
Mostly, though, it's the balance between freedom and direction. There's a solid, large-scale main quest revolving around the murder of the Emperor and securing the succession for his son. The voice work, featuring Patrick Stewart, Sean Bean, Terrence Stamp, and Lynda Carter, is excellent and almost completely lacking in cheese. Aside from this, though, you're free to explore a vast world full of side quests, guild quests, shopping, and a phenomenal amount of chat.
That's where Oblivion really jumps the RPG rails. All the NPCs are individuals, with their own goals and traits. (In initial game testing, the NPCs' freedom to pursue their own ends led to some hilarious anarchy.) It feels like a world full of people, not mannequins. Again, the voice acting is solid, though like most RPGs, all the women sound exactly the same.
Your ability to customise your own character matches that depth too. After selecting your race and designing your appearance, you go through the first scenes where you become involved in the Emperor's escape attempt. Unlike Morrowind, you're straight into the main adventure. After making your way through a sewer system, the game analyses how you've played up until this point and suggests a character class. If you've been charging screaming into every battle, it may be that 'thief' is not the class for you. You still have the option, though, to pretty much ignore class and just design your character the way you want. Levelling up will lead to gaining significant new skills, not just becoming incrementally better at the old ones.
In keeping with making it easy to stay on task, the quest management system in Oblivion is excellent. Your journal tells you exactly what you need to do, and once you've selected a particular quest to be your main objective, your next port of call will appear on your map and you'll get a compass telling you where to go. You're never wandering around lost and frustrated.
Combat is less simple than some RPGs, so there's a bit of a learning curve, but it's not heinous. Generally you'll have a 'hit' button and a block button and another for casting spells, with eight 'hot keys' - always a system harder to manage with a d-pad than a keyboard. You don't need to be too precise with your aiming, but getting hit will knock you round, and in melee combat that can be a real problem. Allies will get majorly pissed at you if you keep cutting them up by mistake.
There is no online or multi-player mode with Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. In a way, it doesn't really need that, because the world is so immersive, detailed, and well-peopled. It will feel a bit odd for MMORPG fans to be dealing with guilds made up completely of NPCs, though. Still, there's more than enough gameplay here to keep the most avid dungeon-crawler happily immobile for hours.
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