Reviewed by: BobiRoka
Developer: Bethesda Softworks
Publisher: 2K Games

First, an apology…

I’ve invested more than 40 hours into Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and I still haven’t finished it. According to games reviewing lore, I should play a game from start to finish before I cast summary judgement upon it, but here I am, feeling like I’ve hardly scratched the surface, yet somehow informed enough to give it a mark out of 100? It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it…

So yes, I’m 40 hours in, yet it’s highly likely my time with the game will be different to yours. I’ve done my best to experience the breadth of the game by opting for a custom (gimped?) character class mixture of magic, stealth and close-range combat. I’ve also signed up to all the Guilds my character is aware of and advanced myself along some of their associated career paths. I’m only on the 2nd or 3rd leg of the main story quest, but that’s because I’ve had so much else to do - for 40 hours. This game is massive…

Massive, yet entirely ‘manageable’ thanks to some decent design choices and a host of improvements over Morrowind - the previous instalment of the Elder Scrolls series (which I reviewed back in 2001). First of all, the province of Cyrodil (this time, as opposed to neighbouring Morrowind) is quite sensibly laid out: Imperial City in the middle, surrounded by several smaller (or perhaps just less ‘grand’ – but still very beautiful) satellite towns and villages, numerous quest ‘sites’ scattered about - yet within reasonable vicinity of a friendly settlement - and plenty more to stumble into by complete accident. By vicinity, I mean a click away, since it’s entirely possible to travel from one side of Cyrodil to the other in an instant, so long as you’ve made the journey on foot once before (in-game journey time is still taken into account when fast-travelling). Horses are around to be ridden and though legitimately owning one is a fairly costly affair, they aren’t the trophies that they are in WoW. Oh no, this is more like Grand Theft Horsey. You could buy a pretty good magic weapon for the same price as a mount, after all…

Straddling the improved (yet for some, disappointingly cross-platform optimised) interface is a proper quest log - as opposed to the obscenely crap ‘journal’ in Morrowind. This streamlined journal system keeps you constantly informed of what you need to do next and where you need to do it, via a handy waypoint blip on your compass and map. Quests are listed by date and their subsequent journal entries are listed upon activation. Inventory and Spell lists can be filtered for easy navigation and there’s a whole five screens worth of statistical numbers that mean rather a lot to yer average RPG geek (guilty as charged), but not much to anyone else. If Morrowind had this interface, it would have been a much nicer game to play.

As for those numbers, well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The Elder Scrolls series of RPGs (or at least this and Morrowind) has by far the most comprehensive and organic approach to character development of all its peers. Yes, there are levels, but since the game effectively levels up with you (with regards to overall challenge ratings of encounters, monsters etc) the emphasis is more on what you do and how you do it. Taking it a step further than the character interrogation at the start of Morrowind, Oblivion’s opening is a much more hands-on affair. The game analyses your performance through a small introductory dungeon sequence and suggests a character class for you based on how you approached the game’s initial problems. You can disagree with the decision if you want, selecting from an extensive list of suggested archetypes, or by building your own custom character class by defining primary attributes and skills. Certain skills are tied to certain attributes, and then there are racial modifiers to take into account, birth signs, face construction, skin tone and so on… It’s entirely possible to build a likeness of yourself into the game if you have the patience for it.

Level advancement is achieved by ‘skilling up’ your primary skills. These primary skills will differ depending on character class, so you’re encouraged to play-to-type, yet utterly capable of giving anything a go if you so desire. In fact, it’s almost better to practise a wider range of talents outside your archetype for the simple joy of taking part in the various game mechanisms. Fighting with a blade doesn’t help a mage level up, but with the challenge rating auto-customised to my character level, how does this matter? Therein lies a question…

The obvious problem of such an approach to character advancement is the danger of attainment of levels through mostly passive abilities - such as Speechcraft, Stealth or Lockpicking - attributing to weak combat abilities when the game inevitably leads you into aggressive confrontations. I’ve yet to experience any situations myself, where I’ve been so stuck I had to backtrack, and in all honesty, if you want to make any progress in the main campaign at all; you WILL have to fight stuff. Sure, you can play a thief, but there are no brownie points for playing it Sam Fisher style when the Daedra hordes are pouring out of ‘Oblivion gates’ all across Cyrodil.

So you’re shoehorned into this bunch of stats, which resemble some kind of character archetype (or a bunch of numbers, depending on your disposition) and then let loose onto this giant swaying landmass. A compass points to the next stage of the main quest, but there’s a hulking Imperial City in the way. You cruise through the city streets, people greet you as you pass and there’s a chance of eavesdropping on local chatter. Everyone’s talking about the [main plotline hook], but there’s also a fair amount of miscellaneous gossip to be heard which may or may not be relevant to later events. It’s really down to what you feel like doing…

The game functions as a series of multiple yarns twisted around the central core of a main story arc. How much of it you unravel is down to how you want to play the game. Many modern single player RPGs set you along a fairly linear path and offer you a moral axis on which to role-play within the confines of a conversation system. Oblivion takes a different approach, by offering up a giant environment and signposting several pathways through it. It’s the guilds, events and challenges you get involved with that define your character, not the right choice of words. In retrospect, it makes RPGs like KotOR look like Steve Jackson adventure game-books. Oblivion is about reward and consequence, not some pre-defined notion of good or evil. Be a Vampire, lurk in the shadows, murder people and live the nocturnal, lonely life that this behaviour yields, or progress through the main campaign, rise through the ranks of the Blades and gain praise with the population you fight to preserve. Or do both. Or something completely different. The choice is yours.

Combat remains a point of contention for some, but personally I love it. Bethesda designed the fighting system to incorporate magic alongside swordplay and/or archery and it works a treat with an Xbox 360 controller (even if the D pad can be a tad unreliable for accurate spell/item swapping at times). I’ve only found it really awkward when fighting in close proximity of allies, since it’s quite easy to hit your comrades if they happen to step in the way of your carefully aimed attack – and it’s not like you can just sit back and heal them either. The only logical option is to try and attack what they’re hitting without causing them any further harm. Luckily, some NPCs will fall unconscious instead of utterly snuffing it and in the lengthier sequences reinforcements will sometimes arrive - only to get utterly slaughtered once again. Ho-hum. Perhaps this is why most RPGs shy away from real-time combat? Oblivion is proof that real-time combat on this scale can get quite messy indeed.

Anything I’ve missed, you’ve heard about already. Yes, it looks amazing, but you need a fairly beefy PC to run it. The Xbox 360 version I’ve been playing looks as good as the PC version does on a top end PC, but suffers from loading pauses and noticeable scenery pop-up when traversing the larger expanses of game-world (especially noticeable on horseback), not to mention some quite severe loading times between areas. It’s not the most stable game in the world either; I’ve experienced the odd NPC AI fumble and it’s crashed my Xbox 360 a few times too. In 40 hours however, these minor gripes have only amounted to a few minutes of frustration. It truly is a small price to pay and no reflection on the overall quality of content herein.

Just as MMOGs have evolved to cater for the sociable gamer, so have Bethesda used the single-player scope of Oblivion to its advantage, by delivering an epic story set amidst an equally impressive spider’s web of sub-quests, guild progression and freeform exploration. If the initial cinematics don’t suck you in first, then the breadth and scope of the game will. This is Morrowind reborn… and then some.

Screenshots of the PC version courtesy of VWCamper (Hence why they’re all at night - the evil b*****d is so twisted the sunlight makes him burn).

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Available for	Reviewed on
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