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Addicting Pleasure

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: March 31, 2006
Author: Amazon User

If you want an overview of the game, look in one of the other reviews, i'll just highlight the good and bad.

Graphics: Best i've seen so far. You can see the trees in the mountains far in the distance, you've got weather, great landscapes, and everything you'd expect from the game.

Gameplay: Very fun. Although i've heard of a few people on forums having trouble with the game freezing (perhaps PC only?), I've had no problems on 360. Players of morrowind will recognize the system, with improvements for quick switching between weapons and spells.

One key change: As you level up your major skills, you gain levels. So do the enemies, so as you level up, the game always stays hard. This means you can complete the main quest at only level 8, or you can be level 30 and have the same (if not more) difficulty wherever you go. This prevents you from leveling to make the end-game easier or make yourself overpowered above anyone in the game. Good thing about this: It keeps you focused on your quest.

Replayability: Very high. Once you beat the game, you can easily create another character that is entirely different, making the game feel completely new.

Overall: Very fun game, and a must-have for any 360 library. Bethesda did not disappoint.

Simply Amazing

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: May 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'm not going to cover all the fine details, as there are several reviews that do a great job with that...

This game is amazing and highly addictive. You can create your own character that has the powers you want, that looks the way you want. For example, I am a Vampire Thief...spending more of my times hiding in the shadows pickpocketing and stealthily attacking my enemies with my poison tipped arrows.

When you start playing this game, you will live and breathe Oblivion. There is a never ending array of things to do covering every inch of the gigantic play area. If you get bored doing one thing, move on and try something else.

Highly recommended!! Don't get this game if you any other games you are playing, once you start, you aren't going to touch them.

Ahead of it's time!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: July 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I bought Oblivion a few days after I got my Xbox 360 and I was blown away. Im kinda disappointed I bought the game as early as I did because now it shames the graphics and storylines of all the other games I own.

The minute I got into the game, after I finshed making my own unique character, I was already astounded by the graphics, The details of the jail cell you are in when you start the game are very precise. I loved the way the chain swung when you used the left bumper to pick the cuff up. After you meet the Emperor you must navigate a large dungen filled with amazing creatures and features.

After you complete the introduction you are thrown into a world where you can do practically anything you want. If you want to fight, go to the Imperial Arena or venture out into the wilderness. If you want to explore, there are an appreciable number of dungens, mines, caverns and ruins to explore, though after exploring a few their layouts start to repeat.

So far I have put in atleast 150 hours and I have still not fully explored the world of oblivion, nor have I completed every side quest. There are atleast 100 side quests that let you do all kinds of things. From fighting elves in the Imperial Arena, to stealing an Elder Scroll from the heart of the Imperial Tower, this awesome game is bound to amaze both serious gamer and nongamer alike. You really get what you paid for, and this is the best RPG of all time.

Single player excellence

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: March 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I'm a longtime gamer who never got into online gaming, for numerous reasons. When I decided to buy a 360, I knew I needed to play Gears Of War. I like to shoot bad guys; most gamers do. But I knew I needed something else.

What drew me to Oblivion was the fact that it's entirely single-player. You don't need an Xbox Live Gold account to play. You don't need to find others that match your skill level. It's more than just slaughtering other players online. It's not a mediocre single-player campaign filling space between the online options.

I read reviews claiming upwards of 200 hours of gameplay. That's hardly an exaggeration. I'm at 120 hours and counting. I'm not bored yet. I've got guilds to join (and become leader of), quests to complete, skills to master, not to mention an empire to save. I never thought I liked RPGs, but there hasn't been another disc in my 360 for months - not even Gears Of War.

If you're not into the fast-twitch hyperactivity that comprises most online gaming, this is your game. It's intelligent, interesting, and utterly addicting. And when you're talking value for your hard-earned gaming dollar, Oblivion is the hands-down champion.

For the Casual Gamer

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 14
Date: June 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

If you've been gaming since well before it was cool or at least accepted as not particularly geeky, I recommend looking over the reviews before making a decision. The people who are all raves and 5 stars pretty much give away a lack of experience with games in general. First off, I used to be a professional reviewer. I'd like to say I wouldn't have bought into the hype but the truth of the matter is that you will think you are in gaming Nirvana for the first 20-40 hours. For most reviewers, 20 hours of play means staying in late at the office or playing it over the weekend.

Unfortunately, it's not until you cross that 20-40 mark that you start to realize that while yes, Oblivion deserves all its props for technical achievement, it's falls short on game design in some seriously big ways.

First off, character building is by and large fairly irrelevant. Every character can ultimately do everything. All stats and skills are capped at the same arbitrary mark. So while you will most certainly notice a difference in play during the earlier levels, by around level 10 the majority of racial special abilities and stat/skill bonuses have become redundant.

On top of that, the character leveling system is inane. You increase skills by actually using them. That sounds perfectly logical, but is it fun? Is it fun to jump down a mountain over and over again while spamming healing spells to kill two birds (your jumping skill and life magic) with one stone? Not questing or getting immersed in a deep story mind you, jumping down a mountain and spamming a spell.

Furthermore you choose ten major skills. These level faster than your ordinary ones with the added caveat that you do not gain experience in this but rather every time you level any combination of these up to ten times you automatically gain a level. Gaining a level grants you HP and a choice of attributes to upgrade. Here's the clincher. All of the skills are tied to attributes. In order to get the maximum bonus possible for a given attribute you have to have leveled any combination of that attribute's skills ten times. So even though it would make sense to say take all the strength skills as majors for what you might intend to be a warrior-type character it's a really bad idea if you want to avoid leveling "too soon."

Yes, for the hardcore number crunchers, leveling "too soon" is actually something you have to worry about.

To further add to the leveling frustration everything in the game is scaled to your level. Monsters grow more powerful with you and will eventually simply disappear from the world permanently to get an upgrade. In most environments you won't see more than 2-3 monster types and there isn't a particularly huge variety of environments in the game, as beautiful as it is.

EVERYTHING is scaled to your level. Even unique item rewards for quests. Complete a quest too soon and you get an irreversibly nerfed version of an item. The scaling comes right down to armor and weapons you can find, steal, loot, or purchase. You will never see the good stuff until starts appearing on NPCs because you crossed the proper level divide. All monsters are scaled. There is no super-dangerous dungeon that gives great rewards for greater risks. Go to any dungeon early on and you'll just find a bunch of easily killed peons.

Money can practically be found on the streets if you know what you're doing. This isn't particularly unbalancing however, since there's nothing good to buy until you're at a higher level anyway. And you might as well just find a bunch of bandits or mauraders since they'll have all the current stuff for free.

Stealing is completely useless. At the earlier levels when it's actually possible nobody has anything good. Yes, random items and stuff people carry is all scaled to your level too. However because your skill is arbitrarily capped but NPCs continue to get better and better at detecting your attempts, stealing becomes practically impossible at higher levels.

As for the fighter, mage, thief dynamic, there isn't one. You can easily master all three aspects and guess what: magic is absurdly more powerful than the other two. At high levels a smart mage with proper custom-made spells can kill anything in 2 seconds flat. A warrior with the best unique sword available at level 25 will have to hit the tougher monsters a good 25 times before they go down. It is possible to sneak attack for an octuple damage modifier but this works once unless... see below.

Magic is also broken on many levels. There is nothing to keep you from spamming spells like a wildman and some spells are so broken it's absurd. With 100% invisibility you can wander around with total impunity, literally stealth-striking monsters over and over again and they won't even try to swing back or cast a simple spell they could use to see you. This is not an exploit. It's simply how the game works.

Don't get me wrong, this is a beautiful game that's fun to play for at least 60 dollars worth of hours but don't expect to be playing it five years from now like it was Fallout or something. Once you realize how hopelessly generic everything is despite appearances, it really starts to eat at you. At least if you've ever played a good cRPG before.

This is a very glitchy game!!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 17
Date: June 02, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is one of the greatest video games ever made. I don't particularly care for this genre of game, but this will go down amongst my all time favorite games. All the raves of the other good reviews will give you advice on this games strengths, of which there are many.

However, don't buy it on the 360. PLEASE, save yourself the headaches and get it on a PC!!!

I've had Oblivion for a little over two months now, and my Xbox 360 can barely play this game. It is full of bugs. I've returned it twice and am on my third disk, so I know it's not an errors on the disk itself. It's just tons and tons of software glitches on the import from PC to 360 (which is funny since the 360 is just a PC in a pretty case). Three of my close friends are all playing the 360 version as well, and they're all having the same problems I'm having.

There are plenty of downloadable features (The Orary, the horse barding, priate ship, etc.), and these seem to have a negative effect on the software and cause a lot of trouble. However, I didn't donwload any of this, and my game is rife with bugs. If you go to Bethesda's forums, you can read tons and tons of posts discussing these problems (you might even find me there!). But I'll sum them up for you.

1) The game freezes constantly. I think it has something to do with the DVD drive trying to load sounds and locking up.

2) "Unreadable Disk Errors" are VERY common. The game will pause, go black, and give this type of errors. Some times it even says to remove the disk and put in a game designed for the 360!

3) Strange loads. Sometimes, you'll load saved files and appear in the world paralized and halfway inside of your avatar.

Bethesda is no help with any of these problems. On the forums many people have posted their customer support replies, and they're all the most generic, "I'm not listening," plug your ears and hum responses I've ever read.

As I've said this is one of the best games in a generation. But stick with the PC. You may be one of the fortunate ones with no bugs, but if you're in my boat, you'll be spitting mad at dumpting $60 for a coaster. If I'd have bought the PC version, I'd have beaten the stupid thing by now!!!

Fun RPG when it doesn't Freeze

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: November 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I bought Oblivion and was immediately hooked. I played this game for 8+ hours a day. The gameplay is great as well as the graphics. It's by far the best graphics for a game for 360. The best thing about this game imo is the flexibility to do what ever you want. If you want to join a guild and work your way up to the top you can or if you just want to go fight things and level, you can as well.

After playing Oblivion for probably 2 weeks and becoming completely addicted. My game would freeze while trying to load it. At first i thought it was my Xbox. After further research i found out that it's part of the game. Some games freeze and others don't.

Overall I give this game a 9.5/10 though.

Just a few comments to add about this game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: May 01, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Many of the other persons reviewing this game have done a great job of covering the good, the fantastic, the bad, and the just plain dumb aspects of the game.

I have two gripes about the game: (1) the introduction and the booklet do not teach you all the tools and options in playing the game that your character has. Perhaps this is intentional, but for those people not familiar with adventure games, it can make for a steeper learning curve. (2) the guards seem to be psychic and are able to tell which items are stolen, even if it is a common piece of fruit. Unique or readily identifiable items I can understand, but not for everything. It would make more sense for there to be a certain amount of chance that the authorities can identify an item as stolen.

I am only about 4 hours into the game, and other than my two comments above, I think the game is EXCELLENT. It is worth every penny of the cost.

Amazing game, one or two glitches don't take away from the fun.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: May 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion is one of those games that comes along once in a lifetime and is so overwhelming that household plants die, relationships are destroyed, pets starve, and you don't care because you're inside an oblivion gate trying to close it, and that's just one tiny aspect of the game.

So far I've had two characters. One was a large, sword-weilding, Imperial and the second one is a thieving Nord. The original character, my Imperial, was my test character, and I spent over ten hours in the game not even touching the main quest. I did thieves guild quests and some side quests, some dungeon and cave exploring, and in general, stole a whole lot of stuff, became a vampire, and had an awesome time. With my Nord character I'm taking on the main quest and am loving every minute of it. The storyline is detailed, interesting, and in general, amazing just like the rest of the game.

You start out in Oblivion as a prisoner with luck on his side. However, when the Emperor is killed, you may change your mind about the whole luck thing, because you have just been tasked with finding his lost heir, an illigitimate son, and closing the gates to Oblivion (a hell-like dimension, ruled over by 16 different lords). You spend about twenty minutes traveling through sewer and catacombes, collecting weapons, learning about skills, and for someone that has played Morrowind, everything is very, very similar. Then, when you get out of the sewer you realize why Oblivion is so different. You exit overlooking a beautiful lake, in the shadow of the Imperial City and it's looming walls. Across the lake their lies the ruins of an old structure, gleaming in the midday sunlight that glints of the water of the lake. Clouds move across the sky, tree leaves shudder in the slight breeze, and you spend ten minutes just standing there and taking it all in, and you haven't even stepped off the sewer exit. So, let me break it down a little for you:

Pros:
Beautiful graphics, it really maxamizes the 360s power and is just amazing, everything is detailed to the smallest knot in a tree and the fletchings on an arrow.
The system of travel in Oblivion allows you to fast travel (immediatly go from point A to point B) or purchase a horse (in the main quest you are given the most inexpensive horse but it gets the job done). Anyone that played Morrowind knows how borring traveling for hours got, and you don't get that in Oblivion.
Characters speak, which means you don't have to read an entire novel to discover the storyline.
The game progresses as you do. Starting out as a level one, the creatures you encounter are not impossibly difficult. But as you level up, so do they, so the game is always challenging, but never overwhelmingly difficult. They do have a difficulty slider, however, just in case you aren't getting enough of a butt-kicking.
The journal system is awesome, arranging your quests in terms of completed, active, and avaliable, and you can switch active quests if you want to do something new.

Pro and Con:
The map markers are a blessing for some, a curse for others. I like them, Morrowind was almost impossibly hard at times because they sent you out into the middle of nowehere saying, look for the rock, and all around you, rocks, but now you know exactly where to go. Some people find this too easy though, take it as you will.

Cons:
Sometimes the game screen graphics have glitches that make them pop and shift unnaturally, it's like little black pops on your screen basically, when something goes wrong.
Also, this game has frozen on me three different times, in 15+ hours of gameplay mind you, but still, with the 360s power, it shouldn't do that. This is the only reason why I'm giving it four stars instead of five.

A great game worth trying at least once.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: March 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Before I begin I must say as player you should be already hooked to this franchise or are willing to play this game, it is gigantic and needs a lot of attention in order to succeed well in it.

Oblivion in some ways is better than Morroiwnd and in some ways Morrowind is better than Oblivion.

THE THINGS THAT ROCK ABOUT OBLIVION:

- BETTER GRAPHICS: This is a no brainer by comparing screenshots but these are also on different systems. When backward compatability functions with Morrowind on the 360, it'll probably make Morrowind look very nice too but not nearly as nice as Oblivion.
- BETTER FIGHTING SYSTEMS: When I heard about this, I was so happy because this was one thing that Morrowind lacked of. Magic hardly ever worked and the fighting was complete "random roll of the dice". In Oblivion, I love the fact every hit is realistic, the blood isn't like powder anymore and that I can feel the vibration from every hit, including blocks. Also, magic never fails and is a lot more realistic. Additionally, blocking is now done manually instead of random chances, which makes protection that much more important.
- CHARACTERS SPEAK: This one was excellent for me and my friend. My friend is blind in one eye and has difficulty reading so you could probably imagine how hard Morrowind was for him, which was virtually reading. In Oblivion, they still continue to have text but every character now speaks their words, which made Oblivion a lot more accesible for my friend.
- EVERY CHARACTER HAS A SCHEDULE: Man, does this feature rock. I always laughed that I could go to a shop at 3AM in the morning and see the barter there always in the same position, not moving at all. In Oblivion, a store can now close. If you come at 3AM, it's considered tresspassing and against the law. It's make the game far more realistic. Also, if a barter is away from his/her counter, he/she will not buy/sell with you, not a bad feature either.

THE THINGS THAT ARE ALRIGHT ABOUT OBLIVION

- THE COMPASS and THE AUTO-MARKER: Now this is debatable with me. I love the compass as it shows me what direction I'm going in instead of having to guess in Morrowind, the auto-marker marks to where you have to go. Although it is a nice feature that brings access to more people I thought this could've been a turn off for hardcore players who loved finding locations on their own. A wish list for mine is that they bring a patch/mod that allows the player to turn the marker on/off for a preference.
- FAST TRAVEL: For every major city and/or places you've been to, you now have the access to at the click of a button to be transported there immediaetly. Now it is a great feature, which will allow more players comfort, but it isn't realistic. In Morrowind, you used boats and "Silt Striders" (giant inland bugs) to use of fast travel, which made it look more realistic as a service. I can understand the use of cities as they are major but things like tombs and dungeouns shouldn't be accesible because they're off a main road. Of course, you could just forget about fast travel and just walk everywhere or buy a horse ; ).
- THE "EVERY DOOR I USE" AUTO-SAVE FEATURE: This one is a bit debatable with me too, it is useful at times because I'm one of those people who forget to save a lot but sometimes it can wind you up into trouble. If you only rely on your autosave feature, then the minute you kill someone by accident and step outside/inside, you're doomed. At least they kept the autosave tool for sleeping and waiting/resting.

THINGS THAT SUCK/COULD'VE BEEN BETTER ABOUT OBLIVION:

- THE MENU: Alright, where to begin. As an avid Morrowind player, the minute I saw the Oblivion menu (menu, I mean where you check your stats, inventory, etc...) I was frightened. In Morrowind all it was was words making it very easily accesible and I knew where I had to go. In Oblivion, they used symbols. I hated it how for an important tool I had to memorize symbols in order to understand which was which and what I was actually doing. Even after buying it and playing it for almost a year, I still find the menu confusing.
- THE LOADING: Now this is more of a rant because it's only because of the Xbox 360 compatabilities. Every door you walked out of, it would take between 5/10secs to a minute for it to load. Now I'm a patient man so it doesn't bother me but I don't think it was needed a whole lot. Morrowind was great because it had one giant load time at the very beginning, than another medium one if you walking outdoors for the first time and then it only loaded again if you had to save/rest. It may load this many times because of the auto-save but I doubt it.
- THE SIZE OF TERRAIN: Now most of you probably think it's already big enough. Not for me. After seeing Morrowind and it's two expansion packs Bloodmoon and Tribunal, I was expecting to see a much larger size game than Morrowind GOTY (game of the year). Cyrodiil (the province in which Oblivion is played in) is about half the size of Morrowind, excluding the expansion packs. It took me ~15 minutes to walk from one end of Oblivion to the next, while it took me ~30 minutes for Morrowind. I don't know how much bigger Oblivion will get with Shivering Lsles but I'm hoping it'll add some size.
- THE CONTENT: Oh my. I was REALLY dissapointed about this one. Right now I'm going to show you a list of factions you can join in Morrowind (GOTY) [MQ = Main quest, OP = Optional; only ones that are joinable]:
* Ashlanders (MQ), Blades (MQ), Clan Aundae (OP, Vampire), Clan Berne (OP, Vampire), Clan Quarra (OP, Vampire), Fighters Guild (OP), Great House of Hlaalu (OP), Imperial Cult (OP), Imperial Legion (OP), Mages Guild (OP), Morag Tong (OP), Great House of Redoran (OP), Great House of Telvanni (OP), Temple (OP), the Thieves Guild (OP) and East Side Empire Company (OP, Bloodmoon).

That makes for 2 factions you must join for the Main Quest, 3 optional vampire clans and 11 optional other factions, for a total of 16 joinable. Now for Oblivion:
* Blades (MQ), Fighters Guild (OP), Mages Guild (OP), Thieves Guild (OP), Dark Brotherhood (OP), Arena (OP, really a faction?), Nine Divines (OP/MQ, Knights of the Nine), Knights of the Nine (OP/MQ, Knights of the Nine).

That makes for 1 faction you must join for the Main Quest, 2 optional main quests for Nights of the Nine plugin and 5 optional other factions, for a total of of 8 joinable.

Compare 8 to 16... half more content then there is in Morrowind, which makes Morrowind longer to play and a bit more funner.

IN CONCLUSION

I still love this game because the pluses outweigh the negatives, even if there are a tad more negatives. I still recommened this to avid RPGer's because there is no funner RPG game out there.

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