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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC DVD)
| Overall Customer Rating: |  | | | | Graphics: | (Not Yet Rated) | | Sound: | (Not Yet Rated) | | GamePlay: | (Not Yet Rated) | | Addiction Level: | (Not Yet Rated) |
162 Customer Reviews
RRP: £19.99
Amazon Price: £14.98
You Save: £5.01 (25%)
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Platform: Windows XP
Publisher: Take 2 Interactive
View other products by Take 2 Interactive
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Editorial: In a nutshell:
One of the most respected Western role-playing games of all time is back with huge improvements in graphics and accessibility, including a completely real-time combat system and the largest, most detailed game world ever seen. Phew.The lowdown:
Although previous Elder Scrolls games have enjoyed something of a like it or loathe it reputation, this latest sequel has the means to appeal to everyone thanks to one simple improvement: its incredible new graphics. Unlike many role-playing games it is viewed from a first person perspective, with a game world portrayed in a staggering amount of detail, and realistic psychics and characters that genuinely seem to be going on about their own separate lives. The game's real appeal though lies in the huge freedom: play it exactly how you want. Most exciting moment:
Using the new combat engine to fight off dozens of enemies, then stealing one of their mounts and riding off into the sunset. Since you ask:
Emperor Uriel Septim VII is voiced by Star Trek and X-Men luminary Patrick Stewart, but all the characters in the game have full spoken voiceovers instead of just onscreen text. This is the next generation, you know. The bottom line:
One of the most realistic and accessible role-playing games ever made.
Harrison Dent |
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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC)
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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC)
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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC)
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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC)
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£146.80
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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC)
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£0.00
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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC)
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"Oi! Bethesda! No Automatic Levelling!" - 9 April 2006
I loved Morrowind. It was the breaking into Daedric Shrines and stealing things that got me. Great fun.
Bethesda, sadly, have completely destroyed any sense of discovery or accomplishment with this automatic levelling system they have in Oblivion. when you first start off, most of the characters are pretty much the same level as you. The stuff they carry is matched to your level, and so is the 'loot' in shrines and temples.
As you level up, everyone else does too.
This means that the satisfaction you get out of levelling up and returning to a place where you got your ar$e wopped and totally pwning your enemies with yoiur new-found 1337 skillz has now disappeared. For ever.
I nearly wept. I can't even bring myself to look at the box.
If you buy this game, please pillory the devs about this - there is really no need for this automatic-levelling rubbish.
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"So many hours game play, for so little money." - 12 July 2007
Firstly, I must say what a fantastic game Oblivion is, set in a huge and graphically beautiful world; there's so much to see and do, this game has kept me totally engrossed for months. For someone who's new to this type of game, starting off was quite daunting, there's a huge amount of things to consider when setting up your character before you actually start playing the game. Once you do get started though, you will see the time spent deliberating over the plethora of options was well worth it.
I'm not normally a fan of RPG games, but what attracted me to Oblivion was the thing that makes it different from a standard RPG game, the ability to play in First Person view and engage in real time combat. Take on your foes with bow and arrow, charge in with shield and sword, or throw around some magic spells, there's great variety to the combat and more than one way to tackle every situation.
The game world is huge, so walking from place to place as you go about your business can be very time consuming. When you first start the game, walking everywhere is great and in fact the best thing to do, as you will discover new places and meet new people along the way and building up your characters various skills as you go. However, many hours in to the game, the prospect of having to journey to a town at the far side of the map, walking along the same old routes, getting attacked by the same bandits and wild animals can be a bit wearing. This is where one of the games best features kicks in, there's an option to 'Fast Travel' to any location you've previously visited, just pop up the world map, click on the location, watch the load screen for 2 seconds and you're there. I found this feature to be most useful, if you get a bit jaded with all the walking about, bring on the Fast Travel, if you've got time on you're hands and fancy a stroll through the beautifully crafted countryside, grab your walking boots!
Finally, a word on performance. First thing to say here is this game has got a whole bunch of bugs, some rather nasty ones too, which cause frequent crashing. Fear not however, there is a patch you can download from the official website that fixes these bugs, so make sure you get it before you start to play. Secondly, you may be wondering if your PC can run this game OK, well I can't tell you that, but what I can say is that I set all graphics options to max and the game runs perfectly smoothly. My PC spec is: Processor: P4 3.4GHz HT, RAM: 2GB DDR PC3200, GPU: Gainward nvidia 7800GS 512MB RAM (AGP). Hopefully you'll be able to compare your PC to this and at least have a rough idea of how well it may perform.
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"Damn good game but....." - 12 September 2007
well, most people loved morowind. i however did not. i found the combat sytem incredibly pointless which made the entire game bad necause it is based on combat. not so with oblivion. it is now more tactical than the annoying point and click system of morrowind. if you've ever played dark messiah you will notice how similar the combat systems are and i love the dark messiah combat (except you don't get to kick stuff). the security and sneak systems are brilliant; you can now be a proper thief unlike in morowind where sneaking was about as useful as a dead donkey.
the guilds are back and the quest are enjoyablle (especially the assasins guild quests, i mean killing someone by dropping a moose head on them is priceless). however it is easy to complete the guilds as they are not nearlly as long and arduos as in morowind and not nearly as rewarding.
this is all built on the wonderful leveling up and skill stystem that made morowind famous.
not that leveling up helps. the one large floor in the game and the reason i could never be bothered to complete the main quests. i mean why are your enemies auto leveled to your level? i spend an age making a level 18 character where a friend of mine just finishes it on first level. though leveling up makes the game harder and more fun, so its liveable with but it would be much better if it was like morowind in that respect.
overall i think its way better than morowind inn most respects it will give you hours of play for virtually no money. i mean 60 hours play ain't bad for your money eh?
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"£11.97 = Best Value Video Game Ever" - 19 December 2007
let me begin this by saying how amazingly inexpensive this game is. £11.97. in the past year i would approximate that ive spent about 500 hours in total playing this game. if i bought this game for £11.97 i would have paid 0.02 pence an HOUR. that is incredible value for money. to be honest you may hate this game; it doesnt matter, get it anyway. its only £11.97. you need quite a good PC to run it (unless you upgraded your PC you probably cant play this game effectively if you bought a PC before early 2006) but this is a completely immersive game that will give you hours of fun. to be honest your concern shouldnt be the price; it should be working out how youre gonna maintain your social and work life while youre completely absorbed in this game
i understand that the game has a few criticisms but for me at least theyre minor. youll get used to the loading screens, i dont find them that annoying and if youve got a new PC theyre not that long. you may experience technical glitches and crashes, but there are patches you can find quite easily and simply over the internet to repair some of the errors
thats also the huge advantage of buying the PC. since the games March 2006 release the modding community has been hard at work coming up with hundreds of fun mods for the game which can literally add hours of gameplay to a game that is already jam packed with content. in terms of the actual gameplay its as good as youll see in any RPG. the battle and spell gameplay is relatively simple but a lot of fun and sneaking is an excellent feature. all the quests, from the Main Quest to the Guild Quests to all the fun sidequests are entertaining, engrossing and rewarding. the levelling and stats system can be a bit frustrating at times but its still a fantastic feature, and is so varied and rich in variety that youll never be bored of it. in terms of difficulty theres a sliding scale on the options page that dictates how difficult enemies are. if you set it at minimum difficulty enemies go down with one strike, but at maximum youd better have some good enchanted equipment or have raised your stats incredibly well if you hope to survive, especially against multiple opponents. the default difficulty presents a challenge but its definitely managable, and you can change the difficulty at any time in the game. in terms of the difficulty of quests most of them come with quest markers to guide you to your next target and work in a very progressive way so its not too difficult or complicated. some quests are downright simple, others will cause a couple of headaches, whereas most lie somewhere in between
if you have not played this game yet, enjoy a good RPG, have several hours of time to kill and have a good PC, at £11.97 you have NO excuse not to buy this game immediately. it is an unbelievable amount of fun, fantastic value for money and simply one of the best games released in several years. to be honest you may hate this game, but at £11.97 its worth taking the risk because if like me you love this game, it could turn out to be the best £12 youve ever spent
BUY THIS GAME! BUY IT NOW!
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"Brilliant." - 23 December 2007
This is 100% an AMAZING game.
I played it for months without even beginning to get bored. I have now finally completed every single main and side-quest on the game. I'm not bored of it though, oh no - I've started up a new account and am in the process of doing it all again. It's a very addictive game and I would reccomend it to anyone who enjoys action/RPG/combat games.
The game has many different features for people's different playing styles. From the noble warior to the leader of the murderer's guild, there is something for everyone to enjoy.
This game provides a welcome break from reality, as it allows you to create a new persona in a different world, where anything is possible.
As with any game, there are a few glitches, but they can be sorted out easily with patches from the internet.
If you do decide to buy this game (and I strongly reccomend that you do) then I also suggest you get the expansion packs that go with it. They provide many more hours of gameplay, and the Shivering Isles comes with a whole new world to explore.
The only improvement I would like to see in this game would be an online version, where you can play against or team up with other players from around the world. That would be amazing.
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"Just to add my thoughts..." - 6 January 2008
Since so much has already been said, I'll keep it short.
Yes it's flawed - quests are often too straightforward, fast-travel is ridiculous, enemy-levelling is downright irritating.
However, the graphics are, despite what anyone says, *very* good (I presume those who don't think so are running low-end machines)
The main quest is pretty engaging, but far more interesting are the other mini-quests, hundreds of which can be found if you ask around. Particularly great are the Daedric and Dark Brotherhood quests.
Finally, I have had over 200 hours of gameplay with this game - admittedly with two or three different characters, but this just serves to show how different the game is playing as a mage/thief/swordsman etc. I would particularly recommend this game if you are into character-customization-heavy RPGs.
Overall - a well-rounded RPG that is both accessible to newcomers to the genre, and different enough to offer something to the hardcore.
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"Get one of the mods" - 18 January 2008
Firstly, having read other reviews here, and played Morrowind, I was disappointed with the idea of the levelling system. So before I even started I got the Oscuro mod (OOO) which does away with auto-levelling enemies/goodies. I haven't played without it, but I can honestly say I haven't noticed a significant difference in levelling to Morrowind.
Secondly, if you fancy a walk in the lake district, but don't have the time and are concerned about the consequences of slashing real people with a sword (a berghaus just doesn't compete with leather armour) then I highly recommend this game. The landscape rendering is just breathtaking on a decent PC and you may just spend most of your time admiring the view and picking the lovely flowers (just watch out for wolves).
This game is the escapist's dream.
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"A Flawed Gem - polished by the modding community" - 28 April 2006
This is excellent game which has kept me enthralled since I bought it - although it does have it flaws.
The graphics are simply stunning, easily comparible to HL2. I made a journey from the Imperial city to Skingrad and all the while I found myself becoming immersed in the scenery - A real botanists paradise! When I approached the town, the setting sun bathed the town in warm afterglow. Ok, I was becoming hooked.
Combat is exciting and there is a difficulty slider to fine tune the challenge. No more presets. wonderful!. You can use magic, melee weapons or bows to bash your foes. Buy a house - one comes with a maid. Dungeons and suprises abound around every corner. There's a plethora of wild animals, mystical beasts, ghosts - you name it, its all there.
There are flaws of course. The storyline is not very emotive. A good adventure game(including RPG's) should be like a good book or film which tries to grab your emotions. The characters (or NPC's) on the whole are more like information booths and some of their responses occasionally defy logic. Often though, it can be quite funny too.
I have mixed opinions about the persuasion wheel mini game. It's used to influence an NPC's dispotion to you. All in one interaction you have to joke, boast, threaten and admire over and over again.
Dungeon are well crafted and detailed but are made up of, often repetitive, modular blocks. Basically one dungeon ends up similar to another.
This is wonderful game but also a flawed gem. However, the modding community is begining to change all this by creating new adventures, companion NPC's, items, spells, weapons, locations, stories. Some mods actually improve the appearance of the game.
You can even try your hand at voice acting and feature yourself in the game. If you are good at logical thinking, you will find the scripting language easy to master and the downloadable contruction set is quite powerful, albeit slightly counter-intuitive to use.
All in all, this is a revolutionary game that will keep you entertained for a long time to come.
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"Enourmous, simply breathtaking." - 1 May 2007
This game, is so mind blowingly big i would recommend taking a month out to play it properly. The amount you can do is simply breathtaking - From mage to assasin ( i reached the top of the assasins guild, that was REALLY fun), from bowman to warrior to priest - you can do it all. You can make potions, make your own spells even - their is simply too much to go into here.
The graphics are amazing, realistic and bold. Everything (nearly) is superbly textured and its nice just to wander through places and look around, its rewarding in itself.
The gameplay is easy to pick up, and it does not require you to learn enoumous ammounts of controls or hotkeys, simply a few centred around the standard RPG set-up - WSAD.
Now, although i came late to this game, i DID enjoy it. However, if you have an old or low end system you WILL STRUGGLE TO RUN THIS GAME at an acceptable or even enjoyable level. For me, running an old AGP card i struggled to run it. The solution for me was Oldblivion which forces the game to use Pixel Shader v1 instead of v2 which allowed me to play the game with reasonable graphics, and i still got a lot out of it.
My only gripes are this - the graphics settings (for noobs like me) are not easy to understand (i still don't know what LOD BIAS is) and some parts of the game can feel a little unfinished at times, however - getting one of the large mod compilations improves the game so much, i don't play without them.
Again i say, if you have a low end system, you will struggle to run this game, but their are solutions (we recently bought a new souped up PC with a 27" monitor, gaming bliss my friends, gaming bliss). Don't say i didn't warn you - it irritates me when people rate a game badly becuase their PC couldn't run it, so im telling all you folks now ;-)
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"Best game i've ever played and i play too many" - 7 June 2007
Previous to playing this game, i was always a bit sceptical about RPG's. i thought most were kinda silly and to linear. GTA games (if they can be considered an RPG) were the only exception to this. i play TES 3 - Morrowind, which was mildly entertaing, but it was confusing and it was impossible to find anything without a game guide. i bought Oblivion on the (very) strong recomendation of a friend. it blew me away the first time i played it. initially it can be overwhelming (especially if you don't normally read game manuals), but the controls are actually very easy to get to grips with. the graphics are awesome if you've got a decent PC and graphics card, music is pretty good too, but the gameplay (and that is what makes a game) is spectacular. ive havent wasted so many hours of my life on a game since AOE; age of kings came out. although not completely open ended there is so much to do it is a rare thing to complete a game. the only criticism i would have is that the backstory isn't as interesting as those of other TES games, however there is humour and the fantasy world is nonetheless very well constructed. definate buy for anyone who appreciates games of whatever type. the specs arent even that high either so a top of the line computor isnt necessary.
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