Publisher: 2K Games

Developer: Bethesda Game Studios

Release Date: 3/20/2006

Available On

By now, everyone with a 360 has either played or owned this game. There’s so much about Oblivion that it would take pages and pages to describe it all in detail. The main story is that you have to restore the dragonfires so the realm of Oblivion can’t come back to Cyrodiil. The story is very interesting, and the side quests add to this. To start with, you make your character with an absurd amount of detail, and you can even name and customize your own race, abilities, etc. In each city in Cyrodiil, you can choose to join guilds such as mage, fighter, thief, etc. You complete tasks for the guild leader, and you get a recommendation from the head of that guild. You can train there to raise attributes and rest. Now, when it comes to talking to people, the game uses facial expressions to show you what the NPC is feeling. You can persuade people via a little mini-game that takes a while to master.

Now let’s talk about combat. The combat is very deep and simple at the same time. You block with LT and attack with RT. You can use magic, swords, bows, katanas, staffs, etc. As you use your weapons, they deteriorate, and you can repair them with hammers or at weapon shops. Some weapons can have attributes like causing your foe to be paralyzed for 30 seconds or something like that. You can use scrolls, which are magic attacks for defense, and offenses that can be used once. When you level up, you have to go to sleep so you can meditate on everything you learned. It takes a long time to level up in this game, but it’s well worth it.

The vastness of attributes is insane in Oblivion. The combinations of alchemy spells and everything combined just, literally, make it infinite. Now let’s talk about vastness. The game is huge—bigger than all the GTAs put together. Anything that you see, you can walk on or climb. You can ride a horse there or just go there for the hell of it and discover something new. You can pick plants for alchemy, you can find new weapons…or just completely useless stuff like bones, cups, vases, quills, mops, shovels, etc. Some stuff is worth thousands, and some stuff is worth nothing at all. You’re probably wondering how you travel such a huge amount of land. Well, the map lets you warp. Thank God for that. Of course, you can’t warp inside a building, but you can get the idea. Now the game can let you go good or evil depending on whether you steal people’s stuff, pickpocket, murder, etc. Or you can choose to be rude to people during conversations. Technically, there are some flaws.

The graphics are still pretty good by today’s standards but show some age, just a tad compared to recent next-gen games. The music is outstanding, and the voice acting is superb. There is some texture popping up here and there and hitting. The constant loading is also annoying, but with recent software updates that have been remedied, this is some. You just have to get this game. It’s so big and so deep that you’ll play it for hours and hours. Also, with all the expansions out there, I wonder if there is an end. A note to casual players: stay away. The vastness and depth will turn some players off and will turn JRPG fans off.

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