Nelson Schneider's Game Review of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

A Frequently-Misclassified Epic
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/20/11

“Oblivion” is a game I have owned for quite a long time but have been putting-off playing/reviewing for the simple fact that every preview, review, etc. has mentioned the game's incredible, epic length. While I do like long games, I don't like diving into an unfamiliar series with a long game. Yes, it's true, I have not played “Arena,” “Daggerfall,” or “Morrowind,” mainly due to the fact that the first two games looked incredibly unimpressive when they were released, and the third never found its way to a gaming platform not created by Microsoft.

So, now that Bethesda decided to share the love and port “Oblivion” to every platform capable of running it, I was dubiously looking forward to my first Western RPG experience since “Baldur's Gate 2” knocked my socks off 10 years ago. What I found, instead, was a completely new experience that seemed all wrong for an RPG: “Oblivion” was instead a Sandbox Game pretending to be an RPG by paying lip-service to the old first-person dungeon crawlers (like “Eye of the Beholder” and “Dungeon Master”) that were everywhere in the 1990s but have since gone extinct.

Presentation
The graphics in “Oblivion” range from ‘amazing' to ‘fugly.' The environments, on one hand, are incredibly realistic and detailed, with high quality textures and well-designed layouts. The, people, on the other hand, look awful. There are only a handful of ‘attractive' people in the entire game world, with most falling into that special category of ugly that is popular among typecasters in Hollywood. It is incredibly difficult to make a playable character that isn't hideous as well, as the character generator defaults to ‘ugly' and can only be changed to ‘hideous' or ‘revolting.' The most annoying part of “Oblivion's” character designs is that every member of each race looks alike. I know it's not politically correct, but in the game world of Tamriel, it's TRUE! There were several occasions while playing the game that I saw a male Nord and mistook him for my good friend Ongar the World-Weary, only to discover my error when I saw his name pop-up as I initiated conversation. This similarity between characters wouldn't be a problem in a game with anonymous townsfolk (and indeed, it works well in “Oblivion” with anonymous bandits), but in this game everyone is an individual and a potential source of information, quests, and everything else.

“Oblivion's” sound is nothing to write home about. The music seems like an afterthought and usually is not very noticeable. The only time I ever noticed the music was when I strained my ears to hear whether or not the ‘battle' theme was playing to indicate that a hostile entity had me in its sights. The voiceacting in “Oblivion” is quite well-done, but sorely lacking in variety. There are far too many shared voices in the game, as there are fewer voiceactors than there are races and genders in the game. As such, every Imperial of each gender sounds alike, as does every Breton. Every Orc sounds alike, but they also sound exactly like every Nord. The Khajiits and Argonians also sound identical. This excessive overlap in voiceacting makes it difficult to differentiate between characters. Again, like their similar appearance, their similar voices can ruin the perception that the characters are unique individuals with names, daily routines, and personalities. It gets especially bad when two people with the same voice decide to have a conversation with each other. Perhaps the biggest voice-acting faux-pas is with the beggar characters, who have unique voices for their unique beggar-specific lines… but share the voice of their race and gender for non-beggar lines. So when approaching a beggar, he might rasp that he needs a coin to buy a pair of shoes, but when asked about rumors he'll suddenly become as lively and full of vim as any other citizen. It is truly jarring.

Technically, “Oblivion” is something of a trainwreck, which is where the majority of docked points in my score originate. This game has more random glitches than I have ever seen in a fully-patched piece of software. It also caused me great aggravation by freezing-up on me at random intervals when loading a new area, and a friend of mine encountered a glitch that made his 88 hour save file refuse to load. Now, I'm sure the PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game have had these issues remedied, either officially or unofficially, which makes it seem like PS3 owners are being treated like third-class citizens. This mistreatment of the PS3 version of the game is even more evident in the fact that NONE of the downloadable content is available on PSN (aside from “Shivering Isles,” which is already included in the Game of the Year Edition).

Story
The story begins with the player's created character (PCC) sitting in a jail cell with no explanation of why and no real personality. Before long, the Emperor of Cyrodiil, Uriel Septem, comes parading through the PCC's cell with two bodyguards as they follow a secret escape path. It seems the Emperor's heirs have all been assassinated and the Emperor himself is next on the chopping block. Since the Emperor and his bodyguards have more pressing matters on their minds than the activities of a random criminal, they don't protest when the PCC follows them into the secret passage. Thus begins the Tutorial section of the game, in which the player is exposed to all of the different gameplay mechanics in a non-permanent environment: The player is given a choice at the end of the Tutorial whether or not to change any of the design decisions that went into making the PCC. Before long, the assassins catch up to the group and off the Emperor, who gives a nice ‘chosen one' speech to the PCC and assigns him/her to deliver the Amulet of Kings to the head of The Blades: the Cyrodiilian Secret Service. The rest of the main story involves the conflict between the assassins' cult, known as the Mythic Dawn, and the Blades. The Mythic Dawn want to open gates to a Hell-like plane of existence, the titular Oblivion, and allow their demonic god to conquer the world of Tamriel. This part of the story is incredibly straight-forward, with no interesting twists whatsoever. It is also incredibly short, to the point that is feels like a side-quest instead of the main plot.

Where “Oblivion's” story gains most of its meat is the incredibly numerous and often-lengthy side-quests and the complete freedom the player has to create their own little stories in the game's Sandbox environment. I could drone on and on about the entertaining and sometimes ridiculous moments I experienced in the game, such as the time two Trolls chased me half-way from one town to another before I was able to jump up onto the parapet of a nearby abandoned fort. That shook one of the Trolls, but the other followed me into the fort and I had to fill its head with arrows… and was helped by the undead skeleton archer who dwelt in the fort… but who came after me once the Troll was dead.

The side-quests, specifically the quests for the numerous guild the PCC can join (Fighters' Guild, Mages' Guild, Thieves' Guild, Arena, Assassin's Guild, and Knights of the Nine), as well as the “Shivering Isles” expansion pack that comes with the Game of the Year Edition of “Oblivion,” can extend the game's ‘story' from a 15-hour drop in the bucket to a multi-hundred hour epic. I personally sank 300 hours into “Oblivion” and only found myself getting tired of it during the last two or three. Despite, or perhaps because of, the focus on side-quests and free-form storytelling via gameplay, “Oblivion” has an incredible amount of staying power.

Gameplay
Despite the fact that most reviewers, and even the Bethesda themselves, think “Oblivion” is an RPG, the vast majority of the gameplay comes from Sandbox elements, such as exploring random dungeons and ruins, robbing homes and businesses, crafting custom spells and magical equipments, and generally just screwing around. The game can be played in either a first-person perspective or third-person perspective. Due to the unimpressive hack-and-slash nature of close combat (the only way to be tactical in battles is to use archery and/or magic) and incredibly stupid lack of a lock-on button (such as that seen in the 3D iterations of the “Zelda” and “Metroid Prime” series, as well as the PS2 port of “Half-Life”), the first-person perspective is the only one that's viable. It is also necessary to be in first-person perspective to easily search the environments for treasure and to manipulate items.

The controls are entirely customizable, which is nice, considering the game was originally on PC, which has a vastly different control layout than a game console. There are options for movement, jumping, activating, and combat, as well as for sheathing/unsheathing the PCC's weapon (a character can only hold a torch while their weapon is sheathed). I found most of the controls to be good, though I found aiming to be a bit difficult to control at times. I can't say enough times how much better combat would have been with the ability to lock-onto one enemy at a time. Overall, the game controls very similarly to a First-Person Shooter, except there isn't a whole lot of shooting (except for arrows and ranged spells).

While most older first-person dungeon crawlers featured a party of heroes traveling together, “Oblivion's” hero is mostly solitary. And when the PCC isn't solitary, the player will wish to have that solitude back as soon as possible, as the AI for computer-controlled allies is profoundly stupid. These characters charge heedlessly into battle, throw themselves in front of the player's melee, ranged, and magical attacks as if they were trying to shield the enemies with their bodies, and completely blow any chance of stealth the player may have been trying for. Fortunately, Bethesda knows they made the AI for allies stupid, so most of the important ones are ‘immortal' to an extent: instead of dying, they are ‘knocked unconscious' and self-revive after a few minutes. Fortunately, allies aren't necessary for the game to work, since it's possible for the PCC to serve as all of the core fantasy combat roles simultaneously (Look as me, I'm an invisible healing archer wearing heavy armor!). Other party members would be redundant.

The only quasi-RPG facet of the game is the odd ‘leveling' system. I put it in quotes because it is completely different from any leveling system I've ever seen in an RPG. The PCC has 10 skills assigned by the player at its creation that are designated as ‘Major Skills,' with all of the other skills then classified as ‘Minor Skills.' Skills increase in potency and gain levels with use, as one would expect, but the PCC only gains levels by increasing the levels of its Major Skills. When the PCC gains a ‘Character Level,' the player can designate stat increases that are amplified by the skills that were improved in the process of gaining the level. This leveling system can be difficult to understand for a first-time player, as it doesn't work the way one would expect an RPG to work. In many cases, it's favorable to hold-off on leveling-up altogether.

Unfortunately, along with its wacky leveling system, “Oblivion” uses a mechanic that has never been pulled-off successfully in a game: scaled encounters (i.e., enemies level-up along with the PCC and all randomly-generated loot [that is, most of the loot in the game] is given based on the Character Level of the PCC). The biggest flaw in this aspect of the game is that the leveling system is so weird that it's possible to get a character who is very high level, but has no combat skills whatsoever. This situation would make the game impossible, as weak enemies all but disappear at high Character Levels and the PCC can get mauled by woodland creatures when walking around outside the protective walls of a city. Fortunately, “Oblivion” includes a penalty-free difficulty slider in its option menu, which allows the player to adjust the game on-the-fly should enemies ever become insurmountable. The one irritating facet of scaled encounters that doesn't have an in-game solution is the large number of unique, non-random rewards that are scaled. It's possible to complete a quest that rewards the player with the game's best shield early on, only to discover that the PCC's Character Level was below a certain threshold, thus providing a gimped version of that unique item, which will become worthless as the game progresses.

Overall
Overall, “Oblivion” is an incredibly engaging experience. While the main story may be lacking, the ability to venture through an incredibly detailed fantasy nation with few hindrances is something unique. I recommend “Oblivion” to fantasy fans, and especially Dungeons & Dragons fans. Anyone who feels like they've been left behind by the whole Sandbox genre due to the lack of fantasy-themed games in that genre would be well-advised to check-out “Oblivion” and see what the buzz is all about.

Presentation: 3.5/5
Story: 2.5/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Overall (not an average): 4/5