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advertisement Each year there is always one title that the gaming industry really looks forward to being released, but there are very few games that make gamers want to squeal like teenage girls at an N’Sync concert. The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion is one of those titles. Huge. Expansive. Non-linear. Open-ended. None of these words really quite describes what I like to call Oblivion, which is a “single-player MMORPG”. An MMOG is like a living game experience. Through patches, expansions, and the experience of sharing your game play with thousands of other people an Online Role-Playing game can seem never-ending as you explore the various jobs, skills, and environments provided for you. It could literally take months to see and do absolutely everything inside an MMORPG. TES: Oblivion is exactly like that, minus the people and the required internet connection, hence the term “Single-Player MMORPG”. If you’ve never played a TES game and plan on trying out Oblivion, then you are in for a treat. The TES series started off 12 years ago with a small title known as The Elders Scrolls: Arena. TES: Arena was considered the first non-linear open-ended RPG ever. While Arena is considered a classic by today’s gaming standards, many of its features are still present in the series today which many keep many die-hard fans coming back. Oblivion starts off simply with you choosing a race, name and look for your character. Never has any single player game allowed you to customize the look of your character like Oblivion. If you have ever played Star Wars Galaxies, then you might not be as surprised at the character creation. Oblivion’s predecessor Morrowind gave you the ability to choose your race and a single look for your character. Once you chose a race and gender, you could choose a head from 5 or 6 pre-generated looks. Oblivion gives you the ability to not only choose your head, but customize everything about it. You have the ability to change everything from the hair-style to your nose width and height to color of your skin. When you are done, you find yourself in prison (every Elder Scroll game starts this way, no one really knows why) when you are found by the Emperor and his private guards known as “The Blades”. After speaking with the Emperor, voiced courtesy of the celebrated actor, Patrick Stewart, you discover that his life is in danger and his guards are quickly ushering him out of the city through a secret passage which just happens to be located in your cell. At this point your class is still a mystery as the game introduces you to various aspects of the game through a small dungeon crawl through the sewers. While it sounds a bit boring for an advanced gamer, this introduction is not only used to set up your character, but draw you into the world of Tamriel. At the end of the dungeon sequence, you are suggested a class based on how you played your character up to that point. You are then given the ability to choose your class, or even create your own. Once you escape the sewers and are out in the free world, you can choose to follow the main quest line or follow your own path. From this point on how you play the game is entirely up to you. The Elder Scroll system allows you to use any skill in the game regardless of your class or race. How well you do it is based on your skill progress. When creating a character class you must choose 2 main attributes that you specialize in such as Strength, Agility, Intelligence, etc. You then choose 7 Major skills that you think your character will use the most often during his or her life. The rest of the skills become your Minor skills. Increasing a Major skill will allow your character to level up and give you the choice of increasing his or her base attributes. Increasing a skill is as simple as using it. The more you use it, the better you will become at it. Oblivion introduced a new Skill tier system that fans of the series will enjoy. All skills, except magical skills, are separated out into 5 tiers: Novice, Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, and Master. Each tier has a special advantage or bonus for increasing your skill. For example in Morrowind, maxing your Acrobatics ability up to the level of 100 just increased the distance in which you could jump. In Oblivion, maxing your Acrobatics skill will give you a special ability that allows you to jump off the surface of water. The various non-combat skills are one of the aspects of the game that can overwhelm a player simply because there is just so much to do. If you have the proper tools, and the right ingredients you can make your potions with their own effects through Alchemy. If you like to like to play a Magic based class and join the Mages Guild, you eventually gain access to create your own spells with their own effects. For those who like to play the stealthy role in a game, lockpicking and pickpocketing can be welcome break from the general hack-and-slash. If you want your character to be as powerful as he or she can be, take up Enchanting. Enchanting armor and weapons will not only increase your base stats, but will also make a relatively cheap item worth quite a bit of gold to a vendor. The game can be played in either first person or third person perspective. As a seasoned MMORPG player, I instinctively went to third person but found playing in first person was much more enjoyable. Both melee and ranged battles are very intense in first person. Performing an attack is limited to pushing a single button, but battles can be very quick or slow depending on how smart you play. In Morrowind, you would just hit an opponent until he fell. With Oblivion, you have to balance your attacks with a blend of fast and powerful blows, while raising your shield or weapon to block or parry an attack. The Enemy AI is a lot more advanced than in the previous games. If you are at the losing end of a battle your opponent will taunt you as your health diminishes. If you find yourself easily dispatching an opponent, they may actually run away to heal themselves or even drink a health potion in an effort to win. Everything about the game is beautiful. There is no object in Oblivion that has not been modeled, textured, and designed with such attention to detail that you may very well forget that you are playing a video game. The wild landscapes in Tamriel are enough to take your breath away. You could wander around aimlessly for hours just taking in the sights and sounds. Also, every enemy is just as detailed as the landscape and environment around them. Graphically, there is nothing negative I can say about this game. Oblivion is quite possibly the best looking title I have ever had the privilege to experience as a gamer. The interface is simple enough, but it is also the only negative feature I found in the game. If you are a fan of the series and a PC gamer, you can very quickly notice that the interface was designed for the Xbox 360 and gamers playing with controllers instead of keyboard and mice. In Morrowind, if you wanted to bring up your map you pushed “M” for your map, “J” for your journal and so on. In Oblivion, the entire menu system is all under one button, Tab. This change in game control wasn’t that hard to get used to, but deciphering every menu’s tab icon was a bit of a challenge unless you took the time to read and memorize the manual. Hitting Tab will bring up the menu for the last window you had up, but unfortunately several of the menus don’t have a title at the top. So for the first few hours of game play I stumbled around the various menus trying to figure out what each one meant since there are no descriptive tooltips available (or any tooltips at all for that matter). Flip through the manual quickly if you don’t want to spend time scratching your head. As far as I'm concerned, this is a minor problem and easily diminished as you learn the game. I can't bring myself to take points off for a slightly flawed menu system that I have managed to get use to well enough. Another keen difference between the older games and the new game is travel. In the previous game, Morrowind, you could travel around the province either slowly by foot, or quickly by silt strider. Oblivion eliminated the downtime of travel by allow you to “Fast Travel” through you world map. If you want to run from the Imperial City to Bruma, you will most definitely encounter some unfriendly wildlife and possibly a roving bandit or two. Fast travel cuts out the time it takes to travel by estimating the time it would take you to get from one destination to the next. The only downside to this is that you don’t get to discover hidden ruins or monuments and that's half the fun. Still, for those who like the faster paced game, you'll find the change to be a great enhancement. For those of us that like to wonder around and enjoy the scenery, we can still do that as well. Along with acclaimed Havok physics engine, Bethesda released a new game feature with Oblivion called Radiant AI. Ever play an RPG and wonder why all the NPCs just stand around or follow the same path through a town over and over? In Oblivion, each and every NPC has a set schedule of tasks that they have to accomplish everyday. If you want, you can literally follow an NPC around town each day and watch them eat breakfast, go to work, take a lunch break, talk and gossip with other NPCs, and eventually go home and sleep. Be careful where you follow them though. This isn’t Final Fantasy so NPCs will take great offense if they find you in their home rifling through their property (which is VERY tempting to do). Every NPC is professionally voiced which makes interacting and talking to them really enjoyable. Ultimately, Oblivion is very enjoyable on either Xbox 360 or on PC. The Xbox 360 has some unlockable content available to gamers who must do absolutely every quest available, while the PC version has a downloadable content creator which will extend the replayability. The most impressive thing about Oblivion is how it appeals to every aspect of the RPG genre with a quality that no other RPG has ever done. Whether you’re looking for fast paced combat, an in depth story line, colorful dialog, a completely open-ended questing system, or simply beautiful jaw dropping graphics you will find something you absolutely love to do in Oblivion.
Official Website: www.elderscrolls.com The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - JIVE Magazine's BEST RPG AT E3 2005 (Rated 5 out of 5 for the demo review gameplay)
Bethesda to Tap Top Voice Talent for Oblivion OTHER FORMATS AND PREVIOUS VERSIONS IN THE ELDER SCROLLS SERIES: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Official Game Guide)
Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Collector's Edition (DVD-ROM) - Windows NT / XP / 2000 / 98
Xbox 360 The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Collector's Edition
Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind Game of the Year Edition - Windows 95 / XP / Me / 2000 / 98
Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind Expansion Pack: Bloodmoon - Windows 2000 / XP / Me / 98
Morrowind- the Elder Scrolls III- Xbox
Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind -Windows 98 / Me / XP / 2000
Game Details Provided by the Publisher: This is the highly-anticipated role-playing game, The Elder Scrolls® IV: OblivionTM, , available for Xbox 360TM video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PC in both regular and collector's editions. Published by 2K Games, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., and developed by Bethesda Softworks, Oblivion is the quintessential RPG for the next generation coming to Xbox 360 and PC. "Our most ambitious project ever is finally done," said Todd Howard, Executive Producer of Oblivion. "We're excited to get the game into everyone's hands and let them experience it for themselves. We hope they enjoy it. I think it's our best game yet."
STORY: After the mysterious and untimely death of the Emperor, the throne of Tamriel lies empty. With the Empire ready to crumble, the gates of Oblivion open and demons march upon the land - laying waste to everything in their path. To turn the tide of darkness, you must find the lost heir to the throne and unravel the sinister plot that threatens to destroy all of Tamriel.
Oblivion for Xbox 360 and PC, co-published by 2K Games and Bethesda Softworks, has been rated 15 by the BBFC. For more information on the title visit the official web site at www.elderscrolls.com |
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