Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

The graphics in Oblivion are breath-taking. The interiors are amazing in this game. The outside landscapes are huge and overwhelming at first sight. This game has amazing HDR lighting effects and the weather mixed with night and day cycles are life-like.

The cities, outside landscapes, and weather effects all look incredible and when wandering in the Imperial City you will be astounded by the huge castles and statues, likewise the road pavements and building bricks all look great. Oblivion looks definitely does a good job in reproducing a fantasy Middle-Ages universe. The world keeps all the dead bodies where they were killed, all the items you dropped, and other things you left behind as your very own footprint on the world of Oblivion.

I was extremely impressed with the use of bump-mapping in the game’s engine. Your weapons look extremely good due to the bumps and carvings you can see in first person. Your armor and other clothing looks incredible as well, as does the effect it gives to exhibit the wrinkles on a character’s face. Each character looks different and has different facial features, while the animations and physics are also all top notch, that said, your character’s animations in third-person can look somewhat clunky.

All textures are high-resolution, at least at close distances. The 360 does struggle with this game from time to time, and there are occasional FPS spikes, usually in the outside areas, and the draw distance can sometimes make the far view look a little too much on the blurry side. But overall, this game definitely provides an extremely good graphical experience.

Oblivion delivers awesome sounds along with everything that revolves around their audio department. The voice acting is some of the best I’ve heard and most characters carry depth in their speech while the professional actors that provide voices for the main characters bring a sense of realism to the plot-line. There are hundreds of different characters in-game and they all have different personalities when it comes to their dialect.

The soundtrack is simply beautiful. The songs provide a very heroic, emotional, and epic feel to the adventure. They are also memorable and will recall some nice memories upon hearing them again in the future. Everywhere you go a soundtrack will follow and it really helps with the game immersion. The only thing I noticed is that the soundtrack isn’t as extensive as some of the other features of the game, so you will hear the same song more or less often, but again this was not a bother for me personally.

The weapons and the sounds characters make are all realistic and crisp and everything you do makes a sound while the Oblivion world makes its own sounds as well. The ambience is excellent and this game really does shine when everything is working together.

Final Word

Well another killer app I guess. Oblivion’s highest achievement is that it really does what most developers only promise. They took all the Elder Scrolls’ games and learned exactly what had to be done. In the end when it was all said and done, out came a game that caters to the RPG hardcore crowd with the games longevity, and yet it provides an interesting and great experience for the non-RPG playing crowd.

There are a few things that keep this game from being perfect. For me it was mostly the more often than I’d like to see loading screens and “loading area…” screens. Most of it will be noticed in the outside areas where combined with an occasional FPS drop, it can make the experience somewhat lukewarm.

But I won’t let that take away from the overall grand experience this game provides. I can definitely see myself coming back to this game every week or two for another year or so. I keep discovering something new every time I play and that feeling of not seeing the whole thing is killing me.

Should you try this game? You owe it to yourself.
Should you buy this game? You won’t be disappointed, I can promise that.