The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition

This game did not have the time and attention it needed. While it's bigger than Morrowind in almost every way, it's certainly not better. It lacks the character and immersion its predecessor had, and that's likely for a variety of reasons. Irrespective of Cyrodiil perhaps not being as compelling a location as Morrowind (specifically Vvardenfell), this is a great game with some rough spots. The main story is lackluster, but the gameplay and world are interesting enough to disregard that fact. There is plenty to do and Cyrodiil is much later than Vvardenfell. The Oblivion gates are also an interesting dynamic that, while they become stale, adds variety to the world. Where the main story fails, Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles make up for it. These two expansions are far better than the base game and make it worth playing. The Dark Brotherhood questline is also of note as being very good. The Arena questline is also worth playing. The biggest detractor of this game, however, is the level scaling. No matter how high a level you obtain and how rare your gear is, enemies always scale with you so you will never feel powerful. Not only do enemies continue to get harder, but they even drop rarer items. The problem with this is you eventually run into highwaymen who are wearing daedric armor, which is supposed to be the rarest set in the game. I also forgot to mention exploring the 300+ dungeons in Oblivion is pointless as the looting tables in the game make chests you open at the end have worthless loot, like an apple and a fork. A great game, but it has major flaws.

It's been 10 years. A decade since release of Oblivion. The Elder Scrolls series have come a long way but it's always worth to look back at the past games to see what cemented the games' fame. TeS IV: Oblivion is no exception to this, as many aspects of the game has withstood the test of time and is still comparable to TeS V: Skyrim. Some of the negative reviews have under-appreciated what made Oblivion memorable. The quests, especially side quests, are far more engrossing than Skyrim's own. All of the factions' missions are well done and it's very hard to pick favorites. I personally enjoyed the Dark Brotherhood's quests because they were so much better than Skyrim's. In Oblivion, you can go back to the prison the main character was in and assassinate the arrogant Dark Elf that taunted you for instance. Revenge hasn't been that sweet. Meanwhile, the majority of the quests in Skyrim were copied and pasted... The expansion packs included in this release have also been well done, though the Shivering Isles is my favorite. Without a doubt, the expansion pack brings a world completely fresh and the characters are...really memorable due to their craziness. But hey, it was to be expected when the shrine of Sheogorath was first encountered. I did mention earlier that a handful of negative reviews overlooked Oblivion. Some of them were correct however, the majority of the characters were bland, save for a few, and their faces are not synced with specific emotions, such as laughing. However, Fallout 3 and New Vegas did not even come close and they were released a few years after Oblivion. In other words, the Fallout series completely lacked facial emotion. The "Justice System" is laughable, as guards and (civilian) NPCs tend to freak out if one simply touches an owned item but often, with 100% Chameleon (aka invisibility), one can kill without alerting other NPCs/enemies usually. Also, a lot of gameplay elements that boosted Morrowind were removed, such as levitation and specific weaponry, like throwing knives and crossbows. Even with these setbacks, Oblivion has a dedicated modding community. New weapons, enemies, overhauls, etc can be installed based on your tastes. Some may say, they focused more on modding/adding mods than playing the game! I (still) rate TeS IV: Oblivion an A- for setting as an RPG example to this very day. A lot of RPG games since then focused more on action than immersion and do not bother with even making quests that good.

The first time I played this game I was really disappointed. I played for maybe 15 hours and then stopped playing much. I just kept comparing it to Morrowind in my mind, and anywhere it was different I considered almost inferior. But then I played it again a year later and when I didn't compare it to Morrowind it was a lot of fun in its own right as a distinct game. Even with some things perhaps improved such as combat. The only things that I still really don't like about the game are the graphics for the faces (they just look strange) in the vanilla version of the game and just raiding different plains of Oblivion that all look the same gets a little old. But playing with the guilds, the arena, and even just exploring around can be a lot of fun.

What more can i say about this game other than its Oblivion. I've invested probably more hours into this game than i've actually lived in reality. The graphics of the vanilla version are fairly impressive, but the game only becomes all the more impressive through the efforts of a very dedicated and faithful modding community. The landscape is serene, the monsters come in all shapes and sizes, the game draws you into it and just doesnt want to let go.

Oblivion has been brutally overrated in my opinion. I've put about 25 hours total into this game, and hardly any of it has been spent actually enjoying myself. The characters are plastic and devoid of emotion, the environments are the same few hundred yards copied and pasted over and over. The story doesn't start off entertaining, but seems to have potential. Unfortunately, I can't bring myself to see that potential. The gameplay is stiff and awkward, the magic system is horribly weird and clunky, and it's just an overall boring experience. I want to like it, and it's not bad per se. There's just nothing special about it and I've yet to be convinced otherwise.