The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Greatest Hits)

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The title for my review seems to be about the best way to describe this game. It's considered an RPG, but it's more of a sandbox game in my opinion. That being said, it was the first and only RPG I have played and I absolutely loved it. If you haven't played Oblivion and you're thinking about buying it for PS3, wait a month or two. Bethseda is releasing a "Game of the Year" edition that will contain all of the expansion packs for Oblivion (Knights of the Nine, which is included in this reviewed PS3 version, Shivering Isles (not included in current PS3 version), and I believe there's more). Positive and Negative breakdown, shall we?

Positives:

Fantastic graphics

large world to roam about, lots to explore and discover

Story lines are immersive

No lack of tasks to complete (game guide is some 400 pages)

character leveling provides incentive to practice skills, you also find better weapons, armor and magical abilities the higher your character levels.

ability to craft your own magic spells, enchanted weapons and armor, make potions

Negatives:

Some of the dungeon and cave crawling gets repetitive, especially the Gates of Oblivion

Enemies level with your character. While it keeps the game challenging, part of the joy of levelling is becoming more powerful. With enemies that level with your character, you never really become "God-like" as the enemies become more powerful as you do.

Really, there isn't a lot not to like. the game is at least 200 hours long, with all of the side quests and such outside the main story line. The Dark brotherhood quests, especially, are very fun quests. I highly recommend this game, but like I said earlier, wait for the Game of the Year edition if you plan to buy.

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I played the 'Game of the Year' edition on our PS3 and, before ordering the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Game of the Year Edition I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend the $50+ for the full thing or maybe start with this, less expensive, configuration and then add the Shivering Isles to it. It was a difficult decision to make because there wasn't enough information available at the time or I could not find it and, in the end, I decided to live dangerously :) and went for the GOTY. Now, that the happy Oblivion-playing days are behind me, I believe that it was the right thing to do but I would like to help, if I can, anyone who may not be so sure of what to order, make the right decision.

What you get in this edition:

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This edition has the plain-vanilla 'Oblivion' AND a relatively small expansion called 'Knights of the Nine' which was available separately on other platforms.

Knights of the Nine integrates seamlessly into the Oblivion universe and it's really a set of additional quests, all taking place inside the 'original' Oblivion universe.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles:

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Is part of GOTY but it is not included in this package. In the PS3 world, this represents the difference between the plain Oblivion and the GOTY.

The Shivering Isles are a different realm. The world's texture is different, the characters behave in a different manner, you encounter different monsters and you travel on the path of a different story line. While you can take you weapons and your skills with you, the Shivering Isles is a world onto itself and you go in and out of it through a gateway so you are either in Cyrodiil or you are in the Shivering Isles.

If you are thinking in terms of 'is it worth it?', you should be aware that the Shivering Isles does not double your universe. It is a relatively small world and it has a smaller number of quests. My estimation is that it's probably 1/5 the size of Cyrodiil proper, possibly smaller. In my view, purchasing the GOTY edition was worth it and I have little doubt that, once I was almost done with the main Oblivion I would have ordered the Shivering Isles, regardless of the price but, for anyone who's more cautious, there seems to be no price penalty for purchasing them as separate packages. However, given the convenience of having everything on one disk and given the likelihood that, if you love Oblivion you would buy the Shivering Isles anyway, I would recommend the GOTY.

See my GOTY review below.

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Oblivion is EXACTLY how I imagined an RPG should be like back in the 80's, while playing Ultimas on Commodore 64s and Atari STs.

Oblivion has weather. While there is no wind other than a constant, gentle breeze, you do get rain/thunderstorms, fog, snow (no blizzards though, because there's not much wind). You don't slip and fall on ice but the sound of your steps is different whether you walk on the road, on grass, on snow or on ice.

The world of Cyrodill is not exactly continent-size, maybe some 20-30 miles in any direction from downtown Imperial City but... what a world this is. Cities, settlements, camps, estates, roadside inns, ruins, caves, dungeons, mines, shrines. The landscape is made up of plains, hard-to-climb mountains, rivers, swamps, waterfalls, seas. You can travel on foot or you can ride a horse. You can fight your way into fame and fortune while doing good or you can sneak into other people's houses or pickpocket the unsuspecting. The guards will chase you and throw you in jail if you do illegal things but, if they like you enough, maybe they will look the other way sometimes. Powerful gods or humble people will ask you do 'little things' for them and, if you can make them happy, they will reward you according to their abilities. You can raise to the top of your profession, as a fighter, as a mage, as a thief or as an assassin or you can assemble your own little gang of dreamy crusaders so that you can fight evil and recover the relics of a legendary knight. Or you can do them all and become all, in sequence or make progress in all paths more or less simultaneously while moonlighting as a gladiator as well and, if still bored, how about helping a lady take care of the rats in her basement (that's NOT what you think) or some drunk guy at the inn get rid of the Trolls that took over his daddy's country estate? Oh and, I forgot, there's a world to save or... wait... there's TWO worlds, thanks to the Shivering Isles extension.

This game is so huge, I can't see how you could really 'finish' it. After more than 2 months of almost daily playing, I am maybe 75-80% into the main quest, half a way through the Knights of the Nine, only started the Shivering Isles adventures. I did become the realm's Chief Mage (and the titles earns me no respect from the scholar mages) and the grand master at the Fighters league, got myself 350,000 gold coins in my pocket, 2 comfortable houses and 2 nice offices, completed close to 100 quests, slaughtered 2000 creatures and hundreds of humans, murdered 4 or 5 and all but one by mistake (friendly fire), didn't even come close to the Thieves guild and, foolishly, made it impossible for me to ever join the Dark Brotherhood (these are the assassins). Also, I've never been a vampire and didn't yet start my career as a professional gladiator. I did massacre the peaceful dwellers of a small village but I did that under the influence of some drugs that made them look to me like bloody Orcs that was the price to pay for infiltrating and destroying the source of that scourge. Oh, and while briefly in the land of Dementia or was it Mania? I did, willingly, push buttons that caused a few careless adventurers to go insane and I watched as they were becoming so. I humiliated a lovely princess or was it a duchess? and I killed so many fearsome monsters, I lost count myself but the game does keep a count so it's easy to know. In fact, the game keeps track of so many things... I could easily find out how many jokes I told, how many potions I made, how many horses I've stolen (one), how many hours I slept or how many books I read.

Well...? What do you think?

On the 'not so good' side, the game does slow down when you are fighting 4-5 monsters at the same time or when there are other things that keep the PS3 busy while you are fighting the baddies like a fire burning. Loading/saving times are a bit too long but, while this is happening, you do get to read some randomly selected good advice on the screen.

The other thing that saddens me is that I don't believe the good people at Bethesda are working on the next chapter yet. I do hope that, as soon as they are done with Fallout-3, they are going to get busy with another adventure in Cyrodill or thereabouts.

My other problem is that I am now fighting with my kids over time on the PS3. We have a bunch of other games but, since Oblivion came into our house, I would say that 95%+ of our PS3 time was on Oblivion.

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I've never been much for the medieval adventure genre of video games but this game is really quite amazing. The world is so rich and detailed. It doesn't have the scripted feel that many games do. You can explore just about anything anywhere and it seems like there are nearly countless little discoveries that you wouldn't know existed if you didn't decide to just wander off the path.

Excellent Game!

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Well, I have owned Oblivion since it came out for the Xbox 360. For any RPG fan, this game cannot be beat. The depth of game play, the level of detail, and of course the fun factor. The proof is in the pricing. It has been one year and most still sell Oblivion for the 360 at close to the same price as when it was released. Very few games can accomplish that.

I am a long-time Microsoft fan. I find most PS3 games ok, but nothing spectacular nor any better than any comparable game on the 360. Graphically though for Oblivion on the PS3, I must honestly admit it looks a lot more crisp, clearer, and brighter. I am still using the same TV and using component cables for both systems. On the 360 with my TV, I found myself needing to increase the brightness all the time just to see certain areas well enough even with a torch lit. It is perfect on the PS3 without any adjustments.

Load times are faster overall. You still wait here and there, but not nearly as long as on the 360. It is missing many of the downloads you could get on the 360 for a small fee. A couple of those I really miss. I still think the Xbox 360 controllers are much better to use than the Sony ones, so that is one flaw I do not like dealing with.

So yes, same game on a different system and I bought it again. This game has entertained me for hundreds of hours and hopefully even hundreds more. If you have not played it, there are many characters to choose from and during the game, you can of course choose a heroic path to an insanely evil path. You just have to be good enough not to get caught when being evil.

Now maybe if they did it on the Wii with that remote, that would be interesting.

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For those of you that don't own or haven't played Elder Scrolls Oblivion for the PC or 360...Oblivion is an RPG adventure (Role-Playing Game) that focuses on a gigantic fantasy world know as Cyrodiil. The game allows you, the player, to progress your character in anyway you choose or could possibly imagine, in order to save the world from oblivion. For those who haven't played this type of game (RPG), don't be afraid...this is THE BEST game on the Playstation 3.

Coming from a football/basketball sports game fan (GO Lions...yeah right), I originally thought that I wouldn't like the game because it may have been too "nerdy" for me. Boy was I wrong. This is easily one of the deepest, most customizable games made in the last 5-10 years! Once you finished the tutorial level (Imperial Prison), YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU WANT in this world. You'll learn anything from powerful magic to hand-to-hand combat to summoning all sorts of things. You can join guilds with other people, be a bad guy, be a good guy, become a gladiator or a master thief...Just about anything you can think of. Once you get into the flow of the game, you'll spend hours a day just playing it and progressing through.

In terms of looks and graphics, on an High Definition TV (720P), this game is probably one of the best, if not the best looking game on the Playstation 3. Its as good looking as a $1000-2000 dollar computer and better looking than its Xbox 360 counterpart. I am also under the impression that even on a Standard TV set, the game still looks great, just not "HD great."

Although there is no online gameplay (No online on ALL versions of the game), the game has an incredibly deep artificial intelligence system that will keep you busy for hundreds of hours worth of gameplay.

Bottom Line, if you own a Playstation 3, buy this game! If you don't have the money, borrow the money. If you can't borrow the money, rob a Best Buy...kidding, just kidding. The game is 10/10 and the best title on the system so far.