The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Reviews

A handful of new reviews for Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion were published while I was busy with E3. The first is at GamerDad with an overall score of 4/5:

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a game in which graphics matter it is projecting a real world in a realistic way, and that gives decisions and outcomes a bit more moral heft than many other games. I was happily exploring a happy town with my kids watching when I met someone and had a chat that resulted in them getting furious and running off to confront the guards, which resulted in the person getting brutally struck down. My kids were shocked, and so was I and I gravely regretted letting them watch me play. This isn’t a game for kids to play or even to watch. The game earns its M rating and Adult seal because the situations are unpredictably adult, but invariably realistically presented with very good voice acting.

The second is at TheGlobeAndMail with no overall score:

I waited a long time for Oblivion, and I must confess to getting caught up in the hype. Am I at all disappointed with the finished product? Not in the least. I should go on and review other games now, but it’s going to be hard to walk away from Oblivion.

The third is at Game Over Online with an overall score of 96%:

The world of Oblivion is big. Really big. It takes a really long time to walk across it, though you can buy a horse to ride and save yourself some time. There are a dozen major cities, a multitude of smaller villages, untold numbers of dungeons, mines, caves, ruins, forts, temples, shrines and camps. I’ve run across many different weapons, pieces of armor, a couple of dozen potion ingredients, magic rings, necklaces and jewels. I’ve battled imps, goblins, bears, boars, spiders, rats, crabs, fish, orcs, ogres, giants, mages, thieves, wolves, and the lists go on and on. I regret (insofar as the review is concerned) that I have not played World of Warcraft so I can’t make any comparison there, but other than a couple of thousand people running around with names like Giantschlong177 and server lag, I can’t imagine what it could add to the experience. Oblivion is by far the closest I have come to playing D&D Sunday afternoons with my friends (yes, I did that, though I’m on medication now), all wrapped up in a stunning package with tens of thousands of lines of spoken dialog and good music. Oblivion is supposed to have hundreds of hours of playtime inside. As I’ve solved about 20 quests, have another 10 open in my quest log, and have yet to even get involved in the plot, I find that very easy to believe. What more could an RPG fan want?

And the fourth is at GamingGroove with an overall score of 9.0/10:

Oblivion is huge…I’ve said that, but it’s so absolutely huge that you have no idea. It’s over 200 hours of play in the game. A record I heard was that some dude took 60 just to play the main quest. Except for the crashes, which were infrequent and annoying, there aren’t any real “bugs” in the game; however, Bethesda needs to address whatever that is that’s causing it and fix it ASAP. Now since I didn’t play any of the previous Elder Scrolls games, I can’t compare it to any predecessor; but I can compare it to another game I loved: Neverwinter Nights. Oblivion makes NWN look like a sad little cartoon. Seriously. Bioware, you need to step up to the plate!