With Oblivion there are two ways to write this review, your either going to compare it to Morrowind or write it as a totally seperate game, on it’s own.
To compare it to Morrowind could be disappointing and also unfair to both games so i’m just going to write this review as if I had never played another game, just Oblivion.
After being freed from my cell one of the first things that really grabbed my attention was the first encounter I had with an enemy, it was a rat, that’s not so unusual but the graphics and reality of how that rat behaved were unbelievable, so lifelike.
When you eventually work your wait out in to the actual world of Oblivion it’s astounding, the scenery, the grass, the trees, yes this sounds like i’m making a big deal out of something which should appear ordinary, but it’s not ordinary, this is the first game which actually had grass that moved in the wind, trees that dropped autumn leaves, like something more out of a movie than a game.
Without trying to make this review an epic, as I could write about it all day and still not get it all down, you have to play this game even if it’s just to experience what can now be achieved with these new gaming systems. For graphics and the way they work I have to give 10 out of 10, the trouble is I think the play has suffered a little probably because of the graphics, you can complete the main quest fairly quickly but again as with a few others the side quests are far and wide and are many which can give you a lot of hours of play time, this is certainly another game I will keep hold of as I will undoubtedly play it over and over again.
If your looking for a follow on to Morrowind you could be disappointed so treat it like a completely unassociated game and you’ll be fine, it’s definitely worth the money especially now as it’s a lot cheaper, I mean even Oblivion must be a couple of years old now.
My overall score for Oblivion would be around 8 out of 10 but that’s simply because I was expecting a Morrowind like game with added extra’s and in fact they took things away which I really liked in Morrowind, I know I said I wouldn’t compare the two games but it’s really hard for me not to when I spent more than two years playing Morrowind so even though I was amazed by the graphics, personally I would have preferred slightly less focus on graphics if it meant sacrificing what could have been a 10 out of 10 game, I mean lets face it, it was great to see moving grass and falling leaves but it’s not essential in a game, grass is grass and plays no relevance in the story so why spend so much extra time and resources making it sway in the wind, my guess is this was an experiment to show what really could be achieved with the latest technology and I can’t blame the makers for that, it’s nice to see, I just think ultimately something was taken away from the gameplay itself, still a great game to play though, go get it if you haven’t yet.
Tony