Oblivion finds the sweet spot between ambition and playability the series has been searching for.
Oblivion sets out to immediately show the player what it's about, starting the game with an epic cinema and following it with an intensely deep and customizable character creation system. Players choose between ten unique races, each with different strengths, weaknesses, and powers, as well as the customary aesthetic differences. Hair, skin tone, eye color and shape, as well as many other facial features, can be altered to a given player's liking. Even age has a slider, so players can take on Cyrodiil's many quests and challenges as a warrior on the cusp of adulthood, a wizened old crone, or anything in between. Players also choose an astrological sign that determines additional bonuses/weaknesses for their character. They also decide which skills will be major (and by doing so, minor as well) for their character, shaping their approach to the game as they see fit, through either a pre-made class (whcih is suggested to the player by an NPC based on their choices thus far) or a customized one.
Therein lies the first major problem with Oblivion, however. In order to head off some of the overwehelming levels of difficulty players experienced with Morrowind, Bethesda designed Oblivion to have enemies remain at a level relative to the player's own. In order to level up, the player must attain a certain amount of skill bonuses in their major skills, but what isn't mentioned explicitly is that all skills, minor included, affect attribute bonuses when a player does so. Since the player is given the option to boost three overall attributes at each level up, it is key for them to be able to put as many points as possible into this process. It is quite feasible that a player who doesn't fully comprehend this system might have an extremely difficult time with the game in later levels, as their level-up rate might be hampered along the way, whereas players who understand how this works would likely find themselves well ahead of the curve. Oblivion's system of improving specific skills with usage is a nice change of pace from the way most RPG's handle levelling up, but Oblivion's system is more for abusing than simply using properly. For this reason, the game's difficulty slider can come quite in handy; whether the game gets a tad too easy or much too difficult, the player can adjust the settings accordingly to ensure an experience that suits them best.
After they play through the tutorial dungeon, players are given the option to keep their character or rebuild it from scratch, and then are given full rein to explore the world around them. This is, by far, Oblivion's most engaging feature. That players can do whatever they want, whenever they want (to the extent of their character's given abilities), is truly liberating, especially on a console, where Japanese RPG's, with a general focus on linear gameplay, have dominated the genre's landscape for so long. While the game's main plotline is made readily available, it is purely optional whether or not the player chooses to follow it immediately, later, or at all.That players can continue to play as the same character after thay have completed the Main Quest also means that there is no "end" to the game, per se, but that's aprt of Oblivion's charm.
While there are hundreds of quests the world over, those of most interest will likely involve the guilds, arena, or main storyline. Each questline has interesting elements to it, whether it involves saving the realm, such as the main quest does, or sneaking in and out of locations unseen and unheard, such as the Thieves Guild often requires. Also, with so many options, there's bound to be a certain approach that appeals to the player's favored style of gameplay, whether it's bruising around the Arena or finding devious ways to kill people as a member of the Dark Brotherhood.
The gameplay mechanics of Oblivion have seen a tremendous improvement since Morrowind. Battles now take place in a manner consistent with what occurs on-screen; a hit is a hit, a miss a miss, a block a block. While Oblivion is still very much an RPG by definition, the actual flow of gameplay is consistent with a first-person action/adventure approach. It works very well, felling natural and organic. It's hard to believe that previous games in the series didn't play like this. The actual accomplishment of tasks ranges from sneaking and lockpicking to persuasion (the latter two involving minigames of little distinction), battle, and spell-casting. The wide range of activities and approaches available to the player allows them their own gameplay experience, and in this regard it's actually possible that the experience two different players partake in may be wholly different from each other's. The goals may be the same, but each character is different, and thusly each experience can be completely unlike the one before it.
Also, for each quest, Oblivion includes a very helpful map marker for the next goal. Players will never be wont for direction on a given quest, nor will they have to spend very long travelling, since any location they've been to (and/or any major city location) can be "fast-travelled" to. What this means in practice is that once the player selects and confirms a destination, the game autocalculates the time it would take to get there. The locale chosen by the player loads, the time is appropriate for estiamted travel to arrive, and if the player was on horseback, they're still atop their steed (or it's stabled outside the city gate if they are in town). This element may seem like it cheapens the experience at first, but Oblivion's main goal of design seems to be a compromise of realism and playability, and fast travel and direction arrows are no exception. These elements, while small and of little consequence on the surface, are of immense benefit to the player.
Oblivion is one of the first XBox 360 games to really take advantage of the new hardware in a big way, and it does not disappoint. The gorgeous realm of Tamriel is absolutely breathtaking, from the foggy shores of Anvil to the wintry mountains surrounding Bruma. The usage of light bloom is liberal but not laid on too thickly, the draw distance is fair, and the textures are generally quite good. The character models are well-done, though some players may not be entirely pleased by how plain most of them look, since they were all generated using the same character creator the player uses. Arrows stick in bodies (including the player's own), steel and glass reflect moonlight, sunlight, and fire, and the red glow of Oblivion is effectively cast. The framerate isn't always up to the challenge, especially when activities like auto-saving or a nearby Oblivion Gate gets in the way, but it's steady more often than not. Oddly, the only major stuttering isn't related to the visual aspects Oblivion at all. It's related to the audio.
For some reason, the coding of dialogue requires the 360 to load additional information, which means that on a somewhat regular basis, spoken content (which every line of text is available in) starts late, or not at all. This can be distracting because the lip-synching is fairly well done normally, and it's by far the biggest glitch this reviewer ran into. It seems a different approach to how this information is stored or accessed would have solved this problem, but as is, it's a minor issue. The music is appropriate for given situations, but it's rather limited. There simply aren't that many tracks, which is unfortunate, because Jeremy Soule is at his best in Oblivion, forgoing the mundane atmospheric efforts of some his recent work for thematic pieces that work well within the context of the game. The voice acting is also quite solid, but there is a very limited amount of voice actors, so players will often find themselves hearing someone several times in a handful of encounters. The sound effects themselves are done well, with the clash of swords against steel and arrows burying themselves in shields all appropriate and of high quality. Footsteps don't always match the surface of the ground,and bumping into things seems overly loud at times, but the environmental sound effects rarely detract from the game experience.
Of worthy note is also the input of Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean, the former lending his distinctively authoritative voice to that of Emporer Uriel Septim, and the latter lending his trademark pipes to a Priest named Martin. Bean's performance is particulary interesting as one might expect him to just re-up his "Boromir" performance from Lord of the Rings, but Bean's portrayal of Martin is much more vulnerable and unsure, an impressive effort by an actor trying not to duplicate a work along similar genre lines.
Oblivion easily has at least 100 hours of gameplay in it, and considering the open-ended nature of not only the gameplay but the character creation as well, it could definitely wind up being two to three times that for a given player. There are abandoned mines and Ayleid ruins, small homes in the wilderness and campsites of not-so-friendly types. These alone could take dozens of hours to locate and loot, all the while not specifically relating to any quests in particular. There is such an overwhelming amount of content that it almost seems scary at first, but Oblivion has done gamers right by ensuring that it's all manageable. Bethesda Softworks has been tweaking the Elder Scrolls formula since its inception ten years ago, and this time, they got it right. Anyone can jump into the realm of Cyrodiil and have a good time, and anyone looking to get more out of their experience can definitely go for it. Oblivion is a great game that sets new lofty standards not only for the RPG genre, but also for open-ended gameplay in general, and stands as the XBox 360's first true "killer app." Welcome to Tamriel. A new life awaits you.