The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Review (Xbox 360) By Wriggy

10 / 10
16 May 2006 at 21:28

Review by: Wriggy

When you first look at the game you think, “This game looks like any old RPG” or “I wouldn’t dare” but The Elder Scrolls returns for the fourth and final time as Oblivion. With a game as big as Oblivion it is really hard to describe where to start. The best place is probably the Story.

The Story starts off with you in jail and the Emperor has come to see you. He takes you down a shortcut into some sewers where you learn the basics of the game. The Emperor then gets killed and then you get the Amulet of Kings which you have to take to the other side of Cyrodiil (the region in the game) to Brother Martin where you find an Oblivion gate which you have to close. Getting past this Oblivion gate means you can get to Brother Martin who is stuck inside the church. You then have to go inside the castle and see the King. Then the story continues with lots of deaths, adventures and more as you collect Daedric Artifacts and close more Oblivion gates.

If you get bored of the main quest then there are hundreds of mini quests in lots of different places to get gold. There are also guilds to complete. These guilds are challenging and make you a better fighter. There is the Mages Guild (a guild where you have to get recommendations from all the Mages guilds in Cyrodiil before you can even join it properly), the Fighters Guild where you mainly do fighting, the Thieves Guild where you do a lot of stealing and the Dark Brotherhood where you kill for gold.

There are also lots of enemies on the game. There are rats, trolls, wolves, bears, skeletons and zombies but you also meet lots of bandits and wizards on the way.

The map is unbelievably big. It would take hours to walk from the top to the bottom without fast travelling (more on that later). This can be a good thing as you get more for your money but it could be annoying as it would take a long time.

You can fast travel to prevent having to walk for miles and miles which makes the game much easier and slightly less boring.

As you level up, you get to choose what attributes you want to increase. You can choose from things like Strength, Luck and Willpower which makes the game more strategically challenging.

Collecting gold on the game helps you in lots of ways. You can buy a horse for a minimum of 500 gold and a maximum of 5000 gold. On your horse you can get to places faster. You can also spend gold on items from shops. You can also buy them from certain people. One example of this is Shady Sam who stands outside the Imperial City walls and sells potions and lock picks. You can also buy/rent houses to store stuff and have a bed.

Quite recently, some horse armour was uploaded to the XBOX Live Marketplace for only 200 Microsoft Points. They also put two extra quests called The Orrery and The Wizard’s Tower for 150 Microsoft Points each. The Orrery contains lots of killing as you have to go to different camps and getting artefacts and The Wizard’s Tower requires you to buy pieces for the house you get given but the house is amazingly big and up high in the mountains.

The graphics on the game are phenomenal and as there is so much to do, this game is a must buy for all XBOX 360 owners. I don’t think we’ll see a better game till Halo 3!

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