Graphics

• When viewed on an HDTV, Oblivion is the most beautiful game ever to grace a television set.
• The minute you set foot outside the dark, damp and dreary first dungeon and take your first 360 gaze at your surroundings, you’ll realize that you are in a magnificent fantasy world full of contrast.
• A beautiful country side full of tall flowing grass, colorful flowers, hills and mountains in the distance grace the landscape.
• The city walls to the Imperial City can be seen in the distance, with the White Gold Tower stretching towards the heavens standing right in the center of it.
• Each character is full of detail, whether it be the wrinkles in the faces of the elderly, or the elegantly crafted and designed armor of the Bruma guards.
• Each of your weapons is a highly detailed piece of art.
• In first person view with your weapon drawn you will probably distract yourself several times just gazing at it’s beauty when you should be using it.
• Unfortunately having such detail in a massive world does have a cost.
• You will notice that the draw distance isn’t great.
• Grass likes to appear on smooth looking hills as you walk and approach those areas.
• Occasional trees will also pop up on the smooth hills as you get closer.
• Most of the time though this isn’t really noticeable, and with all the detail in the environment around you, it is easy to understand and forgive.
• Also, the world is broken into many different areas, and as you cross the land you’ll notice that the game often has to pause to load.
• While this usually doesn’t physically pause the game, an annoying “Loading…” message can appear on the screen for all of a second or two.
• Since it is so quick to load, it makes you question why they even felt like they had to show a message.
• Still on occasion it will feel like you are playing with a little lag as you walk across the world.
• But these blemishes are minor compared to the scope and detail found in the entire game.

Sound

• The sound in Oblivion is almost perfect.
• Musically the game features an awesome score rivaling that of the best movies like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.
• The music does an awesome job of building tension, involving itself in the gameplay and really never getting boring.
• Sound effects also bring the game to life.
• On a sunny day, the outside world can seem so bright and peaceful full of natural ambient sounds.
• Enter a dark cave filled with the undead though, and you will hear zombies groan, skeletons creak, as they walk around.
• Attacking something will bring bloodcurdling screams of shock and pain.
• Melee combat is enhanced with the sound of steel on steel as a sword swings are blocked by another shield or weapon.
• Each type of weapon makes different noises too.
• A fur shield block won’t sound at all like a steel shield block.
• The voice acting quality was top notch.
• Patrick Stewart voices the last emperor, but unfortunately isn’t used a lot in the game.
• All the other characters are voiced with incredible authenticity.
• In a fantasy world of fantasy races and stories, you can really feel that these non player characters (NPC) have a genuine interest in what is happening to and around them.
• The downside to the voice acting though is that there are only a handful of unique voices.
• One minute you are listening to a tough Orc in a fit of rage speaking in a gruff deep voice.
• Later you’ll meet a complaining, whining Nord, also using the same gruff deep voice.
• While most of the voices repeat within the same few races, at times a voice can seem out of place.
• For a game so rich and deep in detail in every other way it is a little surprising that the voice acting seemed so repetitious.
• Overall the sound is some of the best quality you’ll ever hear in a video game.