Captivation

• Anyone who has played Elderscrolls III, will be quite familiar with the captivation abilities of Elderscrolls IV.
• I’ve spent over 250 hours on the game to date, and I’m still a couple hundred hours from being satisfied.
• It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how long the game is since each person will play it completely differently.
• The main story might take you between 30 and 40 hours.
• Each guild quest is probably another 20 to 30 hours each.
• Just walking across the game world can take over an hour if you stop to fight every creature that you might run into.
• To help reduce travel time you can fast travel (warp) to any location on your map that you have already visited.
• Doing this will incur a 15 to 30 second load screen but is much faster than walking.
• The load screen also has very useful information about the game which will keep you thinking about more things you can do.
• If you can make it through the first 10 to 20 hours of the game, you’ll most likely find yourself totally immersed and engrossed into the world of Oblivion.
• The beginning of the game can be a little slow as you learn all of the controls, menus and information that is available to you.
• Also, because the game is so open ended, you are free to go and do anything you want from the beginning which can be a little daunting.
• I am an explorer and completionist at heart so I personally want to find every cave, ruin, map marker, secret, and special item in the game.
• Attempting to do so has never been so fun.
• The game captures you in every way a game is supposed to and then some.
• Beautiful dynamic graphics and a wondrous over-world draw you into the fantasy world with great realism.
• Well done voice acting adds emotion to the people you talk to.
• Quests are diversified and fun and many have several different ways in which you can complete them.
• Some even have choices that will have long lasting consequences.
• With so many quests some can feel repetitive.
• The typical “fetch this” quest is used a bit but each adventure into a cave or ruin is always fun and a good time to practice a new skill or use a new powerful piece of treasure that you found on your last adventure.
• If you want to REALLY get into the world of Oblivion then you’ll spend hours reading the hundreds of books that are contained in the game.
• Opening a book found in the game might have some gameplay value as a few will give you a boost to one of your skills.
• But actually taking time to read the books will really start to make you understand the cultures and differences and mysteries found in Cyrodiil and the surrounding lands of Tamriel.
• Not all stories are interesting, but most are very entertaining.
• The background stories and history make you realize what a small role in the overall fantasy world that you actually play.
• Fans can be assured that the series has the ability to produce many many more games, books or other forms of entertainment that will fit perfectly into the world that Bethesda has created.
• This is a game you can easily spend 12 hours straight playing, and still not want to turn it off.

Final Thoughts

• Positives
• Best graphics in a console game to date.
• Great voice acting talent pulls you into the emotion of the game.
• So much open ended gameplay, it’s truly a different experience for each player.
• Perfectly executed freedom of choice allows you to play and be successful no matter what your favorite playing style is.
• A balanced world of AI creatures level up with you so the difficulty of the game never is too much or too little to handle.
• Full of gameplay, full of story, full of immersion, the game truly has everything.
• Ability to save the game anywhere at anytime keeps the frustration level low.
• Negatives
• Such detail and beauty does cause some load times.
• Graphics in the distance on occasion can be seen being drawn while you run.
• It will consume most of your free time for quite a long time.

Bottom Line

• If there is one game to own for your Xbox 360, this game is it.