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PC | RPG | The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Boxart for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion 97 screen shots
  • GRAPHICS: 5.0
  • SOUND: 4.5
  • CONTROL: 4.0
  • FUN FACTOR 5.0
  • AVG USER SCORE 5.0
  • AVG CRITIC SCORE 4.6
Winner of the GamePro Editor's Choice Award

Review: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Review by Vicious Sid | 04/07/2006 | 14:20:54 PM PST

The PC version of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is smoother, sleeker, and more polished than its Xbox 360 counterpart

It's funny how little things can make or break a game. Take The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, the latest in a proud line of immersive role-playing games from Maryland-based developer Bethesda Softworks.

Oblivion is a masterpiece. But technological frustrations compromised the Xbox 360 version, keeping it from shining as brightly as it could have. Luckily, the PC version is slightly more polished, enough so to bump its score up to a perfect 5.0.

PC or Xbox 360?
The performance on the Xbox 360 version desperately needs a tune-up, but on the PC, the experience is much more manageable. Getting a case of the stutters? No sweat -- just dial down the graphical detail a notch (or use our Oblivion tweak guide) to boost the performance to more playable levels. That's a key advantage behind PC games, particularly those as complex and graphically demanding as Oblivion.

That's not to say that Oblivion won't push your PC hard -- it will. The GamePro PC testbed consists of an Athlon 64 3500+, 2 GB of RAM, and a Geforce 7800 GT. We played at 1360 x 768 (widescreen) with High Dynamic Range lighting (aka HDR) and no anti-aliasing. Even on this powerful system, Oblivion suffered from some frame rate stuttering during busy indoor or outdoor scenes, dropping as low as 17 frames per second (30 frames is considered a very acceptable frame rate). But no sweat: we simply applied a few tweaks and we got excellent performance without sacrificing much visual beauty at all. Under these tweaked settings, the PC version of Oblivion didn't look quite as mind-blowingly crisp as it did in 1080i and 4x FSAA on the Xbox 360, but it still looked fantastic. And most importantly, it ran smoothly and consistently.

Load times are also greatly improved on the PC version, likely thanks to the native hard drive. The Xbox 360 version, you may recall, suffered from lengthy load times that seriously tested our patience. Not so on the PC -- just a few seconds of waiting here and there.

That said, the PC version is mostly identical to the Xbox 360 version. The controls respond a little better -- archery, particularly, is infinitely simpler using a mouse or trackball -- and we found the point-and-click inventory system to be more fluid, if not quite perfect. Binding keys to the mouse seems to be broken in the current version.

Otherwise, the PC version is marvelous. Read on for the full rundown.

Into the Great Wide Open
We wanted to get the bad news out of the way first because otherwise, with a few notable exceptions, Oblivion deserves nothing but praise. If you thought Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was still the king of open-ended gameplay, Oblivion will blow your mind. Right from the beginning of the game, your options are almost limitless, guided only by your preferences and actions. The main storyline quest is available at any time, but you're free to ignore it and venture off on your own. If you want, you can conquer the local Arena circuit, rise to the top of a guild, pick pockets, gamble away your loot, buy real estate, or prey on villagers as a blood-guzzling vampire. Tamriel is a vast place (sixteen miles wide, according to Bethesda) and its choices are nearly limitless.

Most players will initially choose to tackle the main quest, which takes a page from the book of Diablo. The empire of Tamriel is under siege from dimension-hopping demonic interlopers. Naturally, you're charged with rescuing the Emperor's son and halting the invasion. The central quest is supplemented by small sub-quests, such as defending cities, infiltrating religious cults, or entering the Oblivion gates and raiding the invader's hellish home turf.

These latter quests are often the most satisfying, with the harsh, unforgiving realm of Oblivion providing a suitably bizarre setting for sword-and-sorcery combat. Though many of these objectives turn into routine gopher or assassination grinds, you can always choose to chase some separate side-quest until you're ready to resume your primary responsibilities. The primary storyline is by-the-book, but what it lacks in plot it makes up for in depth. It cannot be over-emphasized: Oblivion's size and scope are simply stunning.

The character creation in Oblivion goes into absurd detail, so much so that it's outside the scope of this review. Needless to say, you're free to tweak almost every physical detail of your character, from hair color and style to facial structure and skin tone (though, oddly, there's no way to adjust body sizes or types -- maybe next time). And as in the other Elder Scrolls games, Oblivion employs an "organic" approach to experience and skill advancement. You need to exercise your skills to improve them in Oblivion, which means you won't improve your Blade skill until you actually pick up a sword. This can cause some frustration and confusion early in the game, as the proper path to a solid character design is not always obvious. Just like in real life, experimentation is key.


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