The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Forget what you've heard on the blogs--Oblivion is shaping up to be the Xbox 360's first must-have title.

If you've been holding out hope for Oblivion, you can let out a big sigh of relief: the game is looking great, and we've got the facts and screens to prove it.

The Oblivion build we played was just days old and nearly complete, so it should closely mirror what goes out into stores in the coming weeks. As for an exact release date, Bethesda reply is that an official announcement is imminent--and official announcement for the game is "coming soon." For what it's worth, EBGames says March 20th.

When we picked up the controller, the first thing we noticed was a tantalizing "Downloads" option plastered on the main menu (sadly, it was grayed out). We also noticed that our Xbox 360 was output through component cables into a mediocre 23'' Samsung HDTV. The resulting image looked acceptable but a bit muddy--we wish Bethesda had sprung for VGA adaptors to make the game look its razor-sharp best.

You can creep up on this roving guard and steal his dinner...just don't get caught! (Xbox 360)

Back to the hands-on experience. Next up was the character creation screen, and it marvelously demonstrates the game's phenomenal attention to detail. The eyes of the characters blink and track objects realistically--there's even a slight glossy sheen in the pupil that looks uncomfortably realistic. There are ten races in all. The humans are broken into the Imperial, Nord, Redguard, and Breton factions. There are not one, but three races of Elf: Wood Elf, Dark Elf, and High Elf. And there are the usual freaks and mutants, like piggish Orcs, gecko-like Argonians, and a race of cat people called "Khajit." As you might expect, each race has its strengths and weaknesses, so this choice relates closely to your playing style and class selection. We built a heavily modified Argonian, and changed his hues from salamander red to a sickly yellowish color, complete with fluorescent highlights. We even increased the size of his eyes, making him look like some kind of freakish albino cave newt.

Time to play! For the next hour, we played through a series of dungeons and catacombs while picking up low-level weapons (maces, axes, short swords, bows, and various magic potions) and armor. By this point in the demo, we were already impressed with Oblivion: when you see torchlight flickering off the walls and Rodents of Unusual Size pouncing out of the shadows, you'll see what we mean. The music, with its discordant wailing and rumbling kettle drums, also helped get us into the skin-crawling mood. Overall, the production values looked (and sounded) excellent. Xbox 360 owners are not likely to be disappointed.

Don't fool around with this guy--he'll cut your throat in a heartbeat (Xbox 360)

We noticed a few areas worthy of more specific attention. We've lumped these observations into two areas--good news and bad news.

First, the bad news.

The Bad News

Graphical hiccups. In general, Oblivion has seen a sizeable improvement in performance since we last saw it--aside from some small stutters in big fights, the game runs smoothly. Still, the frame rate needed a bit more fine-tuning before we'll completely give it a pass. We also saw a few visual abnormalities, including a tree that appeared to be hovering in mid-air one one level. These issues may or may not be the fault of lingering bugs in the pre-release code, so we'll have to wait for the final build to know for sure.

Then there's the issue of draw-in. You may have heard about the Wired blogger who trashed Oblivion because he saw some items pop into view. We were vaguely aware of some detail draw-in--you could see grass fade into view as you moved, and sometimes trees and buildings popped up out of nowhere. But all this controversy is overblown: the draw-in is minor and totally forgivable. And it's an unfortunate but worthy tradeoff when you consider the game's brilliant graphics. We're still following up on rumors that the pop-up is worse if your Xbox 360 isn't equipped with a hard drive--more to come on that front, but for now, Bethesda's not talking.

Up close, the visuals sparkle with detail, though there is a bit of draw-in at distances (PC)

The inventory system. Judging by our experiences, the menus are a bit much for the Xbox 360 controller. Though the interface is smartly laid out overall, it was easy to get lost while flipping between multiple inventory screens. You flip between "pages... with the L and R triggers, then cycle through various inventory types with the directional pad. It's effective, but not as effortless as you might have hoped. The PC version, on the other hand, looked to have a clean, simple, point-and-click system. Ah, the advantages of PC gaming...

Goofy physics. We noticed occasional problems with the in-game physics. NPCs would sometimes walk into something and send it shooting around the room--we watched a ham bounce and fly around a room like a Super Ball. We also encountered problems with getting stuck on scenery from time to time, though determined wiggling was usually enough to dislodge our character.

Archery takes advantage of Oblivion's advanced Havok physics engine (Xbox 360)

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