Customer Reviews

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Official Game Guide, Covers all Platforms, revised and expanded

5 star:		(52)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

For once, Prima's Oblivion guide is actually worth buying. With full walkthroughs of almost every quest, detailed explanations of skills and skill stacking, map locations, and a bunch of miscellaneous information that can conceivably save hundreds of hours of gameplay it's obviously been extraordinarly well-researched and gives anyone who buys it a leg up. 5 stars for both the guide and the value proposition.

Prima's guides have gone dramatically downhill in recent years. Some of it isn't their fault as their testing often gets crammed by publishers rushing out gold titles that are really beta versions, but often the reviewers just seem harried to write the guide in a week so to get it out in time for the release and aren't exploring in depth the way those who buy the guides do. (Read my reviews of several of their useless MMORPG guides as to how bad they've gotten.) Almost always, online help guides are both far more comprehensive and a far better value.

This one is different. Part of it is that the game itself is structured ideally for a guide like this, with extremely limited ingame linearity and direction, and basically no discussion of skill mechanics. Any guide would help. But this actually is magnificently researched (likely thanks to the long delay Bethesda had in launching Oblivion) and when the manual starts with character building and skill discussions at levels that would take months of experimenting by players to figure out, you know you're in good shape. As you'd expect, another key element is walkthroughs of what looks to be every quest in the game, but what makes this outstanding is that the reviewer actually took the time to figure out what happens if you do a particular quest when a particular NPC is dead or if you've done another quest that might conflict with the first - critical for non-linear play. Everything else you'd expect from a top quality guide (maps with detailed locations, treasure drops, and mechanics) is there. Only thing missing is a vendor list and indexing of more than a couple pages worth of topics, but for something this comprehensive it's a minor oversight.

For once, well done Prima. More kudos on the value proposition. Given how heavily Amazon has this discounted, it's probably worth buying this and the non-collector's edition rather than the collector's edition by itself - you'll get a slug more help and gameplay will speed up dramatically for basically the same price. Expect this guide to be dogeared in a month.

I don't make a habit of buying strategy guides for the games I play -- all too often, there is more than sufficient information online for free, so what's the point, right? But in this case, I have to say I am happy I made an exception. This strategy guide is so comprehensive and in-depth it makes the 'guide to tamriel' that is included with the Collector's Ed. of Oblivion look silly. The in-depth segment on character creation alone is worth half the cost of the book to people like me who found that part of the process somewhat confusing in Morrowind - the information in this guide completely takes all the guesswork out of it, and having read it I was confidently able to make my choices regarding birthsign, class, race, sex, etc. It even includes text on how to create a few 'model-characters' to play or build off of, one for every type of player out there from the pure magic approach to the pure battle approach and everything in between. The background on enemies, characters, and aspects of the game (i.e. crime and punishment) is invaluable. No longer did I feel like I was heading off into this huge diverse and complex world without a clue as to what my approach should be, and this confidence really made the game enjoyable. Do yourself a favor and pick it up today.

Oblivion is a HUGE game. If you are like me, you want to try to do as much as possible without help. Explore the world, attempt quests and learn the ins-and-outs of the game on your own. But sometimes, you get stuck, and in a PC RPG this big, a well written Strategy Guide is a welcome relief for the times you get stuck.

This guide helps create characters, defining the attribute scores for the different races and skill types and even giving suggestions on how to make characters with your own customized skill set. It gives detailed listings on items, weapons, armor, spells, equipment and inventory throughout the game.

The first half of the book outlines all the steps needed for the main quest. Then, the second half of the book covers the Guild quests, village quests, skill quests (for your specific character type) and all the other side quests. Since the game is so new, I can't guarantee it covers ALL the quests in the game, but there are maps for all the caves, ruins, mines, towns, and places that you might need to visit.

This book is big because the game is big. There is so much to see and do in this game, it takes a well written and well designed strategy guide to help you through the hard parts. I do not plan to use this for every quest because it would take away from the fun of the game (and trust me, the game is fun). However, I am glad to know it is there when I need it.

The bottom line is this--buy the game. If you get stuck, you should know that this great strategy guide is here to help you, and you will probably need it. Not just to learn about the quest you are stuck on, but to find out some of the other cool things you could be doing in the game world. I highly recommend Prima's Strategy guide for Oblivion.

I was hesitant to buy the Prima guide as all thier other ones suck. I was hoping for a guide like The Morrowind Prophecies and was disappointed to hear that Prima was doing the guide for Oblivion. Then I noticed that the guide is written by Peter Olafson, the same guy that did The Morrowind Prophecies.

What a relief! So I bought the guide and sure enough, it's exactly like The Morrowind Prophecies, only for Oblivion. This is an Awesome guide and worth more than the retail price. Trust me, if Oblivion is anything like Morrowind (an I expect it is) you will need this guide at some point.

Enjoy the game! If you get stuck, open this guide and you will find your answer!

This book has all kind of information - almost everything you ever wanted to know about Oblivion. First, the walkthroughs and discussion about character creation are very valuable and in-depth. There's information on every quest line, every major area, maps of everything - everything you need is in here...

However, what it lacks is a more comprehensive index. Say you're in the middle of a quest, you run across an obscure plant you've never seen, and want to know what to do with it? No index entry. How about a person in town who's important to a quest, but you're not sure which one? No index. You pick up an object and it says its a quest item, for a quest you don't have. Want to find out which quest it is? Too bad, unless you want to read through them all.

Basically, its nice to have the maps and such to refer to, but without better ways to find the info in this book, its not anywhere near the useful tool it could be.

Final prognosis - if you're really interested in getting walkthroughs for all the quests, etc, buy this book. If you want to be able to get at specific info, google is a better friend to have.

As many people have mentioned, part of the fun of this game is in exploring on your own and figuring things out through trial and error. However, if you don't have a lot of time and have trouble keeping track of where things are, this guide is the perfect companion to the game.

It has a lot going for it:

1. Original content that can't be found elsewhere - there are many games that have extensive web sites put together by fans with detailed descriptions of items, spells, monsters etc. However, there are very few such sites for Oblivion. Most sites have spell inventories but that's about it. There is no single resource or collection of resources on the web that can replace the information in this guide.

2. Price is great - discounted at 35% here and 41% at walmart.com this guide is a terrific value considering it is a large 368 pages with full color. Someone commented that the pages are a bit washed out since they're not printed on glossy paper but for the price, it's a good trade off in my mind.

3. Complete walkthroughs - very thorough walkthroughs of what seems to be every possible quest including the main quest; faction quests for fighters, mages, theives and assassins; arena quests; daedric quests; master training quests; freeform quests; and miscellaneous quests. Since the game is pretty open ended, many of the walkthroughs describe what happens when you make different choices for a given quest (e.g. if you tell Glarthir that he's imagining things you get one outcome and if you lie to him and confirm his paranoia you get a different one)

4. Great detailed maps with descriptions of various shops and points of interest. Even though the in game map is quite good. It's nice to have a map to look at while you're running around so you don't need to keep pausing to bring up the in game map. Also, the maps in the guides include things that are not on the in game map such as the locations where beggars sleep in the city. Very important if you are a character inflicted with Vampirism and you need to find a known quiet secluded place you can always go to for feeding.

5. Terrific lists - great lists that describe effects and locations of alchemy ingredients. Excellent summary of spells, skill level required and effects. Very good list of weapons, their weight, speed, damage, etc.

6. Strategies are sprinkled throughout the guide and are very helpful while you're learning the game.

A few things are missing but with such a rich environment, it's not surprising that they couldn't fit everything in the guide. A few things that could make this guide even more complete than it already is have been mentioned before like more consolidated quick reference lists - list of trainers, lists of shops which sell various items, list of shopkepper who can repair items.

But again, the lack of these things doesn't detract from the value of the book.

The guide puts a lot of the difficult decisions into convenient grids so you can make the optimal choices. I have been able to find every quest that I have had questions about and the guide tells you alternative paths so you don't have to save and reload just to figure them out.

This game guide is a great extra if you own the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion game. I have it for the PS3, but it covers all systems. It has great tips and walk throughs for the entire game. Especially helpful on those areas that you might get caught up on, or if you're just looking for some additional information on areas that you think you might be missing things in. It has very detailed explanations, very easily followed as well as some good screen shots to go along with it. One of the better game guides I've purchased, I Highly recommend getting it if you own the game.

I'm usually quite weary of Prima strategy guides (generally Brady games and online guides end up being much higher quality), but I splurged with the Oblivion guide. It is clear, informative, and interesting to read, too. Information is generally easy to find, and it contains exhaustive information about every quest in the game (quite a feat considering the game's sheer size).

It isn't perfect, though. If it were in fact published by Brady Games, you would recieve hundreds of pages of colorful glossy print, but here it is printed on dull brown paper, detracting from its possible sleekness. It's a minor gripe, but when I have used various Brady guides (and paid the same price), I know what else is out there. Also, it can sometimes be illogical in organization. The dungeon information is listed under the maps, which can make sense when you're searching the maps for appropriate dungeons, but it would have been much nicer to have an area of the guide dedicated to listing the various dungeons alphabetically (or by difficulty or something like that.

Other than that, it is very informative and much higher quality than Prima usually publishes. Highly reccommended for newcomers to the Elder Scrolls series.

i know my title and rating may not seem to fit, but allow me to explain:

normally i do not advocate the use of strategy guides for games, but with Oblivion, you need it. the guide is excellent. it does a good job of covering all of the aspects of the game, everything from the quests to maps to freeform quests to character creation. basically everything you'd ever need. BUT...

there are online resources that are equal to this that are free (like the unofficial elder scrolls wiki, which is incredible). so, if you're going to be near a computer, that is a better idea. but if you're not able to play the game near a computer, this guide is helpful. i recommend saving the money and getting shivering isles, but if you have the money you might as well get this too.