Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
About this item
- 1st-person RPG with open-ended game play and short challenges
- Latest chapter in the epic and highly successful Elder Scrolls saga
- Create and play any character imaginable from noble warrior to wizened sorcerer
- Revolutionary AI; 1,000+ realistic non-player characters; unprecedented visuals
- All-new combat and magic system creates high-level of intensity
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Product information
| ASIN | B000BC38LA |
|---|---|
| Release date | March 20, 2006 |
| Customer Reviews |
3.3 out of 5 stars |
| Best Sellers Rank | #134,802 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games) #7,114 in PC-compatible Games |
| Pricing | The strikethrough price is the List Price. Savings represents a discount off the List Price. |
| Product Dimensions | 7 x 5.5 x 1 inches; 5.28 Ounces |
| Binding | Video Game |
| Rated | Mature |
| Item model number | 21713 |
| Is Discontinued By Manufacturer | Yes |
| Item Weight | 5.3 ounces |
| Manufacturer | 2K |
| Date First Available | September 9, 2005 |
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Product Description
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is single-player role-playing action in the world of the popular Elder Scrolls game. The Emperor of Tamriel has been assassinated and the killer still runs loose. Meanwhile, no heir sits on the throne. With no Emperor upon the throne, the gates of Oblivion open wide and demons invade. Your quest is to find the lost heir and place him on the throne, before demons destroy the land. Next-generation graphics with pixel-shader effects for high-definition TVs, creating lifelike towns & dungeons and the most realistic forests
Customer reviews
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviewed in the United States on March 30, 2010
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Gameplay: Like Morrowind, the concept here is free-form, openended exploration. The gaming world is absolutely huge with tons of stuff to do. Want to explore caves, dungeons, and ruins? Go ahead, there are dozens. Like questing? Join the Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, Thieves Guild, Arena, and/or Dark Brotherhood. Or, just talk to the locales who'll have plenty for you to do. The main quest centers around finding the heir to the throne of Cyrodiil, which will require you to visit the hellish realm of Oblivion and close various gates. It's a decent storyline altogether, but nothing as epic or absorbing as Baldur's Gate 2 or even Morrowind. Overall, the various quests in this game are much improved over Morrowind's, and many have multiple parts and interesting background stories. Unless you blast through the main quest (about 30 hours) without doing any other tasks, it would easily take 200 hours to see and do everything this game has to offer.
The controls for the game are typical for first-person shooters, although the game can be played a bit awkwardly from a third-person perspective. There are several hotkeys for weapons and spells. Combat is very engaging and will require some practice to get used to. Opponents will block, dodge, use power attacks, and generally fight in an effective way. Stealth is improved a bit over Morrowind, with a lighting/awareness system much like that of the game Thief. Also, being a mage in this game is a viable option, and the alchemical system should even appeal to non-mages. And like Morrowind, you can create your own custom classes, and the face generation system is very detailed. The user interface is easy to read and organizes items, spells, skills, and so forth in a logical way. It can't be scaled by resolution, so when it's open it covers the whole screen.
Thankfully, there are many improvements over Morrowind (and most any other computer RPG out there). Dungeons and caves are creepier and have traps, multiple areas, and lots of loot. One complaint about Morrowind was that it got too easy too quickly. Few people will have that complaint about Oblivion. Most creatures are leveled, meaning that they get stronger as the player character advances in level. This keeps the game challenging throughout, though it still seems a bit weird to have a 25-level warrior with the best weapons and armor having trouble with a goblin warlord or dread zombie. Anyhow, NPCs in this game are rather lively, living their own lives, having somewhat dynamic conversations, all-spoken dialogue, and many animations (eating, sleeping, horse riding, etc.). And then there are the nice little touches, such as houses to buy, display cabinets for your loot (or to be looted), a solid bartering system, the lockpicking minigame, and the exhilarating arena matches (you can fight or just bet). Also, the journal is great and sorts your quests well.
Given all of its strengths, the problems with the game are mostly minor and annoying, nothing major. I would have liked to have seen a bit more variety in the Oblivion plane. Once you've closed one gate, it's wash, rinse, and repeat for the others (you'll have to close at least 10). It gets old quick. This also goes for the dungeons, caves, and other adventuring areas. The best way to keep things interesting is to do various tasks at the same time--some guild questing, dungeon crawling, and miscellaneous quests. Otherwise, any single activity can get a bit monotonous. Sadly, the horses are not as fun as they could have been. There are different breeds with different characteristics, but in the end they are largely a cosmetic addition. You cannot fight while mounted, they cannot carry items for you, and they are somewhat expensive. Also, opponents have a knack for targeting your mount, even once you've dismounted. In about 100 hours of gameplay, I purchased over a dozen horses due to the fact that they died so frequently. Ultimately, since there are other fast travel options and since a character with a high Speed skill can outrun some horses, a steed is a questionable purchase.
Graphics: State-of-the-art. Period. This is a beautiful game by any standard. Be ready to take a lot of screenshots. It's all there: lush forests, snow-capped mountains, torrential rains, reflective water, breathtaking sunsets, quaint towns, eerie dungeons, and much more. Every item in the game looks realistic, including character faces and animations. The Havok physics engine nicely enhances the experience. All of this, of course, means that you'll have to have a pretty good computer to enjoy the game at max settings. On a 3.0ghz Pentium IV with 1GB of RAM and Geforce 6600GT video card, I managed 1024x768 resolution with most settings on medium (Bloom on, along with grass and water reflections). Unlike Morrowind, this game is very scalable, so people with a wide range of computers should be able to make the game playable. The developers really went the extra mile on the visuals, and I certainly appreciate it.
Sounds: Well done for the most part. Many of the voices from Morrowind are back, but in much greater quantity since all dialogue is spoken. There are many creature sounds and environmental effects, all of which are appropriate. While I loved Jeremy Soule's music for Morrowind, his efforts here are lackluster. The game's soundtrack is very understated and fails to adequately set the tone in many situations. Actually, I had to purposely listen for the music a lot of the time, which shouldn't be the case.
Technical Issues: Fortunately, this game goes against the grain for this particular developer. Up until now, Bethesda had a well-deserved reputation for releasing buggy games. However, Oblivion was remarkably stable on my computer and very well-polished. Admittedly, it did crash about 10 times, resulting in a few corrupted saved games. However, most of the crashes took place as I tried to reload saved games, which is not a big problem since I save very often. There were none of the Morrowind-style crashes where you're just walking along and... BAM!!!--desktop. Ten crashes in 100 hours of gameplay is a ratio that I can definitely tolerate.
The game comes with a good manual and a map of the gaming area. The opening sequence serves as a tutorial and is well done. Also, it is much quicker to get into the game than Morrowind, which required you to listen to the opening theme music as the game loaded.
Replayability/Value/: If you buy into the premise of the game (openended exploration and questing), this is a great value. I've played a lot of games, and nothing quite touches the bang-for-the-buck that Elder Scrolls games have. There is a construction set for the PC version that can be downloaded for free at [...] Also, like Morrowind, modders are going to have a field day with this game, which should lead to some quality third-party mods for downloading. Overall, if you liked Morrowind, you should really like Oblivion. If you have never played an Elder Scrolls game, this is a fine one to start with.
Overall rating: 4.5 stars
I don't mean the review I'm writing to beat down this game. It is an amazing game to be sure; from my somewhat limited experience with it, I can tell. I absolutely loved the predecessor to Oblivion (Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Game of the Year Edition) and was dying for the next sequel to come out. I've been playing it for three weeks... or at least, I've been trying to.
I'm going to say it right away, as a warning; If you don't have a brand new computer with the newest specs, don't buy this game, at least not for your PC. My computer is not 18 months old and cost me about $2,600, including an upgrade to the maximum two gigabytes of RAM, but according to Bethesda, the 1.6 gigahertz Pentium M processor I have will not allow me to play the game as it should be played. I am incredibly frustrated.
I've been able to play enough to know that Oblivion is exactly what I was hoping for. The graphics, if my computer had the ability to run everything effectively, are amazing. My computer isn't fast enough to run everything as it should be run. The sword my character carries flashes as I walk, blinking in and out of reality, which wouldn't ruin the game for me in itself, but everything slows down in the heat of battle and when there are multiple opponents, everything moves as if in cartoon frames. Now I realize that there are points on the game map where everything on the screen locks and turns to white, and I lose control of play.
In short, I'd love, love, love this game if I had a brand new Dell XPS gaming system for $3,500+, but I don't. Therefore, this game was pretty much a waste of $45. Within the realm of Tamriel, I can't go to the places I need to go and do the things I need to do. My computer locks up.
I can't express my frustration, knowing that this game, in its full glory, must be mind-blowing.
I wonder at what point the technological standards for games will not require up-to-the-instant-new supercomputers in order for them to be played? I've just finished paying for the computer I have (a Dell Inspiron 8600 which I love). I can't upgrade the whole motherboard. And I certainly can't afford to purchase the kind of computer that would run this game... Not after finally paying this one off. AUGH!
By all means, if your computer is a thoroughbred, BUY THIS GAME. It's going to be the game of the year again for certain and you will probably have several months of enjoyment with it.
If your computer is not a Ferrari, then steer clear of this game. Your frustration will run deep.
*** UPDATE *** UPDATE *** UPDATE *** UPDATE *** UPDATE
Just after the online patch was made available, I downloaded it and installed it. The above-mentioned problem was one shared with several users of this game, and I'm very happy to report that after the installation of the patch, the game runs very, very nicely on my computer. I do not have the video settings set to maximum; not by a longshot; in my opinion, you still need a brand-new, loaded, $3,000+ computer, I think, to have Oblivion play at 100%. With such a loaded computer, the game play of Oblivion must be absolutely amazing.
Now that I've installed the patch, I can go to all those areas which I wasn't able to previously. The frustration of having the game lock up is no more, and I must say it's truly one heck of a ride, and I wish I could change the overall rating to at least 4-stars instead of two, but it seems that I am not able to do so.
I will go further and say that I've enjoyed the overall game so much more since the patch was installed that I've purchased all the online modules available for download on tne Oblivion website, and I encourage other Oblivion owners to go check it out.
After the patch, Oblivion is a great place to visit.
*** UPDATE # 2 ***
Last thing; if you go to the Oblivion website, there are links to some pretty good, fairly inexpensive modules to download and expand your game. Still having fun, thank goodness for the patch!
Top reviews from other countries
PS3版でも運よくイケメン顔が作れた為自キャラの顔を見る度ガッカリするというストレスが殆ど無かったことも幸いだったようには思いますが…。
そのことがきっかけで「じゃあModの入るPC版は一体どんなに素晴らしいのだろう」と気になりだして、思わず買ってしまいました。
正直買って正解でした。
グラフィックの美麗さ、中身の膨大さは言うまでも無いですがModによる拡張は想像以上でした。
種族の追加などでデフォルト顔の出来のいいものなどが簡単に入れられる為、好みに合った顔にするのも簡単でした。
Modの導入に関しては過去に(自分が)ポーザーでアクセサリ追加などをいじったことがあったので比較的すんなり導入できました。
普通の人程度の英語読解能力があればおそらく導入に関してそこまで困ることは無いと思います。
問題点を提起するとしたら相応のPCが必要になること。
生半可な処理能力のPCでは却ってストレスになるだろうしModの導入の度合いによっては結構ドライブの容量も食われます。
それにこのゲームは最高画質に設定して遊んでこそ、って言いたい部分もあります。
OSの互換に関しては私はウィンドウズ7 64bitですが特に支障なく動いてるので上位互換である分にはたいした問題は無いかもしれません。
後はジョイパッドで遊ぶ場合、大概のアナログパッドは前後左右の4方向に設定されているので斜め移動がキツく細かい設定を重ねて微調整しないと辛いものがあるかもしれません。
ゲームの出来としてはほぼ最善が尽くされているので後はFPSって言う形式だとか全体の雰囲気だとかプレイヤーの感性にかかってくるところが大きいかもしれません。
新作のスカイリムも楽しみです。
MODツールが多くてなかなか把握できないです。シムズ3みたいに簡単にMODが導入できたら星5つでした。あと若干ですがFPS酔いします。
さらに、視覚の再現がすばらしいという言い方が個人的にはしっくり来ます。
ゲーム的ではありながら、遠景の建物が徐々に現れるところや日の出と共に視界が開けていくような気がするのは圧巻です。
・物理的なシミューレーションの演算が入ったため、物の動きの生々しさはタマリマセン。落ちてる物はなんでも動かせます。
ただしちょっとクセがあって家の内装は大変。
・シングルRPGですが、その他のキャラクタに搭載されたAIのお陰で、MMORPGみたいに色々な人物が勝手に動き回っていて面白いです。家の陰に隠れて探索中にすぐ側でスリが逮捕連行されたりするとチビリます。
熊に襲われていたら通りがかりの農民に助けられたりします。
・前作に比べ、まともな建物・乗り物ばかりになってしまったのがつまらないですがシステム的には進化していて、クエスト毎の経過を時系列にまとめて見せてくれたり、現在のクエストを切り替えると地図上に目的地が表示され、画面内の方向指示器にも目印がつくので英語がスラスラ読めなくてもクエスト達成に困る事はありません。
英語が読めれば色んな登場人物の内面に迫れて凄く面白いですけど。
英語が・・・と思ってる人も、頑張ってやってみる価値ある一本です。
まさに仮想世界で歩き回っている感覚です。
一番初めにチュートリアルを兼ねたメインクエスト(1つ目)がありますがその後は完全に自由です。
このゲームに関しては自由度が高いということはあちこちで耳にしていると思いますので参考までにいくつか…
1、キャラ作成
制限されるのは種族の種類(10種)だけで顔の各部分の位置・大きさ・色などを調整してどんな顔でも作れます。(シムズ2とほぼ同じ)
また、得意な武器を選べるというのはよくありますが「戦うのが苦手」なキャラも作れます。(話術・ピッキング・交渉術など戦闘に全く関係ないスキルもある)
2、戦い方
本当になんでもありです。思いつくことはおおよそなんでも出来ます。重装備で切り込む・軽装備で攻撃をかわしながら・敵に見つからないところから弓で・武器に毒塗って・魔法で倒す・召還魔法で人任せ・「戦わないで走る」等々
ルール無しの異種格闘技状態です。
3、装備
制限などは一切ありません。どんなキャラでもすべて使えます。ただし、重い武器・防具を装備すると動きが遅くなる&装備が重い分他の荷物があまり持てないので自分のスタイルに合わせて。下着だけ(装備無し)ってのもありです。
4、目的?
知りません。一応用意されたストーリーはありますが、盗み・殺しなどが出来るだけでなく組織の構成員として盗み・殺しなどのクエストをこなしていくことまで出来るので、もうLEGO(ブロック)のように説明書はあるけど・・・ といった具合です。
総括 :自由です。世界を救うもよし、義賊になるもよし、暗殺者になるもよし。ただし、自由であるが故に待っていてもほとんど何も起こりませんし、面白くもありません。
トランプ同様どこまで楽しめるかは遊ぶ側に委ねられています。
(★4つなのは、このゲームが重い&落ちることがあるからです。内容は★5つ間違いなし。)




