There are nine different cities to travel to including the massive capital of Cyrodiil, The Imperial City.  But don’t get discouraged by the small amount of large settlements, because there are quite a few different smaller settlements spread across the dense forest life present in Oblivion.  Some of the inhabitants will be friendly while others will dislike you for actions that you’ve taken in the past.  There are also quite a few different campsites of helpful strangers throughout the land where occupants will be willing to provide helpful information towards any quest you may be on at the moment, but some of this information may come with a price, but that can also depend upon how much the NPC likes your character and Bethesda introduces a new minigame to widen this element of the game.  When in conversation with different characters throughout your time in Cyrodiil, you’ll be able to use the disposition minigame to gain the affection to possibly collect more information on your topic choices.  Based upon your speechcraft skills, NPCs will either like you more or less, but with the help of the disposition minigame, you may be able to change their opinion of you.  Another minigame implemented into Oblivion would be the lockpicking minigame.  When having to deal with the different locks on either chests or doors, you’ll be shown a screen of a lock where you must use your lockpicks to raise pins and lock them into place and there are different amounts of pins depending upon the difficultly of the lock.  If you have a higher security skill, this will become easier as time goes on.  The element of stealth in Oblivion is much more advanced this time around than in any Elder Scrolls game.  Light and darkness will affect your hiding ability and also the type of armor you wear.  When deciding on your character, you’ll need to think of what kind of person they’ll be in the providence of Cyrodiil. 

From the beginning of the game, you’re able to create your character and you can easily spend quite a bit of time with this.  There are ten different races to choose from that are retained from the previous games and from there, you can mess with the appearance of your character only dealing with the face and hair, but don’t be discouraged because you can’t change your body type around because the multitude of choices you’re given when designing your face is anything but limited.  You can change everything from the shape and angle of your eyebrow to how skinny and pointed your chin is.  It’s quite astounding the options that the developers provided the character.  After you’ve finished creating your character, you’ll begin the game in a prison cell where you’ll soon find out the storyline of the game, and this storyline is more engaging than any previous Elder Scrolls game to date.  It may seem odd to be starting out in a prison cell, but previous games in the series have also started the same way and the developers found this easier and more interesting for the player to deal with, with letting them create the reason that their in jail.  Bethesda really wants to give the player a game where they can truly create their own character, every aspect of them including everything dealing with their past.  Back to the story though; you’ll find that the three heirs to the throne have been assassinated and that the king is being moved away from the capital city, but he’s taking a secret route of escape and it happens to be right through your jail cell.  You’ll find out that the king has seen you in his dreams and that you’re part of a prophecy that could change the face of Tamriel.  With being in the jail cell that leads to the secret escape route of the king, you’re given a ‘get out of jail free card’ where you can follow the king out of not only the jail, but out of the Imperial City.  But, half way through the secret route, the king will be attacked by Daedric Cult members and you’re left with his ancient amulet that you must bring to a monk which starts the main quest of the game.  But before you’re left to travel on your own, you have to progress through the rest of the escape route through the city sewers, and at the end, before you reach fresh air, you’re again given the chance to change any aspect of your character in case you’ve decided that you would rather be a Nord than your Dark Elf, or a Warrior instead of a Battle Mage.  After this choice, you finally reach the outside of the Imperial City and gaze upon the wonder known as Cyrodiil, and that first view will be breathtaking.

The two characters that I’ve created so far consist of the Wood Elf thief/assassin listed above and a Nord Warrior whose beginning to take a liking to acquiring items that aren’t actually is.  The Wood Elf, being my first character, had a great time exploring the landscape around the Imperial City for quite some time finding ancient ruins and campsites of evil bandits.  The great thing about Oblivion is the fact that you can do anything anytime you want.  With the multitudes of side quests at your disposal, you’re able to go off and wander the land for hours without even starting the main quest.  To tell the truth, I spent the first seven hours doing side quests and exploring the landscape.  I was able to become part of both the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood and from there, I started doing their quest missions.  The developers have stated that the guild missions can easily take ten to twenty hours themselves for each guild.  That amount of time is usually the length of a usual computer game in most genres.  They’ve stated that the main quest of Oblivion takes from twenty to twenty-five hours.  And even though that may not seem as huge as you first would have thought, the length of the game depends upon your gameplay style.  Look at my game; I’ve spent the first seven hours not even touching the main quest.  And the time you take with the game also depends on your modes of travel.  If you just fast travel everywhere, you obviously cut not only a lot of time out of your game, but a lot of the gaming experience that Bethesda has tried to offer.  It all depends on you.

There are four different guilds to join including the fighters, mage, thieves, and the dark brotherhood guild.  Each guild is different and unique from the next and the missions that are involved in each are very different from each other.  The fighter’s guild will have you completing missions where you help locales out with different tasks such as taking care of bar brawls or finding jobs for others.  The dark Brotherhood’s missions are among the most liked by fans so far.  In particular, one mission will have you locked inside a home with five others where you must either kill them or have them kill each other without making yourself the prime suspect in the matter.  During the party, you’ll converse with everyone to see what they like and dislike about each other so that you may have an easier time with taking them out one by one.  If you’re good enough and they like you enough, some of them might even do the killing for you.  The missions within Oblivion aren’t your normal mailman missions where you must take an item from point A to point B.  And this is apparent from the start and Bethesda keeps all the different quests unique and intriguing for you throughout the entire game.  You’ll find yourself deciding which quests you’ll want to complete, because there will be loads of them to acquire throughout your travels across Cyrodiil.  Between the main quests, side quests, and the guild quests, you’ll be spending quite a few hours of time with this game.  Easily more than most role-playing games released recently and the replay value of this game is amazing.  Not only are their ten different races with different abilities, but there are also different classes to choose from, and you’re also able to create your own custom class with the many different skills available.  The different races, classes, abilities, and the different quests provide almost unlimited replayability for this title.  And also, with the downloadable Construction Set available at release, fans and modders alike can extend the life of this game ten-fold.  For those of you who can remember the fan community of Morrowind, you’ll remember that the modders breathed life into the different NPCs and even the providence of Morrowind.  Fans can expect amazing things to come from the different fans around the community with all that’s involved within this game.

And you simply can’t forget to talk about the physics’ engine involved in this title.  Using the newest version of the Havok Physic Engine, Oblivion gives every item in the game mass.  What I mean by that is when you’re out by the water side and you decide to drop some things out of your inventory, some of that stuff could actually float, depending upon the weight of the object.  While most weapons and armor will certainly sink, some spell components and ingredients will definitely float across the top of the water and the same goes for any water-filled areas such as dark caverns at the bottom of caves and ruin sites.  Arrows that are shot out of your bows will travel with velocity where if the enemy is far away, you’ll need to aim a little higher to make up for that distance.  Enemies will fall down accurately when killed or shot and always remember to loot their bodies of course.  A wonderful feature of Oblivion is when you shoot an enemy with arrows, you’re able to retrieve the arrows that are sticking from their body.  Running low on arrows in a fight?  Pick up the arrows that were shot at you that are across the ground or stuck into wood walls.  The physics engine is a nice welcome addition that gives the game even more realism.  If you’d like to see how well the physics engine in the game works, I suggest grabbing a hundred wine bottles from a few people’s cellars, then go up to the top of a set of stairs, then unload all the bottles from your inventory and watch them fall accurately to the bottom.  Quite nice looking I might say.

Simply put, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is an extremely remarkable game in all aspects.  From a role-play standpoint, to a graphical standpoint, and also in a musical standpoint.  Jeremy Soule was the composer for the soundtrack, the same person who did Morrowind, and he did a wonderful job with Oblivion.  For the hundreds of hours that you’ll be spending with this game, Soule really provides a lot with his musical sense.  Whether you have a decent computer or one of the best on the market, you should check out Oblivion.  If you enjoyed Morrowind, you’ll easily fall in love with Oblivion for all its achievements Bethesda has made since then.  If you’re someone who is unsure how Oblivion will look on your system and graphics really matter to you, go out and by the Xbox 360 version, but of course, one with a hard drive because the load times will be dramatically shorter.  If you have neither a Xbox 360 or a decent computer, you should probably go with the Xbox 360 because it’ll cost a third of the amount it would take to buy a computer that will put Oblivion in all its glory.  And this game is definitely one of those titles that could easily influence you into buying a Xbox 360.  If you had no other reason to buy a Xbox 360, this title would be it.  If you’re more into gameplay, check out what I said about my computer specs and framerates and decide from there.  As of right now, this is a must play title and has an extremely good chance to make the top ten of the year, but more time has to be spent to give an accurate assessment and in time the review of this great title will show up here.  If you have any questions or comments, please let me know.