Customer Reviews
Perhaps the most immersive game I've ever played. 
2008-08-06
This game will suck you in and refuse to let go for many, many weeks. It's gorgeous, fun, and well worth your time. Just don't, you know, try to maintain a job, school, or a relationship while you play it.
I love the game, but... 
2008-07-28
I loved Morrowind, and I was positively stoked for Oblivion. I bought it as soon as I had a computer worthy of running the game. The first disk (which is the original game) installed just fine. The second disk, however, produced an error (it turns out to be rather common, as there are many forum posts on this topic) I've been in contact with Bethesda, and none of their fixes work. Some other people suggested that you should buy the game and the expansions separately. I haven't tried that yet (I might just buy the PS3 version.)
As far as what I can play of the game, it's beautiful. The graphics and sound are top-notch, and the story is fantastic. It's too bad that this version is faulty and I can't install the full game to finish it.
amazing experience 2008-07-14
If you haven't played this game, please do yourself a favor and buy it, it is def. in my list of greatest games of all time. I really can't say enough good things about this game, I could play it 10 times through again and again and still not be sick of it, my only complaint is that it doesn't last forever. I own it on p.c. and the playstation 3, and both are perfect.
GOTY edtion = SecuROM 2008-06-23
Bethesda has done an unfortunate about-face on their DRM stance and slapped SecuROM into the GOTY edition of Oblivion. I would highly recommend you NOT to buy this version and to buy the individual stand-along versions instead if you really want this game - see also the SecuROM debacle on games like Bioshock and Mass Effect to learn more.
Oblivian Rules 2008-04-25
I have really enjoyed playing this game. It has a feel of the MMOs and yet you can solo everything. Great graphics.
Great expectations 2008-04-21
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition (GotY) for Windows is a compilation of this classic RPG game. Oblivion GotY will include the originalversion of the award-winning RPG Oblivion along with the official expansion, The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles, and the downloadable content, Knights of the Nine. This new product allows players who have never played the 2006 Game of the Year to experience Oblivion for the first time with additional content. In addition, gamers can continue their existing games of Oblivion and experience the new quests and areas offered by the expansion and downloadable content.
Oblivion features a powerful combination of free-form gameplay, unprecedented graphics, cutting edge AI, character voices by acting legends Patrick Stewart, Sean Bean, Terrance Stamp, and Lynda Carter, and an award-winning soundtrack. Gamers can choose to unravel Oblivion's epic narrative at their own pace or explore the vast world in search of their own unique challenges.
With more than 30 hours of new gameplay, Shivering Isles allows you to explore an entirely new plane of Oblivion - the realm of Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of Madness. Shivering Isles features a bizarre landscape split between the two sides - Mania and Dementia -filled with vast, twisting dungeons mirroring the roots of the trees they are buried within. Sheogorath himself looks to you to be his champion and defend his realm and its inhabitants from destruction as you discover all new items, ingredients, spells, and much more. The Shivering Isles features a bizarre landscape split between the two sides - Mania and Dementia -filled with vast, twisting dungeons mirroring the roots of the trees they are buried within. You'll encounter more than a dozen new creatures including hideous insects, Flesh Atronachs, skeletal Shambles, amphibious Grummites. Throughout your adventure, you will discover all new items.
Knight
Oblivion, Fun but Dumbed Down To Appeal to More Relative to Series 
2008-04-07
Trying to be as objective as possible so let me explain why I'm giving this a 4/5 star rating even though I liked it a lot.
First, the game has a lot of 'improvements' which seem like they were put in place because they would make the game more appealing to the masses. These include things like the idea of fast travel (I wish I could do this to work every morning), the auto leveling of the enemies, and so on. I'll explain more on those subjects further on. Generally though these 'improvements' break the atmosphere of the game some and, while you can ignore the fast travel, don't seem realistic. Your character just ran into what could be the equivalent of hell for the Elder Scrolls world, he came outside and suddenly every single mercenary is wearing glass armor (really nice stuff) and using top of the line swords? Oblivion gates opening must have really boosted the economy.
The visuals are beautiful though and the voice acting really gets you engaged in the story. I also love how the NPCs all have varying looks to them (even if most have the same vocal track). It's a somewhat realistic environment.
Now my biggest complaint would have to be the auto leveling, as I mentioned above. The reason for this is that the enemy's levels are driven by a few things such as your level and the level of the magic in your inventory. This can noticeably become a problem if you play a mage, buy one really nice spell which drains all your mana in one use, and then notice while you can easily kill one enemy every other enemy in the world now is 10 times your own level to auto balance making it impossible to continue. You have to be careful about buying spells close to the level your mana can support rapid which seems weird being that you'd think you could just do whatever is in your capability. Also for a class like a thief you'll find yourself leveling up quickly using your main skills and find that many of the enemies will be way too strong for you so you have to focus on leveling up secondary skills and not using your main skills quite as often to stay on par which forces how you play the game.
The auto leveling somewhat removes the whole nature of the RPG aspect of leveling from the game if you think about it. What's the point of becoming super strong if the enemies are just as hard when you start as when you finish? Yes, it adds to gameplay and I'm sure with your new skills if you use them correctly you do become stronger than the enemy but it removes the ability to destroy a legion with a powerful spell or the chop through a group of weaklings once you deserve to have that power.
Regardless, it's a fun game though and the environment is interesting to explore. The story also is interesting considering many Action RPGs tend to have trouble tying the main character into the story because of the nature of them but Elder Scrolls has always been strong in this area.
The dungeons can be repetitive (besides the core ones) because often the auto leveling will cause the dungeons to just have the same enemies all around. The dungeons are auto respawning and while they do have treasure chests which also auto respawn they lack a real unique feel (although they are setup differently they generally will give you a similar experience as a whole). There are four types of enemies you'll generally find and they're usually exclusive to their own dungeons: animals, humans, the undead, and daedric beings. I have to give credit to the developers though in this area because unlike Morrowind there are a plethora of creatures to encounter which was one of its pitfalls Oblivion does not have.
I'll leave my review at this, and I'm sure most people have said everything else, but I'd say get this game regardless, it's worth buying and playing through. I'm only giving a somewhat mediocre review because I figured I'd point out where the series went wrong this time around. It's an all around great game and probably the best Action RPG on the market today but still has a lot of room to improve on which hopefully we'll see with the next iteration of the Elder Scrolls series.
Almost really fun 
2008-03-22
I loved Morrowind so was very excited for this game. While the graphics were excellent and the game play itself was smooth, I was somewhat disappointed. The leveling in the game was a surprise. As you level, your enemies level too. I understand why they did it that way, so as to not make the game too easy too quickly, but for me one of the rewards of putting in the time and effort to level up is to get stranger, faster, better than opponents. I also found the missions somewhat boring, but the addition of the Brotherhood was fun even. The world itself is smaller. And, its not as much fun to be a thief. There is no place to go for training and buying/selling if you are a thief, and merchants won't buy stolen items. There were things I really liked. I love that there are horses in the game and you can get armor for them. The expansion packs that give you hideaways and extras like the horse armor are worth it in my opinion. Overall, the game wasn't bad.
Simply stunning and vast 2008-02-21
What makes this game so great is the incredible level of flexibility it (and its predecessor "Morrowind") allows. First you can choose your race (10 choices) and configure your appearance to match yourself or your favorite star. Then you can choose your character's class from over a dozen standard classes (sorcerer, barbarian, bard, etc) or design your own. After that, while there is a Main Quest providing the narrative backbone to the game, you are free to go off and explore ruins, join guilds, and pick up minor quests from characters you meet.
The world of the Elder Scrolls is vast, complex, and incredibly rich (even more so if you played "Morrowind").
When this game came out, it required top-of-the-line hardware because of its beautiful (and CPU-intensive) graphics. Today, you should be fine with any relatively recent computer with a good graphics card.
For $45, Oblivion GOTY is an incredible value - you will get months (years?) of playtime out of this. Perfect for those of us without a life!
Oh, and did I mention that the game includes a kit for developing extensions to Oblivion (new quests, dungeons, monsters, treasures, cities...)? There is an active community creating new content all the time, so you may never be free of this game...
GOTY 2008-02-15
I've played Morrowind, and now Oblivion for 4 years and enjoy it every time. Probably since I'm an over-50 gamer, I don't rush through it, but take my time and savor the awesome graphics.
