An ambitious game that fails to achieve its full potential
Arguably the first true next-generation rpg, the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion sports a huge world to explore, countless npc characters to meet, and a mind-blowing array of quests to embark on.
However, the core of Oblivion's fighting engine is dull, and the world, while beautiful, is repetitive. The sword-to-sword combat that dominates the game is clumsy, and you'll be duking it out with foes toe-to-toe in mind-numbing "you thump me, I thump you" duels. Warning: if you picked the wrong type of character, you will have a very hard time developing magic skills. And that can really spoil the game, since magic at least brings some variety to the combat. Otherwise, you only have a few slashes, which animatic unrealistically and are tedious to repeat.
Furthermore, the dungeon crawling that takes up much of the game gets old quickly, since the interior of every cave looks like the same copy-and-paste of the last one. The "oblivion realms" suffer the same problem, and start to look and feel really old by the umpteenth one you've trudged through.
Quests, while plentiful, also get repetitive, since most involve fetching something, killing someone/something, or some combination of the two. The story is also dry and uninteresting, save for the climactic ending. Also noteworthy are the game's technical faults: specifically, the freezing issues which occasionally force you to reset the game and the jarring framerate which ruins the experience of traversing the otherwise beautifully decorated overworld.
Overall, Oblivion is an ambitious effort, but the dry combat, repetitive mission structure, cut-and-paste environments, and technical issues prevent the game from achieving its full potential.
