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Volume 71, Issue 117,
Friday, March 31, 2006
Life & Arts Getting lost in 'Oblivion' has its benefits by DEREK LANPHIER
The title of the latest Elder Scrolls game is unusually appropriate. Players will find their minds and social lives in oblivion by the time they are done with this game. The game itself is great however, and players can be assured that they will be well-satisfied with the game after the 200-plus hours of gameplay is complete. For those unacquainted with the Elder Scrolls series, these games are all about real time, single-player and role-playing; and Oblivion is no different. As with the other games, players start out in a prison of sorts. They create their character with a myriad of options. The creation of your avatar can take a couple of hours in itself. Players can sculpt their character's face to look exactly the way they want to and have many racial choices such as orcs and different types of elves. You can literally play any type of hero you want to. There are several classes to choose from when you start, but if you can't find what you are looking for, players have the option of just making their own class. The real game begins upon gaining entrance to the "real" world. There is an epic storyline involving the gates of Oblivion, somewhat of a demon world, opening and destroying your homeland. Aside from the main story, there are hundreds of optional quests, all with their own story arcs to go through. Each guild in the game has its own epic story line as well. However, the greatest part of any Elder Scrolls game is that you can literally do whatever you want in this fantasy world. If you want to be a defender of truth and justice, go for it -- save the world; on the flipside, if you want to be an evil bastard and level entire cities, you can do that, too. And since the game world is persistent, things you destroy or people you kill never actually come back or re-spawn. Unlike a massively multiplayer online role-player game where you are just one hero among many to complete the same quests again and again, players in Oblivion actually have a permanent effect on the world. Traditionally, the game is played from a first-person perspective. Although you can play in the third-person view, it's fun to witness intense battles from the eyes of your character. Control-wise, there is a fair bit of button mashing during melee fights. It's fun though and really adds to the frantic feel of melee. Other than that, all the movement and menu controls feel very natural and there aren't a lot of button configurations to remember. Graphically, this game looks amazing. You have to have a badass computer to run it well, or an X-Box 360, but the game looks absolutely gorgeous. Everything behaves in a realistic way, from birds and wildlife being scared of your presence, to the weather and movements of characters. The graphics make a fantasy world look like real life, so much so that it's scary. The sound is incredible; the composer who did the score for Guild Wars did the game's score. All in all, Oblivion is an incredible game. It is epic, enveloping and, best of all, only single-player, so you don't have to worry about multiplayer online fees. This game will eat up your life, but it does end as there is a limited amount of things to do. So after spending hours doing everything you can, it comes to an end and only offers marginal replay value.
Oblivion Rated: T for teens
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