I made a Khajit and he could punch stuff. I leveled up punching stuff, running places, and jumping to their maximum level but when I went to the arena I had trouble. I easily defeated my opponents by punching them until they could no longer stand up, then continuing to punch them as they lay bloody on the arena's dirt floor. I heard the crowd roaring as my fists crashed into the Grey Orc's skull; I felt their love wash over me like a crimson silk gown. Slowly, after the vampire scum gave out his last breath, I walked out of the arena. Not in triumph, not in victory, but in remorse. I had just punched my way through a dozen or more skulls, and for what? In my agony I gloomily set up at the The Bloated Float Inn, located in the Imperial City's Waterfront District. I woke up to the sounds of rustling, was confronted by a clearly beligerant bandit. The man had no idea I was the Arena Champion, he had not heard how I crushed the skulls of countless enemies with my punching, how I jumped clear over them with little effort, or even how I ran circles around the arena dodging every single attack thrown at me before pummeling my opponents into submission. The very idea of the man standing before me, a person unknowing of my athletic prowess, set me in to an uncontrollable rage. I don't recall what happened over then next ten minutes, but my memory picks back up again standing inside of the Inn owner's cabin covered head to toe in blood. I navigated back through the ship, which now more resembled a slaughter house, to try to find someone who could tell me what happened. Located in the messhall I found a naked shivering woman named Selene. I will never forget the look on her face when I approached her, a visage of fear so vivid the viewer can feel it.

It was then I realized what event must had befallen the denizens of The Bloated Float Inn. The ingorance of that would-be bandit set me into a blood fueled rage. I slaughtered every person aboard the ship for his sin, that is, every person save for this trembling woman. I decided then and there to never use my fists again, I set off from the boat, WHICH HADN'T LEFT THE HARBOR, to embark on a pilgrimage. One that would encapsulate all nine divine shrines and eventually lead an unwilling khajit boxer to defeat the ancient Aylied king Umaril using only Talk good skill, run fast skill, and jump high skill. After defeating such an awesome foe I came to the conclusion that one need not fight with his fists to attain his goals. Through the use of hecka convincing words, speedy feet, and super strong legs, anyone can stamp out evil without ever lifting a finger.

Oblivion taught me the greatest lesson of all, that fighting is evil.

patrick stewart said he had a dream about me

11/10

By Azura, by Azura, by Azura, it's the Oblivion! I can't believe it's you! Standing here, next to me! Golly, you're the best! I'm going to buy you and play in you and worship the great Bethesda that developed you. Let's go!
One of the best RPG ever.
16,5 daedric princes out of 16,5.

What can I say about Oblivion. I was gifted the game when it came out on the Xbox 360. And after that, I continued to play it till I gave the game to my girlfriend 6 years later and bought the GOTY version on PC, which I'm playing at this moment. I have a lot more hours on PC Skyrim simply because I thought it would be better. I was wrong. I'm now adding to my collection of inhuman hours of Xbox 360 Oblivion.
Don't get me wrong, dear Skyrim fanboy. It IS a great game, with amazing atmosphere and graphics. It one-ups Oblivion on graphics, since it's 4 years younger. But when it comes to atmosphere, Skyrim might as well be a cardboard box. Here's why:
Oblivion's soundtrack is rich and beautiful, unlike Skyrim's flat "Dovahkiin" "Badass" default track every time you get in a battle.
Skyrim's main questline is almost nessisary, since it contains the Shouts that are so very fun to use. Oblivion's main questline, however, is lots of fun, and optional. You'll miss out on items, but you'll never be lacking in a critical game ability that was the gimick of the entire launch.
Skyrim is flat and snowy, with SOME differences around the eastern and southwest parts of the map. And when you are in those green areas, it still feels like it's about to freeze over. Oblivion has snow, beautiful snow in fact, but it's SO diversive in the enviorment section. Beaches, forests, mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, ponds, actual Oblivion, it's all amazing. And the colors are so vivid, with reds and greens and yellows and blues and OH GOD ITS GREAT.
When you fight a bandit in Skyrim, you're swinging a pool noodle at a mural. When you fight a bandit in Oblivion, it's head will twist to the left when you deliver the final blow with your Elven Mace, it's body crumpling to the ground, ready to plunder ( and sometimes teabag ). No silly spinning death animations that need a mod to disable like I have, just ragdoll. Like real life.
All in all, Oblivion is ahead of it's days. It was an improvement to Skyrim in the atmosphere department, not graphics. I LOVE Skyrim for all of her faults ( one of my favorite gaming moments of all time were my first 2 hours in the Forgotten Vale, absolutely breathtaking ) but Oblivion takes the cake. Morrowind? That's a different story. Totally different subject. I don't have much experience with the game honestly, so I can't effectively make a decision over who wins in the entire trilogy. And yeah, it's a trilogy. ESO sucks ♥♥♥♥. I said it.
Buy this game, with the DLC. It ain't no map pack, it's two seperate and amazing questlines. Just buy the game. Right now.

First of all, if your question is "Should I buy this game, period?", my answer is simply: Yes.
If your question is "Should I buy this game, or skyrim?" the answer's a bit more complex. I would not say either one is better, but they're two different tastes, like vanilla and chocolate.

In this case, I would say Oblivion is the vanilla. If you're looking for a straight-up, classic medieval fantasy, Oblivion might be more your thing than Skyrim, which is "themed" around the viking-style Nords. Likewise, Oblivion has the default fantasy setting of castles and forests and rolling green plains, where Skyrim is, again, Nordic themed, and focused mostly on mountains and snow.
Because of that, and some differences in art styles, Skyrim and Oblivion look very different, to the point where I would almost say that might be the deciding factor in which game is right for you. Skyrim is very much a modern game, with fairly realistic art, and that includes the recent trend of realistic games to be primarily brown and gray. Oblivion, on the other hand, is vibrant and colorful, and perhaps a bit stylized. If you are longing for a colorful first person fantasy game, Oblivion is for you (if you're looking for a sidescroller, I'd recommend Trine). If you've been wading through the Real-Is-Brown trend, the sheer vibrance of Oblivion can be a real breath of fresh air.

As for gameplay, the two games are relatively similar. I personally prefer the spellcasting setup in Oblivion over that in Skyrim - in Oblivion, you equip spells in their own slot, rather than in a hand (which could instead be holding a weapon), whereas Skyrim just treats spells like a sword that has to be put in one of your hands. Speaking of which, you cannot dual wield in this game. If you want to play a classic sword-and-shield knight, this particular difference in mechanics is more or less irrelevant, except that it's easier in Oblivion to cast the occasional healing spell.
Furthermore, Oblivion offers a much greater degree of freedom in spellcasting than Skyrim. You can create your own spells by adding effects and designating whether the spell is a projectile, area of effect, etc. Enchanting and Alchemy are slightly more complex than in Skyrim, as well. If you like playing spellcasters, I'd say Oblivion is probably a better choice than Skyrim, which has you simply pick from pre-determined spells, and has a far more limited alchemy and enchanting system.

The biggest mechanical difference is the level up system. Without a doubt, Skyrim's level up system is more user friendly and intuitive. It might be a little more friendly to those who want to play these games casually, where Oblivion requires a little more care, planning, and effort. In Skyrim, you level up your skills as you use them, and after you've increased any combination of skills by a certain amount, you can go up a character level (on the spot, even). When you do, you increase one of your three stats (yes, only three: health, mana, stamina), and pick a talent tree to put a talent point in, which gives you bonuses - with different talent slots unlocking as you raise the respective skill. In Oblivion it is completely different. For one thing, you have several stats, each tied to three skills. The number of times you level any combination of skills attached to a given stat affects how much you could POTENTIALLY increase that stat by when you level up (and if you dont' get those +5s, you will find that the game swiftly outlevels you). By the way, you only level up when you raise ten points in any combination of your class's seven major skills, and only when you sleep. Skyrim has no classes, and therefore no major skills. This makes Skyrim's character-building system a little bit more freeform, as you can, if you want, change directions as you go, if you decide you don't like a particular aspect. Oblivion allows you to create a custom class, but you're basically stuck with that choice after you finish the tutorial.
In short, Skyrim has a simpler, more intuitive, more fluid leveling dynamic, good for building your character as you go according to what feels natural, while Oblivion might be better for those who like to plan or min-max, and requires a bit more thinking ahead.

I should also mention that on certain computer systems, the music in this game may not work. It certainly doesn't work on my system, but otherwise the game runs just fine. From what I understand this is an issue with the CODECs and may be related to Windows 7.


One other thing I think is important to mention is that this game, despite being a fantasy, is surprisingly arachniphobe friendly. As someone with arachniphobia, I find it hard to deal with how ubiquitous giant spiders are in fantasy games. Skyrim's spiders are particularly horrifying. But Oblivion has no (true) spiders at all. It does have the Spider Daedra, which are essentially spider-centaurs, but I didn't find them particularly phobia-triggering. They're also very rare outside of the oblivion gates, so you won't often find yourself being jumped by one unexpectedly. If you are an arachniphobe looking for a fantasy game, I HIGHLY recommend Oblivion, especially if you're comparing it to Skyrim.



Also, this game has Martin Septim.
That's reason enough to buy it.

Oblivion, in my opinion, is the best game of all time. It gets a bad reputation among fans of other elder scrolls games, you see the argument that Morrowind is the game for patient players that can enjoy an older game, and skyrim is this big new awesome RPG, and so Oblivion is seen as some weird spot in the middle of the two. Yet I repeat, oblivion is the best game I have ever played.
Many Morrowind players dislike Oblivion with the argument that it is less inclusive and immersive than Morrowind. But then why is Skyrim the only game on par with Morrowind? Skyrim, the game with less weapon types, the game with the worst alchemy, the game with the worst magic? Skyrim's graphics barely surpass the incredibly captured beauty of Cyrodil, and they had five years to make skyrim. They had four to make Oblivion, and your blind grandma could easily tell the difference between that and Morrowind graphically. The gameplay was also a complete overhaul from morrowind to oblivion. People talk about how Morrowind's or Skyrim's fighting systems are so much better, with Morrowind's realistic feel that you have to be good with the weapon type or you will be awful, or with skyrim's realistic feeling combat but Oblivion completely build anew the combat system of morrowind, made it insanely more realistic, and remains the only game in the series that you can have a sword, shield, and spell at the same time.
From Morrowind to skyrim each game got easier. Morrowind is the most difficult of the three, with no quest markers on a compass, and no advice or help whatsoever. But when I went to play skyrim it was the easiest thing in the world. Anyone can take a nord with a battleaxe and beat the game. Oblivion is in the middle. Oblivion isn't like the insane difficulty of morrowind, showing how hard each quest would be were you actually to do it in real life and record the words that someone said to find a secret location. Oblivion helps you, but is not easy. The game has an easier start, but if you can remain powerful past level 30, that's when you know you're good. Skyrim is just always easy. Progress through oblivion is kind of like progress through life. The lower your level, the less you have to worry. But as you grow into the game it takes constant effort and maintenance to remain successful. In oblivion you have to have a gameplan. Will you be a thief that goes around and gets rich to make sure they have the best equipment in the game, and talks your way out of hard situations? Will you be the the brute warrior that relies on lots of stamina and power to take down less physically gifted enemies? Or will you be my personal favorite, the mage that can go about every situation in a million different ways? Sure, you can mesh these things to any degree, but the point is that if you don't go about it correctly with skills that make sense together or you use the wrong race, you won't be successful later on.
You could go on forever about the systems in place in oblivion that make it unique and amazing but Oblivion is the game that revolutionizes combat and especially graphics (Oblivion had some of the best graphics the world had ever seen, and was made on such a large scale that's almost an unimaginable feat) but sticks true to the elder scrolls mentality. Skyrim is a game to pull people into the franchise. Skyrim is the start of a new generation, a worse generation, of TES players. Oblivion is the peak in the series.

The Khajiit look like they have a missing chromosome.

The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion is by far my favourite in the series. I have played the Elder Scrolls since Morrowind came out way back and have continued it's amazing legacy in my life to this very day. Of course, it comes with bugs and glitches but what do you expect from a massive RPG such as this? Anyways. Besides from the graphics and quests, my favourite part of this game has always been the modding community and also being a part of it.

My days began way abck when I was 12/13 so a good 6 years ago, when I discovered mods and how awesome they were. Graphics were always an important thing in mind so mods such as Qarls Texture Pack 3 (the best one at the time and still is a believe) was an amazing thing to have. All the small mods, such as keychains, graphics, sound overhauls, OPEN CITIES etc were what made this game, and also the rest in the series truly amazing. Sure having a flying dragon or flying skyship was awesome, but it wasn't something you'd always be using and seeing.

There were still many bugs in the later releases however an Unnoficial fix was released (many times) to fix what Bethesda could and did not. This helped greatly with smooth gameplay and to fix errors.

I haven't covered nearly 5% of what I wanted to type as this game is just truly amazing and my favourite in The Elder Scrolls.

Check out Planetelderscrolls and the Nexus for mods and make sure you know what you're doing by reading the ReadMe's and guides.

If you have only played Skyrim, you probably won't like Obvliivion that much because everything isn't as 'immersive' graphics wise, but to us who started here, I think we can agree that the Replay Value outnumbers Skyrim's.

I only picked up a book! I swear!

Being someone who has owned Oblivion from 2007, I've poured thousands of hours into Oblivion over the years (non-steam) and can confidently say it is probably one of the best RPG games around.

So good, I purchased it for a second time on steam.

Beyond vanilla gameplay, which intitially I thought was great, mods can turn the game into something completely different. Add in Deadly Reflex or UV to get a deadly and bloody game, despite being somewhat unrealistic. Or maybe go for Duke Patrick's combat mods and find yourself playing a realistic combat game.

Or download thousands of other mods and mix and match to create a game that is unique for you. Don't like the levelling and skill progression? No problem. Grab numerous mods that edit the system, changing it into something more casual, more hardcore or even something completely different. XP system? Gotcha.

I've played the game through multiple times over the years. I have to say, I'm still not bored of it, though I did take a break for a couple of years whilst I played Skyrim and Morrowind.

Graphics are a little bit dated. But plenty of mods around it to bring it up to Not-Quite-Skyrim quality.

Game did not come with manual. Got killed by 4 guards while trying to steal an apple.

This game was WAAAYYYYY better than Skyrim.

Oblivion stands as the pinacle of the series a cross between Morrowind and Skyrim (eventually)

In it's Vanilla form it's absolutely goregous and even with mods added into the game (highly recommend) it still is amazing to play.

the journal system has vastly improve and just really a ton of big things from Morrowind.

However there are a few tiny negatives:

1-the first is the voice acting, multiple voice acting in the game you will seriously come across the same voice type about 1 or 2 times (3 if your lucky) also while Oblivion encourages for you to explore in any direction in Oblivion it doesn't give you an option to do what Skyrim is doing, also it adds the ability to give you a 'jump' start sort of speak to major locations within Oblivion like the main cities and key points in the Imperial City.

2-the class system is still the best system to play, but the leveling up is even harder and longer to play unlike Skyrim where just about almost anything could level you up.

3-the combat is a bit clunky but after finding just the right mods that problem should fix itself.


Other than that this game i highly recommend getting if your looking for something 'in the middle' sort of speak

9/10

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is one of the greatest games I have ever played. Made in 2006, the game still continues to amaze me, to this very day! Back those days, this game was considered as one with the most realistic graphics (Even today, they are not bad). And it was a HUGE leap from it's predecessor, Morrowind, by all accounts. But, of course, it is not perfect. Nothing is.

Well, here's my pros and cons of this game:

- the main storyline
- the world's size and details
- character customization
- the guilds and their respective quests
- the spells (better than Skyrim's if you ask me)
- the ability to make your own spells (Not available in Skyrim)
- the look of the cities
- the soundtrack
- Mods, the possibilities are endless
- the lockpicking system!
- armor and weapons can break and need repairing (OK, this is probably made to add realism, but I still find it annoying)
- too little amount of voice actors
- fast travel made it too easy (you have access to all the cities in the beginning so that really kills the exploration feeling)
- combat was a bit dull

But despite it's minor flaws I still enjoy the game. And recommend.

STOP RIGHT THERE CITIZEN!
Great fun, Perhaps the combat isn't as good as Skyrims or the story isn't as rich as Morrowinds, but a great game with an awesome map.

Well Skyrim's been out for almost three years and I'm sure that most people who haven't been living under a rock have at least tried it once. What a lot of those players never realized was that it was the fifth installment of an already amazing series. This game rivals Skyrim for story, worldbuilding, and enjoyment in just about every way but graphics. I'd highly recommend this game to any RPG gamer out there.

This is the most amazing ♥♥♥♥ing game i have ever played. So why are you looking at negative reviews? Do yourself a favour and buy the game already!

By the way, I have spent MONTHS playing this game. The times up top are for my PC version.

To anyone who does not like this game, TAKE A LOOK AT THIS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCsMKypvmB0

If you can get over the terrifying faces the story is really solid and gameplay is on point

The graphics are a bit dated now, but it's still a wonderful game. You can mod it up to make that a lot better though, as the original faces are really very awful.

I prefer Skyrim by far, but if you haven't played either I'd recommend playing this one first.