Healthy Living Books Video Games

Rating: - Not nearly as good as Morrowind
I was very excited about the release of this game as I absolutely adored the predecessors, Daggerfall and Morrowind (never played Arena), and the first time I played it, it seemed to be living up to the hype.

Unfortunately, it became increasingly clear that the game had been hugely dumbed down, what with most of the quests being dull, DULL. I say that because the quest holds your hand the entire way through and shows you exactly where to go and what to do, and it gets so boring after a dozen of these. That's not even mentioning the main storyline...

Which involves lots and lots of doing the same tedious thing.

The graphics are wonderful, the design of cities and countryside is very nice, and there are quite a lot of places to visit in the world. Unfortunately, those places mostly feel the same, and there's really only one thing to do in them: kill everything and get stuff.

Combat seems good at first, but it quickly degenerates into block hit block hit, and forget about the useless power strikes.

The leveling system is just too bad to even mention, and takes most of the fun out of going up levels, as you need to try and get those stupid multipliers... If you get this, you must download a mod to sort out the leveling. In addition, the creatures all level up with you, so you might as well not level at all, as at higher levels and difficulties, enemies have so many hitpoints that they become invincible arrow pincushions.

The quest compass is very handy, a little too handy. In fact, it destroys the whole idea of even having a countryside, because you just follow your compass to wherever you are going. You don't even need to look around carefully for dungeons or ruins or anything, it's all there in the compass. Worst of all, outside of mods, theres no way to turn it off.

The magic system is quite nice, and also quite satisfying to use, thanks to the trademark elder scrolls spellmakers, as well as the regenerating mana.

I think when most people who are new to the open-ended RPG see this game they will be awestruck, as well they should be. Open-ended RPGs are very few and far between and are wonderful, and the graphics of this one are really special; this blinds people to the gameplay, which is very ordinary and very unskilled - the game is just too easy.

Mods are a must, and thankfully there are thousands of them.

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Rating: - Decent, but not great
TESV: Oblivion as a lot of good points. Good graphics, a huge world to explore, many enemies and weapons, tons of quests and huge mod community.

However, Oblivion has some issues. The terrain is very generic. You see a lot of the same type of landscape, and there isn't much that stands out, except the occasional town and dungeon. The dungeons are also quite generic, the same old cave, fortress, mine and ruin textures over and over again.

Most of the quests are quite linear as in you can't affect their outcome too much. You might get a few choices here and there, but in the end there just doesn't seem to be enough consequences for making choices.

You can see the same with the levelling system, where you can easily become the jack of all trades type of character and still go through the game. Your level increases by skilling up and then sleeping, and the game's enemies also level with you. Thus, it doesn't feel like you're getting any stronger and it's easier to completet he game at level 1.

For some, the game might have a bit high spec requirements, all though it's starting to age now so I guess it shouldn't be a problem for most people. It also has technical issues sometimes, like crashes and bugs. Patches have been made by both Bethseda and the mod community to fix the majority of these however.

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Rating: - Brilliant, World of Warcraft look a like.
This game works so well on, AMD athlon 64 3200 2.2ghz. 2gig ram, X1850 pro (overclocked), xp sp2. No lag really smooth game play.\
Ok one thing its quite boring after a while.
Still highly recommenced you visit [] to make sure it will work on your computer.
Highly recommended rpg game which is good for anyone who likes wow.

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Rating: - A review for the older gamer!

I am what might be described as a more 'mature' gamer. I'm also female. Now, I don't want to be accused of being ageist or sexist BUT I wanted to write a review specifically for the older person who might pass over this game because they think that it's all about fighting, war, death, destruction etc.

Well, not the way I play it, it isn't...

This is a brilliant, immersive game that has kept me happily engrossed for eighteen months - and I haven't finished it yet! (Well I never said I was a 'hardened' gamer...!!)
The graphics are absolutely brilliant if you have a PC with a good graphics card: if you have a slower PC, then you'll need to tweak with the in-game settings to ensure it doesn't stutter. Even then, playing with the graphics at its lowest level, the graphics are good.

I recommend you turn off everything that runs in the background of your computer before you start the game (you can do this by pressing CTRL/ALT/DELETE and bringing up Task Manager). Also unplug your printer and turn off your screen saver (this is one greedy game!!)

During the first few minutes of the game (or the first few hours, depending on your ability. Or the first few days, in my case...), you go through a kind of tutorial. This takes you out of prison and through a dungeon full of rats and nasties to be killed - finding out along the way how to use various weapons and spells. But - don't let this put you off. Because once you get out of the dungeon you enter the Province of Cyrodiil - a kind of medieval land where magic is common and the gun hasn't been invented, so you must use swords or fists if you want to fight - and thereafter you can wander around and do just as you please. You also design your character: goody or baddy, male or female, human or non-human - the choices are many. You also choose your skills and attributes, and you can spend as long as you like fine-tweaking your characters physical appearance.

By making your way to different towns, you can pick up various quests (missions) along the way. Some of these are simple, some of them are difficult, most of them are good fun - and most earn you money or goodies if you complete them. You might be asked to find out who stole a painting, or re-unite a couple of estranged brothers, or help clear a farm of horrible trolls... There is some thwacking and killing along the way, but mostly of scamps or trolls or wolves, so it's not too gruesome.

(You can play a wholly different game of course - you can be a murderous warrior if you like...)

Overall, this is a really, really great game and can be anything you want it to be. You can become an expert in magic and cast spells, or you can become a thief and an expert at sneaking around. You can be Mr Good Guy or Girl and go around helping everyone so they all like you, and spend your money on new clothes and houses, furnishings and even your own horse. Yes - you can ride around on a horse if you like - cantering through the woods stopping to collect herbs and flowers along the way, before standing by the water's edge to have a glass of wine and a bite of bread... no finer way to spend your leisure hours.....

There are lots of cheats on the Internet as well, so you can have endless health and endless money, for example, and can play a very easy game if you want!

I have now bought myself a Playstation 3 to play Oblivion, and I actually think that the visual aspect of the game was better on the PC (although I'm told this will not be the case once I've got an HD TV). But the game is awesome everywhere - and I just wanted to write a review for people who might pass this game by, thinking that it was merely another violent war game. Well, it CAN be, but it doesn't have to be.

Try it and you'll be enthralled!

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Rating: - A must get RPG

This is one of my favorite games and i have played it many times over. So why four stars and not five. Basicly this game is very good but if you look closly at it, it is acctually quite simple, simpler than it predesecor Morrowind which is another must get RPG.
Get this and you wont be dissapointed, but dont excpect a extremily coplexed game that has no fault.

Also MAKE SURE you have the right specs (i had to have my computer updated to get it to run)!