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After Emperor Uriel Septim VII dies, the player must help his illegitimate son Martin find a way to stop the invasion of the hellish realm Oblivion.
I did not like The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowindย (mainly because I was quickly put off by a bombardment of names I had no idea how to pronounce), so I was hoping this follow-up would be at least a moderate improvement. Thankfully, it was. :-) The main storyline held my interest fairly well, and the fact that it's fully voice acted alone makes it an exponential improvement on Morrowind!
Although, that said, I wouldn't say the voice acting is the best I've ever heard. Many characters clearly have the same voice, and let's just say I've heard livelier. On the other hand, the cast does include some pretty famous names, like Sean Bean as Martin, Patrick Stewart as Emperor Uriel, and Terence Stamp as cult leader Mankar Camoran.
Since I tend to favour stealth over combat, I chose the Agent class when creating my character. However, I never strayed far from the main campaign, which gave me almost no opportunities to practise the relevant skills. So, due to the way the level-up system works, I was still only at level one when I entered the first Oblivion Gate, and only level five by the time I finished the story. As a result, because of how quickly even the regular enemies can drain your health, I pretty much grew to depend on the God Mode cheat just to survive.
The graphics are good, but no matter how high I set the view distance, trees and other objects would keep popping into view unnaturally.
A good chunk of the game consists of wandering around aimlessly, especially if the way forward isn't immediately obvious, and am I the only one who thinks the running speed should have been the default walking speed? You can fast travel, but only to locations you've already found.
Amusingly, even though this isn't a direct sequel to Morrowind, I did come across one reference to it in my travels: a conversation that mentions the Nerevarine left on an expedition to other lands.
Overall, I enjoyed this game, but it's far from what I'd call great. The central narrative is good, but the stagnations you run into while exploring do mean the pacing suffers.
My rating: 75%
