The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited - Maxi-Geek Review

When The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion released, there were a lot of people that asked if we would get multiplayer. When The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim was announced, people thought that perhaps some form of multiplayer would make an appearance in the game, but it was not to be, but thankfully the team at Bethesda have made a lot of people happy with The Elder Scrolls Online and now more than 12 months after initial release, the game as finally made its way to console.

The story of ESO is one that would take many pages to detail, there are quite a number of interesting characters that you will meet, alongside some interesting twists and turns. As with all Elder Scrolls games, you awake as a prisoner, but this time it's not some normal cell, you are in Coldharbour, a prison that is ruled by Molag Bal, one of the Princes of Oblivion. He is determined to pull Tamriel into his world using Dark Anchors, but he is not alone he has some help. The plot is pretty basic, but the point of an MMO is to have a large overarching story that plays out over an extended period of time, it works well.

The main focus of the game though is the exploration and combat found within, as you would expect of any game set in The Elder Scrolls world. The combat draws a lot of inspiration from Oblivion and Skyrim, but also adds a level of complexity found in MMO’s. Before the console release, I had spent a fair amount of time on the PC version, so I knew the combat systems before I got in, but taking a system built for PC and adapting it to console might not have gone so well. Thankfully the system in place, provides a fair amount of give to players, while also offering up some depth for those looking for a more robust combat system, in fact it is fair to say that it's the best in the series.

Players will select their character class and from there, that will determine their combat approach, for anyone who has played any of the more recent Elder Scrolls games, the class types will make sense. I selected to be a Battle Mage, one adept at magic, but also able to wield a sword or any other type of melee weapon. This resulted in my combat being mixes as I could fight from a distance as well as up close. When you fight up close, this is where you will see the bulk of the differences compared to the solo games, some attacks will generate a red circle, others a cone, but in all cases, this is the area of attach for the enemy, which means if you are standing in it, you will take damage. You can block, to negate some of the effects or you can attack and hopefully stagger the enemy so they don’t do the attack at all.

Using weapons like Swords or Bows in combat, is also slightly different than the solo games, if you press and hold your attack button, the attack will take a while to activate, but it will deal more damage, similar to the solo games, but it will also leave you open to counter attack as you recover from using such a big attack. The biggest change though is that you can unlock special moves that can be added to your hot keys that will allow you to pull of some of the biggest moves in the game. Similar, magic attacks can also be equipped to this bar, allowing you to mix up the combat even more than the one hot-keyed attack from past games.

Of course, while combat is a large portion of the game, the exploration of the world is also something you will spend a lot of time doing. Coldharbour, your starting location is very focused and does not have a lot of room to explore, but when you leave, you will be dropped into the world and the reins are let loose. For me, I started out in Daggerfall, which immediately had me confused as it was so grand and I was lost at what to do.  The first quest I selected for myself required me to follow a dog down to the creek where someone had been killed, this lead to a much larger quest to protect the king.

It was a fool’s quest it turned out as I was under levelled and after many attempts to defeat the boss of the quest, I had to head out and get stronger. Upon leaving the city and hitting the wilds, there were lots of quests and creatures to explore and destroy and it was from this point I felt I was playing a regular Elder Scrolls, only with many more people in the world. From here the world opened up more and more and each location I visited, the quests I undertook and the enemies I destroyed had me wanting to play more and more I played.

Throughout my time playing the game, the actual gameplay never faulted for me, there were some lag spikes occasionally that caused some pain, but they were in frequent enough. The area of attraction on enemies was also a little spotty, some would spot you from a while off, while others would only notice you when you were right next to them, but again this was not a common occurrence.  Perhaps that was lag related as well, but I don’t know, one thing I do know is that outside of the few major lag spikes, the game ran really well online, I had a few dropped connections, but again, in frequent enough to not really be a pain, just more of an annoyance. Interacting with the other players, something I did not do a lot of, also was painless as the systems worked there as well.

One thing that people will want to know is how the game looks though, the best way I can describe it is it is more Oblivion in its design and visual approach, but takes influences and elements from Skyrim. The game does look really nice, from the armour and cities to the enemies and vistas, each element stands on its own, but when you apply them together in a scene, they work in harmony. There were some slow loading textures here and there, which was funny to see, but the picture overall is a very nice one to look upon.

The audio is more of a mixed bag, over the years, the music from the Elder Scrolls series has been known and loved for it's amazing epic scores and simple tunes that can make a player feel like a hero or when you descended to the depths of the darkest catacomb, alone and ill-equipped and in The Elder Scrolls Online, it continues that legacy of providing a wonderful soundtrack. The mixed bag I mentioned before is from the voice work, the quality is not in question, it's the Oblivion effect, using a small group of voice actors to portray a larger world. The actors in question, do a wonderful job in providing weight to the world, the problem is when you here one actor as a king and then outside of the castle as a beggar.

Of course the team also went out and hired big name actors to fill various roles, John Cleese is very easy to spot, Michael Gambon and Alfred Molina also make appearances as two important characters and while it's nice to hear them, I would have liked to see the money spent on these actors better applied to getting a few more regular actors for the world. It's a minor issue, but it does break the flow and immersion of the game when you hear the same voice, in different manners, come from a variety of people.

The Elder Scrolls Online is a odd game, for a lot of people, it's just another Elder Scrolls title, but there will be elements that they don’t get, thanks to the MMO flavour. For others, having the chance to explore the world of Tamriel with friends will be something they really relish, no matter if it's peaceful exploration or attending to the many of the dungeons and raids the world has. While Elder Scrolls Online has issues with is servers, distance playing a factor in Australia and it's repeating of voices throughout the world, it is still an amazingly fun game that can offer everyone something different from the other online games out there.

Thanks to Bethesda for supplying the game for review.