xbox – My Game Reviews

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered is one of the standout games of 2025 Graphics

Oblivion Remastered has to be one of the best surprises of this year. Being a big fan of High Fantasy, this game was a treat to enjoy.

Being released in the spring, this felt like the perfect game for such a season. The screenshot above shows why here. This is a section of the Cyrodil map near the center of it and this is just a small pond here. The water lilies and the flowers are just so magical in this new version of the game here. I just had to take some time to take screenshots.

The Elder Scrolls Games, specifically Oblivion and Skyrim are games where you can just relax and enjoy the scenery. It is a great game just to engage with when one wants to just explore over following a linear set of objectives.

I have written about why I enjoyed playing Oblivion Remastered. I was bigger fan of Oblivion over Skyrim. I thought that Skyrim was a game which, while great, was too earthy for a fantasy game. I like the color and graphics of Oblivion. The new remastered graphics show why remastering these games is so important for preserving the efforts that brought these games to us gamers.

In an age where many video games just seem like a waste of money, this is a great achievement in here to get the industry back on track, so it is more vibrant in here.

The gameplay was already of great quality and the remastering helped to refine it.

However, the graphics have given the muddy looking yet colorful game another lease on life which is what they were trying to achieve with this edition.

In comparison to the original version, I think that the strongest aspect are the mountains. In the image above, one how much better looking such mountains are in comparison to the original version.

The one thing that I will give the original version is that it has brighter colors. There is this browness in the grass in the Remastered version which makes it look more like Skyrim in comparison.

When it comes to Weye right next to the Imperial City, there is something truly beautiful about the rustic country buildings in the evening light here. The flowers on the vines on the stone walls also provide a beautiful color contrast here.

The Remastered edition’s ability to render shadows really elevates the graphics. While the color is desaturated and not the best, I like how the nearby NPC’s clothing is interacting with the shadows and light in a complex way here.

It is during the night that I think the remastered edition’s color palette start to surpass the original versions. The lighting effects are greatly improved in the Remastered version have a softer presence, which I think helps to elevate the night especially in cities such as the Imperial City, and other urban areas.

While the color scheme isn’t really what I wanted, I think screenshots such as those above, explain why people keep coming to Oblivion even after playing Skyrim. There is something that the game manages to capture in the natural environment of the game.

This game had many pretty entries but this remastering of Oblivion is among one of the best I have seen.

Civilization VI vs Civilization Player Count on Steam

Civilization VI vs Civilization VII in Peak Payer Count on Steam (Source: Steamcharts.com)

Civilization VII is still being outperformed by Civilization V and Civilization VI in player counts. Civilization V outperforming a game that is fifteen years younger than it is surprising, but I should probably be aware that it was possible within our context of the increasing global nature of gaming in our age. Gaming was always global to some extent but there many players uploading videos on YouTube from Vietnam or Egypt who actively play 20-year-old games on their computers as that is their interest and most importantly, their budget for their computers. This tech debt from the Windows XP era is quite noticeable now.

Civilization VII has had a slight increase in its player base over the past couple months. However, this is small increase and mostly because of its DLCs. The game does have a player base unlike some games that have thousands of players upon launch and then you check a couple months later and hardly anyone is playing it. However, this is a game which is still unable to surpass Civilization VI months after release.

What is quite noticeable is that Civilization VII was barely able to surpass the peak player count of Civilization VI in its launch month. Another issue is the week that it was Kingdom Come 2: Deliverance was taking its energy away. While the games are different genres, their player bases overlap more than say a platformer game. Kingdom Come 2 greatly surpassed the original game’s peak player count. Civilization VII had to contend with six different games that came out before it. This is quite the legacy you have to live up to. At some point, the Civilization series was going to reach its creative plateau because it had basically forgotten its player base.

The game is honestly not that good at giving the player a sense of scale. It’s not the realism which players crave but the scale and macro nature of the earlier games.

I have stated many times on here that Civilization VII is a game that does not have unique moments such as this on a macro scale. Playing as China in that game and having Persia launch a nuclear attack on my Communist nation was truly edge of your set material in an old game.

Another interesting moment are the text boxes in Civilization III. I had the Koreans attempting to manipulate my politics. Such little boxes help to flesh out the virtual history playing out on screen. That is what Civilization VII is missing here.

Civilization VI had a decline in player counts as well, but they were not the same. Civilization VII’s player base is smaller and has more competition from not just other games but older Civilization titles. This makes the act of getting the game to surpass both Civilization V and Civilization much tougher in comparison. Civilization VII is simply not better than Civilization VI as it is product of an age in the industry where style means more than substance.

What Empire Earth has that Civilization VII still doesn’t have

Civilization VII right before Thanksgiving has only around 7.5 thousand players right now playing it on Steam.

I have already talked about how Civilization VII was a failure and the game is basically the dark ages of the Civilization franchise. The dark ages of course had brightness in it, such as in Charlemagne’s court. Civilization VII burned brightly at the beginning as so many games do and it fails to continue capturing people’s attention.

I watched with great interest at how Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and Civilization VII would perform together as they were released close to one another.

They are different genres, but they are both historical games with have audiences that overlap.

It is a tale of two games. Both burn brightly upon release but they are not the same. Kingdom Come 2, in spite of there being a high skill ceiling for this game, managed to tell an interesting story in 15th Century Bohemia and give a narrative from many class perspectives.

Civilization VII simply seems like an entry in a franchise which is exhausted in energy.

The game should have been pc-centric not console centric as it seems that it was. The willingness to put the game in VR makes no sense for a series that has largely been on the PC. Its soul began on the PC, and the console versions were a necessary addition but the main part of the franchise’s energy.

Empire Earth has what a lot of what the gaming industry doesn’t have now. The energy and the soul which makes it special here.

The importance of a holistic integration of many gameplay and design elements into a video game is vital for keeping it going in the memories of gamers.