Guys, you're fighting a losing battle. emoutofthevee proved you all wrong; you cannot underestimate the power of critics!
emoutofthevee wrote:The Lord of the Rings film trilogy is is verified to be the currently highest grossing motion picture trilogy worldwide of all time, besting such other film franchises as the Star Wars trilogy and Harry Potter. The film trilogy also tied a record for the total number of Academy Awards won.
Bethesda Softworks® announced that its hit title, The Elder Scrolls® IV: Oblivion™ has achieved record sales, reflecting huge market demand for the title. Over 1.7 million units of Oblivion for the PC and Xbox 360 have been shipped since the launch of the game. In North America, Oblivion has become the fastest selling game released on the Xbox 360. The NPD Group Inc reports Oblivion PC as the best selling PC game, while the Oblivion Collectors Edition is ranked number 2. NPD reports that Oblivion represented approximately 13% of all PC game sales in the first week of its release, more than four times the sales volume of the next best selling title. -
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The game was released March 21, 2006 in North America, and March 24, 2006 in Europe. By April 10, 2006, Oblivion had sold 1.7 million copies for both Windows and Xbox 360 and by January 18, 2007, the game had sold over 3 million copies.
A vast majority of critics have also highly praised the trilogy, with Kenneth Turan writing that "the trilogy will not soon, if ever, find its equal" In particular, performances from Ian McKellen, Sean Astin, Sean Bean, Andy Serkis and Bernard Hill stood out for many in audience polls, and special effects for the battles and Gollum were praised. However, it must be noted that a few critics were critical of the film's pacing and length, "It's a collection of spectacular set pieces without any sense of momentum driving them into one another" according to the Philadelphia Weekly.
Critical reaction to the English version of Oblivion has almost been entirely positive with an average review score of 94% for the Xbox 360 (2nd highest game of 2006 and the highest rated Xbox 360 game released to date) and 93% for the PC (5th highest game of 2006); PC Gamer UK, PC Gamer US, PC Zone, GameSpot, IGN, Electronic Gaming Monthly, and OXM have all awarded the game 9/10 or more, and praised the game for its immersiveness and scope. The television program X-Play, citing similar reasons, awarded the game a rare 5/5 with Eurogamer awarding it a perfect 10/10. GameSpot cited the game as "simply one of the best role-playing games ever" with a score of 9.6 for the Xbox 360 and 9.3 for the PC. PC Gamer UK did, however, criticize the game's repetitive and occasionally absurd nature of conversations between NPCs, saying that it broke suspension of disbelief, but still awarded the PC version a high 93%. IGN stated that "none of the criticisms hold back Oblivion from being a thoroughly enjoyable, user-friendly, gorgeous experience with enough content to keep you returning time and time again", awarding it a score of 9.3
Overall, the films received very high positive critics rating on rottentomatoes.com (93% critics' approval ratings for the first and last films of the trilogy, and a 98% critics approval rating for "The Two Towers"), a consensus amongst over 200 noteable film critics and over 600 reviews for all three movies in the trilogy.
Gamerankings.com - 93 of 100 (based on 61 reviews)
Metacritic.com - 94 of 100 (based on 51 reviews), Best PC Game
The trilogy appears in many "Top 10" film lists, such as the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association's Top 10 Films, Time Magazine's All-Time 100 Movies, James Berardinelli's Top 100,and The Screen Directory's "Top Ten Films of All Time" (considering the trilogy as "one epic film split into three parts").
- At the 2007 IEAA Awards, The Elders Scrolls IV: Oblivion won the "BigPond Games PC Game of the Year" award.
- 2006 Golden Joystick awards - Ultimate Game of the Year, PC and Xbox 360 game of the year, PC and Xbox 360 game of the year
- IGN Reader's Choice 2006 - PC Game of the Year, Most Innovative Game (PC), etc.
- Gamespot Reader's Choice 2006 - PC Game of the Year, Best Overall RPG, etc.
- 2007 Interactive Achievement Awards - Computer Game of the Year, RPG of the year
- Shacknews 2006 Game of the Year Awards - Game of the Year, PC Game of the Year, Best PC RPG
et cetera, et cetera... ad infinitum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_ ... :_Oblivion