The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Comments by Kristan Reed

BOTTOM LINE: RPG?

Noes.


OTHER BOTTOM LINE: GAME?

Erm... yeses.

You are never going to get a role-playing experience that rivals a good pen-and-paper session in a videogame. Not. Ever. You are never going to get a completely immersive second life in a rich and varied fantasy world in a videogame. You've never had one, and the supposed RPGs you look back on fondly will inevitably seem even more limited than something like Oblivion to someone playing them without the benefit of +1 Rose Tinted Glasses of Self-Delusion. You, and the rest of the people whining for 'realistic RPGs' from the games industry, are likely hoping for something that the majority of gamers would find incredibly tedious, unfair, monolithically slow-paced and generally utterly without merit.

What videogames can offer you is a relatively immersive, extremely visually appealing adventure with shallow character interaction but involving combat, and with enormous scope for genuine exploration of a carefully-constructed world and kleptomaniacal stuff-gathering. Apparently you don't like that sort of thing, which is fair enough, but criticising something like Oblivion for failing to be your dream immersive RPG is like shouting at your dog for not being enough of a cat.

"This is a game of massive ambition and scope. To those that pick it apart makes you out for what you really are, someone who is incapable of appreciating 5 years work of a game with massive ambition and of such massive scale and scope that it is easy prey for the fanactics that look to try and chop the legs from under it. Cry me a river and all I will do is hand you a tissue."

So because the game is a big scale and been in development a long time, it's automatically good? Great argument there, I bet you'll just love Duke Nukem Forver.

Karlidog, I'm sorry, compare dialogue/story/interaction/choices and the effects of your choices in Oblivion, with Planescape Torment(Yeah, that game had shit dialogue and roleplaying, its all rose tinted glasses), Arcanum or Fallout, hell even rpg-lites like BG2/Bloodlines/Deus Ex.
Then come back and repeat that with a straight face.

Also, go read Pete Hines/Todd Howards hype about the RPG elements, and come back and rant about bastards wanting more roleplaying elements in Oblivion, because apparently even Bethesda employees wanted it too.

If you only want action/exploration games fine, but dont just plain make up "facts" like "There cant be roleplaying computer games"

No but we can mimic it to a point.

PS:T was excellent in pulling emotions of the players and we are talking heavy text based here ... unfortunatly it seens "Next Gen" had the writters replaced by programers so games start to fault because those people are not artists, they have a complete lack of artistic sense.

If you want to see how I believe Immersion should be done, read this.

Immersion for me is in the little details as much as it is in having a world with 36 square miles.

I think your opinion of this game is dependent on the hardware used. It runs like a dog on my PC, so I would love to play it on the 360 to get a better perspective, but ,as it is, I find it hard to enjoy due to the wild variation in FPS.

ave,

Hey, at least you can explain why you don't like it all that much. Methinks, however, you should be playing it a little more before coming to any concrete conclusions. Then you could write a reader review or something. Then you might stop getting all the straw man arguments from Furbs and such.

I haven't played this yet, so could someone explain what the "level-matching" concept is? Is it monsters levelling up as your character levels up? That sounds like a capital idea, I must say.

As Genji said why not do a reader review, ave?

"Special mention goes to the new Speechcraft minigame. I'm a native English speaker and a pretty decent writer with a few awards to my credit, "

Well, you certainly couldn't tell that from his "review".

Wasn't a huge fan of Morrowind so I wasn't going to buy Oblivion, however my wife loved Morrowind saw Oblivion and demanded that I get it. At least it gives her something to play while the little one is alseep.

Yea review probably is stretching it a bit diatribe is probably a better description. Seriously he should do a reader review then we will have one place to pull it apart.

Oh, come on. At least give it a serious read before you call it a "diatribe". Then you might be able to argue against the points in it instead of burning straw men, making fun of his writing style, and whatnot.

It's refreshing to see different viewpoints on a game, and his has been the best-expressed of them so far. Give him a chance.

I'll be looking forward to the reader review.

Soz Genji it's the dictionary definition of the word.
I did give it a serious read and it's still a diatribe. I look forward to the reader review.

ave, Post your comments on a hardcore forum like http://www.ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=88649 and see what the reaction is. I'm not going to dignify them. Your talking about immersion which is very subjective and therefore you have no point. From my perspective there's not much for me to argue with you about since I'm enjoying the game and it seems the majority of the people, if not all in that massive thread on the forum on which I like to frequest are also.

This is a rather unique RPG since it's basically a single player MMORPG. How you develop your skills directly correlates into how you can interact in the game world. You will not find anyone mining experince points.

If you haven't noticed the reviews for Oblivion have been GTA caliber, another less than perfect game but which has attracted many fans. GTA is the game of which you should be drawing comparisons even though it is not an RPG. Sandbox games of which both are apart are a different breed. They are easy to criticize but their critical success both as recognized achievemnets in design and their success in the marketplace as dictated by the consumer speak volumes. Linking to some innocuous RPG or comparing Oblivion to Planescape:Torment, a wonderful but totally differnt type of game does little.

About the leveling system:

The leveling system allows the difficulty of NPCs and monsters to scale as your character levels. In Morrowind people got too powerful too fast and the challenge was none. Not the case here. What's important is that you level by leveling your skills. That is to say you don't level by gaining experience points. By leveling your skills you develop new abilities expanding the ways to which you can approach any situation. So the fact that you may have the same challenge at level 1 and at level 25 is reasonable to keep the combat eventful and so that you don't turn into some superman. At higher levels you now have the skills to deal with a situation in many different ways thus opening up the gameplay probabilities. Since you level by exercising your 7 major skills the chioces that you make at the beginning of the game are of course vitally important and have reprecussions later on.

Guys... none of us have a life. I sure as hell don't. Do you have more of a life if you use hundreds of hours of it to play Oblivion?

Also, ave didn't insult anyone in his post. You're not helping me see your point if you feel the need to call him names to prove it. His only crime is disagreeing with majority opinion.

And that's really not a crime.

Enough with the insults, already.

Who is calling names? Calling it a diatribe I would have thought was fairly accurate. I don't think there is anything wrong with it, it's a subjective view on what ave thinks of the game and he is entitled to his view. That's why I will be looking forward to a reader review

"Ryuken, look to the review posted by ave. Some people don't understand or get it as I said earlier. This is a game of massive ambition and scope. To those that pick it apart makes you out for what you really are, someone who is incapable of appreciating 5 years work of a game with massive ambition and of such massive scale and scope that it is easy prey for the fanactics that look to try and chop the legs from under it. Cry me a river and all I will do is hand you a tissue. "

Hmm, widow88, in your last post you are already contradicting yourself by saying that Oblivion should be compared to GTA rather than to the 'real' golden rpg's of the past decade while you previously say it is a roleplaying game. I think that the 'fantasy GTA'-comparison and the sp mmo'rpg' label is definitely something everyone agrees on, so, that doesn't make it a bad game at all, only a bad traditional rpg. It also doesn't mean that criticisers don't enjoy it, it's only a conflict about what genre Oblivion belongs to.

@EGBartonfink

Wasn't directed at you so much. Sorry if it sounded like that.

My take on Oblivion thus far. Played it for way to many hours yesterday and loved it to bits. Sure its gota few minor issues, but I found I just wanted to keep playing and thats a really good sign.

To take Black and GTA:SA as examples, I can't play these games ad infinitum as they just do something eventualy to annoy me into switching them off, only returning later when my patience has been restored.

Oblivion gave me none of that. I would have happily kept going till I starved to death.

A note for left handers, the controls setup makes no mentioned of southpaw support at all BUT it happily picks up your system stick settings from the 360 dashboard so left hander suport is actually there.

I'm loath to get into this thread discussion as it seems to have all gone a bit wrong. So can I make a general point. RPG games are sort of a niche thing. Some people love them, some poeple get bored to tears by them. Can we all agree thats its reasonable to say that the 10/10 review score is not realy for people who don't like western RPGs, but for people who love them (like me). I mean, if you don't like cake, Cake Lovers magazine isn't going to rock your boat is it? It seems obviously really, doesn't it?

Please people, likers and haters of this game, by all means write reader reviews and then we all get to see what worked for you and what didn't. But keep in mind, if it reads like a rant no-one will take it seriously or probably even get to the end.

EDIT: Typos I can't be bothered to find and correct.

"I had a goblin run at me with arrows all over him still very alive,so I just sticked to the sword"

I love that sort of little detail. After getting properly skewered by an enemy bowman I took a look at my character in the Journal screen and removing his body armour showed two arrows sticking out of his back and one right through his left shoulder. Little details like this aren't important of course, but they make me smile.

Many points I don't agree with, but ave (or the one who wrote it originally) certainly is right about the social interaction. Oblivion is very, very weak in that respect, and if this is one of the points very important for you, I can see how Oblivion is a big disappointment. Compare it with Vampire: Bloodlines in that respect, and weep. But that's the price of having 1200 NPCs, probably.

Fruit_Salad said: "Certainly not graphically."

Well, as you know I wasn't talking about graphics. I was talking about play, specifically. However if I was to comment on the visuals, I would simply describe them as "inconsistent". Some areas are quite beautiful and detailed, as people here have noted. On the other hand, some areas are rather unfinished and ugly. Shadow of the Colossus did a better job of creating a consistently beautiful world in my humble opinion.

Fruit_Salad also said: "But, that wouldn't have been an Elder Scrolls game. I think you're missing the point here abit. From what you've said there you'd be much happier with a smaller, much more condensed third person fighting game, than a stunningly massive realised buzzling sandbox world with an excellent story."

Generally I'd prefer a better game instead of sacrificing quality for quantity. I'd rather 10 hours of great play than 1000 hours of mediocre play. GTA Vice City was 3 times bigger than GTAIII, but it didn't need to be - it was just more places to put hidden packages. The scale of it means nothing to me - I'm not an MMO player, I don't have unlimited amounts of free time to spend on a videogame, but when I do have time to devote to a game like this, I'd like the game to be entertaining, refined, well-realised, with a good story. Time and time again in this thread, the enthusiasts come back to the word "massive" - but to me the scale of it just isn't that important. Clearly I am not the only one who feels that way - why else would there be the "quick travel" option on the map?

Anyway. I like the game, I'm enjoying it, and I'm glad so many of you are too. I'm just not as taken with it as many of you. I wasn't a big fan of Morrowind either - I found it equally clunky, unpolished and badly-written.

no ones gonna read this but hey... i just got to say it....
BUY THIS FRIKKIN GAME....ITS BRILLIANT.....thast being siad...
woudnt quite give it a ten. 8 or 9 maybey, the graphic 'flaws'and frame rates killin me (v 360)

So far I have to agree with UncleLou. Character interaction and emotional impact doesen't seem to be Bethesda's strengths. As good as the rest of the game is, atm, that is one area where they lag behind Bioware and Obsidian.

Maybe they could pick up a few writers who worked at VtM:B, now that Troika has dissapered.

Quote from Fruit_Salad... "I wonder when people are having a pop at the graphics, its because they are running the PC version on a not so 'up to the task' PC."

You wish... the graphics SUCK (imo) on my GF 7800 GTX 512 meg running at 1280x1024 with HDR and everything on high. The frame-rate is OK but the game looks ugly (imo) comapred to other PC games.

Note - The foliage pop-up is only a problem on my machine when running without HDR enabled. With HDR the foliage fades in rather nicely actually.

Note that Ave is quoting from *RPGCodex*.

It's not really a place well known for any form of balanced discussion on a game.

KG

Got it yesterday for my jurassic PC, and am LOVING IT. It is much better than Morrowind, especially in the quests department. Great stuff.

/goes back at exploring

"The graphics suck"

Uh.

You have this immense world to play around in and they've even bothered to put down an apple on a plate on a table in the third room of this house that's part of the little dwelling that's 2 minutes out from Kvatch.

God I want this game so much, but i will fail my degree if I buy it before June! My housemate is already regretting buying it for the same reason - but seeing him play just makes me want to more! The horror!

FF12 is better!

For some people, anyway. :)

This can be GTA like and an RPG at the same time. I'm not contradicting myself. You could make an RPG out of GTA if you really wanted to.

The graphics are breath taking. Sure there's some issues but damn I was just in this town (starts with an S in the west) and I left the town and went to the neighboring castle. To do this I had to cross a bridge which overlooked the town. Breath taking (360 version). I have trouble understanding how anyone can say the game *is* ugly.

Some nice panoromic shots.

http://www.panogames.com/oblivion/


edit: you can zoom in and out and rotate the pictures.

People

Quick question. Have an old PC (2.5 yrs). Thing is that I am PC dumb, and want to know whether my system can handle the game (don't mind if I have turn some features off etc).

I do not know even how to check my system. All I have is this:

Display: Radeon IGP 345M
Chip: ATI RS200M
DAC type: Internal DAC (350MHz)
Approx total memory: 64mb

I'm assuming the answer is no, but I do not know what the above actually means. As its almost 3 years old thinking it is not good enough. Simple yes or no would be fine

Thanks

This is so funny. The gaming world gets a real gem and all we get is "RPGs are shit and boring" and "It's been dumbed down for consoles, Bethesda have deserted the PC hardcore"

GET A LIFE GUYS

Yes it's boring..if you don't like RPGs, but you could apply that logic to EVERYTHING in life, which kind of makes the point redundant to begin with.

And PC gamers...yes your days are numbered. Why SHOULD developers have to fuck around testing and supporting a game for a plethora of hardware permutations, when one (very powerful one) will do?

Think about it: new graphics card, motherboard and RAM, or a 360 that will be truly put through it's paces over coming years instead of that new graphcs card being superceeded in 6 months.

Face it..a PC is tool (and a great one at that) but as far as being a games platfrom, it's selling points are becoming increasingly marginalised.

EDIT: There's a fine line between trolling (WTF does that MEAN anyways?) and brutal honesty

And PC gamers...yes your days are numbered.

/yawn

Go trolling somewhere else.

Rambaldi, your words really don't make much sense. I am not the all powerful forecaster here but I'll eat my shoes if PC gaming gets squashed by the "next-generation" of video consoles.

I don't want to imply that a game (like Oblivion f.e.) can't be better on a console, it's just that for the PC-platform there are more than enough genres you won't find (as good) on consoles. Now that's honesty (not even being brutal actually ;) ).

Anyway, is there a PC-review of this game in the works too?

I'm absolutely loving Oblivion so far. never played an Elder Scrolls and don't play too many beardy RPGs, but that 10/10 made me buy it instantly. I've plunged about 7 hours into it without even realising.

As for ave's post - I'd say a lot of it is fair cop. The tutorial with the puny Blades was a bit daft and there are niggles with graphics, the map being too zoomed in. But fucking hell, if you are going to nit-pick at those things you really need to get out more!

It's like finding as many flaws as you can in the Sistine Chapel ceiling or something.

I'm a cynical old bastard at times, always worried that games developers and publishers are only ever going to put tons of cash into dumbed down, mass market drivel ( /casts Paddington Bear hard stare at EA et al ).

I've waited for a game like this for a long time - it's a huge, sprawling, high end, niche market RPG with fantastic production values. In short it's pretty much everything the games industry shies away from - high cost / high risk = stay well clear for most publishers and developers.

I think this is one of the most daring games released in a long, long time. I'm so happy to see that there are some people out there still willing to take a chance. IMO every gamer should be forced to buy it at gunpoint.

As regards the graphics being ugly, well, to PC users with top end systems then of course it does pale in comparison to other PC games (certainly on the texture front)....
BUT, console users who've had to put up with low res crap have finally got a game that compares to PC graphics.

Not 'Next Generation' in my opinion JUST 'Current generation'...

PS - Rambaldi said "PC gamers...yes your days are numbered" LOL. Excuse me while I return to BF2, FEAR and CIV4... LOL!

Well, I am a PC gamer and I think Oblivion looks absolutely fantastic. Looks like there's a problem with your rig.



This thread is beginning to make me sick.

Judging by the amount of comments so far, even those complaining seem to like the game and so can only nitpick on the smaller issues. Definitely worthy of a 10 in my opinion, but who are those idiots putting 1 on the Reader's Opinion voting, I bet they haven't even played the game.

There are hundreds of small issues but it's still a great game.

But why I wouldn't give it a 10 is simply because the game is pretty much the same as morrowind underneath the fancy exterior, with actual gamebreaking bugs where you have to go back a save just to be able to continue on in the game.

For example I was doing one of the main quests and decided to take a short break and got a quest assigned to me by one of the gladiators. This involved going to the other side of the map to examine a fort so I did, when I was there I ran into a bunch of vampyres and had a bash with them.

After a while in the fort, having bashed my way through 3-4 vampires one of the main story characters showed up and told me he knew where we should go in the sewers.

The sewers of the capital city.

He wanted to show me the way as well, so I couldnt skip ahead. I was forced to follow him.

Well follow him into a wall, because his pathfinding couldnt find the way back out of the fort.

Because he was the only way to continue on the main quest I was stuck and forced to load an earlier save, so I did and quickly moved out of the fort and went back to the main city.

I watched as the cursor of the character had been on his way to my location and if I waited a couple of hours I could see him move back on the map. It took 12 hours and then he came to show me the way through the sewers.

Moral of the story? Never try to play several quests at the same time.

---

That's just one. There are plenty of other questbreaking bugs where doors have been locked etc.

Not a 10. I'd give it a 8, I really enjoy the game but it wouldn't be too much work to try and work on the animations more and remove some of the exploits.

The bits inside the Oblivion gates are starting to get a bit dull here. Am I going to be repeating these same bits through the entire game?

Haven't read this review yet but 10/10 no way, not with the ridiculously bad level scaling system (choose the wrong major skills and you'll prob have to abandon your character eventually), dodgy AI, really poor distance textures and and various other problems.

It's a good game, but there are quite a few obvious issues that should've been fixed allready.

Play without the far distance graphics, it actually looks a lot better with the fogging.

and PC gamers...yes your days are numbered. Why SHOULD developers have to fuck around testing and supporting a game for a plethora of hardware permutations, when one (very powerful one) will do?

Why? In a nutshell: Lower development costs, fewer politics, more publishing options.

Sure, consoles benefit from a predetermined hardware platform, support from console licensor, and the implied lounge environment, but PC games have been made as long as PCs have existed and will continue to do so for a while yet, hombre.

The scaling system is not ridiculously bad and it actually works and keeps the combat interesting. It makes sense. True if you combine the wrong major skills you'll have a problem but the whole point is you can be what you want.

disc; first time I ever saw anyone advocate fogging.

Oh well if they had managed to make the far distance graphics as 'vivid' as SOTC then I wouldnt have advocated fogging but since it pretty much looks like crap and takes up a lot of the screen.

Why look at it at all?

Oh god, SOTC? You know I registered yesterday but now I'm sorry I did.

Yep, those might be empty vistas but they sure know how to work that pitiful machine.

Well the way the scaling is at the moment for most people the game actually gets harder as you level up. That shouldn't be happening... i mean, this is an RPG, levelling up should be a *good* thing.

Feanor - having got Oblivion on Thursday but not played it yet because of FFXII, I can definitely say that FFXII is better in every way.

;)