PCGamer says Oblivion wasn't perfect

[Tycn]

Might as well leave this here on the off-chance that someone hasn't seen it.

http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=37708

 

[Data4]

To be fair, this wasn't DessCock, and damn near all of his points are valid.

Then we can still have only 1 of two possibilities.

A. These are his complaints with Oblivion, it simply took him 5 years to formulate what he didn't like about it.

or

B. He doesn't have a complaint with Oblivion at all because he hasn't played it, and is simply hyping up the next installment with valid complaints that he has read elsewhere.

Either way, its a facepalm inducing example of game journalism failures.

This would be a big deal if Tom Francis wrote the PC Gamer review for Oblivion. IIRC, it was Desslock. Granted, Francis is being Captain Obvious here, but the article is a simple "Developer is making another game in X series. Here's what people didn't like about the previous game in the series. Let's hope they improve on it." piece that you see all the time.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Yeah, right. Same deal as always: to pretend that the new mediocre game is better, you first need to say that the previous game, which was otherwise perfect, got a few problems that the new game improves on.

Spot on.

 

[SCO]

Never at war with eastasia

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

Must have taken some serious larping for the game's shittyness to go unnoticed. Even if you ignore the level scaling the writing is worse than terrible, the characters are little more than cardboard cutouts and the combat is not at all satisfying. Then again if it took 30 hours to get to level 6 you were probably enjoying the hiking simulator to the fullest.

I was roleplaying hard. Created a mostly random character I didnt even try to understand the leveling system I just played. I refused to fast travel for the first 30 hours too. I was fleeing most battles, I didn't reload when I failed to steal something, ignored the compass thing tried my damnedest not to die.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Never at war with eastasia

:D

 

[JarlFrank]

The Destruction school of magic I inderstand. Restoration: yes. Even Illusion – invisibility and whatnot, great. Then Alteration? Spells that alter things? Don’t all spells alter things? And Mysticism – as opposed to scientific magic? Some of the spells are great, but the schools themselves are well overdue for an overhaul to make them more logical, distinct and exciting.

Righteous DraQ rage in 3... 2... 1...

Predicting a cutting down of magic skills after Oblivion's cutting down of weapon skills.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Of course it isn't perfect. It's not Skyrim.

 

[mvBarracuda]

Might as well leave this here on the off-chance that someone hasn't seen it.

http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=37708

This.

Wanted to post it as well, but you were faster

 

[Hell March]

Game journalism. Game journalism never changes.

 

[Zeus]

Funny, now they point out flaws the game had but upon release they gave it a 95% review score.

Yep makes sense.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/12/30/15-th ... -v-skyrim/

Eh, hindsight is 20/20. Professional reviewers play under weird conditions. They have deadlines to meet and usually have some sort of developer walkthrough provided, or at least are forced to stick to the main quest, so it's easy to get horse blinds on, race to the end, and miss out on a game's peculiarities.

I seem to remember a few titles that were praised around here for the first year, then quickly thrown into the, "CRAP!" pile. There've also been games that everyone professes to hate, and a year or two later, they're playing them through again.

Hell, look at what happened with Mount & Blade. The hivemind went from complaining that Gamespot's 6.0/10 was too high back in 2008, to a new thread popping up every week asking for more games like it. The change can't be explained away with Warband, because that was more about online multiplayer than addressing anyone's complaints (lack of deep single player campaign, etc.)

 

[torpid]

The M&B developers had promised a lot more features that never saw the light of day, so I'm guessing that was the source of most of the disappointment, especially for people who had followed the game's development. Eventually, players got over their dreams of what could have been and enjoyed the game as it was, because even without much in the way of strategy it's still fun and addictive.

 

[Topher]

I just ignore it all now, I don't bothers with previews or reviews or anything else. The only time I'll look twice at a game anymore is if someone recommends it. This is a pretty big change to the way I used to be (I used to at least follow previews) but honestly it doesn't take long to see too much of the bullshit firsthand and just swear off gaming media.

I still remember countless incredibly positive Hands-on previews only to see the game panned with awful scores (4's and 5's out of 10 or worse in some cases) a month later. They would turn around and call the game pretty much unplayable but if that's the case then what did you base the glowing "hands-on" preview on?!?

I don't know fuck it all.

 

[torpid]

Funny thing is that they had already bashed Oblivion prior to FO3's release, so the game is taking hits a posteriori for the sake of two franchises.

 

[DraQ]

The Destruction school of magic I inderstand. Restoration: yes. Even Illusion – invisibility and whatnot, great. Then Alteration? Spells that alter things? Don’t all spells alter things? And Mysticism – as opposed to scientific magic? Some of the spells are great, but the schools themselves are well overdue for an overhaul to make them more logical, distinct and exciting.

Righteous DraQ rage in 3... 2... 1...

Pretty derp, yeah.

Destruction - channel destructive energies and fuck stuff up
Restoration - buff and restore
Conjuration - summoning and forcing other beings to do your bidding
Illusion - manipulation of light, sound and others' perception
Alteration - pissing all over the laws of physics by changing them (previously Thaumaturgy) or properties of objects
Mysticism - everything that doesn't fit neatly into previous categories.

The rest seems pretty spot on, if 5 years late.

 

[Lightknight]

And Mysticism – as opposed to scientific magic?

Apparently he doesnt even know the meaning of the word.

 

[Turjan]

Funny, now they point out flaws the game had but upon release they gave it a 95% review score.

Eh, hindsight is 20/20.

Indeed. It also took me a while to see how shitty much in the game was. Oblivion managed to make a mighty fine first impression, although the "streamlining" of the RPG stats was already a bit worrying in the beginning. Plus, the controls sucked. The graphics, which were amazing for the time (I played with HDR + AA), admittedly had something to do with the initial reaction. The "floating cow pie syndrome" only became obvious later.

To see the problem with the level scaling, I had to get to around level 9, when my character's performance became suddenly very underwhelming, and the world changed. With my generally very slow play style, it took me a while to get there.

 

[7hm]

Funny, now they point out flaws the game had but upon release they gave it a 95% review score.

Eh, hindsight is 20/20.

Indeed. It also took me a while to see how shitty much in the game was. Oblivion managed to make a mighty fine first impression, although the "streamlining" of the RPG stats was already a bit worrying in the beginning. Plus, the controls sucked. The graphics, which were amazing for the time (I played with HDR + AA), admittedly had something to do with the initial reaction. The "floating cow pie syndrome" only became obvious later.

To see the problem with the level scaling, I had to get to around level 9, when my character's performance became suddenly very underwhelming, and the world changed. With my generally very slow play style, it took me a while to get there.

Really?

It took me about an hour once I left the stupid opening dungeon to realise I hadn't been challenged a single time regardless of where I stumbled.

Edit: I went back to play it a couple years later on the xbox 360 and found it to be a fairly enjoyable time waster though. Not Morrowind fun and not a particularly solid RPG, but a decent choice for when the gf took the computer.

 

[MicoSelva]

Oblivion is perfect. A perfect example of ass-boring shit and wasted potential.
After a few first hours, which promised great fun in a large, open world, I was so underwhelmed by the repetitivness of all aspects of gameplay (fucking dialogue mingame still gives me nightmares) and level-scaled combat (and loot), that I quit and never touched it again.
Good thing I only demoed it, as it would undoubtedly make an addition to my shelf of games I should never had bought, and there's no space there already.

 

[Turjan]

It also took me a while to see how shitty much in the game was.

To see the problem with the level scaling, I had to get to around level 9, when my character's performance became suddenly very underwhelming, and the world changed. With my generally very slow play style, it took me a while to get there.

Really?

It took me about an hour once I left the stupid opening dungeon to realise I hadn't been challenged a single time regardless of where I stumbled.

Not sure what that has to do with what I said. As unbalanced as the TES games are, the challenge you will experience directly after you emerge from the dungeon is very much dependent on your starting character choice. The borked level scaling gets apparent when your char suddenly gets incompetent after he reaches one of the levels where all NPCs and monsters get exchanged for the next tier without your character having level-appropriate attributes. There are troughs around levels 10 and 15 (roughly, I didn't look the exact numbers up).

 

[Data4]

As much as we like to make fun of IMMERSHUN here at the Codex, I do think it's an important part of gameplay. When you run into highwaymen decked out in full glass or Daedric gear, immersion is thrown out the window. By the time I got that far in the game, I was already laughing at myself, but it was on a bridge near Pell when the 4 guys in uber gear accosted me that I sat back, said "What the holy fuck?" and shut the game down for good.

 

[ElectricOtter]

As much as we like to make fun of IMMERSHUN here at the Codex, I do think it's an important part of gameplay. When you run into highwaymen decked out in full glass or Daedric gear, immersion is thrown out the window. By the time I got that far in the game, I was already laughing at myself, but it was on a bridge near Pell when the 4 guys in uber gear accosted me that I sat back, said "What the holy fuck?" and shut the game down for good.

It's not just immersion, it completely fucks game balance, too. There were two full sets of Daedric armor in Morrowind. Two. In the entire world. In Oblivion, all you have to do is power level and then go kill a bandit!

 

[Admiral jimbob]

It also took me a while to see how shitty much in the game was.

To see the problem with the level scaling, I had to get to around level 9, when my character's performance became suddenly very underwhelming, and the world changed. With my generally very slow play style, it took me a while to get there.

Really?

It took me about an hour once I left the stupid opening dungeon to realise I hadn't been challenged a single time regardless of where I stumbled.

Not sure what that has to do with what I said. As unbalanced as the TES games are, the challenge you will experience directly after you emerge from the dungeon is very much dependent on your starting character choice. The borked level scaling gets apparent when your char suddenly gets incompetent after he reaches one of the levels where all NPCs and monsters get exchanged for the next tier without your character having level-appropriate attributes. There are troughs around levels 10 and 15 (roughly, I didn't look the exact numbers up).

Well, personally, I have a thing for arena combat/tournaments (no idea why, it's a good excuse for throwing thoughtless or lazy grinding at the player but I love it), so I headed straight to the arena once I made it to the Imperial City. Decided to play what I could of it at the start... and beat it at level 2.

That was kind of where level scaling up and hit me in the face.

 

[DraQ]

As much as we like to make fun of IMMERSHUN here at the Codex, I do think it's an important part of gameplay. When you run into highwaymen decked out in full glass or Daedric gear, immersion is thrown out the window. By the time I got that far in the game, I was already laughing at myself, but it was on a bridge near Pell when the 4 guys in uber gear accosted me that I sat back, said "What the holy fuck?" and shut the game down for good.

It's not just immersion, it completely fucks game balance, too. There were two full sets of Daedric armor in Morrowind. Two. In the entire world.

And only if you had expansions installed there actually were two full sets. One worn by extremely powerful, plot critical NPC, another one spread across the whole world.

 

[Luzur]

of course they can come out with the facts about Oblivion now, the game is a classic now and a new one is on its way, with promises to blow your mind and cock, prob at the same time.