Review Oblivion Review

[Vault Dweller]

The real question is: What's the point of playing the game? After 15 hours (two of which you may spend in the tutorial dungeon, depending on how leisurely you progress through it or time spent tweaking your character) you've seen all that Oblivion has to offer. Despite all the time the developers supposedly spent creating Cyrodiil there is absolutely no reason to explore because there's never any chance of reward. What is the player left with? Not much except for a game that lasts about as long as your average FPS. That would be fine if it hadn't be touted as the greatest CRPG ever conceived.

My sentiments exactly. Welcome to the forums, Miles.

 

[Crichton]

Despite all the time the developers supposedly spent creating Cyrodiil there is absolutely no reason to explore because there's never any chance of reward.

I've never understood this mentality. The only thing I do enjoy in Obligius is skulking through dungeons filled with random enemies; I never know how exactly they'll be armed, what spells they'll know, what skills they'll have, no matter how many times I've been to that point on the map, every trip into that dungeon is an adventure.

I've had enemies go invisable, drain my fatigue, encumber my character, blast me with destruction, summon weapons, summon allies and all sorts of other crap, I never know what an enemy will do when I get close. As far as I'm concerned that's what single-character dungeon crawling gameplay is all about, it frustrates me when I play G2:NotR now because every orc attacks me in the exact same manner.

It's true, unless I recently increased in level, my character won't get a toy-upgrade. Who the f*** cares? If my toys are adequate for the present, then I don't need better ones. If you're that unhappy with your toy selection, open up the console and "reward" your character with whatever toys you feel like. GOTTA COLLECT 'EM ALLLLL!!!!!1!

 

[[Jez]]

Good review and one I depressingly agree with, maybe in a six months modders will have fixed the games enough to be worth the cost of it, I hope so as this money could have gone towards a good whore.... or 2 bad ones :twisted:

Anyway Vault Dweller, hows AoD shaping up?

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

A picture is still worth a thousand words, aint it? The running knight is my favourite picture set though.

Well, yeah, atleast you used screenshots in a senseful way unlike most reviews where screenshot are just shown to illiustrate the graphics.

My favourite were actually the Mannimarco screens with the comment: "What happened to you, man? You used to be cool."
Gave me quite a laught

 

[Vault Dweller]

Anyway Vault Dweller, hows AoD shaping up?

We're getting there.

 

[[Jez]]

Anyway Vault Dweller, hows AoD shaping up?

We're getting there.

Cool, it looks good man please keep at it.

OT: Why has the codex never covered Dark Messiah of Might and Magic? Its prolly more RPG than Oblivion even if they not labling it as such

 

[Vault Dweller]

OT: Why has the codex never covered Dark Messiah of Might and Magic? Its prolly more RPG than Oblivion even if they not labling it as such

No clue, to be honest. With AoD I don't have as much time as I used to, so I assumed that the game is a pretty cool shooter and left it alone.

 

[LlamaGod]

The only action part of the game is combat and all ES games have had real time combat. I really prefer that, in this game you have aspects that exercise your mind the combat part exercisizes your physical skill like in real life. It's more more imeersive and realistic to have real time combat. Turn based combat was the advent of pc's and older consoles unable to properly handle a realtistic live combat scenario, today it can be done well. Real-time combat does not equal action game it equals more immersive realistic scenario. Turn based combat completely ruins the immersion of a game and I personally hate it.

You still have to use strategy you can't also just rush in swinging
You have to use your blocks and magic properly.

he's probably one of those idiots that thinks Counter-STrike is a sport

 

[miles foreman]

My sentiments exactly. Welcome to the forums, Miles.

Thanks for the greeting. Naturally I completely forgot the reason I was going to post in the first place because I was too busy writing a novella.

I think Oblivion is an ill omen. If this is Bethesda's idea of a CRPG, FO3 doesn't stand a chance. I suppose we'll have to wait and see when they actually start developing it, but as it stands now I'm very bothered by the prospect.

I've never understood this mentality. The only thing I do enjoy in Obligius is skulking through dungeons filled with random enemies; I never know how exactly they'll be armed, what spells they'll know, what skills they'll have, no matter how many times I've been to that point on the map, every trip into that dungeon is an adventure.

I've had enemies go invisable, drain my fatigue, encumber my character, blast me with destruction, summon weapons, summon allies and all sorts of other crap, I never know what an enemy will do when I get close. As far as I'm concerned that's what single-character dungeon crawling gameplay is all about, it frustrates me when I play G2:NotR now because every orc attacks me in the exact same manner.

Are you kidding? Depending on what level I am I know exactly what I'll be facing. If I'm level 12 I know any weapon I face will most likely be Mithril or Elven. If they're humanoid, they'll be wearing Mithril or Elven armor, and possibly a piece of Dwarven or Orcish armor.

The spells they use (while like you say, they use many... well, sometimes) matters not to me because I can dodge their projectiles with my UBER L33T FPS SKILLZ and hunt them down with my perma-Detect Life helmet if they disappear. I was only worried about my skills at the very beginning before I realized how the levelling system worked. After that there was never a time where I felt that I might be unprepared. First time I saw a big scary Minotaur? I ran right up and beat the shit out of him. No surprises there.

Actually that's not entirely true. I think I'm always surprised when a mage runs up to me and starts attacking with a dagger instead of casting anything at me first.

It's true, unless I recently increased in level, my character won't get a toy-upgrade. Who the f*** cares? If my toys are adequate for the present, then I don't need better ones. If you're that unhappy with your toy selection, open up the console and "reward" your character with whatever toys you feel like. GOTTA COLLECT 'EM ALLLLL!!!!!1!

This is the FPS mentality so prevalent amongst die-hard Oblivion supporters. Not saying that you are, but this is a typical response. Obviously it's my fault because I want to, I dunno, enhance my character during the course of the game. Why shouldn't I just be satisfied with what the developers deem I should have at whatever point I'm at in the game? I've never understood this mentality when applied to CRPGs. Isn't that one of the reasons for playing in the first place? Do some quests, interact with characters, obtain better goods to do more righteous damage against the enemy? Why is it wrong to want that?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I'll stick to the professional reviews, thanks. THEY'VE never been wrong.

Nope, fucking never.

I remember the GameSpy review of Fallout Tactics where the game got a 90+% score even though the game wouldn't run on all the computers on his LAN. So, basically, 90+% for a game which may or may not actually work when you buy it.

best quote ever

i share some of his point but still, this isnt a review - it's just an opinion. reviews shouldnt be biased like that.

Gosh. I wonder what these guys think reviews are then. Well, given the state of online gaming journalism, reviews aren't opinion. They're PR pieces as to not piss off the developer on the pedastal.

The whole point of a review is to say, "Hey, this is what's good.. And more importantly, this is what isn't." so the consumer can make an informed purchase based on the opinions of the reviewer's impression. If you're not listing most of the things that ticked you off or things you know are problems with the game, then you're not reviewing the game. If you're glossing over broken parts of the game or spinning issues to make them sound good, then you're just writing a PR piece.

Oh and, did you recognize how this "roleplayer" runs through every location in the game with his weapon drawn? Even in the cities or while overhearing conversations? Very immersive, right.

YEAH VD, FUCKING SHIT. Don't you know that real roleplaying is LARPing? Why the fuck are you even admin, damn.

A more important thing to point out is that even the RAI, which is the most advanced AI in gaming history, doesn't notice you're running around with your weapon drawn. If it's not a big problem for the characters in the game using the super duperest AI known to man, then it apparently isn't an issue for the gameworld that people run around with weapons drawn.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

The only thing NPCs react to in terms of weapons (besides hitting them with it) is if you talk to people with your weapon drawn, you lose 10 points of dispoistion, but that's no big deal because it only takes like 20 gold to get it back to where it was.

 

[LlamaGod]

The comedy in the weapon thing is that in Morrowind, all it did was lower your standing with whoever you were talking to by like 5 points or something.

In Oblivion it doesn't really do anything. The immersion isn't reinforced even that little bit.

But the source of the laughs is in Gothic 2, if you had your weapon out, the guards would draw theirs and surround you yelling at you to put your weapon away and threatening you until you did and they'd comment on that too ("Smart choice.").

RADIANT AI IS MOST ADVANCED EVAR

 

[Crichton]

Are you kidding? Depending on what level I am I know exactly what I'll be facing. If I'm level 12 I know any weapon I face will most likely be Mithril or Elven. If they're humanoid, they'll be wearing Mithril or Elven armor, and possibly a piece of Dwarven or Orcish armor.

The *level* of the gear is completely irrelevant, what matters is that you don't know what *type* of weapons people will have. When I go into a dungeon, I don't know if they'll be anyone in the next room, if there is, I don't know how many and I don't know whether they're sword and board, two-handers, summoners, archers, blasting magic people or fistfighters.

I don't know what magic they know so if they pull back to cast a spell, I don't know if they're going to heal, cast alteration magic (which can't be dodged), cast invisablity, summon a weapon, summon an ally or just launch lightning at me.

I do know whether they're weapon (if they carry one) will be level 3 (steel/chainmail) or level 4 (dwarven/mithril), but what difference does that make? As it happens I know more than that, because I'm playing with Tom Servo's item mod, they're always a mix of iron/steel/leather/fur and have a random chance of something scaled to my level.

Isn't that one of the reasons for playing in the first place? Do some quests, interact with characters, obtain better goods to do more righteous damage against the enemy? Why is it wrong to want that?

Character interaction and gameworld interaction (including quests) have nothing to do with all this diablo/dungeon siege/MMO item collection bullshit. It has nothing to do with gameplay whatsoever and is, to use the common phrase "treadmill porn", nothing but a sop to the 14-year old MMO players who get a hard-on thinking about how much more damage their elven sword does than the wooden one they had at the beginning.

 

[Volourn]

"Whenever I hear this, I can't help but think of McDonalds food, Microsoft operating systems, VHS, and the Spice Girls.

Some people really need to learn to differenciate between great marketing and a great product, methinks."

Poor comparison. McDonalds' success is more than just amrketing. Afterall, many of their billions of customers are repeat customers. Whether YOU personally like its food is irrelevant.

 

[OverrideB1]

A good review, and far less lambasting of Oblivion than I would have thought from what I've read of VD's opinions of the game.

The style caused a few chuckles -- a sort of Codex debunking of developer's statements that worked well. I particularly liked the screengrabs used -- they illustrated the points you were trying to make perfectly.

 

[Atrokkus]

LISTEN UP ANGRYCUNTS!

I have translated the review in Russian and posted it on my native forum RPGplanet.ru (my screenname there is Tassadar, if anyone cares).

Let's see what Russian fanbois come up with! [infernal laughter]

HERE

 

[miles foreman]

The *level* of the gear is completely irrelevant, what matters is that you don't know what *type* of weapons people will have. When I go into a dungeon, I don't know if they'll be anyone in the next room, if there is, I don't know how many and I don't know whether they're sword and board, two-handers, summoners, archers, blasting magic people or fistfighters.

I don't know what magic they know so if they pull back to cast a spell, I don't know if they're going to heal, cast alteration magic (which can't be dodged), cast invisablity, summon a weapon, summon an ally or just launch lightning at me.

Are you fucking with me? Seriously, there are two types of attacks in Oblivion: Melee and Ranged. That's it. Magic is either... Melee or Ranged. The weapon types are completely meaningless. There is no difference between Blade, Blunt and Unarmed except if they were using an enchanted Blade or Blunt weapon.

Things that do matter however are:

1)The material weapons and armor are made of
2)Skill points for assessing damage values.


You talk as if this type of combat was never seen before in any other game ever made. Hey, guess what? Morrowind had the same stuff you're talking about! You'd "never know" what kind of attack someone was going to do in Morrowind either, until... they attacked you with it. I'm not even sure what point you're trying to make. It doesn't matter if you're level 1 or level 50, they're going to do the same stuff to you. The only difference is what level tier or level you're at, which was the point I was making. When you level, everyone magically levels with you. Once you advance to the next tier, all equipment magically changes across the land. This is dumb and lazy design.

I do know whether they're weapon (if they carry one) will be level 3 (steel/chainmail) or level 4 (dwarven/mithril), but what difference does that make? As it happens I know more than that, because I'm playing with Tom Servo's item mod, they're always a mix of iron/steel/leather/fur and have a random chance of something scaled to my level.

Uh, you're using an optional mod as basis for debate against me? If it was so easy, why didn't Bethesda just do it like Tom Servo's mod in the first place? Then there'd be nothing about it for me to bitch about.

That's like me complaining about the horrible UI. Your answer is that I should download the UIMod. Why should I have to? Bethesda should have addressed it before release.

Character interaction and gameworld interaction (including quests) have nothing to do with all this diablo/dungeon siege/MMO item collection bullshit. It has nothing to do with gameplay whatsoever and is, to use the common phrase "treadmill porn", nothing but a sop to the 14-year old MMO players who get a hard-on thinking about how much more damage their elven sword does than the wooden one they had at the beginning.

How long have you been playing CRPGs? How many have you played? Better yet, how many CRPGs have you played where you never upgraded your equipment? You have got to be trolling me. You're not even addressing what I said, just making assumptions from things I never wrote.

Who's talking about Diablo or MMORPGs? All I said was that it sure would be nice if I could upgrade my stuff when and how I feel like instead of the game deciding for me. If I want to brave that trek across the world at level 1, sneak into a cavern guarded by monsters who could crush me instantly just so that I can steal a weapon far more powerful than I'd see in a long time, why can't I? Limiting the choices players can make like Bethesda did *IS* treadmilling. There is no point to levelling because everyone levels with me. There is no reason to seek out better stuff because everyone gets the same crap when I do. What's the point of even playing the game if everything is the same, always? Why can't you understand that?

I think we're talking about two different games. I'm talking about Oblivion and the fact that it isn't a CRPG. I haven't the foggiest idea what you're talking about.

 

[obediah]

Somewhere at an internet cafe, through 5 proxies and anonymizers, a Bethesda empoyee is reading this review and chuckling a bit.

VD - well written. It didn't seem harsh or petty to me, I like the holding the game up against the hype angle, which is why some people are saying it's so negatively onesided.

Maybe you should have put the dungeon part at the top and evenly spaced out your praise to keep people from assuming they were at the lip of a spiral into hell after the first paragraph.

I don't think I can take one more "the world comes alive" bullshit quote from a review based on 2 hours of play. I don't know why the 15 people living in the game don't just fucking move, even after I kill the demons, they'll still be outnumbered 40:1 by vampires, bandits, necromancers, minotaur lords, and forts. I've only seen one kid in the whole game, and he's been tucked away in my house since he started following me, so they have no future.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Somewhere at an internet cafe, through 5 proxies and anonymizers, a Bethesda empoyee is reading this review and chuckling a bit.

I sent Kathode a link, 'cause we are like best friends and stuff.

VD - well written. It didn't seem harsh or petty to me, I like the holding the game up against the hype angle, which is why some people are saying it's so negatively onesided.

Thanks.

Maybe you should have put the dungeon part at the top and evenly spaced out your praise to keep people from assuming they were at the lip of a spiral into hell after the first paragraph.

Well, I simply wrote down my experience and impressions. Trying to place praise/criticism strategically would have meant that I'm trying to please someone and show that I have something for everyone, which is bullshit.

 

[Crichton]

You talk as if this type of combat was never seen before in any other game ever made. Hey, guess what? Morrowind had the same stuff you're talking about! You'd "never know" what kind of attack someone was going to do in Morrowind either, until... they attacked you with it.

In morrowind's combat system, it didn't matter, I didn't have any choice about what to do anyway, I could swing my axe or swing it in a manner that did less damage. I have more choices in gothic 2, but the enemies have absolutely no variety to their attack patterns.

The three types of melee in oblivion (1 handed + sheild, 2 handed and fistfighting) each have different speeds and blocking patterns, which makes your choices about attacks, power attacks and blocking meaningful.

So oblivion combines enemy variety (like morrowind or daggerfall) with player options in combat (like the gothic games), this makes it different from any of them. It's combat system is still far less sophisticated than jedi outcast, but it's still better than any action RPG to date.

It doesn't matter if you're level 1 or level 50, they're going to do the same stuff to you. The only difference is what level tier or level you're at, which was the point I was making. When you level, everyone magically levels with you. Once you advance to the next tier, all equipment magically changes across the land. This is dumb and lazy design.

But if everything's the same at level 1 and level 50, then it *doesn't* matter what tier you're at. Each encounter is different because they're random, the encounter isn't dependant on your level, but why should it be?

Who's talking about Diablo or MMORPGs? All I said was that it sure would be nice if I could upgrade my stuff when and how I feel like instead of the game deciding for me. If I want to brave that trek across the world at level 1, sneak into a cavern guarded by monsters who could crush me instantly just so that I can steal a weapon far more powerful than I'd see in a long time, why can't I? Limiting the choices players can make like Bethesda did *IS* treadmilling. There is no point to levelling because everyone levels with me. There is no reason to seek out better stuff because everyone gets the same crap when I do. What's the point of even playing the game if everything is the same, always? Why can't you understand that?

If you do something difficult and feel you should get a balance-breaking UBAR SWORRD, just open up the console and give yourself one, if the gameplay isn't fun in and of itself, how is the game periodically giving you UBAR ITEMS!!! going to make it any better? So you *can* upgrade your stuff 'when and how you feel', but what possible purpose would doing so serve?

Dungeon Siege, Diablo and MMOs all have crap gameplay and people still play them because play time is rewarded with stats going up and PHAT LEWT!11!, if that's what you want out of the game, play them, DS2 will give you all the loot you can handle.

I've played every CRPG game produced since fallout except DS2, the diablo series (and diablo clones like sacred), MMOs and H&S (if you consider it an RPG). The vast majority have involved a certain amount of equipment-upgrade bullshit, the worst I've ever played in that regard is final fantasy tactics which has identical items upgrading like clockwork every chapter (just like the TES series), the next in line would be dungeon siege which barrages you with crap to sift through after every encounter. I'd personally like to see the whole stupid system abolished but as long as there are people that enjoy watching numbers go up on a screen, It'll never happen.

 

[AnalogKid]

GA, I was scanning through the gamespot thread you started and came across this gem:

It's not simplifying, it's stream-lining.

This retard is like tentacle-head to VD's Jabba, talk about susceptability to the Jedi-fucking-mind-trick!

I thought the review was a little too soft overall as well. In particular I don't the the "exploit" of making an anti-class to keep the levelled opposition down while you improve in what you really wanted to be is an exploit at all. When sane game systems indicate "strength makes a fighter do more damage", people who want to be good fighters try to increase their strength. When OB:the dumbed down indicates "the bad guys get stronger in proportion to your primary skills", people who want to be good fighters (better than the bad guys) will choose to not increase their primary skills. This completely assinine design decision leads directly to all the "arena champion at lvl 1" and "hell non-invasion of the pussiest demons in history" bullshit, and deserves much more derision than a simple exploit would.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I thought the review was a little too soft overall as well. In particular I don't the the "exploit" of making an anti-class to keep the levelled opposition down while you improve in what you really wanted to be is an exploit at all. When sane game systems indicate "strength makes a fighter do more damage", people who want to be good fighters try to increase their strength. When OB:the dumbed down indicates "the bad guys get stronger in proportion to your primary skills", people who want to be good fighters (better than the bad guys) will choose to not increase their primary skills. This completely assinine design decision leads directly to all the "arena champion at lvl 1" and "hell non-invasion of the pussiest demons in history" bullshit, and deserves much more derision than a simple exploit would.

Well, you can still dominate your enemies even without that exploit, so who cares?

 

[OverrideB1]

If you do something difficult and feel you should get a balance-breaking UBAR SWORRD, just open up the console and give yourself one, if the gameplay isn't fun in and of itself, how is the game periodically giving you UBAR ITEMS!!! going to make it any better? So you *can* upgrade your stuff 'when and how you feel', but what possible purpose would doing so serve?.

You are either certifiably insane or trolling at warp speed, I've yet to decide which.

So you're saying that there should be no reward AT ALL for sneaking past the hairy-arsed troll, avoiding the swingy-log traps and pungee-pits, managing to pick open the 12-tumbler lock, and swiping the contents of the chest from under the nose of the dozing lvl50 necromancer?

Instead, it's much better for the game to arbirarily level everything (monsters, loot, armour, swords, codpeice-size) across the whole game-world so that everyone and everything is scaled to your level?

Where's the fun in that? Where's the reward? Where is the incentive to actually play the game?

Just because Bethesda made a total balls up of the levelling system by applying it universally doesn't mean that it does anything other than suck. Big time. Whoo-hoo, look at me -- with my wooden sword and tattered rags I beat the crap out of the demonic invasion, rescued the heir, and head up every guild AT LEVEL ONE because the designers of the game were smoking crack when they developed the levelling system.

 

[LaDoushe]

Great review VD! I thought you it gave it a fair shake, but did you intentionally find times when the graphics were looking ugly? I am a little suprised that a game that is supposed to be such a feat of graphical innovation looks so unattractive. The faces don't look particularly good and the weapons all look like gilded cast-iron. It doesn't seem like the PR screenies were this bad.

It also seems to have gotten some pretty good press around the web, as the ESF thread has been locked @ 14 pages and their is a lot of discussion on gamespot, trying to glean your motives:

OMFG, have you seen the people that have commented on that article??? I mean come on! I've probably been playing D&D 3.5 for more years than they've been ALIVE, and they're already jaded with console/pc rpg's. JEEZUS, IT'S NOT GOING TO BE TABLE TOP NO MATTER HOW GOOD HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE GET! GET OVER YOURSELVES!

Apparently we were all born in 1999 when 3e came out, and VD is some sort of PnP Nazi. Oh and ESF now has a sort of comeback: http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=397047
with this as one of the main points: IT IS THE JOB OF THE PLAYER TO ROLEPLAY!!!1!

 

[AnalogKid]

Well, you can still dominate your enemies even without that exploit, so who cares?

I do, for the resaons I listed and others. To summarize: it's not just about being able to dominate your enemies, Beth should have provided non-retarded methods to do that. Hell, according to your post, they did. But because they provided this one method (specifically: baddies levelling according to your primary skills), the entire gameworld is broke as fuck in terms of suspension-of-disbelief, consequence, player reward, and probably other things that I don't know about. Again, it's more than an exploit: it's a steaming shit-pile of a design philosophy whose stench lingers throughout the entire game, and imo it deserves severe thrashing in any review.

At a minimum, it deserves clear discussion since apparently some people like being "constantly challenged" (PR speak for: always the same). Which leads me to my next point:

But if everything's the same at level 1 and level 50, then it *doesn't* matter what tier you're at. Each encounter is different because they're random, the encounter isn't dependant on your level, but why should it be?

You, sir, are seriously confused about what constitues a treadmill. The term means that although you're vigorously exercising and increasing your level, gear, skills, and powers, nothing is really changing. You can't take those things and go apply them anywhere where they make a difference because the opposition is tracking you every step of the way. Your first fight as a noob is just as challenging as the final fight to become the finest fighter in all the land (which, coincidentally might be at the same skill level!) What miles is speaking about is CONSEQUENCE. If you grow in power, you should be able to flex that power if you choose to. Conversely, there should be a reason to try and grow in power because there ought to be things in the world that can obliterate you if you don't. Your ideal seams to be "same fight every time, with cosmetic changes in the shape of the stick I'm being hit with". Indeed, why should fights depend on your level? Because this isn't a sports game or an action game (well, it wasn't supposed to be anyway).