Review Oblivion massacred by Softpedia

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

<a href="http://www.softpedia.com/">Softpedia</a> has <a href="http://www.softpedia.com/reviews/games/pc/The-Elder-Scrolls-IV-Oblivion-Review-21532.shtml">nailed, strung up, chopped up, and mauled</a> that silly little <a href="http://www.elderscrolls.com">Oblivion</a> game in a really lengthy fashion. Though, I have to completely disagree with the assertion that it's not a CRPG. It is. It's just not that good of one. Anyway, rebukement:
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<blockquote>On the other hand, I am mad at my fellow journalists who contented themselves with a superficial look at a game with such prestige. Furthermore, they successfully redefined the RPG notion into some twisted vagueness specific to the brain-dead console games, something which has absolutely nothing, "nada!" in common with the origins of PC RPG-s, the Wizards of the Coast’s DnD games. Where is the dynamic news system? Great deeds give birth to rumors and rumors give birth to legends. And where is the freedom of decision-making that should dramatically determine the course of the entire story? How can one become a hero if his faith is sealed by the will of the storyteller? There can never be Good without the temptation of Evil – where is the dark side in Oblivion? And what is this "master of all guilds" bull-manure? What is this, GTA?</blockquote>
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Oh yeah, baby. My nipples explode with delight.
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Thanks, <b>Gnidrologist</b>!
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[wendigo]

<a href="http://www.softpedia.com/">Softpedia:</a> What is this, GTA?

Well, YEAH. It's Grand Theft: Willow. No secrets there.

I mean, pretty much every CRPG that I've ever seen ever has been hyped to shit and back as being the most brilliant realization of the RPG vision yet to come along. Id've frankly been more shocked If Bethesda or Zenmx. had actually bucked this ol' tradition than by anything that actually has come along here. It's just an Elder Scrolls game, is all. Pretty 3-D frontend on a simplistic real-time roguelike. Fun for goofing around in/with, no big deal. It's too bad the writing's deteriorated (they somehow worked out a pretty solid cosmology for the game universe way back when, remember Redguard? No? Yeah, me neither.)

It is fun to occasionally fire up an Elder Scrolls game and walk around a bit, feeling like a gleeful 3rd grader playing some horrifically monty-haul D&D dungeon... but this is where the 1337 rpg crowd hangs, right? I came here to lurk nitpicks about Arcanum, for crying out loud, but NO, it's always "pick on the retarded kid" time here.

OK, the review is awesome, but still.

 

[Prime Junta]

Great review. I found myself nodding in agreement almost constantly when reading through it.

Except... IMO he overrates it as an action-RPG/sandbox exploration game. A sandbox explorer is based on discovering the sandbox, with challenges to overcome in order to discover the next bit. The braindead implementation of level-scaling completely kills this gameplay characteristic that's IMO just as defining for "GTA-style" games as role-playing (the "social aspect") is for CRPG's.

The trouble is that Oblivion just isn't very much fun, once past the initial rush of experiencing the gorgeously rendered wide-open world. It has some great elements, but they just don't jell into an engaging game.

Are mainstream CRPG's really dead? Let's hope Gothic 3, NWN2, BioShock, Witcher, or Dragon Age deliver... or perhaps something completely different that we don't yet even know about. Personally I'm not *that* pessimistic. There are at least those five games in development now that show distinct potential. If just one of them meets it, 2006 will be a pretty good year for computer role-playing. If *two* of them do, it'll be a year to remember.

 

[Justin Cray]

It may be a crpg, but it is basically a munchkin simulator. So many ways to break the game balance (either in your favor or against), the focus on action, the lovingly detailed Dark Brotherhood (of Munchkins) and the basic detachment of your actions and the rest of the world (wait till you're level 40 to rescue Kvatch? No problem, no consequences!).

Munchkins are a part of rpgs. :/

 

[Balor]

Well, come to think of it, there are pretty heavy consequences for freeing Kvatch at level 40.
You allies are not leveled, so they'll be wiped out in a heartbeat... leaving you along against a crowd of some tough-ass bastards...
But I can see it's not an intended effect.

 

[sheek]

A bad review?

The guy gave them 89%!

 

[Hazelnut]

"Whatever it may be, quests, places or skill-trees address only to the player’s senses, not at all to his tired-by-monotony brains."

This is the best quote from the review I think. Completely sums up Oblivion for me - everything is orientated around the senses rather than the intellect, which is why I think it end up as an interactive experience more than a game.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

"Whatever it may be, quests, places or skill-trees address only to the player’s senses, not at all to his tired-by-monotony brains."

This is the best quote from the review I think. Completely sums up Oblivion for me - everything is orientated around the senses rather than the intellect, which is why I think it end up as an interactive experience more than a game.

I would put that the other way round: It ends up as a mere game, not as an interactive RPG experience.
That review has some poor writing, and it suffers from the same shizophrenic "fun but so dissapointing" feeling that a lot of long-time TES (or RPG) players seem to have with Oblivion, but I agree with the general evaluation.

 

[aries202]

Hello

Having the entire review from softpedia.com I must say that I agree with most (ok, all of it ).

I, too, do not see Oblivion as a typical CRPG - more along the line of an action/adventure game. [And in Danish newspaper, the reviewer said it reminded him more of an FPS with swords than a RPG].

And the 89% reflects this: It is rating of Oblivion as an action game.

And as for the reviewer's lament (grief) that there is no children or an evil side, you can follow, my educated guess is that Bethsoft were going for T raring. [In a twist of irony Oblivion's rating has now been changed from a T raring to an M rating, which shows my that you never should never make to comply what you think others will like; always make a game that you would like - and take the battles afterwards].

On a more general, I see Oblivion's being classified as an RPG as a result of this: No one has yet come up with a defintion of an RPG, nor any genre in
computer games. And just therefore can anyone say this is an RPG - as long as the game i.e. has a skill system and a leveling system.

bye for now
aries202

 

[Hazelnut]

"Whatever it may be, quests, places or skill-trees address only to the player’s senses, not at all to his tired-by-monotony brains."

This is the best quote from the review I think. Completely sums up Oblivion for me - everything is orientated around the senses rather than the intellect, which is why I think it end up as an interactive experience more than a game.

I would put that the other way round: It ends up as a mere game, not as an interactive RPG experience.
That review has some poor writing, and it suffers from the same shizophrenic "fun but so dissapointing" feeling that a lot of long-time TES (or RPG) players seem to have with Oblivion, but I agree with the general evaluation.

Ah, I did not mean "interactive RPG experience" - just "interactive experience". What I was trying to convey is experience as in a theme park ride that thrills the senses, with interactivity - i.e. fighting and saying ok/yes a lot, oh and deciding which quest to do next. (mustn't forget that)

I can't find the game in it really, there's too much handholding for that. I still value the experience that it gives the senses, the long distance view for instance (since I am a graphics whore to a certain degree), but it's not much of a game.

I hope that clarifies what I meant. (probably not, but I tried )

To sum up:

interactive experience < mere game < interactive RPG experience (with rational world etc)

 

[NeVeRLiFt]

I just cum... that was a wonderful review and the perfect way to start my morning!

YAY!!!






R00fles!!!

 

[elander_]

The trouble is that Oblivion just isn't very much fun, once past the initial rush of experiencing the gorgeously rendered wide-open world. It has some great elements, but they just don't jell into an engaging game.

It's a sandbox experience like GTA. Some people love this kind of thing. Or another comparision a game where you play the role of a medieval marine stoping the hell invasion with fireball launcher staffs and huge energized swords.

Are mainstream CRPG's really dead? Let's hope Gothic 3, NWN2, BioShock, Witcher, or Dragon Age deliver... or perhaps something completely different that we don't yet even know about.

I don't think the reviewr wanted to imply dislike for a story driven action/adventure game with some rpg elements that is well done. Oblivion was advertised as a next gen game with great crpg elements. People don't react well to such agressive hype. It can make the game sell at first but in the long term the confidence in Bethesda will start to fall. This is typical Bethesda advertising.

They have long periods of development during which they build the hype and after such a long period there is already a bunch of potential customers (victims ?) from the casual gamer group or ten players to put money on the game. I don't think this trick will work with Fallout 3 however because the game is considered an important stage of evolution in crpg history. If they try to do a dumbed down game for the mass market they will get screwed not only by the fans but also by ex-fallout developers (the ones that aren't suckups).

In recent posts by a Gothic 3 developer he described the game in a similar fashion. Among these games you mentioned, i believe, only NWN2 and Dragon Age are advertises as full crpgs.

 

[elander_]

On a more general, I see Oblivion's being classified as an RPG as a result of this: No one has yet come up with a defintion of an RPG, nor any genre in
computer games. And just therefore can anyone say this is an RPG - as long as the game i.e. has a skill system and a leveling system.

aries202 nothing in real life is defined like a math formula. There is a general and clear understanding of what a crpg is. The concept of crpg was taken from pnps and adapted to computer games. The first games only tried to emulate the simulation aspect of crpgs but later they tried to emulate also the social aspect of pnps (social in game). There certain well know elements that pnp players recognize in crpgs and that must be part of these games. Otherwise either the people who tried to design a crpg are clueless or they weren't able to identify the game category properly or the crpg tag is blured and useless to inform the player what he can expect from a crpg.

 

[Voss]

I don't think this trick will work with Fallout 3 however because the game is considered an important stage of evolution in crpg history.

*bitch slap*

Get over yourself and your hobby. Fallout 3 will be just another game, maybe good, likely bad, but with all the significance of a can of string cheese.

*snort* ' stage of evolution in crpg history' Pretentious little sand monkey...

A handful of games have managed the success to become driving icons in the industry (ie, hordes of idiots try to copy/paste 'the formula') Fallout isn't one of those games, and 3 certainly isn't going to go anywhere unique or groundbreaking.
Feel free to argue the point, but compare Fallout to Wolfenstein or Civilization, practice a little honesty and you'll see the difference between an iconic game and pretentious mutterings about history.

 

[elander_]

Feel free to argue the point, but compare Fallout to Wolfenstein or Civilization, practice a little honesty and you'll see the difference between an iconic game and pretentious mutterings about history.

What does Wolfenstein and Civilization have to do with crpgs?

 

[HardCode]

Feel free to argue the point, but compare Fallout to Wolfenstein or Civilization, practice a little honesty and you'll see the difference between an iconic game and pretentious mutterings about history.

What does Wolfenstein and Civilization have to do with crpgs?

pwned. Voss is clueless here.

 

[Ratty]

A handful of games have managed the success to become driving icons in the industry (ie, hordes of idiots try to copy/paste 'the formula') Fallout isn't one of those games, and 3 certainly isn't going to go anywhere unique or groundbreaking.
Feel free to argue the point, but compare Fallout to Wolfenstein or Civilization, practice a little honesty and you'll see the difference between an iconic game and pretentious mutterings about history.

Maybe if you ignore the fact that:

1. Practically every PA game claims to be "Fallout-inspired", because Fallout setting is extraordinarily fleshed-out and unique.

2. No other CRPG has come close to emulating P&P mechanics and style so exhaustively, from the character system and turn-based combat to interface and visual presentation.

3. Few CRPGs boast such open-endedness and interactivity.

4. Just about every CRPG since 1997 has borrowed elements of its design ( for instance, Fallout-style speech system was seen in the Baldur's Gate series (albeit poorly implemented), Torment, KotOR, Arcanum, VtM: Bloodlines, Geneforge... you name it).

5. Media and the entire industry collectively cream their pants whenever some news about Fallout trickle out, even though the entire series sold barely half a million copies.

Simple truth is that Fallout is one of those CRPGs that have great impact on the entire genre and serve as an inspiration - as well as a benchmark - in years to come. Other such CRPGs are Ultima 4, Ultima 7, Darklands and maybe a handful of others.

 

[bryce777]

<a href="http://www.softpedia.com/">Softpedia:</a> What is this, GTA?

It's just an Elder Scrolls game, is all. Pretty 3-D frontend on a simplistic real-time roguelike. Fun for goofing around in/with, no big deal. It's too bad the writing's deteriorated (they somehow worked out a pretty solid cosmology for the game universe way back when, remember Redguard? No? Yeah, me neither.).

It's not even a roguelike any more. It is just a complete piece of dog shit.

 

[Section8]

It's not even a roguelike any more. It is just a complete piece of dog shit.

...nor is it worthy of being spoken of in the same breath as GTA.

 

[7th Circle]

Feel free to argue the point, but compare Fallout to Wolfenstein or Civilization, practice a little honesty and you'll see the difference between an iconic game and pretentious mutterings about history.

What does Wolfenstein and Civilization have to do with crpgs?

It was an analogy. He was saying that, if you wish to argue that Fallout is iconic, you need to show that its relationship to rpgs is the same as that of Wolfenstein to fpses or Civilization to tbses.

FWIW, I do that Fallout is iconic (though not to the same level as Wolf and Civ) for the type of reasons outlined by Ratty (though I doubt Fallout 3 will become iconic). Ironically, to the chagrin of many here (including myself), if Oblivion keeps selling copies and being very popular outside the rpg community (which, let me assure you, it is), it may become an iconic "rpg" in the same way that Diablo was.

 

[Voss]

@elander and Hardcore... feel free to see 7th Circle if you're still having trouble with basic concepts.

@Ratty

1) What PA games are you referring to? The handful by independent developers that failed miserably?

2) I disagree here. The old Gold box D&D games emulated P&P rules fairly well. So did ToEE. Fallout didn't feel like P&P to me. A fun computer game, yes, but P&P feel generally invovles other people. Interface and visual don't make sense to me in reference to P&P games. Since they inherently lack both.

3) Eh. I didn't find fallout that open ended. You ran out of things to do, regardless of whether the game ended or not. And frankly, the elder scrolls series has proved to me that open-ended-ness in CRPGs is just a bad thing, and an indication of lack of quality. Its interactivity... eh. About normal for the period. Only limited items could be used, terrain essentially untouchable (with a few exceptions) and a good chunk of the populace just spouted floating text.

4) You know, the dialogue didn't strike me as new or innovative. Maybe its the passage of time, but I don't remember a 'Wow, this is the first time I've seen a dialogue interface this cool' reaction.

5) Do they really? What passes for the media just seems orgasmic over the latest fad or hype, and the industry clearly has its collective head shoved up something nasty and dark. They certainly aren't using fallout design to shape current projects. Mostly, I just get the feeling that the Fallout love is limited to some old timers on boards like this.

 

[Prime Junta]

5) Do they really? What passes for the media just seems orgasmic over the latest fad or hype, and the industry clearly has its collective head shoved up something nasty and dark. They certainly aren't using fallout design to shape current projects. Mostly, I just get the feeling that the Fallout love is limited to some old timers on boards like this.

I think a part of the reason is that if you like something, you tend to pile on the positives whether they're merited or not. IMO Fallout was only mildly innovative in the gameplay aspects of CRPG's -- but extremely innovative with the setting, and just plain *great* with dialogue, personality, and story. Note that "great" != "innovative," necessarily.

But from a game design/mechanics POV Fallout wasn't particularly innovative or ground-breaking; it just did very well what had been done before. Its appeal comes from the clever dialogue, characters, and details like Vault Boy, the quirks and perks in the S.P.E.C.I.A.L system, the sheer mass of stuff to do, the twists on the familiar and the unfamiliar, the tremendous range of options for accomplishing stuff, and so on.

Ground-breaking? I don't think so. Was Dostoevsky's _Crime and Punishment_ a groundbreaking novel? I don't happen to think so; I just think it was a damn good one. But it's not the same thing.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

To me, Fallout, like DF, is more about showing the potential of something than about actually realizing a great game with it. DF showed the potential of a huge sandbox world, algorithm generated content. Fallout showed the potential of non-linear game design. Yet DF was very repetitive and highly illogical, and Fallout was ultimately a very short game - albeit with considerable replay value. It's moot to argue if either is an icon - fact is that these games (and a handful of others) are classics that define our image of RPG's more than most other games, and they certainly have had an influence on both consumers and designers alike.

It's not even a roguelike any more. It is just a complete piece of dog shit.

Didn't you just recently post that you didn't even play it? Oblivion is a decent game. Undeniably a lot of people have a lot of fun with it. That doesn't excuse it's faults though. Still, comments like yours are still inane.

 

[One Wolf]

i only played oblivion for about 12-15 hours before uninstalling it, and i couldnt find anything enjoyable about it at all. i played as a rogue and mainly stole shit, but even that got ruined by gaurds that would somehow magically appear even when i hadn't been detected by anyone/anything.

plus, i kept trying to murder people, and the gaurds showed up every time, even when i killed my target before it called out for the gaurds.

i didnt manage to join the dark brotherhood, but i guessed that i would never really be able to play an evil character, which is disappointing. plus the overall ambience was so jovial i was generally pissed off and just dying for some murdering.

so perhaps the game improved later on, but i'm satisfyed that i played enough to know that yes, in fact, it is a steaming pile of dogshit.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

i only played oblivion for about 12-15 hours before uninstalling it, and i couldnt find anything enjoyable about it at all. i played as a rogue and mainly stole shit, but even that got ruined by gaurds that would somehow magically appear even when i hadn't been detected by anyone/anything.

plus, i kept trying to murder people, and the gaurds showed up every time, even when i killed my target before it called out for the gaurds.

i didnt manage to join the dark brotherhood, but i guessed that i would never really be able to play an evil character, which is disappointing. plus the overall ambience was so jovial i was generally pissed off and just dying for some murdering.

so perhaps the game improved later on, but i'm satisfyed that i played enough to know that yes, in fact, it is a steaming pile of dogshit.

I could say the same thing about TETRIS, yet for may people that was a great and enjoyable game. And on an intellectual level I can see that it does certain things pretty well, just not the ones I like. Unlike you therefore, I am not gonna call Tetris a steaming pile of shit. I am not gonna defend Oblivion here anymore, but I am capable of accepting that other people like it, and I can see the things it does well. The same goes for other games I don't like and I don't feel the need to call the people that play them idiots for it either. Whats with this need of strong language and hyperbole in you people?