Let me preface this by stating that I know that the Codex generally has a passionate hate-affair with all that is Oblivion, and the last thing many of you want to see is another thread about the game.
Still, as a long-time CRPG'er, I think my latest experiences with it are worth relating here, I guess maybe in the hopes of encouraging some others, like me, who had initially given up on the franchise due to its latest massive number of design faults, to possibly give it another go using the Shivering Isles expansion.
If anything else, at least I'll hopefully give a fresh perspective based not only on what I feel Bethesda did right in SI from a design standpoint but also by throwing in a critical component to what I feel makes such a graphically intensive (and dependant) game worth even considering: using adequate hardware to play the thing as it was (presumably) intended.
When I first picked up Oblivion, I admit I was quite stoked. I had fallen for all the pre-release hype, and, as a long-time TES fan, I felt as if they were going to get everything right with this one. About two weeks into the game (I'm a very methodical player) I realized that the illusion was broken and began to resent its many flaws, from the repetitive NPC's, locations and quests, to its less-than-believable world and even its inability to run well on my purpose-built PC into which I had recently invested a good chunk of change to be able to fully enjoy (among other things) Oblivion in all its supposed glory.
Regardless, and again, I know there's been plenty of talk here about Oblivion so I won't go on much further, I actually did manage to finish the game by finally just waltzing through all the critical areas (no spoilers, but you know what I'm talking about) and getting through to the endgame, which was actually entertaining and ironically quite difficult.
So, to my own surprise, I decided to pick up Shivering Isles when it came out anyway, and had moderately high hopes that Bethesda may have listened to at least a little of the severe criticism leveled at Oblivion and get back to something resembling to some degree what used to make the TES titles so appealing: their difficulty and their sandbox-like freedom. I don't want to stir up yet another shitstorm on the merits or lack thereof of BSW's body of work, but I think it's fairly widely accepted that the early versions of the ES series were at least worthy in terms of a freeform dungeon romp style RPG with a fairly deep and intriguing backstory. This is what I hoped for (feebly, and with much cynicism) from Shivering Isles, and it turned out, initially, that it was indeed the case.
Further avoiding repetitiveness and many seething insults, I won't do any kind of personal 'review' of SI, but, rather, I'll just touch on a few of the things that, a) made SI much more fun for me when I first installed and started playing it, and, b) what I've found recently, after having picked it up again this much later, that gives it even more freshness and alleviates even more of the annoying "Bethesdaness" that still threatened to infect it. (To clarify, I stopped playing SI not too long after its release due to a remaining lack of performance running it that, for me, served to kill its immersiveness and practically eliminated a major factor in spending my time playing a first-person CRPG-cum-FPS in the first place - worrying more about framerates than the game itself)
So now that my PC is again 'up to speed' (running dual 8800GTS's in SLI mode on a 24" NEC widescreen LCD under Windows Vista, AMD Opteron 185 overclocked, RAID0, etc., scoring 10,000+ in 3dMark06) I can roam through New Sheoth even with precipitation, in full 1920x1200 with absolutely all detail maxed out, 2X antialiasing, blah blah blah, and not suffer any appreciable loss of performance. The widescreen support really is nice. I've also re-applied some of my favorite old tweaks to the Oblivion engine, such as the grass detail adjustments, better water, among others, and, combined with the far texture improvements BSW finally implemented in its latest patch, Oblivion and SI looks and performs equally well in all areas. I don't have to sacrifice anything now, and being the graphics whore that I am capable of being, that makes me happy, or happier.
Importantly, I also had to add some of the better gameplay tweaks that further remove more retardedness: namely, weapon durability (can I get just a little realism, please?!?) and rare items (strips all NPC's of high-level shit), which actually doesn't seem to be necessary in SI so far. These are personal preferences only, and their absence wouldn't nullify the higher regard I have for SI over Oblivion - they just make it even better for me.
The result, combined with SI's own design improvements, is that now I can get into the game, start going through its quests, and stop fighting with the game's mechanics and stupid tendencies and just roleplay. That's what I'm doing. I'm just an orc thief schmuck who's learning his trade, and having to go into some dungeon and retrieve some little item is not a pointless exercise now since the reward actually has some value (gold and good items is/are not as easy to come by so far). Breaking into someone's house at night in the city is actually fun to do now, because I seriously need to find a better friggin' sword! This ain't easy!
Yeah, the scaled leveling is still there, the NPC's all still sound like each other and tend to stare at walls. There are still many reminders present of what made Oblivion the mindless cluster fuck that it was, but those things are easier to ignore this time around. The improved writing, direction, and atmosphere of SI grants that. The small amount of intelligence regarding loot distribution and the like finally implemented by Bethesda is a relief. I think even the smaller landscape and sharper focus on what you're supposed to be doing is making a difference as well. I don't know, maybe I'm just RPG-desperate as of late. What else have I got to play right now?
I just wish I didn't have to wait one or two years after some of these titles come out to be able to actually enjoy them on both a technical and gameplay level. C'est la vie, eh?
P.S. Go easy on me. I'm still new here.
Still, as a long-time CRPG'er, I think my latest experiences with it are worth relating here, I guess maybe in the hopes of encouraging some others, like me, who had initially given up on the franchise due to its latest massive number of design faults, to possibly give it another go using the Shivering Isles expansion.
If anything else, at least I'll hopefully give a fresh perspective based not only on what I feel Bethesda did right in SI from a design standpoint but also by throwing in a critical component to what I feel makes such a graphically intensive (and dependant) game worth even considering: using adequate hardware to play the thing as it was (presumably) intended.
When I first picked up Oblivion, I admit I was quite stoked. I had fallen for all the pre-release hype, and, as a long-time TES fan, I felt as if they were going to get everything right with this one. About two weeks into the game (I'm a very methodical player) I realized that the illusion was broken and began to resent its many flaws, from the repetitive NPC's, locations and quests, to its less-than-believable world and even its inability to run well on my purpose-built PC into which I had recently invested a good chunk of change to be able to fully enjoy (among other things) Oblivion in all its supposed glory.
Regardless, and again, I know there's been plenty of talk here about Oblivion so I won't go on much further, I actually did manage to finish the game by finally just waltzing through all the critical areas (no spoilers, but you know what I'm talking about) and getting through to the endgame, which was actually entertaining and ironically quite difficult.
So, to my own surprise, I decided to pick up Shivering Isles when it came out anyway, and had moderately high hopes that Bethesda may have listened to at least a little of the severe criticism leveled at Oblivion and get back to something resembling to some degree what used to make the TES titles so appealing: their difficulty and their sandbox-like freedom. I don't want to stir up yet another shitstorm on the merits or lack thereof of BSW's body of work, but I think it's fairly widely accepted that the early versions of the ES series were at least worthy in terms of a freeform dungeon romp style RPG with a fairly deep and intriguing backstory. This is what I hoped for (feebly, and with much cynicism) from Shivering Isles, and it turned out, initially, that it was indeed the case.
Further avoiding repetitiveness and many seething insults, I won't do any kind of personal 'review' of SI, but, rather, I'll just touch on a few of the things that, a) made SI much more fun for me when I first installed and started playing it, and, b) what I've found recently, after having picked it up again this much later, that gives it even more freshness and alleviates even more of the annoying "Bethesdaness" that still threatened to infect it. (To clarify, I stopped playing SI not too long after its release due to a remaining lack of performance running it that, for me, served to kill its immersiveness and practically eliminated a major factor in spending my time playing a first-person CRPG-cum-FPS in the first place - worrying more about framerates than the game itself)
So now that my PC is again 'up to speed' (running dual 8800GTS's in SLI mode on a 24" NEC widescreen LCD under Windows Vista, AMD Opteron 185 overclocked, RAID0, etc., scoring 10,000+ in 3dMark06) I can roam through New Sheoth even with precipitation, in full 1920x1200 with absolutely all detail maxed out, 2X antialiasing, blah blah blah, and not suffer any appreciable loss of performance. The widescreen support really is nice. I've also re-applied some of my favorite old tweaks to the Oblivion engine, such as the grass detail adjustments, better water, among others, and, combined with the far texture improvements BSW finally implemented in its latest patch, Oblivion and SI looks and performs equally well in all areas. I don't have to sacrifice anything now, and being the graphics whore that I am capable of being, that makes me happy, or happier.
Importantly, I also had to add some of the better gameplay tweaks that further remove more retardedness: namely, weapon durability (can I get just a little realism, please?!?) and rare items (strips all NPC's of high-level shit), which actually doesn't seem to be necessary in SI so far. These are personal preferences only, and their absence wouldn't nullify the higher regard I have for SI over Oblivion - they just make it even better for me.
The result, combined with SI's own design improvements, is that now I can get into the game, start going through its quests, and stop fighting with the game's mechanics and stupid tendencies and just roleplay. That's what I'm doing. I'm just an orc thief schmuck who's learning his trade, and having to go into some dungeon and retrieve some little item is not a pointless exercise now since the reward actually has some value (gold and good items is/are not as easy to come by so far). Breaking into someone's house at night in the city is actually fun to do now, because I seriously need to find a better friggin' sword! This ain't easy!
Yeah, the scaled leveling is still there, the NPC's all still sound like each other and tend to stare at walls. There are still many reminders present of what made Oblivion the mindless cluster fuck that it was, but those things are easier to ignore this time around. The improved writing, direction, and atmosphere of SI grants that. The small amount of intelligence regarding loot distribution and the like finally implemented by Bethesda is a relief. I think even the smaller landscape and sharper focus on what you're supposed to be doing is making a difference as well. I don't know, maybe I'm just RPG-desperate as of late. What else have I got to play right now?
I just wish I didn't have to wait one or two years after some of these titles come out to be able to actually enjoy them on both a technical and gameplay level. C'est la vie, eh?
P.S. Go easy on me. I'm still new here.
