Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

[Sinistrous]

With the newest release in this series, Elder Scrolls has put out their most professional, streamlined and accessible game to date. Oblivion's goal is simple - become an enormous expansion on the previous title, Morrowind, without losing any of what made that game so highly regarded. So how did they fare in the end? Well, the result is mixed to say the least.

From a production standpoint (graphics and sound), the game is highly competent though the NPCs in particular come across as overdone at times. The sound is "flawless" indeed, but it remains unremarkable with a bare bones* quality.

*Sound in the game is rarely used to fully accent the action taking place and has little in regards to immersiveness.

Then we get to the actual gameplay. For those of you familar with the previous titles (again, specifically Morrowind), there will be little different here. The story itself starts you in a prison cell as you make your character into the most ungodly abomination you can come up with. A minute or two later, you end up escaping through the sewers with Patrick Stewart and some black guy. One of them dies and the other stays behind to protect the body against necrophiliacs - leaving you to go on your merry way. After escaping the sewer and choosing your class/stats, the game goes into open-ended mode and you're now able to do whatever ya want.

Since one of the key concepts of this game is the stats and such, we'll go into that first. There are fewer classes and skills than there were last time around, though they remain mostly the same. Few problems here, though some skills were poorly merged and should have been left alone (for example, the various bladed weapon skills are now tightly wound into a single broad one). Classwise, the fighter/mage/thief character is still the preferred one. Straight classes are generally boring and the perk system really doesn't help it's case.

Then, we get into the combat. Oh the combat. If we were to assess Obilvion from an action perspective, it would be considered fairly unremarkable. Most battles can be won by the standard swing and block method with some occasional run away and heal. From an RPG standpoint, it's complete shit. Here's why:

Say you're running around in the forest collecting herbs for god-knows-who and you run into one of those minotaur things. As you're about to rush the beast with your trusty mace, you realize that it's in need of repair and will probably break after the second hit. After searching through your backpack for an hour due to the piss-poor interface (probably due to being released on the 360 at the same time), you come up without a blunt weapon and are stuck with that sword you pulled off a highwayman a few minutes ago. Since the items you pick up are scaled to your level, it's about as strong as that mace. However, your skill with the blade is non-existant. No matter, the beast is also scaled to your level (this includes your skill with that weapon) and you easily defeat the creature.

This scaling problem is the key flaw in combat. At level 3, one can knock out an Oblivion gate with little difficulty. While there is a mod that tones down the scaling, the problem is still considerably present.

Of course, all combat in an RPG leads us to the dungeon crawl. The various castles, caves, nether worlds, and yes, dungeons often make up the meat of the game. The dungeon crawl in Oblivion is actually pretty good. For one thing, there's a lot of them and they're more varied than they were in Morrowind (not that that would be particularly difficult but hey). The unfortunate exception is the Oblivion Gates which are mostly made with the exact same structure and end up being more of a headache than they should have been. As a special bonus, all the dungeons are restocked with tougher enemies and new loot later on, aside from the Oblivion Gates which you actually blow up hence their exclusion.

The quests in this game are hit-and-miss as well, most being miss this time around. Most quests are rarely very interesting and often follow the same tired formulas - be it clean up this dungeon here, recover some item over there, or my personal favorite -ahem- the "hostage rescue". On occasion, we get more interesting stuff to do but such are few and far between. The guild quests aren't that different and are not particularly rewarding either.

On the story, it pretty much sucks. The game tries to convey this sense of urgency (especially with the main quest - a very annoying factor here), but the gameplay itself doesn't really fit. There's no ACTUAL rush to go to that fort up in the mountains, though the quest-giver certainly made it sound like there was. The previous installments in the game all realized this with their stance, why can't Oblivion?

One of the other key disappointments I had with this game though was the lack of a living, breathing community. There was a lot of hype on this whole "radiant AI" thing, but most NPCs spend all day walking around and staring at walls. The thing is that we've had games do 24/7 cycles for NPCs for quite a while. Majora's Mask anyone? Gothic took that a step further the following year and actually had these NPCs perform realistic tasks, rather than just standing around looking at walls.

Overall, this game is just a case of misfires and tranquilizers when it could have been so much more.

---
Note that this is an older review (at least three or four months, not sure exactly how old) that I recently went through and spiced up a bit. By no means do I consider it a final version.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

nocturneinbm said:

With the newest release in this series, Elder Scrolls has put out their most professional, streamlined and accessible game to date. Oblivion's goal is simple - become an enormous expansion on the previous title, Morrowind, without losing any of what made that game so highly regarded. So how did they fare in the end? Well, the result is mixed to say the least.

From a production standpoint (graphics and sound), the game is highly competent though the NPCs in particular come across as overdone at times. The sound is "flawless" indeed, but it remains unremarkable with a bare bones* quality.

*Sound in the game is rarely used to fully accent the action taking place and has little in regards to immersiveness.

Then we get to the actual gameplay. For those of you familar with the previous titles (again, specifically Morrowind), there will be little different here. The story itself starts you in a prison cell as you make your character into the most ungodly abomination you can come up with. A minute or two later, you end up escaping through the sewers with Patrick Stewart and some black guy. One of them dies and the other stays behind to protect the body against necrophiliacs - leaving you to go on your merry way. After escaping the sewer and choosing your class/stats, the game goes into open-ended mode and you're now able to do whatever ya want.

Since one of the key concepts of this game is the stats and such, we'll go into that first. There are fewer classes and skills than there were last time around, though they remain mostly the same. Few problems here, though some skills were poorly merged and should have been left alone (for example, the various bladed weapon skills are now tightly wound into a single broad one). Classwise, the fighter/mage/thief character is still the preferred one. Straight classes are generally boring and the perk system really doesn't help it's case.

Then, we get into the combat. Oh the combat. If we were to assess Obilvion from an action perspective, it would be considered fairly unremarkable. Most battles can be won by the standard swing and block method with some occasional run away and heal. From an RPG standpoint, it's complete shit. Here's why:

Say you're running around in the forest collecting herbs for god-knows-who and you run into one of those minotaur things. As you're about to rush the beast with your trusty mace, you realize that it's in need of repair and will probably break after the second hit. After searching through your backpack for an hour due to the piss-poor interface (probably due to being released on the 360 at the same time), you come up without a blunt weapon and are stuck with that sword you pulled off a highwayman a few minutes ago. Since the items you pick up are scaled to your level, it's about as strong as that mace. However, your skill with the blade is non-existant. No matter, the beast is also scaled to your level (this includes your skill with that weapon) and you easily defeat the creature.

This scaling problem is the key flaw in combat. At level 3, one can knock out an Oblivion gate with little difficulty. While there is a mod that tones down the scaling, the problem is still considerably present.

Of course, all combat in an RPG leads us to the dungeon crawl. The various castles, caves, nether worlds, and yes, dungeons often make up the meat of the game. The dungeon crawl in Oblivion is actually pretty good. For one thing, there's a lot of them and they're more varied than they were in Morrowind (not that that would be particularly difficult but hey). The unfortunate exception is the Oblivion Gates which are mostly made with the exact same structure and end up being more of a headache than they should have been. As a special bonus, all the dungeons are restocked with tougher enemies and new loot later on, aside from the Oblivion Gates which you actually blow up hence their exclusion.

The quests in this game are hit-and-miss as well, most being miss this time around. Most quests are rarely very interesting and often follow the same tired formulas - be it clean up this dungeon here, recover some item over there, or my personal favorite -ahem- the "hostage rescue". On occasion, we get more interesting stuff to do but such are few and far between. The guild quests aren't that different and are not particularly rewarding either.

On the story, it pretty much sucks. The game tries to convey this sense of urgency (especially with the main quest - a very annoying factor here), but the gameplay itself doesn't really fit. There's no ACTUAL rush to go to that fort up in the mountains, though the quest-giver certainly made it sound like there was. The previous installments in the game all realized this with their stance, why can't Oblivion?

One of the other key disappointments I had with this game though was the lack of a living, breathing community. There was a lot of hype on this whole "radiant AI" thing, but most NPCs spend all day walking around and staring at walls. The thing is that we've had games do 24/7 cycles for NPCs for quite a while. Majora's Mask anyone? Gothic took that a step further the following year and actually had these NPCs perform realistic tasks, rather than just standing around looking at walls.

Overall, this game is just a case of misfires and tranquilizers when it could have been so much more.

---
Note that this is an older review (at least three or four months, not sure exactly how old) that I recently went through and spiced up a bit. By no means do I consider it a final version.

What is your overall score? Or did I miss it?

[Squid Lord]

I haven't played this game yet, but i want to play it, and sell mi soul away for a week or 2, lol

[Sinistrous]

Cord, nah man I didn't. Never saw the use for such things.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Well it just sums it up for us lazy and incompetent people.
Aren't they going to make one for the PS3?

[Sinistrous]

Fair enough. I'd probably give it a 3 or 3.5 outta ten.

And yeah, I'm pretty sure they are.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

nocturneinbm said:

Fair enough. I'd probably give it a 3 or 3.5 outta ten.

And yeah, I'm pretty sure they are.

I just remember seeing it in a mag at the bookstore today.

[Sinistrous]

Honestly, I'd be surprised if they didn't. The game was obviously designed to be multi-platform (as I pointed out in my review) and I doubt they'd just stop at the 360.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Well from what I saw it looked great on the PS3, did you hear about that game called resistance or something like that?

[Magic attack]

nocturneinbm said:

Fair enough. I'd probably give it a 3 or 3.5 outta ten.

And yeah, I'm pretty sure they are.

Its that bad? I was thinking of downloading it, but if it isnt good I wont waste my bandwidth.

Please advise. I love most RPG's though.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

shakezula said:

nocturneinbm said:

Fair enough. I'd probably give it a 3 or 3.5 outta ten.

And yeah, I'm pretty sure they are.

Its that bad? I was thinking of downloading it, but if it isnt good I wont waste my bandwidth.

Please advise. I love most RPG's though.

I'm still trying to figure out how that popular franchise made a game that bad. I'll have to look into it more.

[Magic attack]

admin said:

shakezula said:

Its that bad? I was thinking of downloading it, but if it isnt good I wont waste my bandwidth.

Please advise. I love most RPG's though.

I'm still trying to figure out how that popular franchise made a game that bad. I'll have to look into it more.

So maybe I should just get it and see for myself? I suppose I can do that. I will see if he posts a response about if the game is worth it for free or not.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

shakezula said:

admin said:

I'm still trying to figure out how that popular franchise made a game that bad. I'll have to look into it more.

So maybe I should just get it and see for myself? I suppose I can do that. I will see if he posts a response about if the game is worth it for free or not.

With games that big- you want to make sure you get what you want.

[Magic attack]

admin said:

shakezula said:

So maybe I should just get it and see for myself? I suppose I can do that. I will see if he posts a response about if the game is worth it for free or not.

With games that big- you want to make sure you get what you want.

Well I am not paying for it either way. I can just set it to download while I am at work. I can check it when I get home. I am just wondering if it is worth it. I guess I will just get it and see how it is. I already found the link, anyways.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

True, tell me what ya think.

[newjak]

Well I've played the game for awhile umm.

I have mixed reviews about it. Basically it is Morrowind with some upgrades and some downgrades if you ask me.

Thats right the gameplay doesn't change that much in terms of fighting although I did like the old fighting system of hack and slash and block what I don't like is how easy it is now to win a fight with the method.

I hate the scaling method they use in this game because now all enemies become easy once you learn a simple way of killing them or you get a decent enchanted weapon. Completely different from the last game where the creatures would kick you from kingdom come if you crossed paths with it and were to low a level. This in turn makes adventuring less fun because now you don't have to retreat from a cave anymore if the creatures get too tough and going out in the wild isn't as fun because in Morrowind if you tried that you could get into a particular nasty fight and all your supplies could be gone now you can go out with minimal supplies and be ok for weeks on end without ever getting into a chanllenging contest.

Basically what this all leads to is that the game seems less satisfiting which in turn makes me want to level my guy up less because it just doesn't seem worth the hassle if it never really accomplishes anything.

Oh yeah another feature they put in is the ability to travel to anyplace on the map without hassle which makes the game once again easier because now even if you go into the wild and for some reason you do run low on health and supplies you can quickly jump to the city and back to where you were without having to worry about dieing from the long travel back and how will you get by with what you have.

I also dislike how they have taken away some of my favorite spells like levitation and your ability to enchant your own weapons and even the lack of people you can actually get it enchanted by. Also now you have to use soul gems to repower your weapons which I don't like. I prefered the it takes time to recharge.

Some of the neat things they put in though that I liked was the ability to ride a horse which is actually kind of cool. Even though the Horse is really worthless because you can manually teleport faster to anywhere than the horse can take you.

I also enjoyed the ability to be able to buy a house finally even though I wish it was more custmizable in how you could decorate it and how you wanted the furniture to be in it.

Finally I really like the button where you can pick things up and throw them around really kool as it also helps you organize the things you drop around your house and it also helps you drag bodies around.

Basically I think it is a lesser version of Morrowind but it is still one of the better games for free roaming around although if you have a choice simply buy Morrowind special edition and replay that from the begining even if you know everything about it, it will still be alot more satisfing to beat a diffucult game again then to beat a new one that will only challenge you so much.

[Magic attack]

Ok, I will get them both then. I already located Morrowind, and I am acquiring it now.


Thanks.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

newjak said:

Well I've played the game for awhile umm.

I have mixed reviews about it. Basically it is Morrowind with some upgrades and some downgrades if you ask me.

Thats right the gameplay doesn't change that much in terms of fighting although I did like the old fighting system of hack and slash and block what I don't like is how easy it is now to win a fight with the method.

I hate the scaling method they use in this game because now all enemies become easy once you learn a simple way of killing them or you get a decent enchanted weapon. Completely different from the last game where the creatures would kick you from kingdom come if you crossed paths with it and were to low a level. This in turn makes adventuring less fun because now you don't have to retreat from a cave anymore if the creatures get too tough and going out in the wild isn't as fun because in Morrowind if you tried that you could get into a particular nasty fight and all your supplies could be gone now you can go out with minimal supplies and be ok for weeks on end without ever getting into a chanllenging contest.

Basically what this all leads to is that the game seems less satisfiting which in turn makes me want to level my guy up less because it just doesn't seem worth the hassle if it never really accomplishes anything.

Oh yeah another feature they put in is the ability to travel to anyplace on the map without hassle which makes the game once again easier because now even if you go into the wild and for some reason you do run low on health and supplies you can quickly jump to the city and back to where you were without having to worry about dieing from the long travel back and how will you get by with what you have.

I also dislike how they have taken away some of my favorite spells like levitation and your ability to enchant your own weapons and even the lack of people you can actually get it enchanted by. Also now you have to use soul gems to repower your weapons which I don't like. I prefered the it takes time to recharge.

Some of the neat things they put in though that I liked was the ability to ride a horse which is actually kind of cool. Even though the Horse is really worthless because you can manually teleport faster to anywhere than the horse can take you.

I also enjoyed the ability to be able to buy a house finally even though I wish it was more custmizable in how you could decorate it and how you wanted the furniture to be in it.

Finally I really like the button where you can pick things up and throw them around really kool as it also helps you organize the things you drop around your house and it also helps you drag bodies around.

Basically I think it is a lesser version of Morrowind but it is still one of the better games for free roaming around although if you have a choice simply buy Morrowind special edition and replay that from the begining even if you know everything about it, it will still be alot more satisfing to beat a diffucult game again then to beat a new one that will only challenge you so much.

What's your overall verdict out of 10? Would it be as low as Noctourne's?

[newjak]

I have to give it two seperate ratings.

I would give it a 7/10 for new players to the series

A 4/10 for anyone who has played Morrowind.

It's just that overall Morrowind just made the game seem more epic that the other so I would offer everyone with choice go for Morrowind but if you haven't played either then picking up Oblivion won't be as bad.

[Magic attack]

newjak said:

I have to give it two seperate ratings.

I would give it a 7/10 for new players to the series

A 4/10 for anyone who has played Morrowind.

It's just that overall Morrowind just made the game seem more epic that the other so I would offer everyone with choice go for Morrowind but if you haven't played either then picking up Oblivion won't be as bad.

Wait. So what would u give a game like Neverwinter Nights?

[newjak]

shakezula said:

newjak said:

I have to give it two seperate ratings.

I would give it a 7/10 for new players to the series

A 4/10 for anyone who has played Morrowind.

It's just that overall Morrowind just made the game seem more epic that the other so I would offer everyone with choice go for Morrowind but if you haven't played either then picking up Oblivion won't be as bad.

Wait. So what would u give a game like Neverwinter Nights?

That for the PC right never played it before so I couldn't give an ccurate rating on it.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

shakezula said:

newjak said:

I have to give it two seperate ratings.

I would give it a 7/10 for new players to the series

A 4/10 for anyone who has played Morrowind.

It's just that overall Morrowind just made the game seem more epic that the other so I would offer everyone with choice go for Morrowind but if you haven't played either then picking up Oblivion won't be as bad.

Wait. So what would u give a game like Neverwinter Nights?

That is what I find important- the basis of comparison. NWN gets an easy 9 or higher in my book, despite me not playing it a ton.

[Sinistrous]

shakezula said:

admin said:

I'm still trying to figure out how that popular franchise made a game that bad. I'll have to look into it more.

So maybe I should just get it and see for myself? I suppose I can do that. I will see if he posts a response about if the game is worth it for free or not.

If you're just going to torrent it, (and you have a fairly high end computer) then go ahead and try it out. It's not a particularly awful game, just a bland one. However, if you were to actually spend money, I'd recommend looking into a game like Gothic 3 first. There's a demo out that you can download to try out.

I'd rather not make any comparisons to Morrowind as newjak did, so go ahead and take his word for it. It's definitely superior to Oblivion at least.

Neverwinter Nights isn't too similar to this game though. Pretty good for what it is, but it definitely doesn't try to be like Elder Scrolls. It's more like a straight up dungeon crawler. Speaking of which, I need to pick up the sequel...

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

nocturneinbm said:

shakezula said:

So maybe I should just get it and see for myself? I suppose I can do that. I will see if he posts a response about if the game is worth it for free or not.

If you're just going to torrent it, (and you have a fairly high end computer) then go ahead and try it out. It's not a particularly awful game, just a bland one. However, if you were to actually spend money, I'd recommend looking into a game like Gothic 3 first. There's a demo out that you can download to try out.

I'd rather not make any comparisons to Morrowind as newjak did, so go ahead and take his word for it. It's definitely superior to Oblivion at least.

Neverwinter Nights isn't too similar to this game though. Pretty good for what it is, but it definitely doesn't try to be like Elder Scrolls. It's more like a straight up dungeon crawler. Speaking of which, I need to pick up the sequel...

Which I heard was excellent. Perhaps Ron would like to do a review?

[violent2dope]

...I'm personally wasting my life on this game...but to each it's own. Oh, and I think it is much better than Morrowind(especially the combat). And I like how main NPC enemies(like Mannimarco, or Umaril) are leveled, because I powerlevel my characters, in Morrowind, Almalexia, Hircine, Dagoth Ur, and even frickin Vivec(optional to fight, but it's fun to kill that thong wearing floating loser) were WAAAAAY to easy to kill.

I also like how you can play the game normally as a vampire, in Morrowind everyone barring the Mages Guild or House Telvanni hated you, in Oblivion there are levels of vampirism, where you would only be hated if you were 100%.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

violent2dope said:

...I'm personally wasting my life on this game...but to each it's own. Oh, and I think it is much better than Morrowind(especially the combat). And I like how main NPC enemies(like Mannimarco, or Umaril) are leveled, because I powerlevel my characters, in Morrowind, Almalexia, Hircine, Dagoth Ur, and even frickin Vivec(optional to fight, but it's fun to kill that thong wearing floating loser) were WAAAAAY to easy to kill.

I also like how you can play the game normally as a vampire, in Morrowind everyone barring the Mages Guild or House Telvanni hated you, in Oblivion there are levels of vampirism, where you would only be hated if you were 100%.

It's cool, but I'm a BG man, I definitely know people who waste their lives on this though.

[violent2dope]

admin said:

violent2dope said:

...I'm personally wasting my life on this game...but to each it's own. Oh, and I think it is much better than Morrowind(especially the combat). And I like how main NPC enemies(like Mannimarco, or Umaril) are leveled, because I powerlevel my characters, in Morrowind, Almalexia, Hircine, Dagoth Ur, and even frickin Vivec(optional to fight, but it's fun to kill that thong wearing floating loser) were WAAAAAY to easy to kill.

I also like how you can play the game normally as a vampire, in Morrowind everyone barring the Mages Guild or House Telvanni hated you, in Oblivion there are levels of vampirism, where you would only be hated if you were 100%.

It's cool, but I'm a BG man, I definitely know people who waste their lives on this though.

BG? I wasted my life on Morrowind as well, games like this do that to me.

[darthrevan]

I never really got into Morrowind that much. I just quite it after a few hours of total gameplay.

[Sinistrous]

He's referring to Baldur's Gate.

If you ask me, Morrowind was not better by too much. Like newjak said, Oblivion was more or less the same thing with some upgrades and downgrades. I'd imagine most ES fans would enjoy Oblivion unless you're a Daggerfall purist or something, but then you would have probably jumped ship a while ago.

[Magic attack]

nocturneinbm said:

shakezula said:

So maybe I should just get it and see for myself? I suppose I can do that. I will see if he posts a response about if the game is worth it for free or not.

If you're just going to torrent it, (and you have a fairly high end computer) then go ahead and try it out. It's not a particularly awful game, just a bland one. However, if you were to actually spend money, I'd recommend looking into a game like Gothic 3 first. There's a demo out that you can download to try out.

I'd rather not make any comparisons to Morrowind as newjak did, so go ahead and take his word for it. It's definitely superior to Oblivion at least.

Neverwinter Nights isn't too similar to this game though. Pretty good for what it is, but it definitely doesn't try to be like Elder Scrolls. It's more like a straight up dungeon crawler. Speaking of which, I need to pick up the sequel...

Ok, thank you for the reply. I am acquiring Gothic 3 as you have recommended it.