Oblivion Review

[Aamer Khan]

If you liked the Morrowind series, you're going to love Oblivion. Again the folks at Bethesda have produced a quality single player game that is so ingrossing, that you will totally forget about the time, where you are, or that your mate is telling you it's 7am and you need to get ready for work!

First, a few of the things that you will like...

Graphics:
Best so far of any in the series. Even on low end machines, the lighting and shadow effects lend to the believable reality provided by the engine. The vast variety of trees and grass sway, you can easily see the mountains in the distance, and even the sky looks and feels... "right". Yes, details pop into view as you move along, but with some minor tweeking of the texture size and view distance, this is soon forgotten. And unlike other games in the series or expansions, you will not find large barren stretches of land devoid of life. You will see small villages, homesteads, ruins, caves, and creatures of all varieties. If you have this game, stop on a hillside and just look around, and you will see what I mean. I would want to live here.

Sound:
From the clomps of the horses walking past, to the swaying geass, the creak of a door, or the birds in the trees, the sound in Oblivion is top notch. All most all dialog is voice acted. All actions have sound that is perfectly matchs with its action. Ambience and audio color paint a living world that you are moving through. Even the tombs and underground areas have the proper amount of echo and feel.

Interface:
While usable and uncluttered, it does get a bit unweildy at times. You can easily setup hot keys to equip weapons or cast potions, but are limited in the number you can setup. Getting to the ingame map is more difficult than necessary. Also, you mouse users. Don't expect to be able to map common actions to the mouse buttons from the games interface. They are already map and cannot be changed that I have been able to find. They are mapped in an intuitive manner, and so far not posed any real issues.

Avatar:
It seems that Bethesda just can't make the adjustment interface for your avatar have a truly representative face like you will actually see ingame. Your results in game will look much better than what you think it will. This time, they have allowed many more options than ever before. Only the face can be adjusted after you pick your race and gender. My suggestion would be to use the random face feature to get something close to what you want, then fine tune from there.

Conclusion:
I have actually worried about Oblivion taking long term players away from Horizons, ( even if for just a month or two ) if it was done as well as it looked. My fears stand. Those that get involved with Oblivion will be drawn in to a very vibrant world full of exploration and intrigue. Don't be suprised if a few of your guildies and friend disappear for a bit while they play this, because it, like Horizons, is very involved.

A guildie of mine mentioned it would be a good game to play on patch day. "The shards are back up? ( 2 hours later ) Ok, just a minute..."

[imported_Frith-Rae]

hehehe...is riding horses back?? Can we purchase and ride a horse like in Daggerfall???

PLEASE!!! :)

(was the only thing I missed about daggerfall that didn't make it into morrowind)

[Cloe]

Horses are back! and they are pretty cool for a couple of reasons. The way you direct them is different than the character movement so you really do get a different feel from being on horseback. The third person viewshows just howwell done they are. This is a grand replacement for the pony on a stick. lol

How you can geta horseshould become clear but is pretty much a spoiler. Send me a PM if you really want to know.

I know some people don't care for the collectors editions of games however the making of the game video is very lord of the rings like. It was a joy to watch.

I have yet to come across anything second rate. It's totally first class all the way.

I agree with all of Aamers points.
The immersion is not comparable to anything else I've ever played. I've been scared to the point of squeeking a number of times when RL taps me on the shoulder lol.

In an age of prerendered hype kits from game makers this one took the high road and stands apart. I was ready for a let down whichI'm happy to say didn't happenand the extra $10 for the collectors edition is not even two trips to McDonalds or Espressosnow days. Worth every penny for me. If they did a bait and switch anywhere I've yet to seeany indication of it.

The dungeons are more compelling than ever. I really like the way they did the move quietly/sneaking skills. Lockpicking is tricky and can be %100 a mini game within the game or less interactive if you choose.

Combat is not just run in an hack and slash stuff especially if other good guys are fighting the same thing.

The game difficulty can be dialed back or turned way up at anytime through the options allowing for you to tweak it to your playing enjoyment. The RAI keeps all the NPC's developing at the same time you are so as you get better at things so do they. In otherwords as you get better as a fighter they may get better at sneaking so changing to sneaking skills later on is more difficult but not impossible. Very very cool.

Ha have a couple of mins left before I have to get back to work. Ummm oh ya... With the RAI you can go back to NPC's and they may have learned something else since you last talked to them. This has onlyhappened a few times so far but it's way early on yet. An example they gave during the development was that an NPC's ambitions were not set right and they had to track down the one that was going around town buying up all the armor. Thats a little better Illustration of things happening in the world when the character isn't around and off doing something else.

I won't be droping my HZ accounts but this is a much needed break.



Edit: Heres a screen shot someone put up so you can get a better idea about the horse and the look of the game. Only thing missing is actually seeing it in motion.
http://igloo15.com/files/Oblivion7.png

[Alladania]

You bad, bad people. You make me want this game. I'd have to upgrade my computer and buy a DVD drive. And where would I get the time? Curses!!!![:|]

[Talitha]

Oh dear, I'd like this game. (Such a purty horsey too!) I have the Morrowind collection but haven't managed to get through much of it, it's a bit...elderly-feeling but very in-depth and enjoyable. ^_^; And so much stuff to pick up and cart around and mess with, I turned into a total kleptomaniac in the first ten minutes...

Hopefully my brother buys this and I can mooch playtime off him... ^_^

[imported_Frith-Rae]

huzzah the horse is back!!!

YEA!!!

So glad to hear it :).

It will be gotten..in the next month or two. The boyfriend's computer I"m building has a dvd rom and a better graphics card so I"ll be playing on his system.

:)

edit: OH, I did find out though - you can direct download this game if you don't have a dvdrom. You still pay regular price, and you have to download the whole thing. But it is another way to get/play the game if that's your thing!!

No clue how big it is, so make sure you have enough space - I'm assuming the link is from the main site.

[Nayuaka]

Yeah, the horses are fun. Expensive, but fun. Now all I need tosend a chart of how bones work to Bethesda so they could maybe put my Argonians tail in the right place....gotta wonder how they sit down or do much of anything with the tail where it is.


Heh, charactor creation is scary.... At least that's my opinion. I don't know it playing or Xbox or PC makes a difference (we have it for PC) but all those options are rather...what's the word? Opressive? Intimidating? I dunno. I DO know it would be easy to spend hours tweaking acharactor....to bad it's not for an online game.

[imported_Frith-Rae]

*chuckles* I LOVE that type of character creation..

..Horizons actually took me over an hour to get the dragon I was totally happy with - and even then I started out with this color scheme in mind but still ended up playing with a few other ideas :)...

The only game I've seen so far that comes close to being as indepth in character creation as single player RPG games *can* get is the City of Heroes/Villians...

I literally spent SIX Hours on character creation alone when I got my 14 day trial (and didnt play but for 8 days). Now that is because I realized I missed something that I had to go back and redo everything, but still...one could spend days playing in their character creation! (and was actrually the biggest thing I was looking forward to about their game...chuckles)

[Nayuaka]

Heh, then my fellow Dragon, you would love Oblivion. I swear it would be possible for a sufficently dedicated person to make their charactor look just like them. Although me...I made an argonian...I should HOPE that my real life person (aka me)doesn't look like an argonian...no matter how cute the lizardsbe.

[Wu Li Master]

It is a great game but there are bugs. For one the A.I. is almost too good. This causes unfinishable quests because the character you needed to talk to was killed by a guard/boar/creature. This also causes a few other problems but I don't want to ruin all the surprises.
Also the way the map ends. if you go to the edge of the map and run along its boarder, there is a good chance the game with quit. Yes it will exit without saving.
Lastly (don't want this to turn into a rant) there were several 'main' quests that were not finishable. One was in the thieves guild and another was in the dark brotherhood. These are kinda important as the thieve guild quest is approx the 4th or 5th one so it limits your progression alot. The dark bro. quest is a little more than halveway through the ranks but it is still annoying to those players who love to be evil in games like that.

Just had to point out a few negatives. With all this positive feedback, I couldn't let someone keep thinking the game was perfect (although it is very good.) I think they did end up rushing production.

[Tantalyr]

Overall, I give Oblivion an "A." That said, Wu Li has a very good point about certain "Protect So-and-So" quests.

In the quests that require that you escort someone to or from any dungeon or gate, invariably the NPC's AI is somewhere beneath that of a carrot. The NPC you are supposed to protect almost always runs off attacking the nearest critter (or worse, the nearest group of 100 critters) that you approach, and of course gets him/her self killed, thus blowing up the quest.

For example, in the Main Quest I had to restart ten--count 'em TEN--times before I could enter the main gate before Martin was slain. Why? Because the idiot ran into every huge group of Daedra that appeared. Trying to keep him alive was an exercise in futility, even though I had completed the Aid Bruma quest and had every city's guard there to help.

Another problem with the game's AI is the Chameleon spell/ability. My character has only 60% Chamelion (between a ring and a helm) and can ALWAYS sneak past any critter in the game. And that means I can go anywhere I want (including Daedra Gates) and never be attacked. There's something real wrong with that.

Oblivion has a LOT of things I wish could be implemented in MMO's--particularly the Thief class with the ability to Sneak/Hide and do major damage in that mode. But don't kid yourself--Bethesda hasn't got the proper balance yet, either.

[Dremora]

I both hate and love Oblivion at the same time.

I hate it for the main quest, it's just too.. generic, I guess.

*minor spoiler*

"OMG THERE'S A DARNED OBLIVION GATE OUTSIDE MY CITY, I CANNOT HAVE THE GUARDS LEAVE UNTIL IT IS DESTROYED". Every single count/countess says this when trying to get allies for Bruma. Damnit, you have your own guards, send them in. Why me? The plains of Oblivion aren't even that interesting. You've seen one, you've seen 'em all. I have to admit the first time I saw a corpse masher, I thought that was pretty cool, but to have the same thing everytime.. gets old.

*end spoiler*

Not to mention those gates are a lagging hell.

Oh, and who could forget those suicidal animals? Rats especially, since one hit and they're dead almost all the time. The wolves are pests, and the mountain lions are just too pretty to kill. It doesn't make sense every wild animal is that agressive, unless there was like a huge plague affecting them all or something. And why must every camp have hostile inhabitants?

On to the positives, I love it because of the horses, the sneaking, the physics ( can't get enough of flying corpses! ), and marksman, and the fact that there's so many places to explore. Of course most caves/ruins that aren't quest-related seem pretty generic, but you never know what you might find. The first time I ran into a trap in an Ayleid ruin ( and not some silly trip-wire either ) I was amazed. The AI is pretty cool too, but mostly because it's so funny when stupid convos arise. "Hello" "Get out of my face!" "Heard any news from the other provinces?" "Get out of my face!" "Good day" "Farewell".

All in all, it is a pretty descent game, but could be better. But then again, what game is perfect?

[HratLi]

About the chameleon thing with sneak.

I was doing the Black Bow quests the other night and I must say, this is NOT Theif the Dark Project. Three bad guys were talking to one another. I backstab and one hit kill one of the active participants in the conversation... The inactive one walks over looks a the corpse, then goes back to her position.
Black Bruno was still looking at the corpse on the ground, apparently waiting for them to continue the conversation... So I walk around him and LOOT the dead guy over his shoulder.... Hahaha... I was falling out of my chair laughing... I went so far as to drag the naked body around and onto Bruno to see at what point he would become....well... alerted.

"I hear that Oblivion gates are ope...BLARRRRGGGHH!!! (this is my favourite death scream)"
"Farewell"

Person 2 continues looking at the person until they leave the range, and since they are dead, they do NOT leave the range, so they sometimes 'stick' that way for days on end watching the corpse.

-HratLi

[Khosadan]

Person 2 continues looking at the person until they leave the range, and since they are dead, they do NOT leave the range, so they sometimes 'stick' that way for days on end watching the corpse.

-HratLi

Poor things sound traumatised by the death! XD

[Thangorodrim Atanatari]

Most of the complaints i read here are being taken care of in some plugin or another. The greatness of the game i think lies in the made-public editor...
There are even groups of people creating their own models and textures and creating whole new worlds... (not expansions)

U dont like AI of certain NPC's? go into the editor and alter it...
U dont like wolfs attacking? go into the editor and make em social.

[FlaK88mm]

I play this game, and it is very, very good! The graphics are breathtaking. One must have a high-end PC though.

The side quests are very good.

Master of marksman, sneak, alchemy

[FlaK88mm]

Is it OK to post thumbs of screenshots here?

[Takora Drakan]

If they are not too big that 56k modem users get killed, then yes.. GIMMMMEEEE (i have DSL wee...)