DH Review: Oblivion (PC)

Zardon

Hype can be a negative in the video game industry, many games have become major sellers even if they are terrible, all thanks to their marketing campaigns. Enter the Matrix is a very good example and the same can be said about Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness which was complete garbage but still, thanks to the hype, was a respectable seller.

This brings me to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, a new sequel to the very successful Morrowind series from Bethesda Softworks on PC and lately, this new Elder Scrolls has been getting monumental amounts of hype.

read the review here

Chaos

not my cup of tea but well done review Sandok

Partizan

Gameplay is rated too high. In Morrowind it's was alot better. And not to speak about the GUI which is a 100% console port. You can't even use keys in the GUI (except 1 to 5). Dungeons are all the same pattern. It's true that with help of the mods you can make the game alot more playable, but for the game out of the box, the game should be more polished. And Bethesda should think about the overall simplicity the game as 15 year old kids are not the RPG playing majority. It lacks the depth.

Graphics is amazing. I totaly agree with the rating.

Sound is great, but not for a rating of 19. NPCs change their voices when you speak to them.

The game is worth it's money.

Lasting appeal. I will play it till I finish the game. I will be replaying it, when I will have a better card for all the eyecandy.

The real overall rating should be around 85 to 89.


Nevertheless good review.

Regards, Partizan

P.S. Conclusion: Bethesda put too much effort in the eyecandy, and too little into the contents.

P.P.S. Please, don't crucify me, it's juts my 2 cents.

Zardon

I think you might be on the wrong forum for that. however I will say I agree with some points you make, I would personally have rated the game around 90-92 . but sandok thinks its probably one of the best games of all time, as well as many other people, so to say the "real overall rating" should be xxx is really just down to your opinion. I think "my overall rating" would be more suited to your post. I wouldnt agree with your points on morrowind though, my rating on that would be high 70s or should I say "the real overall rating" for that should be ........ I found that game quite the bore tbh....

pr0digal jenius

bah...i hated morrowind, so I've avoided this like the plague, but with all the rave reviews, I may give it a shot and hope for the best

calidan

Unlike the console version, the GUI in the PC version can be changed.

Partizan

Yup, I should write "my overall rating". I agree. I am just a little "pissed" at Bethesda cause I was expecting too much of the game, content wise. Graphich is really awesome. And I was playing it in the last week probably 3-4 hours a day, or even more. But with each hour I find more and more things that are really annoying. and the biggest of all ist the GUI, which is a big step back. Perhaps I played too much AD&D games and got spoiled.

The game really starts to shine when you load tons od mods (just to start with Landscape LOD Texture Replacement), which is also a great minus. I hope Bethesda will include some of this mods in the official patch.

So, off to play Oblivion?

Regards, Partizan

Zardon

The way I see this as a neutral, there are two camps in this debate - and this is going on my browsing on forums for the last 2 weeks (on various sites).

One camp love morrowind and feel let down by Oblivion for content/GUI and some other things they feel shouldnt have changed.

The other camp think oblivion is probably one of, if not the best game of all time.

oh yeah I forgot the third camp, which im in. the "its a good game, but now ive had enough, time to move on".........

Partizan

Do you have to make me fell bad?


Regards, Partizan

Veridian3

Great review... very good read indeed.

Dyre Straits

I don't follow this point. ???

If you're referring to the number keys, I'm using keys 1 - 8 very successfully. I have 1 - 4 as melee weapons and 6 - 8 as majicka spells.

However, I would really love to have Quick Keys more like NWN. With that game you have not only the normal number keys, you can also hold down either Shift or CTRL to get a whole new lot of number keys to use.

If I've misunderstood your argument, I'd like a little more explanation as to what you're talking about.



As to the Review: Sandok, I really appreciate the time and effort putting this together. It was a good read.

Contrary to what my own posts may seem like, there are some things about Oblivion that I find a little annoying. But, not too many.

Yousaif

I'm in the camp that I can't wait until this game fades into the background. I'm glad that the people that are playing it are enjoying it, however I'm getting pretty tired of seeing everyone screaming and kvetching because X video card isn't working well with this one game.

The last time I saw screaming like this was when WoW came out, and I can honestly say that I haven't seen this kind of rabidity since Everquest.

The_Neon_Cowboy

takes way to much time, It's great but i don't like to expend to much time to just
one title and you need all you free time for this game ,,, lol


wel worth the money though

[hobo]eclipse

agree, Time is money, wether you bought it and are playing, or are playing and not making

Sandok

I agree with the comments here that I rated the game high but you see, I never really fell in love with Morrowind and thus, to be honest, I was just expecting this game to be a gorgeous looking title with nothing else but I was really suprised at the results and it blew my mind away. I stand by my score and really do think it's an amazing game that everyone has to try at least once!

But everyone has their own point of views and I don't mind It is a good game though, no doubt.

Partizan

For example: lockpicking minigame. You want to cancel it. What you have to do, is move your mouse around till you find it in the border of the screen, move it on the cancel button and click. Wouldn't it be just easier to press the ESC key? The same could be made for the autoattempt with a RETURN key for example.

Even more annoying is making potions, or trading items, or even speaking with NPCs.
Everywhere in the dialogs you have to use the mouse, it's not the bloody console game.

Why isn't the map made in whole screen? Why can't you directly get to a map with ONE key? Sure you can press the 4 key, but there you have 4 or 5 tabs, where you have again to use your mouse.

And if we are speaking about the GUI. Was this game made for shortsighted people? I am really shortsighted, but I don't need a 200+ fontsize in the menus. Ok, I am using a mod to make it small size, but nevertheless.

Gameplay is unbalanced, for instance leveling up, bow damage...

See my point now? I could still go on. These little annoying things really make me angry, because it's a good game, really good, and this things prevent it from being great, still you can make it better with mods:




Regards, Partizan

bananaman

Nice review Sandok, is a fun game, although I don't think I am a huge RPGer, but was stll fun - I think i fall into the:

I am now trying to work out the subtleties of using tanks in Red Orchestra!

bug77

Points not shown in the review:
1. Controls are console standard and most of them cannot be changed. (My G5 is useless in this game).
2. The 'shadows through the floor ' problem has been ported from Morrowind.
3. HDR is done much better than in other games, but you still loose a lot of detail on the objects that are made to shine (e.g. swords). On top of that, the most touted feature of HDR is the simulation of blindness by the sun when you emerge from a dark place; in Oblivion you get a loading screen instead!
4. Leveling system is completely unintuitive (it's broken, imho).

Other than that, it's a great game. Although I don't have much time to play, I enjoy doing a sub-quest every now and then (yes, it's because I have to be very careful how I level-up if I want 3x +5 bonuses).

Sandok

With 1, I find it's much better than many ports and this really wasn't an issue for me... I never had a problem with my MX510 or anything!

2, never saw it... I only had self shadow probs

3, played with HDR and have you ever held a shiny metal piece in reality and have it shine with the sun... You don't see details either And you can still get the indoor/outdoor effect depending on where you go. But true, that load screen is annyogin.

4. Don't see what's wrong with it... I leveled fine and well and found it easier than most games.

Dyre Straits

Well, seeing as the ESC key takes you to the Save Menu, that's not a very viable option. Perhaps another key could have been used, but, using ESC for dual functions likely wouldn't be very acceptable.

It took me quite some time to get used to the new GUI, too. At first I really missed the one used in Morrowind. But, after a few days of using it, it's not that cumbersome anymore and actually quite well organized.

The map in Morrowind wasn't full-screen, either. But, you could 'grab' the corners and enlarge it if you wanted to. However, I, too, would like to have an option to see more of the map that does show up.

Actually, it was made with XBOX players in mind. A LOT of them sit across the room playing on 32 inch TV screens...or smaller.

How so? I like being able to select which attributes I want leveled up. That way I can create my own 'balance'.


Personally, I think that with the advent of the consoles, and the need for the developers to condense their efforts to expand across as many platforms as possible....at the lowest possible costs....we PC gamers are going to have to live with a lot of this 'ported' stuff. No, I'm not quite happy with it, either. But, I'd rather have the game than not have it....e.g. with Far Cry: Instincts...and other games that are being released on consoles only. I'm really ticked at CryTek for using the PC to get 'on the map' and now they've forsaken the people who helped make them what they are. Talk about taking it on the chin.

Dyre Straits

Sandok,

I, too, see this 'shadows through the floor' quite often. However, I'm wondering if it's actually a game bug or if it's related to certain classes in the game that can detect persons nearby.

We need enough people to go into the buildings knowing that someone is upstairs walking around. I can almost always tell if someone else is in the building due to their shadow being seen through the floor or walls.

If some of the players cannot see this, it could be a game setting, OR it could be that their character can't detect persons nearby, OR it's definitely a game bug.

Zardon