Comment by Brixtone

1/23/2007 @ 12:46 am

Dear Mr. Whinypants,

I will agree wholeheartedly to complaint #1 on this list. Auto-adjusting the difficulty level of your foes was just a stupid move. Fortunately the mod community for Oblivion has provided an optional fix for PC players. While I do find the general rule to be stupid, it hasn’t posed much of a problem for me.

When you declare there to be a “lack of direction or narrative”, I think you meant to say “lack of slot-racer gameplay”. The narrative and direction are very clear and many players follow it straight through without exploring any side quests or activities. My suggestion: Dose yourself with Ritalin before each session of Oblivion.

It is true that most everything in the game world of Oblivion can be picked up, moved, sold, and thrown. But that doesn’t mean that you have to. Where Bethesda has tried to up the immersion factor, it would seem that they simultaneously cast a glue trap for your obsessive compulsive disorder. A little self control is all it takes though I can’t seem to leave anything behind either…I have a bag full of salad plates.

If Oblivion’s character models are goofy, then what the hell are the character models in any other game? Blockheads with textures, that’s what. If anything, I think these models are guilty of edging closer (but not close enough) to being realistic and that seems to make them even more whack. They give me that uncomfortable feeling like a person with one eye much higher than the other. Valve should start offering their character design services for outsourcing.

On the subject of pretension, I didn’t get this vibe from the game itself but I do feel some from its fan base. Oblivion has fan boys who would readily walk into a volcano to prove their allegiance to the game, but that’s their problem.

Let’s cut to the chase here, do you find this game enjoyable or not? How far have you played into the storyline or have you become so obsessed with fungus collection that you can’t remember where you left off? Help us to help you.

Comment by Tritone

1/23/2007 @ 3:01 am

And yet, Mr.Ruckus, I hear tell that you are a fan of WoW, which has one of the most convoluted and generally incomprehensible storylines, not to mention figure models that are just shy of South Park-style cut and paste. At least the flora and fauna in Oblivion are grounded in some sort of biological semi-reality, as opposed to, oh, the swirling balls of flaming farts in WoW that circle endlessly, waiting for you to come and kill them so you can collect 15 “flaming fart ash cores” to bring back to some dude in Bloodboil Gulch. Last I checked, real life was pretty much devoid of “urgency and necessity” except for that which you give it. All I know is, the first time I played Oblivion I sat on a hillside (in the game) and watched the day fade and listened to the birds quiet and the clouds reflect as they passed over the water, and I had a really profound aesthetic experiece–and I didn’t think, “wow, cool graphics” but “wow, what a cool place to be.”

Comment by Dodongo

1/23/2007 @ 12:10 pm

This sounds like a hype that was impossible to live up to. You know, like next gen consoles. Unless the in-game graphics look as good as Gollum did, I’m disappointed.

Tritone - I’m sure there are some real hills somewhere in the Pacific Northwest that have birds and clouds and water. Sometimes you frighten me…

Comment by Scrimpnut

1/23/2007 @ 12:55 pm

And now the perspective from a noob to Oblivion.

1. Stunning graphics. I have the Xbox 360 version FYI. An Xbox or PS2 couldn’t produce these graphics so this game does take advantage of Next Gen capabilities in that sense.

2. I’m new to RPGs (except WoW - if that counts) so be patient. I don’t like the game doesn’t pick up where you left off. I died last night on my way to give Martin Septim the business and it put be 15 freaking minutes (in real time) away from him. Brixtone informs me that you can teleport anywhere you want to go. That seems silly to me. Either things should be closer together or there should be more content in between. This isn’t Star Trek.

3. This is the potential dealbreaker for me. “Scary” music begins when enemies approach and it stops when they leave. Um, that’s not realistic at all. I WANT to be surprised. I WANT to be anxious in not knowing if I’ve killed them all or if there’s more behind that bush. Really aggravating. There should at least be an option to turn that feature off. Memo to Bethesda.

4. The music is great but much of the music that I’ve heard to this point has a very John Williams (See - Attack of the Clones Soundtrack) touch to it. Inspiration is fine but blatant copying is unethical and disappointing.

Again, I’ve just touched the beginning of the game so it’s unfair to make a complete judgment but these are my initial comments on Oblivion. What will probably happen is I’ll play for 20 minutes tonight, get sick of walking through bushes, sign on to WoW and hang out at Goldshire heckling people.

Life is good.

Comment by Ruckus

1/23/2007 @ 3:07 pm

In response to some of the points mentioned above:

1) My disappointment in the storyline is driven primarily by the understanding that if I cut Martin Septim to pieces and then castrate the pieces, NOTHING WILL HAPPEN. That precise reason is why it took me over a year to start playing WoW. I need to feel like my actions influence the world around me; I can experience the futility of inaction in the real world, thank you very much, I don’t need it in my video games. If I wanted to sit on a hill and watch the sun go down, I would sit on a hill and watch the sun go down, not sit in front of my computer with a game that lets me sit on a hill watching the sun go down. I like a little urgency in my video games, a little tension heightened by dire consequences. I find it hard to take any plot seriously when you can just abandon it midway with no adverse consequences. WoW has managed to sidestep that complication by its emphasis on obsessive compulsive behavior, but it took me a while to get over that.

2) Graphics that attempt reality and look ugly are inferior to graphics that throw realistic convention out the door and look great. I cite Mechcommanders 1 and 2. The first game was sprite based with an isometric viewpoint. Very 1990’s, but it was hella fun. The sequel was fully 3-D with rotating camera angles so you could look at the action from all points. It also looked like an 8-year-old’s grade school diorama. I have no problems with companies pushing the boundaries of graphic technology, but it had better damn well look great. If you’re going to ask me to believe that the graphics are realistic then they had better be realistic. This also touches on the point re: biological reality. Since when was biological reality a litmus of quality? Did you like Half-Life 2? The last time I checked, headcrabs weren’t a biological reality.

3) This is not an issue of hype. I thought Morrowind sucked hard-core. I thought that I should give Oblibvion a try because I love RPG’s and it couldn’t possibly be worse than Morrowind. Everyone said it was such a great RPG and I wanted it to be one. It wasn’t worse, but Oblivion only won that race by a nose.

4) I do not find this game enjoyable. I’ve attempted the game twice and played maybe 4-6 hours into the game out of a sense of duty and the belief that I can’t possible dislike an RPG that was this popular before I get bored and uninstall it.

Comment by Ruckus

1/23/2007 @ 3:13 pm

Let me make another point while I’m thinking about it. There are lots of ways to make a game free-play without destroying a sense of urgency with regards to the main plot. Take Baldur’s Gate 2, for example. You could go off and do whatever quests you wanted that weren’t along the main plot. However, the longer you put off the main plot the higher the chances were that you would turn into a crazy monster and kill your party. It was never a serious issue and it only happened to me once, but you could feel the pressure building the whole time.

Comment by Ruckus

1/23/2007 @ 3:19 pm

I can’t leave this alone. The bottom line is that I did not find Oblivion fun in any way. Regardless of the reasons for that, I just didn’t enjoy anything in the game. I have fun playing WoW even though the two games share some conventions. I will find things that I like about games that are fun and find things to hate about games that aren’t. The point I will concede is that I can’t know if this is a question of me hating the above mentioned things and that leading to non-fun, or me having no fun causing me to harp on the irritating points.

Comment by Dodongo

1/24/2007 @ 11:35 am

I think it’s safe to say that the RPG genre is the most diverse genre in gaming. It’s probably due for compartmentalization, just like when Tower Records started separating Pop/Rock and Alternative Rock. Placing games like Oblivion, Jade Empire, .hack, and Fallout in the same category is a bit absurd. The Elder Scrolls games are their own breed and require a lot of patience. My brother has traversed nearly every inch of Morrowind and it’s expansions, clocking in at least 200 hours of gameplay. I borrowed the game and couldn’t stand to play it for more than two hours; it moved way too slow for me. Still, I had to tip my cap to the sheer amount of content they provide. One of their libraries holds more content than many entire games do.

I also think it takes getting used to being able to interact with every object in a room. We’re still ingrained with the sense that we must interact with or collect everything the programmers will let us; like clicking on anything that has a name in an adventure game so you can hear the jokes.

My guess is if Oblivion was a MMO you’d enjoy it a lot more. If it’s similar to WoW, but without the social aspect, I could see how that would feel empty.