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Review Oblivion Review

GeneralSamov

Prophet
Joined
Jul 8, 2007
Messages
3,647
Location
Karantania
Now this thread only lacks TNP.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,035

Amasius

Augur
Joined
Sep 24, 2006
Messages
959
Location
Thanatos
You saved a soul.
salut.gif
 

Jaime Lannister

Arbiter
Joined
Jun 15, 2007
Messages
7,183
Mareus said:
So here it is...My Oblivion retrospect (i wrote this some time ago on some other forum):

I'm looking forward to this. Maybe it will join the great Oblivion reviews of Vault Dweller and Section 8. I can see it now: Mareus: The Third Opinion.

I have played games since i was 4 years old, from ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Sega Mega Drive, Super Nintendo, PC, etc and i am proud to be able to say i played almost every game worth mentioning in the game history at least once. That being said, i had really high expectations from Oblivion, especially because Morrowind was such a great game and most of the review sites have been praising Oblivion as one of the best RPGs ever made. Unfortunately after 10 h of gameplay i started to be more and more dissapointed. Before i go to details just a sidenote. I will be comparing the game mostly with Morrowind, because it is Oblivion's predecessor. That way it will be easier to see all the big and powerful improvments Bethseda claims to have made.

No one gives a fuck what games you've played before. And you'll be comparing a game to its predecessor? How revolutionary and worthy of 3 sentences.

So let us start. First dissapointemnt that striked me was the story. It didn’t even manage to keep me interested long enough to finish the game. Even if i wanted to get into details the story could still fit in a few sentances. To put it bluntly, you awake in a prison (yes, thats right folks, AGAIN), and suddenly you meet the king (none other than Patrick Stewert), who had visions of you being the saviour of the world. Appereantly he is trying to get to safety, because there are some evil villians after his head. Very original indeed, for this is the first time i have ever seen in a serious computer game that the escape leads straight through your cell. Then it gets better. The king gets killed and you must find his heir who will save the kingdom from the demonic invasion. WOW. Brilliant.

First of all, you were a prisoner in Daggerfall and Morrowind, but you didn't start in a prison. Dipshit. And being sarcastic is not an argument. You summarized the plot in a cynical, sarcastic tone, but you failed to say why it sucks. "WOW. Brilliant." is not a review.

Very soon it also becomes clear that the world looks awful when compared with Morrowind. I am not talking about the graphics here, i am talking about geography and positioning of cities and villages and roads. Oblivion map looks like a huge artificial bowl with one center city and few roads leading away from it. When you compare that with the very detailed world from Morrowind, where every city is completely different, where you have different regions and huge unpassable mountains, one can easily see what i am talking about. Oblivion litteraly looks like Alice in Wonderland, with a dungeoun or whatnot every few steps you make.

Fuck. You. "Literally" means "literally". It does not mean fucking "metaphorically" like you and so many other internet morons who fuck the English language daily with your dildos of ignorance think.

After forcing myself to play the game further, i relized there is far less items, armors and weapons than in Morrowind. Yes, Bethseda decided to remove crossbows, throwing daggers, spears, etc. There is even less magic, less books, less quests, no more cool stuff like levitating, etc. At that point i am slowly losing patience and telling myself: great job Bethseda.

This is RPGCodex. Obviously, we care most about spears and cool stuff like levitating. Hint: Lurk More.

The dialogs in Morrowind were nothing to be proud of, but at least you could have asked about many more things than in Oblivion. Unfortunetely Bethseda came up with another great idea, so they turned the bad dialogs from Morrowind into retarded dialogs in Oblivion!! Example:
Directions
Rumors
Goodbye
Yep... i m not joking. And then you get the same answer you heard 10 times before with the same voice you have heard already 10 times before, and who could ever forget the voice of the beggar? When you ask him about rumors, his voice suddenly transforms from weak old man into the voice of an imperial soldier!! The worst thing is... its not only the beggar...A perfect formula for one of the most repetitive and boring dialogs in the gaming history! 10 voices for 1000 characters, with dialog options which are not far from Diablo. BRAVO!! A true masterpiece.

Good points here, except that Diablo's monologues thrash Morrowind and Oblivion's walking encyclopedias. One more thing. We fucking know that Oblivion's dialogs suck by now. Quit posting like the game just came out.

If you think you will atleast see some of those deep characters with emotions Bethseda was talking about, i have to dissapoint you again. Characters you meet are completely without charisma or personality(some of them sound like fags actually), and 90% of them looked like retards. Women were especially ugly. I am not saying the appearance is very important for the game, but with the character creation tool they had at their disposal, they could have at least made some cool looking characters. But no, its better to make peasent like faces and say its more realistic. Indeed...

Bethesda was talking about deep characters with emotions? And yeah, they could have made cool looking characters if they wanted to spend 5 hours perfecting every nose. (which sort of defeats the point of facegen) Get a spell checker, BTW.

Then there are those Oblivion gates that start popping out in the middle of the game like mushrooms after rain! When i entered the first, i was pissing in my pants and it really looked and felt amazing. But even this they managed to screw up, because they overused it. After you have been in 15 oblivion gates, the whole Oblivion gate system loses any meaning. It becomes just one more Diablo-like maze you need to pass. The feeling is gone... they even become annoying because its just too many of them and it ruins the immersion.

[redneck]Laik muushroooms aiftar a sprang renfull.[/redneck]

But wait...it gets better, believe it or not.

Tell me more, mommy.

I forgot to mention the all famous bugs, which this game has alot! The AI of the temporary party members is so terrible they sometimes start killing eachother while they should be battling the enemy! Not only that, but they also charge at the enemy like madman, forgetting anything about tactics making them easy pray. If you by accident kill your party member(cause his AI is so retarded they often jump infront of your sword just when you are about to strike), the whole party turns on you and kills you where you stand. Talking about realism...sheesh..
Then there is the NEVER SIT ON MARTIN’S HORSE RULE! Once i sat on Martin’s horse by accident the guards simply cut me down like a bleeding pig. Yeah! Forget about what i did for the kingdom. Forget i saved our beloved king 10 times! Lets kill him cause he sat on our ruler’s horse!! ... Very intelligent...

LOL. The fact that your indicator turned red wasn't a sign that you shouldn't steal the emperor's horse? Mention something important that sucks, like the psychic guards that turned an otherwise fun thieving system into a pain in the ass.

There is so much more and i really want to say everything, because this game won so many awards for the best RPG in 2006, that it makes me furious. There were better RPGs that came out that year and i really dont understand how some people dont see this. Whatever i say here is 100% true. Everything is argumented, and i really dont understand how can this Oblivion become the best RPG in 2006, when they had great games like Final Fantasy 12 and Neverwinter Nights 2 to compete with. Yes, those games also had some issues, but atleast they offered great story, with great plot and characters, with far better dialogs and more ways to play the game...

They had great games like Neverwinter Nights 2 and Final Fantasy 12? Are you high? Oblivion probably is the best mainstream RPG of 2006, simply because most of NWN 2's issues weren't fixed until 2007. Gothic 3 (which you neglected to mention) is still broken.

So let me continue..

By all means, do so.

Then there is the 'always burning' Kwatch. After i saved the city from oblivion gate, i returned there after 2 months. I expected the city will start to rebuild itslef or something, but what i found was a shock that made me throw the game in the garbage(i mean recycle bin). The city was still burning in flames!!!!! I mean, couldnt have they atleast put out the flames after 2 months????

You uninstalled the game instead of installing the "Rebuild Kvatch" mod? Yes, it should have been in the original game, but that doesn't make you any less weird.

I wish i could stop, but there is so much more. The leveling system allows enemies to level up with you, so you will never feel you are growing in power like in other RPGs. This would not be so bad if there was atleast some more armors and weapons, but you will find yourself wearing the same armor and wielding the same weapon for days, even weeks. This makes adventuring into mines and caverns repetetive and pointless. And no matter what level you become or what you do, the game just makes your every effort pointless.

I wish I could stop, but this review is just hilariously bad. And level scaling sucks, blah, blah, blah. Find an adjective that isn't "pointless".

The game, unlike Morrowind doesn’t encourage you to go exploring and to read books, because you have the 'arrowfordumbpeople' which tells you exactly where you need to go. In Morrowind you would read a book, just in the hopes you will find some more info on where to find other villages or cities. You would explore huge land masses in hopes of improving your knowledge of the land and finding some good weapons. Sometimes that can be frustrating, but really adds to the roleplaying realism...

So just because you see an arrow you have to follow it? Let me call you a dipshit again, dipshit.

I could go on for years about all the bad stuff in Oblivion like these things:
How in the nine hells does a merchant in Imperial city know i stole a fork in some cottage in the middle of nowhere???????????
Inventory organization is far worse then in Morrowind.
When you break into someone’s home and awake them, they will continue to talk with you like nothing happened!!! ... so on, and so on.

These complaints are valid, typing eleven question marks in a row isn't.

Some of you will probably think i m concentrating just on the bad aspects of the game, but no. Now i will say what was done better than in Morrowind:
Graphics are an improvement.
Game mechanics are better than in Morrowind. Especially the fights (though even that feels more like a shooter than a real RPG)
And thats it. ... Nothing else.

So the underlying game is better than Morrowind? I'm really confused as to which you think is better now.

I know some of the people never played Morrowind, or an RPG at for that matter, so to them Oblivion will look great and it will offer a great gaming experiance due to vast world and many options when compared with the shooters. But to the game veterans like me, who have grown up on far better games, Oblivion is a huge dissapointment.

There you have it people... now shoot bolts at me from your arses.

You are absolutely correct. No one at RPG Codex has played Morrowind, or an RPG, or a game for that matter.
 

WhiskeyWolf

RPG Codex Polish Car Thief
Staff Member
Joined
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Messages
14,793

Jaime Lannister

Arbiter
Joined
Jun 15, 2007
Messages
7,183
Zappa said:
Jaime Lannister said:
First of all, you were a prisoner in Daggerfall and Morrowind, but you didn't start in a prison. Dipshit. And being sarcastic is not an argument. You summarized the plot in a cynical, sarcastic tone, but you failed to say why it sucks. "WOW. Brilliant." is not a review.

You weren't a prisoner in Daggerfall.

Why did you stop posting as larpingdude?
 

BethesdaLove

Arbiter
Joined
Aug 7, 2008
Messages
1,998
not only does he receive messages from the future, he also can go in the past! the powah!
 

Syraxith

Novice
Joined
Feb 26, 2009
Messages
31
Oblivion took a massive shit on everything I found good about Morrowind. I tried to like that pile of fail, I really tried. :x
 

Bruma Hobo

Lurker
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
Messages
2,412
Bump.

I can't show this review to the unwashed peasants without the pretty pics... What happened to the prestigious magazine?
 

Bruma Hobo

Lurker
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
Messages
2,412
Everyone here knows it's shit, so... What's your problem? I want to show this review to some people, and without the pics I will not.
 

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