Naked_Lunch
Erudite
Brackets are mine
This is one of the few times in life that I'm seriously dumbfounded and simply cannot grasp at words to respond to this.
I've heard this theory floated that Oblivion succumbed to this trend - that Bethesda dumbed down the game to make it more accesible for console gamers. Frankly, that's just nutty. How is Oblivion dumbed down compared to its predecessor, Morrowind? By having NPCs that actually move [omg!] and have a purpose? By having more interactive and varied enviorments [dungeon and forest! OH wow!] and incorporating a physics system that helps the world feel more realistic? By including additional quests and making those quests more involved? By weaving a more substantial plot? By allowing you to ride horses [but not attack on them!]? By having more complex AI behavior? By offering a larger world with more monsters, spells, items, caves, temples, and lairs, and allowing you to go immediately where you want in that world [Wait? ISn't that dumbing the game down?]? By including more purposeful guild quests that grant enduring abilities/stature/effects? By giving you more NPCs to converse with, each of whom have more to say, and have fully acted speech? By alling NPCs acutally to interact with each other, unlike morrowind's wax museum? By boasting more readable books [Not true. I'm sure Morrowind had a helluva lot more books than OB] and plant types to harvest or collect? By providing additional inhabitable residences and giving your more decoration options for those homes? By giving you companions and followers for the first time in the series? By sotcking the world with pets and animals? By including gladitorial fighting? By having a theives' guild that acutally rewards you for stealing?
Yeah, we really got screwed.
Sure, other RPGs like Fallout and Planescape: Torment do a better job of allowing you to roleplay a truly distinct character by, for instance, haivng NPCs respond differently to characters that espeically dumb or charismatic. But if you like hte type of RPG that Bethesda's been producing over the years, Oblivion is clearly a quantum stpe forward depth [I like the irony of using "quantum step." Aren't quantum leaps/steps the smallest movements possible?]. Suggesting that it's dumbed down for consoles demonstrates such utter lack of perspective that it's tantamount to RPG blashpemy.
You can email desslock at alternatelives@pcgamer.com
This is one of the few times in life that I'm seriously dumbfounded and simply cannot grasp at words to respond to this.