Hey Dragon, You Can Have Her: The Elder Scrolls IV - Oblivion

[SavingPrincess]

That was a good read, albeit quite "nit-picky". Kudos to the Jeremy Soule shoutout though, he really did wonders with this game.

I'm nit-picky... it's what I do. I don't claim to be a legitimate game journalist... I'm 100% opinion and have been from the start.

... plus, I'm a composer currently in composition school, how can I not give credit to Soule, when he kicks so much butt it's not even funny?

 

[reg42]

Though I have to say, Oblivion was sssssoooooooooooooo much fucking better than Fallout 3.

Yeah, you read that right.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD!

Why do you say that?

 

[Julianking93]

Though I have to say, Oblivion was sssssoooooooooooooo much fucking better than Fallout 3.

Yeah, you read that right.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD!

Why do you say that?

Because it's my opinion.

Fallout 3 was good and I liked having Oblivion with guns but it was just kinda boring to me. The landscapes where repetitive, it was a bit too easy and the thing that broke everything in it for me was that it glitched out and crashed every time I played it.

I couldn't play it without it freezing and having to restart the game.

 

[Velocirapture07]

Gotta disagree. I have played through Oblivion at least 4 times and I always feel like I'm having a great time.

 

[reg42]

Though I have to say, Oblivion was sssssoooooooooooooo much fucking better than Fallout 3.

Yeah, you read that right.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD!

Why do you say that?

Because it's my opinion.

Fallout 3 was good and I liked having Oblivion with guns but it was just kinda boring to me. The landscapes where repetitive, it was a bit too easy and the thing that broke everything in it for me was that it glitched out and crashed every time I played it.

I couldn't play it without it freezing and having to restart the game.

Fair enough. Oblivion was brilliant, and a really tough act to follow.

[sub]The glitches didn't help either[/sub]

 

[Irridium]

Its even more painful to deal with because under all the flaws, there is a great game there. I play on the PC, and while I could just pull the "mods make it better/what it should have been" deal, the community shouldn't have to make up for the developers shortcomings.

When you get paid to do a job, like make games, you better make games, and make sure they actually work and not need 3 community made patches to get them to run at the recommended settings that are on the box.

But they seriously need to hire more than 6 or so damn voice actors. I understand having hundreds and hundreds of voices in a game costs a lot, but come the fuck on. I hear Steve Blum does the voice for every other NPC in existence, get him. Or like you said, people who can change up their voices.

Hell just changing their voices in a sound editor would have worked fine.

But, like I said. Mods do make the game better and what it should have been. Even though thats not a good reason or excuse for anything, its still true. Shame it has to be the case though.

 

[Julianking93]

snip

Fair enough. Oblivion was brilliant, and a really tough act to follow.

[sub]The glitches didn't help either[/sub][/quote]

That's the thing, while Oblivion was full of glitches, the one's in Fallout 3 were so bad for me, that I didn't even notice the glitches in Oblivion after going back to it.

Still, there were some pretty awesome things in Fallout 3 but the glitches and crashes just ruined it.

 

[Irridium]

snip

I just wanted to say, that Dark Brotherhood mission where you went through the mansion and had to kill everyone without getting noticed was the best mission in the game. I could replay it so damn much... its just amazing.

 

[Woodsey]

I hate to be the one to say this, but I think you missed "the point".

 

[Irridium]

snip

Fair enough. Oblivion was brilliant, and a really tough act to follow.

[sub]The glitches didn't help either[/sub]

That's the thing, while Oblivion was full of glitches, the one's in Fallout 3 were so bad for me, that I didn't even notice the glitches in Oblivion after going back to it.

Still, there were some pretty awesome things in Fallout 3 but the glitches and crashes just ruined it.[/quote]

If I have to download 3 user made patches for Oblivion and Fallout 3 to get them to run without crashing, the developer needs to really think about how they test their games.

Seriously, there's no good excuse for why there's so many damn bugs in Bethesda's games...

 

[Julianking93]

snip

Fair enough. Oblivion was brilliant, and a really tough act to follow.

[sub]The glitches didn't help either[/sub]

That's the thing, while Oblivion was full of glitches, the one's in Fallout 3 were so bad for me, that I didn't even notice the glitches in Oblivion after going back to it.

Still, there were some pretty awesome things in Fallout 3 but the glitches and crashes just ruined it.

If I have to download 3 user made patches for Oblivion and Fallout 3 to get them to run without crashing, the developer needs to really think about how they test their games.

Seriously, there's no good excuse for why there's so many damn bugs in Bethesda's games...[/quote]

Indeed. Too bad I have the console version and can't get patches.

Fucking Game of the Year edition.

That seriously has the worst amount of crashing ever.

If things just get a little bit hectic on screen, the game will just go and fucking commit suicide.

 

[Irridium]

snip

Fair enough. Oblivion was brilliant, and a really tough act to follow.

[sub]The glitches didn't help either[/sub]

That's the thing, while Oblivion was full of glitches, the one's in Fallout 3 were so bad for me, that I didn't even notice the glitches in Oblivion after going back to it.

Still, there were some pretty awesome things in Fallout 3 but the glitches and crashes just ruined it.

If I have to download 3 user made patches for Oblivion and Fallout 3 to get them to run without crashing, the developer needs to really think about how they test their games.

Seriously, there's no good excuse for why there's so many damn bugs in Bethesda's games...

Indeed. Too bad I have the console version and can't get patches.

Fucking Game of the Year edition.

That seriously has the worst amount of crashing ever.

If things just get a little bit hectic on screen, the game will just go and fucking commit suicide.[/quote]

Hehe, my PC specs exceeds the recommended specs on the boxes of Oblivion and Fallout 3, yet it still struggled to run the game on the lowest settings. Well, Fallout 3 was much better in this regard, but there wasn't much to its environments anyway. Oblivion did have a lot going on, but if my specs exceed the ones printed on the box, I expect to be able to run the game higher than the lowest settings.

 

[Omnific One]

Ok, hold on a second. I'd have to say I disagree completely as Oblivion was (and still is) the benchmark for open world fantasy RPG's. If you want a true story, read a book. When you get down to it even Dragon Age (which I adore) has a very generic, clichéd story with more hackneyed elements than you could even list. Sure, you had much better character interaction in DA, but the gameplay and graphics kept it from being immersive. DA is based around a linear storyline with a few minor branches. Character interaction is just there to further the plot and because it is what BW does best. The thing about Oblivion is that you can do whatever you want, whenever you want. DA places a LOT of restrictions in terms of what you can and cannot do, but Oblivion lets you play it completely your way. Add in the ability to mod, and you have a great game.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

You seriously need to proofread this sucker. I just find it ironic when someone with the title "symphonic wordsmith" writes stuff like this:

you're a (basically) nameless, (basically) faceless

subjective-ness

Starting off in a fairly typical way, you're a (basically) nameless, (basically) faceless hero with zero back story or motivation, who has been thrown in jail for some reason or another (which I'm assuming you're supposed to invent for yourself) and it just so happens that they put you in the jail cell with the super-secret door to the "escape this way if all goes to sh*t" room that on this one particular day during your duration-less sentence, just happens to be needed.

Notice anything strange up above? Yeah, that's all one sentence.

is while you're walking to said tree off in the distance to further the main story, you can stumble upon ancient tombs that hold treasures untold. The problem with that, is while you're walking to that tree off in the distance, you can stumble upon ancient tombs that hold treasures untold

relate-able goals

I'm sure I didn't come even close to finding them all, because after a while all the run-on sentences set my eyes to blurring. Most of your sentences really could be split into two at no cost to what you're trying to get across. I'm not even a very good writer, so I was kind of hoping somebody like Nuke would saunter in and mention all this stuff for me.

As for your opinion, it's fairly obvious with these reviews that you're big on getting attention. No point in addressing that until the mechanics of the review are solid. Yeah, maybe you were writing this way on purpose, but never forget that doing something wrong on purpose doesn't make it any less lame. I was trying to understand why I find it so hard to read your reviews, and it's really the run-on sentences more than anything else. Writing is not the same as talking, and conversational writing is what I think can be safely referred to as "poor writing." Unless it's for a movie. And your name is Quentin Tarantino.

On a final note, why censor yourself if you're going to type a swear word? As far as I know, you're not going to be moderated more or less based on whether you show a full swear or self-censor (it's context that's important). If you don't like to swear, then just don't swear! If you like to swear, then why wuss out? This is an adult website. Or at least, kind of an adult website.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

I assume when people say they didn't like a game they base it off of other games that did aspects of designs, system, plot that were better. I couldn't pick a game that did lots of the stuff that Oblivion did that was better, I had a all around great gaming and playing experience with it, the only downside to Oblivion for me was the Shivering Ilse, I hated the Ruler dude he annoyed the piss out of me for some reason.

whoa! Sheogorath is a LEGEND!! and The Shivering Isles rocked! your entitled to your opinion but i'm very very dissapointed in you

OT: I LOVE Oblivion still is and always will be in my top 5 favourite games of all time i still play it loads it has a beautifully designed world, the lore of the game is fantastic and even if the Tombs/Caves did distract you from the story or whatever quest you were doing they are still really fun to explore and find those hidden away treasures...i'm gonna go play Oblivion now >.>

 

[AboveUp]

Ah, finally someone who agrees with me on this game. I think I'll need to keep this one bookmarked to link to people later.

One thing that kept annoying me in this game it was the level of the writing. It's not just the start of the main quest that's just terrible, it spreads through the rest of the game. Whatever happened to the corrupted King and Blades that existed in earlier Elder Scrolls games? Whatever happened to the interesting books that you could pick up and read? Or towns that actually look different from each other?


I'll have to give Oblivion this, it's very, very polished. But the attention to (important) detail and writing is abysmal.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

The problem with Oblivion, besides the small cast of voice actors, odd use of bad textures for things you look at all the time, and the main quest that was far less interesting than the side quests, is the bit where I had a spell that let me be invisible all the time, forever.

The game was basically broken at that point.

Still kind of fun though!

 

[Daedalus1942]

\
Anyone who's played Might and Magic Dark Messiah would know that a first person Medieval RPG can be alot of fun if the battle system is spontaneous, original and dynamic. Dark Messiah (love it or hate it) had a bloody awesome battle system and having played that before oblivion revealed to me just how much of a flaming, repetitive, broken piece of shit Oblivion really was.

Damn right about Messiah being better with combat. That's right. ME. Agreeing with how freaking awesome Dark Messiah is. Only problem I had with it was that it wasn't too open ended. I bought it yesterday, as a matter of fact. Previously, I'd only play the dumbed-down 360 version.

*kicks dudes into spikes*

It wasn't very open ended, but it sort of made up for that with the amount of exploration and awesome weapons you could locate that were off the beaten path (some of them were frigging hard to get).
On top of that, the fact it had like 8 substantially different endings gave it quite a bit replayability. Just a crazy fun game.

 

[Meggiepants]

I didn't find Oblivion's story to be as bad as all that. You mention that you like JRPGs. I can't honestly say I've played all that many unique and compelling JRPG storylines once I played my first JRPG, aside from the Shin Megami Tensei series I should say. Most of the Final Fantasy series, for instance, deals with some evil that is somehow trying to exploit the earth, and you are a character who often doesn't care about that, until about halfway through the game when you realize that, "Oh shit, I live in this world too. I better do something about this." Both JRPGs and WRPGs seem to have their own feeling and setting that is emblematic to their storylines.

I find that WRPGs tend to give you more freedom to make up your own story, while JRPGs really want to tell a story, even if it is the same "you must save the world from the evil that is threatening the planet's essence. Oh and your travelling with a secret princess."

However, I do agree that the battle mechanics could have been smoother. But, when I think about first playing this game, I realized it was four years ago. I can only imagine that in Elder Scrolls V they will address this.

And the voice thing. My suspicion is that Bethesda just doesn't budget that much for their voice acting. With such a huge amount of voice acting in a game like Oblivion, they probably skimped just a bit too much. It was better in Fallout, which had a similar amount of voice acting so again I hope they'll fix this in Elder Scrolls V.

Despite it's flaws, looking back I would still highly recommend Oblivion to people. There are just too many positives to the game for it not to be included in a must play list for this generation of consoles.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Despite it's flaws, looking back I would still highly recommend Oblivion to people. There are just too many positives to the game for it not to be included in a must play list for this generation of consoles.

Ha ha ha, what? Why would you play a fundamentally broken game that the community has taken it upon themselves to fix and improve on the system that can't actually benefit from any of that effort? That's crazy talk!

Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3 - sure, they were all released on consoles, but you're delusional if you think they really belong there. With some games mod support is a nice perk, with those, it's pretty much vital.