Oblivion: Was this a disappointment to anyone else?

[Stephen Wo]

Now, to maybe clear some of the flak I'm inevitably going to get, I want to offer this disclaimer. This was my opinion, not one that I'm trying to push on anyone.

Oblivion... After playing and beating Bethesda's Fallout masterpieces and trumping both Mass Effects (not to mention a fun playthrough of Deus Ex), I found myself setting my sights on one of the most fabled Western RPGs of all time: Oblivion. In starting, I found myself a little disappointed with the unfriendliness of the combat system. The block wouldn't come up fast enough, and swinging your sword felt clumsy. Second, the first stroll through Oblivion was a pain in the ass, even with an army of skeleton warriors. I can't remember how many times I died because a scamp scratched and then shouldered me. I finally had to turn on god mode, because the deaths were getting annoying. Don't get me wrong, I've played New Vegas and ME2 on hardcore, and was pretty good at it, but this just felt unfair.
Then, what was up with the dialog? It felt hasty and stuck in, not like any real conversations like the ones projected in the previous games I'd played.
Now, to be fair, I've never been a fan of most fantasy settings. They all take place in the same pocket dimension of alternate medieval-England. From the beginning, I was lost with "Bretons", and "Mehrunes Dagon", and "Mysterius Xyrxim" or whatever.
I'll give it this, it looked very good. I really enjoyed the visuals. Also, the theme music from the main menu was nice.
Other than that, I just felt disappointed and upset I'd wasted fifteen bucks. (Though it wasn't the worst cash I'd ever spent, Brink takes that.)
Anyways, thoughts?

 

[Kahunaburger]

Oblivion was massively disappointing to me a well. Coming from Morrowind, it just feels like a massive step down in so many ways. There are some good changes it makes (melee and stealth, for instance), but I really don't see what other people see in it.

 

[Vault101]

I think fallout 3 killed it for me

uncanny valley
imersion with more cracks than than my Ipod screen (thats alot of cracks)
dull story
No dialouge options

 

[Rawne1980]

My biggest love for the likes of Oblivion is the modding.

 

[oplinger]

So you played newer games, and are comparing it to an older one? ...anyway

I found myself a little disappointed with the unfriendliness of the combat system. The block wouldn't come up fast enough, and swinging your sword felt clumsy.

That's due to low framerate. No lie. If you're not running at 60 FPS combat is phenomenally bad. It also improves with levels and skill. but even at 45 FPS, it's terrible..

Second, the first stroll through Oblivion was a pain in the ass, even with an army of skeleton warriors. I can't remember how many times I died because a scamp scratched and then shouldered me. I finally had to turn on god mode, because the deaths were getting annoying. Don't get me wrong, I've played New Vegas and ME2 on hardcore, and was pretty good at it, but this just felt unfair.

..You set up your character wrong. >> You either did something silly like set your major skills to acrobatics and athletics so you level up faster, you end up not having the combat ability or survivability to live through the levels you go through. I made the same mistake.

Then, what was up with the dialog? It felt hasty and stuck in, not like any real conversations like the ones projected in the previous games I'd played.

I.....actually have nothing to point out about that. It does suck.

Anyway, I wasn't disappointed in Oblivion, but I played it on release. So at the time it was amazing, I didn't like Morrowind much, and Oblivion covered all the things I thought were wrong with Morrowind. It was a very ambitious game, for the tech level, they obviously had to skimp on a few other things. Like voice acting.

I loved playing Oblivion. The only thing I hated was the copy/pasted nature of the game so every cave looked the same..all the ruins looked the same. I still play it though.

 

[Shameless]

Oblivion was good, but I don't think it really aged well thats why.

 

[w00tage]

Yup. I was looking for an immersive game experience where I could develop my character as I went. Nope. Make the right choices early on, win the game. Make the wrong ones, get your @ss kicked all day long. I chose a build that required skill to play and set it to 3/4 - oops. My friend chose a power build and walked through the game, even creating a staff of ultimate nukage that killed everything in a 360 radius and simultaneously recharged from their souls.

I could actually live with that, but the mechanics did suck pretty badly, the faces were terrible and bodies all reused (old face stuck on young body, etc.), there was only 1 row of hotkeys (no alt or ctrl for a second or third row) so you were constantly fishing in your inventory, potions took effect instantly and there was no limit so you could chug your way through any fight, fast travel without random encounters, the map sucked, the world was tiny so you were tripping over locations, NPC conversations and artificial stupidity, etc. etc. ....

Basically a game with a lot of good stuff like combat, housing, guilds, quest, but bad fundamentals that kept you from really having a good time. I did spend the time to mod it so it was much, much better, but then it crashed. And crashed again. I reset it up from scratch, painstakingly doing EVERYTHING right, and it crashed again after a few hours, so I gave it up as a bad job.

 

[ZombieGenesis]

Not even in the slightest. In fact I'm re-installing it as we speak, with a suite of mods.

Oblivion and Fallout 3, my examples of brilliant games.

 

[hannya62]

I was a big Morrowind fan, but oblivion for reasons I can't put my finger on just did'nt appeal to me. Maybe I should just try it again and see what happens ( I did like fallout 3 though)

 

[OpticalJunction]

I was a huge fan of oblivion back in the day, spent well over 100 hours on it and installed many, many mods. The graphics have aged very well, it is pretty even by 2011 standards, however the gameplay and story leave a hell of a lot to be desired. The repetitive caves and oblivion gates, terrible voice acting and boring writing (besides the dark brotherhood quests), leveled scaling, empty soulless world, so much more ultimately ruined the experience for me.

 

[Minimizer110000]

Its the same whenever you compare newer games to older games. The former is always going to be better than the latter... becuase you played the superior latter. I'm not sure if that made sense :0 Its just not a fair comparison that you're making.

 

[The Virgo]

I thoroughly enjoyed Oblivion, save for a few glitches and only 10 voice actors.

 

[DEAD34345]

I did, but for one reason and one reason only: The level scaling.

How I despise it...

Its the same whenever you compare newer games to older games. The former is always going to be better than the latter... becuase you played the superior latter. I'm not sure if that made sense :0 Its just not a fair comparison that you're making.

This isn't true. I played Oblivion quite a long time before I ever played Morrowind, but I still think Morrowind is the better game. It has worse combat (and graphics, though that doesn't bother me) but a much better setting, better plot(s), and only a very limited form of level scaling.

 

[Neverhoodian]

I too was disappointed with Oblivion. One of the things that drew me into Morrowind was its unique setting and varied landscape, with swamps, volcanoes, giant mushrooms, weird Telvanni settlements built from vines, stilt striders, etc. Oblivion felt bland and generic by comparison. The lack of variety regarding voice actors was a real immersion killer when talking to NPCs. It made me wish that Bethesda had stuck with text-only dialogue. Finally there was the frustrating level scaling. Not only did I feel like my character wasn't getting any stronger, but it made no sense lore-wise (why are the bandits suddenly wearing glass/daedric armor?)

While Morrowind has its share of flaws, I still find it far more immersive than Oblivion.

 

[Nightmare-Child]

I played Morrowind into the ground several times. I couldn't stand Oblivion. Something about how there weren't enough random artifacts lying around places. I just didn't have much incentive to explore. I didn't like the fast travel system either.

 

[Mr Fatherland]

No. I loved Oblivion. I got it when it came out, I was maybe 12. This was the first game I got completely immersed in. I've played it every way possible and loved every second of it. You have to look over the little things, like the bodies spazzing out in doors because the game world is just that big. There's so much to do and the skills were improved from Morrowind (utter toss). I've spent hours just going on the TES wiki and reading about the lore. I am lapping up everything for Skyrim as soon as it comes out and I know it's gonna be better than Oblivion.

 

[Stall]

Oblivion was a piece of shit, you would be correct. There were plenty of people who found th game disappointing. Bethesda as a whole is one of the single most overrated, incompetent game developers in the history of the medium. I can't think of a single dev team who consistently releases so buggy, poorly designed, and poorly written products into the market, yet still somehow manages to somehow avoid massive berating from the journalists as well as the gaming community as a whole. I am sure that is partly thankful to its overly-devoted, almost fanatical fanbase that hates anyone who dares speak against Bethesda's work.

 

[Minimizer110000]

I did, but for one reason and one reason only: The level scaling.

How I despise it...

Its the same whenever you compare newer games to older games. The former is always going to be better than the latter... becuase you played the superior latter. I'm not sure if that made sense :0 Its just not a fair comparison that you're making.

This isn't true. I played Oblivion quite a long time before I ever played Morrowind, but I still think Morrowind is the better game. It has worse combat (and graphics, though that doesn't bother me) but a much better setting, better plot(s), and only a very limited form of level scaling.

True. I should really try morrowind. I just wish that when we compared older games to newer games, we should just ignore (like you said) the graphics and focus on the actual timeless qualities like the plot and characters etc.