So, I just played Morrowind after beating Oblivion; and...

[TheSeventhLoneWolf]

Hello escapist!
[small]And you, yes. You, the lurker in the corner.[/small]

Well, is it just me or are the low level monsters from morrowind a heck-load scarier than the ones from oblivion?

I got my starting dagger, wandered off into the distance and come across a mud crab. Yes. A Mud crab.

I'll throw you a few pictures.

Mud Crab Comparison.

Spoiler: Oblivion's Mud Crabs

I actually think this one looks quite cute.​

Spoiler: Morrowwind's Mud crabs

This one caught me by surprise.
(It Disguises itself as a rock and jumps out at you.)​

I know this may be a bad example because mud crabs probably weren't supposed to make me jump, but. I saw a huge rock thing with spikes for a body lumbering towards me in my face at the moment I turned around. It made me jump from it's creepy appearance.

So enough of my experience for now, lets hear yours.

Have you ever been taken by surprise by a monster in a game?

Do you think better rendering makes things more imposing?

Spoiler: On that note. I also ran into a worm-thing with teeth. And a giant centipede which paralyzes you. Those seemed slightly more imposing than this.

 

[Daveman]

I just think EVERYTHING looks prettier in Oblivion. Call me a graphics whore but that's one of the main reasons I love it, just the natural world, free for me to explore.

Also I'm with you on those centipede thingys, they're a *****. This is why I went with spear specializing. They ain't getting near me.

 

[gigastrike]

I actually think that things looked scarier in lower detail. It may just be because the lack of polygons made them look sharper.

 

[Pimppeter2]

HA! I'd bet you those Mudcrabs are fiercer than you.



OT: Mudcrabs + Dark + Sneaky + OOO + Me thinking its something bigger and not looking down = Pants shitting.

 

[TheSeventhLoneWolf]

HA! I'd bet you those Mudcrabs are fiercer than you.



OT: Mudcrabs + Dark + Sneaky + OOO + Me thinking its something bigger and not looking down = Pants shitting.

Obviously!

I usually hop on a Ninja character who can't take two coughs to the face.

 

[Ibanez887]

Everything in Morrowind seems a lot scarier after playing Oblivion. Its the whole downgrade of graphics that makes everything slightly harder to see, making frantically swinging your broadsword seems more exciting

 

[Doctor VonSexMachine]

So, you are telling me to play Morrowind first?

Yahtzee put it best in his AVP review, the shiny gleam that current generation graphics seem to have makes it very easy to see them coming for you, whereas in the original 2 AVP's, it was impossible to see them before they were coming right at you, which really improved the experience.

I am going to have to agree with this. Now that we have much higher fade distances, things are easier to see coming and thus have less of an AHH! factor. Unless, of course, we are talking about horror games where they control the atmosphere very well and the realistic lighting, shadows, etc add to that.

 

[TUCKER95 x]

I actually think that things looked scarier in lower detail. It may just be because the lack of polygons made them look sharper.

Ye I shit my self playing DooM

 

[mad825]

mudcrabs are rich and they especially have good merchant skills

 

[Jackalb]

I think the Oblivion one is scarier but that's just because I hate crabs.
Other than that Morrowind is better in every way. Ever.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

I just think EVERYTHING looks prettier in Oblivion.

The city and world design is pretty bland and generic in Oblivion compared to Morrowind.

 

[WaysideMaze]

Oblivion looks a lot prettier, and animates much nicer than Morrowind, but Cyrodiil wasn't half as interesting.

From the Telvanni mushroom villages to the Redoran crab towns, it just had so much more charm.

Cyrodiil consisted of 9 towns on one road. I may be wrong on the number of towns, but everything took place on what felt like the only road.

There was one huge improvement [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O21E_Vj1JbI] on Oblivion over Morrowind though...

 

[Fr]anc[is]

mudcrabs are rich and they especially have good merchant skills

I've haggled with mudcrabs more savvy than you!

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

*shudders* Crabs in anything are wrong.

 

[Treeinthewoods]

Honestly Morrowind is good but Oblivion is about a 900% improvement on it. The Knights of Order really kind of freaked me out and the liches were spooky. However, neither game is particularly scary to me.

 

[Horben]

I never beat Morrowind. I think I came close, but the game was so unbelievably huge you could spend your entire game wandering around and never encounter a soul outside the city. That isolation definitely made the game scarier. The quests were also much more obscure, because the documentation was much looser.

 

[manythings]

Not a monster exactly but in Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines (one of the best RPGs ever) at the start of the Museum level you walk down a short hallway that is perpendicular to another hall. As you leave the first hall, at least my habit is, to look right while moving along the left wall then turning to the left to check that direction. Almost every single time I jump when I see the velociraptor there. Right next to it is a note saying (roughly) "Alright you scared the crap out of the cleaning staff, put this thing back."

Troika had a great sense of humour and it is a shame they aren't still around. They could've replaced bioware as my favourite devs.

 

[gdfvdfgdfgdsfg]

I'm probably overly spoiled with all the lovely graphics today, but when I first played Morrowind after playing through Oblivion, the first thing that bothered me was that the graphics are a poor representation of where the beasty actually is.

My dagger /clipped/ through the head of the first crab I encountered and I /still/ didn't hit it. Worthy of fear, yes.

I still can't survive the path with all the cliff racers. /noob.