What's so great about Elder Scrolls?

[Ragsnstitches]

snip

I'll be straight up with you... I'm a huge fan of TES and Fallout games. But I don't think you would want this game or any of Beths games.

I suggest you either rent one of their games if for consoles (if you have one) like Fallout 3 or New Vegas (different developer, but built around the same concept) or watch some "Let's Play" vids on youtube (cheapest option). If you want some recommendations I can send you some links.

Skyrim is a pure High fantasy game, if you are weary of such games then it's best to stay cautious.

Skyrim will release with both obsessive/blind praise and vitriolic/unwarranted criticism. You will not get an honest objective opinion from either party. Reviews are misleading too as they suffer from the same trappings of "OH MY GOD SO MUCH TO DO" and "That texture is not real enough, stupid ass game"

Or just skip it... it's just a game and I imagine you have skipped other acclaimed series before.

 

[Chiefmon]

Or how for some reason the entire last mission of the game is the Brotherhood not wanting the Enclave to do the exact same thing they were going to do for no apparent reason other than that the Brotherhood wanted to get the credit?

Uh, actually the Enclave was trying to put a FEV strain into the water that would kill anyone who had been affected by radiation, leaving only the vault dwellers to repopulate the world.

Bzzt. No. If they wanted to put the FEV Strain in, then Eden wouldn't have needed to give it to you. Colonel Autumn was not going to add the FEV strain to the water purifier.

I do concede that I was wrong.

"The American Dream: When you finally meet Eden in person, he wants you to poison the water supply with a modified form of FEV. You can agree to do as he says or talk him into self-destructing. You are, in either case, unable to exit the room before you pick up the FEV canister."

Colonel Autumn wasn't going to insert the virus, no.

"As opposed to Eden's visions of eliminating all of the "impure" elements of the wastelands' population, Colonel Autumn's main objective seems to be increasing the Enclave's power over the remains of the nation once governed by elected representatives, as he intends to use the water purified by the Purifier as a means to make the people of the Capital Wasteland "flock to the Enclave" for leadership rather than killing them."

The Brotherhood was going to give water to everyone as opposed to the Enclave only giving it to those that followed it.

Sources cited- http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/

 

[Savagezion]

I figured the "best" one should at least come off as "decent" to someone who doesn't like the genre.

If someone doesn't really like cheese, they find even cheddar a bit too sharp, then says well I might as well try the "best" cheese because at least it should be decent, so they go and get some really expensive blue cheese, for example, do you think they will enjoy it?

That's an... interesting way of putting it. Although I guess I should have worded it a little better. What I should have said was, that if this game is as good as everyone says it is, then someone who doesn't like the genre should be able to see why they like it, and understand what it is the game did right or wrong. I'm not sure if that's really helping me right now, but hopefully that clarifies what I meant.

You should definitely check out Fallout and not Oblivion if you want to see why it is popular and I suggest New Vegas. I personally don't care for any Bethesda titles really. I think Morrowind is better than Oblivion and New Vegas is better than Fallout 3 for what it is worth. But all that stuff people talk about 200 hours, that ain't me. I have MAYBE 40 hours on New Vegas, 30 on FO3, 20 on Oblivion, and maybe 40 on Morrowind.

If you want to really see where the potential in these titles is at, check those games out. (But not Oblivion, it is broken and will probably piss you off.) All of the other games are "OK". I think your best bet on seeing what all the fuss is about is to check out New Vegas. However, if you want to know the difference between Fallout 3 and New Vegas:

Which do you think sounds more appealing? A Grand Theft Auto sandbox style RPG (Fallout 3) or Mass Effect story driven RPG (New Vegas)? I would make your decision off of just that. I don't care for the Bethesda RPGs but I see why it appeals to people. It lets them scratch their exploration/sandbox itch in an RPG fashion. That is pretty much all Oblivion and FO3 are good for mostly. Morrowind and New Vegas offer story but it is complemented by bugs and crappy mechanics on both accounts. (As all Bethesda games suffer from that)

 

[Savagezion]

OP, here is an honest (not paid off) review of Oblivion, from a true rpg enthusiast. http://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=129

Awesome review. That is exactly why I can't get excited for Skyrim. A lot of lying for purpose of hype went on with Oblivion. You can see them pulling a lot of similar stuff with Skyrim. Claiming a lot of the awesome features like "Radiant AI" are in Skyrim which wasn't in Oblivion as advertised.

 

[Freaky Lou]

OP, here is an honest (not paid off) review of Oblivion, from a true rpg enthusiast. http://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=129

That's a really solid review. Everything in there is completely true---though none of it changes the fact that Oblivion's one of my favourite games ever.

 

[Freaky Lou]

OP, here is an honest (not paid off) review of Oblivion, from a true rpg enthusiast. http://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=129

Why is he a "true RPG enthusiast"? Because he wrote a biased, rambling, attack review of a game he didn't like and is apparently blind to the merits of?

Maybe I should write a review tearing apart Bioshock. I'll call it "honest", and represent myself as a "true shooter enthusiast".

All reviews are inherently subjective opinions. There's not an unbiased one that's ever been written; the job of a reviewer is to clearly convey his or her experience in a way that lets you know if you'd like it or not, highlighting positives and negatives a less discerning eye may not have noticed. A reviewer's job is NOT to be objective.

 

[TheLoneBeet]

The freedom to do anything you want. You can completely ignore the main storyline and still get hundreds of hours of play out of these games. The re-playability would be my second greatest reason. You can make a warrior and play for hundreds of hours. Stop. Create a thief and play the same game for a hundred more hours, and it almost feels like an entirely different game. Stop again. Create a mage and play for hundreds MORE hours. Stop. Then create some freaky mess of the three using all your favorites. It's almost like a new game each time you play because there's always something you'll find that you've never done before and then it'll somehow inflate into hundreds of hours of play.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

All reviews are inherently subjective opinions. There's not an unbiased one that's ever been written; the job of a reviewer is to clearly convey his or her experience in a way that lets you know if you'd like it or not, highlighting positives and negatives a less discerning eye may not have noticed. A reviewer's job is NOT to be objective.

Yeah, that's fair, but some measure of objectivity is called for in that process. If a reviewer is naught but completely subjective, you don't know whether or not you would like or dislike a game, you only know whether they liked or disliked it due to their own personality and preferences. The review he linked, while not as bad as it seemed at first pass, sets out with the intention of slamming Oblivion for all the things its not. And since a lot of the critiques are on the nose, it can read like a damning indictment of the game. The reviewer does NOT give any time or attention to praising many of the things that Oblivion is, other than a few backhanded comments about it being a mediocre action game.

Ultimately people are free to write (and read) whatever kind of reviews they please, but I'm not sure I'd call such a one-sided review "honest", nor its author "a true RPG enthusiast". The author clearly likes a particular style of RPG, and is savaging Oblivion for not living up to his expectations. If I write a restaurant review column for my local paper, and I slam the new Mexican joint for not being Italian enough, I'm not doing my job.

 

[sievr]

Honestly, Oblivion was not that great, and Skyrim looks like almost exactly the same game. I think most of the excitement people have/had for Oblivion and Skyrim were due to how great Morrowind was.

Don't get me wrong. I played more than 140 hours of Oblivion. I was a badass black chick with a ponytail and a hammer as big as an angry cow; I bought five houses, got turned into a vampire, and generally became a God, and had a lot of fun doing it. But Oblivion and Skyrim (as far as I can tell) suffer from the problem that other people mentioned before. It's ugly as hell. There's no imagination in the art direction at all, the character voices are samey and uninspired, and you lack motivation to actually care about saving the world.

I really dont understand how someone could play 140 hours of a game they didnt like.

Again, I never said I didn't like it. I said I had a lot of fun playing it. My point was that I thought people might be excited for Skyrim based on their affection for Morrowind, which was in my opinion a better game than Oblivion.

 

[Leoofmoon]

HEARATIC!

 

[ultrachicken]

They're big and expansive, have cool backstory, and offer a lot of gameplay choices. If fantasy isn't your thing (which seems to be the case), then it's not your thing, but imagine such a game in a type of setting you enjoy and you'll see why the games are so popular.

Also, Oblivion is actually not really held in such high regard on this site. At least compared to Morrowind.

 

[ultrachicken]

Honestly, Oblivion was not that great, and Skyrim looks like almost exactly the same game. I think most of the excitement people have/had for Oblivion and Skyrim were due to how great Morrowind was.

Don't get me wrong. I played more than 140 hours of Oblivion. I was a badass black chick with a ponytail and a hammer as big as an angry cow; I bought five houses, got turned into a vampire, and generally became a God, and had a lot of fun doing it. But Oblivion and Skyrim (as far as I can tell) suffer from the problem that other people mentioned before. It's ugly as hell. There's no imagination in the art direction at all, the character voices are samey and uninspired, and you lack motivation to actually care about saving the world.

I'm confused as to how you managed to spend 140 hours on a game that "wasn't that great." I'm also confused as to how you consider Skyrim ugly. Its textures are fairly low-res, I agree, but the art direction is phenomenal. Did you honestly watch this trailer and not feel impressed?


I also find it strange that you claim there is no motivation to save the world when you haven't even played the game, though it wouldn't surprise me if this was the case, as Bethesda games aren't really devoted to good main stories.