Zero Punctuation: Oblivion

[Lord Chaos 2]

This was another good review. His reason for being in jail was just hillarious.

I do have some gripes about it though. He talks about that its all about "being in the right mindset" with other games...well Yahtzee, the same really holds true for Oblivion. I enjoyed the game immensely and found plenty of immersion and detail in the game. Yes, the normal NPCs were repetitive and had weird dialogue, but thats not really a problem once you immerse yourself in factions and the quests (especially the sidequests which are actually better than the main one in some ways).

Overall I loved the map, I loved the fast travel (don't like it, don't freaking use it), I didn't mind the level system (even though it did kinda take the air out of the power feeling of leveling up) and the amount of content in the game is just immense.

One thing he didn't really pick up on was the whole Modding ability of Oblivion, there are so many good mods out there which really spice everything up (from better inventory, to new items/graphics, new game rules to new quests and areas).

This review kinda feels like Yahtze just wasn't in the right mindset for the game and just let it water out pretty quickly.

 

[Lord Chaos 2]

Oblivion is shit on consoles, it's heaven on the pc with about 80 mods some of which are trying to replace every original, pathetic, landscape with interesting ones and of course "natural environment" which replaces every tree with a biiiig tree and also ads flowers, butterfly's, rainbows, different weathers etc. than you can call it immersive.

True, true, but if I have to download 80 mods and expand my Oblivion file size by 200% I'm not going to call the Oblivion; the way it was made, immersive or a good game. It should've been like that from the start. If the game was good it didn't need people who are not even getting paid for making the game great patching it up. And for all of you who are saying Bethesda made it so that people could add stuff are just defending Bethesda. People could've still added stuff without Bethesda fucking up the environment and leveling system. I mean Morrowind was also open for modding, even more so because there was an infinite sea around the island. What I'm saying is the environment in Morrowind was great and diverse, but still a lot of people made mods for Morrowind. Bethesda could've made a more diverse landscape from the start, instead of -according to you people- relying on the community to do most of the work for them. You said it yourself; Oblivion only gets real immersive after you have downloaded a shitload of non-official mods. That's not Oblivion by Bethesda anymore. That's Oblivion by everyone. Which is great, don't get me wrong, but that's not the original Oblivion, and this review is about the original.

There are several succesful games that rely on modding to enhance them to suit peoples needs and wants, which obviously differs. (like for instance I had no problem with immersing myself in Oblivion)

That the game DOES come with the modding ability is a big plus and should count in any review of the game.

 

[LurkerPatrol]

Hey Yahtzee. Long time lurker, first time rambler. I think this review of Oblivion was on the dot. I agree with it entirely. I was at first surprised you didn't go more in-depth in it but then the obvious hit me like a truck of bricks and I realized you must have started clipping your nails with a crocodile's teeth in order to get excited and feel alive. I too threw the game away (not literally, I just gave it back to my roommate) after a short time. Everything just became the same old "What are you looking for?... the bar is to the east of the north gate... the brassiere factory is 404 not found to the north of the west gate" and dull quests.

I even found WoW to be more exciting.

Anyway keep up the good work. Look forward to your next review.

-LP

 

[Sennz0r]

Oblivion is shit on consoles, it's heaven on the pc with about 80 mods some of which are trying to replace every original, pathetic, landscape with interesting ones and of course "natural environment" which replaces every tree with a biiiig tree and also ads flowers, butterfly's, rainbows, different weathers etc. than you can call it immersive.

True, true, but if I have to download 80 mods and expand my Oblivion file size by 200% I'm not going to call the Oblivion; the way it was made, immersive or a good game. It should've been like that from the start. If the game was good it didn't need people who are not even getting paid for making the game great patching it up. And for all of you who are saying Bethesda made it so that people could add stuff are just defending Bethesda. People could've still added stuff without Bethesda fucking up the environment and leveling system. I mean Morrowind was also open for modding, even more so because there was an infinite sea around the island. What I'm saying is the environment in Morrowind was great and diverse, but still a lot of people made mods for Morrowind. Bethesda could've made a more diverse landscape from the start, instead of -according to you people- relying on the community to do most of the work for them. You said it yourself; Oblivion only gets real immersive after you have downloaded a shitload of non-official mods. That's not Oblivion by Bethesda anymore. That's Oblivion by everyone. Which is great, don't get me wrong, but that's not the original Oblivion, and this review is about the original.

There are several succesful games that rely on modding to enhance them to suit peoples needs and wants, which obviously differs. (like for instance I had no problem with immersing myself in Oblivion)

That the game DOES come with the modding ability is a big plus and should count in any review of the game.

I totally agree with you that the modding ability is a genius addition, I loved adding new things to Morrowind for that matter. But if you're reviewing the game by itself, and by that I mean its storyline, gameplay, graphics, AI etc. and these turn out to be flawed, you can't rely on the argument "so what, it's got a modding ability right? If you don't like how we've done things, change them yourself". Although this is an interesting concept and Yahtzee could have mentioned this in his review, the argument would have simply been bonjour'd out of the way by the fact that the people who are getting payed for this and SHOULD have the skills to make the game great failed to do so and from what I hear now, a lot of people rely on the gaming community instead of the Des team to enhance their gaming experience. If I have to spend hours on end to patch up a game so it will allow me to have fun, I'd rather spend those hours on playing a game I already find fun. But that's just me. If I fork over this much cash for a game I want it to be fun without all the extras needed, and since I payed the same amount for the 360 version as everyone would pay for the PC version, I find myself coming short a lot.
Once again, I applaud the construction set I really do, but it is there to enhance my gaming experience even more, not to fix something that was already broken before I touched it.

 

[Hajmola]

Once again, I applaud the construction set I really do, but it is there to enhance my gaming experience even more, not to fix something that was already broken before I touched it.

If you think this game is broken, you have not played very many games trust me. Try playing similar games to oblivion like gothic 3 out of the box (no patching or anything) then you will know what broken is.

Oblivion did a pretty good job with the AI when it came out (not what was promised but still AI has a pretty decent pathing system)

Gfx was good as well(for when it came out), you are right about landscape but it does add to the realism since you cant really expect much of a difference in a few miles. Also it does have snow covered mountains in the north but u just dont go there often (makes sense since people would rather not live there when there is a nice medow few miles down). If there was anything wrong with their gfx, it would be thier dungeon sicne they are similar.

Storyline = Yes it is really lacking but i dont think the game creators had planned the game to be based on the mainstory line. They based it more on side quests liek dark brother hood and thieves guild.

 

[Arkfeller]

If you think this game is broken, you have not played very many games trust me. Try playing similar games to oblivion like gothic 3 out of the box (no patching or anything) then you will know what broken is.

Oblivion did a pretty good job with the AI when it came out (not what was promised but still AI has a pretty decent pathing system)

Gfx was good as well(for when it came out), you are right about landscape but it does add to the realism since you cant really expect much of a difference in a few miles. Also it does have snow covered mountains in the north but u just dont go there often (makes sense since people would rather not live there when there is a nice medow few miles down). If there was anything wrong with their gfx, it would be thier dungeon sicne they are similar.

Storyline = Yes it is really lacking but i dont think the game creators had planned the game to be based on the mainstory line. They based it more on side quests liek dark brother hood and thieves guild.

Actually, the game was designed to be as free as possible. Yahtzee kinda touched on that, albeit negatively, but still.

The graphics were relatively almost the level of Crysis' in 2006; you couldn't find a computer for miles around that could run it at decent speeds. Oh, gawd, I hope Yahtzee had a computer that could run it at decent speeds.

But he was absolutely right about the AI. It's really annoying when you go up to a character who doesn't have any dialogue and doesn't realise he's walking into a wall or off a bridge.

 

[Nugget]

Personally, I found Oblivion too generic... and there's a point where "open-world" gets in the way of the whole thing, where the world is in danger and you can merrily waltz off to steal from people's houses, commit the odd regicide, storm a dungeon, blah-de-blah, and the world will be in the same identeical stage of killing itself it was to be begin with. At which point I questioned the point of it all, particularly when imagining my own character's motivations for going off and doing his own thing were better and more thought out than the storyline and plot that came with the game.

I agree with Yahtzee. Also, I subscribe to the school of thought which says that downloading mods to make a game good is defeating the purpose of buying it to begin with.

 

[Sennz0r]

If you think this game is broken, you have not played very many games trust me. Try playing similar games to oblivion like gothic 3 out of the box (no patching or anything) then you will know what broken is.

Oblivion did a pretty good job with the AI when it came out (not what was promised but still AI has a pretty decent pathing system)

Gfx was good as well(for when it came out), you are right about landscape but it does add to the realism since you cant really expect much of a difference in a few miles. Also it does have snow covered mountains in the north but u just dont go there often (makes sense since people would rather not live there when there is a nice medow few miles down). If there was anything wrong with their gfx, it would be thier dungeon sicne they are similar.

Storyline = Yes it is really lacking but i dont think the game creators had planned the game to be based on the mainstory line. They based it more on side quests liek dark brother hood and thieves guild.

I am not saying this game is broken in every way, I actually enjoyed it quite a bit thanks very much. But that doesn't take away the fact that a lot of it IS flawed, repetitive, annoying etc. If they weren't going to base the game around the main storyline then why would they take the old "Holy shit the world's gonna end if you don't bring this thing to that guy and find this other guy and close these gates before the whole province is run over QUICK!!!". This kind of storyline seems like it needs some attention, and it needs it fast. If some cult is preparing to bring some huge god to your doorstep unless you stop them it just doesn't seem right that you can go and pick flowers out of the woods for a guild quest. It makes saving the world look like another chore next to the hundreds you can choose to dive in through.
In this sense, it is my opinion that this game is flawed.

If you wanted realism in your environment you might have wanted realism in every other aspect of this game as well. Is it so hard to believe that there could be some huge glacier right next to a green little valley if the creatures roaming around in this world can turn invisible by sticking their hand up in the air and minotaurs can use their superman-eyes to damage your health? I thought we had given up on realism by the time there were humanoid lizards walking around in this world that can breathe underwater.

It's true, I don't see a lot of different vegetation or geographical variation in my vicinity when I take a five mile walk, but then again I don't have the ability to paralyze my girlfriend by kissing her just because I was born under a certain zodiac sign now do I? If you want realism in your landscape fine by me go out into the real fairy-less world where everything makes sense from landscape to storyline but as long as games exist I can tolerate an iceberg the size of mt Everest just a few miles from burn-my boots-off lavaland.
If one thing in a game is surreal it makes sense that others don't have to abide to the laws of logic. Seriously when would you stop stop playing a game; when you realise the environment is scientifically not possible (ashlands right next to grassy meadow) or when the environment is so samey it bores you out of your fucking mind?

Now that I have ranted on enough about the environment I will finish my rebuttal by saying I have played my fair share of games, both immersing and so distant from me that I'm surprised I could still reach my keyboard, and I found Oblivion to be somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. It's a great game at first but if you're not the average pill-popping console wanker and enjoy a deeper story than Oblivion's once in a while, you'll see through it's shiny exterior sooner or later and find a dark interior where a couple of things are broken, and even more are flawed.

 

[tooktook]

The most accurate ZP to date.

 

[Knight Templar]

While I do think Yahtzee hit the nail on the head with most of his points, I think he missed out on the game's biggest flaw; its 'leveling up' system.

The game gives absolutely no motivation to level up, as the world's NPCs infuriatingly level up with the protagonist... a serious flaw in an RPG.

In an RPG, it always feels good to go back and dominate those NPCs that had given you a tough time earlier in the game. In Oblivion, even at level 20, you will still have your ass handed to you by meager street bandits. Heck, you will have as much difficulty in killing a beggar, as you did at level 1.

In great CRPGs like Baludr's Gate II, you could often go back and kill those creatures that had been too powerful for you to handle at lower levels.

In fact, in an early chapter of BG2, you encounter two separate dragons, both of which are almost invulnerable to your attacks at that stage, and are better left ignored. However, the game returns to the same location in chapter six, allowing you another crack at them, and thus letting you enjoy character's growth.

Unfortunately, none of these experiences are possible in Oblivion, largely because of its pathetic XP mechanics.

Baldur's Gate 2, perhaps the best RPG of ALL TIME!

I like you Zallo.

 

[Lord Chaos 2]

But unlike what the developers can make, the community can choose what they want and how they want their game to be, thats vastly superior to a game "that just is what it is", because we're all different.

I for instance enjoyed just plain vanilla Oblivion (Ok, I did have an inventory mod to make the lines smaller, but thats it), but others didn't.

Customization>Static.

They really spent a lot of time making the game modable (not a small task for an RPG), so it really is an important feature for the game and it does make most "flaws" optional instead of in other games where you just have to live with them. I mean if you didn't like the leveling system in Fantasy Game X (just made that one up), then you're screwed. But if you don't like Oblivion leveling system, just get a mod.

So those glaring obvious flaws in oblivion are just so much less flaws magnitude flaws than other games.

I agree with Yahtzee. Also, I subscribe to the school of thought which says that downloading mods to make a game good is defeating the purpose of buying it to begin with.

For many the game was good enough out of the box too. Being able to mod the game to YOUR liking is definetly a plus, unlike other games where you're stuck with things how they are.

Again, like he said, its all about being in the mindset.

 

[Sennz0r]

They obviously could have spent a lot more time on the static game, I mean you get the PC version which is mod-able, and you get the excact same version for a console, but now it's not mod-able. The TES construction set which makes it mod-able was already created when Morrowind was made, there wasn't much more to it than importing the Oblivion files into this particular construction set. I bet I could make mods for Oblivion with the set on my PC right now, only difference is this set was installed from the Morrowind disc and not an Oblivion one.
If I am wrong about the whole construction set ordeal someone please tell me, in that case I am wrong and I apologise for my lack of knowledge in this field.

 

[rayman 101]

Ok, I haven't actually watched the review because the website doesn't play it and I've tried other websites which don't play it neither. Judging by all these comments, I guess he didn't like that much. But elder scrolls IV is still one of my favourite RPGs (though I haven't played morrowind yet) I never actually watch these videos for his opinion, I do it just to get a laugh. But lately he hasn't been funny and I can't watch his videos because my laptop won't play them, so I think its time for me stop watching his videos. The experience feels somehow mediocre to me now. (his reviews, not oblivion)

 

[ForkFighter]

I can't say I completely agree with Yahtzee on this little venture into Western RPG-Land, but he does bit the few points I noticed, too.

I'll grant that many of the characters are shallow and unimaginative, and the land itself lacks the detail of, say, Morrowind or WoW, but for those failings, it does have a few rather nice points too:

The combat is vastly improved (although bow combat tends to veer into unrealistic pincushion-fests), with blocking and attacking now taking on a modicom of strategy.

The quests are entertaining, at least the first few times over, and aren't always the boring old 'go there and kill stuff' variety. However, after that, they lose their appeal, and after a while, you end up scouring the UESP Wiki, desperately trying to find something new and shiny to do.

I think the main problem, however, is that on the 360, I couldn't help but feel like I was getting the shitty end of the stick. PC users can usually rely on a solid modding community to fill in the gaps by the developers, but when you're on a console, you have none of that - and as such, we can only look on and weep as the PC Master Race enjoy their various nude-mods and shiny new quests as we try and content ourselves for the eleventh goddamn time with cabbage golf.

Man, when you're right you're right. I can't imagine how it would be playing this rough diamond on a 360, as the mods sharpens it and make it shine.

 

[Sennz0r]

There isn't one, all you can do is apologise for double posting.

 

[Conqueror Kenny]

That the game DOES come with the modding ability is a big plus and should count in any review of the game.

Well the game does have a modding capability but it its only available on p.c. So if someone is reviewing the ps3/360 version then it wont get a mention.

 

[SomeBritishDude]

Yahtzee what's wrong? You seem to be reviewing a lot of crap recently.

Theres nothing coming out till october. He's just going to have to review old crap until Fable 2. Its going to be wierd watching that review, as Fable was his first, like he's an old teacher who has the children of old pupils in his class.