So, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Is Coming Very Soon

Other Games
21

How about 19 hours? I haven’t put this game down since I picked it up on Tuesday. Luckily i’m on spring break right now, and can afford to spend the entire time playing the game.

I have the 360 version and it is indeed very impressive. When you are outdoors like Solo said, the game tends to load very often, but I found that you won’t be running across vast stretches of land very often unless you are searching for something. Other loading screens, inbetween houses and stores, and in dungeons, are very quick.

I myself haven’t noticed any glitches so far, as far as the cache problem goes, I have been starting the 360 up holding A since I have read of that and the load times have stayed consistently quick.

I started the main storyline but didn’t get very far. I was in the middle of a collectors quest when I was bitten by a vampire. This resulted in me having to spend another couple hours solving the “Cure for Vamperism” quest. Afterwards I went into the Arena and have ascended to Grand Champion.

I have been approached by the Dark Brotherhood, but I think i’ll wait a little bit before I begin any of their missions. Also I joined the Blades, which isn’t really a faction since you don’t get seperate missions, but they do give you some nice equipment early on that can make your travels easier.

Overall, I have stayed in the middle to northern part of the land, only rarely traveling south unless I needed to see someone in particular. Fast traveling helps a lot, since you don’t have to wade through miles of forrests. The couple time I did go exploring though, I found many interesting areas and more than a couple unmarked Oblivion Gates.

I really like the combat, and the ability to switch from ranged to melee weapons via hotkeys is very fluid. There is a tiny pause when you switch weapons though, this can sometimes get annoying if your are in the middle of a big battle. The spells work the same way. Horseriding is horendous in my opinion, I know horses aren’t supposed to turn on a dime, but seriously, these seem as if they are glued to a path. I have ridden only one so far so it could be my minimal experience.

I am very impessed by this game, I don’t think a game has really held me this captivated and intrigued for such a consistently long time. What amazes me even more, is that there is still so much I have yet to see and do. On top of that, I am playing as an Imperial, and wouldn’t mind starting over later as an Argonian or some other race.

22

Yes, so, I’ve been playing this for a couple of days.

It’s awesome. :anjou_happy:

23

I really wish I had money. :anjou_sad:

24

I don’t have much money either, so instead I’ve gone on a Morrowind spree. XD Thank goodness I never got far in that game. Muuuch left for me to discover.

25

I don’t really have the money to spare for Oblivion… but more importantly, my graphics card isn’t quite up to par… If I was gonna play it, it’d be damned slow. Its not worth it. I need to soup up my comp’s graphical capabilities before I can so much as touch Oblivion… ;_;

26

I don’t have a 360 and theres no way my computer will handle this game
I guess I’ll have to settle with morrowind…

27

It’s what I’m doing at the moment. ^^ Still a very fine game.

28

Really disapointed in Oblivion in the end. The main story is very basic and not that fun. It’s rather short and a certain part of it is just designed to help make it seem longer by being extremely repetitive. You’ll know it when you get there.

Once you do something once (explore a dungeon, close a gate, etc) the game seems to simply repeat to infinity afterwards.

The enemy selection is very small and you get even less variety depending on your level as the game only spawns enemies that more or less match you in strength. When you are weak you don’t meet the bigger baddies and when you are strong the weaker ones are extinct.

The above system is incorporated in the looting system which ends up making it so you simply get generic crap instead of great rewards. Only a handful of quests have fixed rewards that are decent. That goes for the loot ANYWHERE in the game including things you steal from houses and treasures you find in dungeons.

There are many technical difficulties. The AI is not that smart and they have tried to make it do impossible things like big battles between NPCs and enemies. Messy to say the least. The random lines are limited so you often have an NPC say things in different voices. One moment he speaks like that, the next he speaks like this. often you’ll hear two pairs of NPCs having the exact same conversion with a difference of seconds. In a completely stupid manner.

-“I hear xxx is a master unlocker”
-“I hear xxx is good with locks”
-“bye”
-“bye”

The voiced dialogue instead of making the game better made it way more limited as most usually the only choice you have is to just click and continue listening without any control over it whatsoever. Why let me click at all? What really hurts the ears is when they attempt to have a “crowd” sound. Amateur stuff. Other than that the actors did decently in general.

I don’t know how many times I heard ppl expressing their feelings about mudcrabs and goblins in this game. They would have been so much better off with just text.

The game world overall, despite being much bigger than morrowind, feels much smaller because there’s just nothing much to see. A few cities, and an endless outdoor area where you meet dungeons that are identical to each other every 2 minutes while travelling.

The classes are, in my opinion, crap. Gone are the detailed skills in the use of daggers, short swords, etc. Instead, now you simply have very broad skills like “Blade” and “Blunt”. So if you are making a thief, and you want to use daggers you can do so but you will most definitely come accross swords that allow you to do a LOT more damage and you will be just as skilled in using them as you are with your dagger since they use the same skill set. You’ll have to do some hardcore roleplaying to remain with a lowly dagger that has no advantage whatsoever compared to the damage you could be dishing out if you used all the things your character can use efficiently.

Really really disapointed in this, I hope the modders come up with some good things that will hold my interest longer. One bright part is the painting related quest. The best part of the game for sure. Savour the moments while you go through it because you won’t have this much fun again in Cyrodiil.

Not fond of the milking bethesda is doing with crappy little mods. Horse armor for 2 bucks? No thanks. A cheat-house for wizards with many useful items and such included? Christ, this isn’t a MMORPG…

I hope Bethesda doesn’t ruin Fallout 3.

29

I have to agree, I’m quite disappointed.

  • Getting from one place to another is annoying. There are only nine major cities and the only ways to travel between them are by fast travel (crap, cheap, and just not fun), walking (too slow) and horse riding. Horse riding is by far the funnest way to travel (imo), but the problem is that…

  • The landscape is so dull and repetitive. Like Al3x said, the game world is larger than in Morrowind, but it feels a lot smaller. In Morrowind there were many different regions with different types of landscape (Sheogorad was a rocky cluster of lots of islands, the Grazelands were open fields with a few scattered trees and hills, the Ashlands were rocky badlands, the Bitter Coast was swampy jungle, etc), but in Oblivion there are just trees. And lakes. And, er, well that’s it.

  • Dungeons are repetitive. And boring. And nowhere near as large and intricate as in Morrowind. You could spend days (in-game time) down in dungeons and caves on quests and now it’s just a few hours.

  • The little objective indicator arrow, and the effect it has on the game is annoying. For example, in Morrowind if you were told to go and find someone you were told exactly where they would be. In Oblivion you get a vague description and the developers obviously expected you to follow the quest arrow. This goes even moreso for locations though. Gah.

  • And finally, the voices are so very pish. Well acted, but well acted by about 10 people. This game must have at least a thousand NPCs, so it all gets repetitive. Having all the dialogue in text would’ve been a lot better. Or maybe a mix between the two or something.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a very good game. It just doesn’t have any minor flaws, they’re all major. It was the opposite in Morrowind, which as you’ve probably figured, is the better of the two in my opinion.