The Gamer's Quarter

Mr. Apol · Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 10:41 am Post subject: oblivion sucks

look, my brother got an xbox 360 the other day, and bought oblivion. i've been playing it for a while. i've closed several oblivion gates, and i'm good ways into the main quest. i've been doing some guild stuff, and i'm in the dark brotherhood.

i'm playing a black skinned orc who SMASHES things with a HAMMER. he also likes to use major wounding spell because i like it.

BUT. the more and more i play this game, the more i realize how BORING it is, at least compared to morrowind. it's taken a week, but the charm has completely worn off.

1. the setting is lame. LAME. sure, it's pretty. i mean, it looks really nice (if shiny as all fuck). but! the geography in my home state is more varied than this! let's see. there's mountains... and forests... and there's this one place where the grass is more yellow. i could go hiking and get the same effect, and not be attacked by wolves every mile or so. morrowind at least had some really interesting set pieces: volcanoes, giant bugs, cities made out of bone, swamps, deserts, etc etc.

2. you can't kill characters important to the story. i nearly screamed last night when i realized this. i understand that oblivion was made to appeal to a wider range of people, but there's a point where sacrificing freedom to babysit the player is ridiculous. sometimes i desire the ability to just run into a town and start wiping out the inhabitants with my staff of "fuck shit up". matter of fact, I did so last night in chorrol. actually the staff is called Apothesis or something goth like that. quickly though, i found out NO, i couldn't kill these people, i could only "knock them the hell out". lame. LAME. half the fun of morrowind was pumping yourself up, flying to vivec, and killing GOD with one punch.

3. you can't fly.
...
GHHASH.
...
this game is too pretty not to be able to fly.

alright there's more stuff that i can't stand about this game but i'm way too DISTRAUGHT to talk about.

i need dead rising like NOW
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dhex · Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 11:32 am Post subject:

xboxification works in mysterious ways.
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Wilkes · milky wilkie Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 256

recounting all the ways morrowind is better than oblivion is a tiring thing.
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Mister Toups · Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 3:37 pm Post subject:

Everything you say is true.

But it doesn't change the fact that Morrowind is an unplayable joke.

Don't get me wrong, I love Morrowind, it's just... come on, man. Oblivion is so much more of a joy to play that it makes all the other small things it does wrong just sort of go away.

At least for me, anyway!
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OtakupunkX · . Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 730

J.Goodwin · . Joined: 31 Jul 2006 Posts: 297 Location: North Shore, MA

I didn't play Morrowind, but every Elder Scrolls game so far has taken place in a different environment (province). I think they've been putting off making one that occurs in a comparatively normal place because they couldn't technically pull it off until now.

I'm rather certain that another Elder Scrolls game will make it out the door in the next couple of years, and will potentially be more to your liking.

Also, there are swamps, you just haven't found them yet.
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Gamertag - FalcomAdol -- Don't Click Here 触手
Playing - Ninety-Nine Nights - Xbox 360

squidlarkin · . Joined: 10 Dec 2005 Posts: 100

This has nothing to do with anything, but it's been bugging me since before the game launched and I've been waiting for someone else to mention it. No one ever did.

That thing where it's the fourth game, so they called it OblIVion? Totally stolen from Phantasm.

J.Goodwin · . Joined: 31 Jul 2006 Posts: 297 Location: North Shore, MA

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Wow, Morrowind looks so much cooler than Oblivion it's untrue.

I made a character in Oblivion who looks exactly like the Asian guy in my corner shop. I make him dress mainly in shirt and slacks.

The first thing I did in Oblvion was to steal a horse and tried to ride out to the biggest mountain I could see. Before I could reach it, I bumped into the edge of the game in the middle of some forest somewhere. Lame. These games never let me do the things I want to do.

Since the style, setting, presentation, look and in-game combat don't appeal to me at all, there wasn't much to keep me playing after that.

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

J.Goodwin · . Joined: 31 Jul 2006 Posts: 297 Location: North Shore, MA

The level scaling is rather agressive. It really pushes you into a situation where you basically have to power level at some points (by power level, I mean plan your skills so that you get 5 point upgrades in three skills). This is particularly true of your battle related skills or your magic related skills. If you're well focused, and don't attempt to just gain as many levels as possible very fast (which you can do, if you're not careful), then it shouldn't be a problem.

My biggest problem with the game is that the fun factor goes down a lot after you've closed the oblivion gates, because all of the most difficult enemies disappear (the most powerful enemies are all natives of the plane of oblivion). After that, without rolling a new character, there's not much point.
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Gamertag - FalcomAdol -- Don't Click Here 触手
Playing - Ninety-Nine Nights - Xbox 360

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Ok, you know what sucks about Oblivion?

It overheats my 360 causing the dirty disc error. This just became much more aparent after getting VGA cables and having it displayed in 1280X1024. I just had to pull out my intercooler again to cool it down. I think I can play again.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

I'd rather wait for The Outsider.
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squidlarkin · . Joined: 10 Dec 2005 Posts: 100

dhex · Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 10:58 pm Post subject:

such is the nature of the elders scrolls.
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J.Goodwin · . Joined: 31 Jul 2006 Posts: 297 Location: North Shore, MA

helicopterp · . Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 1435 Location: Philadelphia

Is this starting to remind anyone else of the Starcraft article from TGQ?
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dhex · Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2006 8:34 am Post subject:

Legal Step · . Joined: 15 Feb 2005 Posts: 81 Location: Los Angeles

This discussion has me rethinking my purchase. Though I hated the Xbox game. Still I need something to play on my 360 maybe this is it.

Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

DaleNixon · . Joined: 08 Jul 2005 Posts: 179

SuperWes · Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2006 3:02 pm Post subject:

J.Goodwin · . Joined: 31 Jul 2006 Posts: 297 Location: North Shore, MA

ebyss · . Joined: 04 Oct 2006 Posts: 2 Location: London, England

I had high hopes for Oblivion on the 360, haivng previously been immersed in Morrowind. Its freedom to roam, get into to trouble, uncover (well, find using an FAQ) excellent magical weapons and, yes, the ability to fly: all this and more added up to a great game.

Oblivion starts promisingly enough: the lush visuals made me think "oooo, next-gen Morrowind is here!".

It didn't take too long before it started to grate on me.

The quests are far too generic: speak to person A. Go to location B to retrieve object or kill person C. Return to person A. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I only came across a couple of notable exceptions, the likes of "A Brush with Death" and the quest where y'all get naked as the result of a bacchanalian god's cheeky spell (can't remember the quest name). The vast majority is stick to the formula/repeat. Ad nauseum.

The lush environment? Soon marred by the majority of quest action taking place in indeti-kit caves/ruins/dungeons. Graphical lovely, variety horribly.

And where were the excellent magical weapons to rival the likes of Skull Crusher in the previous outing?

Perhaps the most chilling indictment for the future of current and next-gen games comes in answer to the last point: I understand that you can get a one-kill magical weapon, the Mehrunes Dagger (sp?). But here's the kicker: it's not in-game. You can only get this by paying for and downloading additional content via Live.

The grooviest elements of Morrowind, for me, came as standard. Not so with Oblivion.

I hope that this is not the way of things to come. Average games released, with the content to make it a good or great game drip-fed to gamers through additional downloads, a compulsory subscription to Live and considerable extra expense. In the UK we're already paying c£50 per disc, so shouldn't we expect more as standard?

I know that for a long time, PC gamers have been benefitting from downloadable patches, expansions, etc, but I have always been more a consoler and I find the Oblivion effect rather disconcerting...
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Yeah, after I hit the 35 hour point in the game it became much more aparent that a lot of the things that I enjoyed greatly about Morrowind were missing in Oblivion. I am having a hard time getting back into it after taking a break a month ago. It feels like a more limited and watered down (yet prettier) Morrowind.

The "story" (main plot) is far more compelling than Morrowind's was though.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

ebyss · . Joined: 04 Oct 2006 Posts: 2 Location: London, England

I stumbled across your Morrowind poem on your blog: moving stuff!

I had the exact same experience with the GotY edition... Damn those clever marketing people, dangling their shiny, extra-content baubles before us!

On a separate matter (and at the risk of starting a new post), I wanted to order some back issues of the print version of Gamer's Quarter.

I'm about to order 5, 6 and 7, but is there any chance of any of the earlier copies knocking about..?

It's a great publication, by the way. I'm most chuffed that I stumbled across it. I'm spreading the word.

If you need any proofing support, let me know. I'd gladly help out if you need a hand.
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"It's all one, big, plastic hassle"