Second Thoughts on Oblivion

[PherdnutChiken]

Man, I really loved the first couple hundred hours of this game or so, but it's pretty severely flawed. I can see why all the reviews were way high on it, but I'll bet most of those reviewers feel the same way that I do after a month or two of play. I don't feel like I got ripped off, but it could have been so much better than it is.

The majority of the races are just pointless. Since all stats are capped at 100 their attribute differences make very little difference beyond the early game and most of their special abilities are easily emulated by early to mid-level spells. +10 skill bonuses are a joke in the early game as it only takes a few minutes to train up beyond that.

Furthermore the game scales just about everything according to your level so once you hit that magic number suddenly, *splong* every two-bit highwayman that's trying to shake you down for a measly 100 gold is wearing armor that costs 50-100 times that. There's still a sense of power progression because once you've mastered your magic you can do some truly nasty things that I'm not sure even the devs thought of, but beyond that, I'm not feeling the need to start a dozen new characters to see how the experience is different because it just isn't.

B+ It's pretty and big but it's no Fallout.

The mods on PC sound pretty sweet though.

Man... I need to find my old copies of Fallout.

[GunslingerChiken]

Pherd, I've got Fallout 1,2 and Tactics ... let me know if you need ;)

[BasT]

ahh i got 2 copys of fallout and fallout 2 and 1 copy of tactics i win!

[PherdnutChiken]

The gun... oh, the guns. I still remember exactly where to go to pickpocket that first Bozar in fallout 2. That thing was freaking' ridiculous until you got your sniper skills up.

[GunslingerChiken]

LOL yeah... in case you haven't heard http://www.gamebanshee.com/fallout3/ It's nothing concrete, but who knows.

[PherdnutChiken]

It's concrete. I think they put an official press release out a year ago. Fallout 3 is what they're working on right now.

[GunslingerChiken]

Well ok then ;)

[PherdnutChiken]

Yeah, I just hope it isn't Oblivion with a Fallout facelift. I really prefer an XP based system and the guns just wouldn't be right if they weren't strictly about accuracy, ROF, and critical hit chances. That and Bethesda kind of screwed the pooch on NPC interaction for Oblivion and there's never more than one way to get through a quest. And of course, it's almost always killing something or simply moving something from one place to another. They also screwed up pickpocketing. It's impossible at higher levels since enemies seem to scale whatever they have that counters it as you level and the caps make it impossible to level pickpocketing further.

[GunslingerChiken]

Yeah, I've heard more bad about Oblivion than good; so I also hope it's not Oblivion with a diff name.

[PherdnutChiken]

http://www.duckandcover.cx/content.php?id=66

Well this interview is encouraging. Sounds like Todd's got the gist of what made Fallout cool. Clearly, it's not going to be turn-based, which is understandable... I guess.

I don't understand the obsession with isometric from a lot of the fans though. The purpose of isometric was to imitate 3D back when it wasn't really that feasible or pretty.

But seriously, don't get my second thoughts on Oblivion wrong. It's still a good game, just not as good as a lot of the reviews have been saying. Back when I wrote for Game Informer I would have made the exact same mistake. It seriously takes you a lot of play to be disappointed by some of the game's flaws and I'm still playing in spite of them. Item and spell creation are very cool and I'm having a blast with a new character where I'm only killing things with summons. The mods are supposed to be fantastic.

[GunslingerChiken]

I might pick it up in a few months, but atm I only want NWN2 lol.