Is Oblivion worth getting?

[agbrianlee]

Hi guyz,

Right now im contemplating whether or not to buy TES: Oblivion.
I've been around an handful of review sites (gamespot, metacritic etc) and was left dazed becoz of all those mixed reviews. According to metacritic.com, basically ALL the official gaming sites give it an excellent score. However, most player reviews portray this game as dumb, repetitive, uninspired etc.....

Yes, I have played Morrowind for quite a long time but eventually got tired and disappointed becoz of crap AI, a combat system which fails to satisfy and the absence of realism (eg. physics system, ability to block manually).

If ANYONE here has played Oblivion and understand the game, i would really appreciate it if you could enlighten me with details of the game, especially these points:

1.Combat System - Is it like MSC where even though you directly hit the enemy, there is a chance it misses? Is the combat intense? Is it an improvement over Morrowind, in your opinion?

2.AI - Are they smart? Do they use tactics? Do they retreat when injured, taunt when winning, etc?

3.Realism - Are physics as good as Half-Life 2's? Does it have ragdoll physics? Do you grow hungry over a period of time? Can you mine/cook/smith etc? Are there headshots? Do enemies limp when you strike their legs? Do they drop their weapons when you strike their arms?

Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

I bought The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion almost immediately when it got released, and I must say I don't regret it.

I also played The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind for a while but I never really got into it. Oblivion doesn't throw too many things at you at the same time, unlike Morrowind, where I was often confused and didn't know what to do or where to go.

As for your questions:
The combat system got revamped; if you hit something, you actually hit. There isn't a hit roll, but of course enemies can try to block your attacks, which they'll usually do.
The combat can get pretty intense if you're fighting multiple monsters, but also pretty annoying if somebody breaks through your block or if somebody knocks you on the ground. Fortunately, that doesn't happen alot.
I think the combat is a serious improvement over Morrowind, because I've never been a fan of the retarded hit roll thing.

I'm not quite sure about the AI tactics, but I think that when you're fighting multiple enemies, they'll try to surround you. Enemies that can heal usually step back a bit, but mostly they're too late or too slow to save themselves. Enemies will also taunt you alot.
Enemies that have ranged attacks will constantly try to get away from you so you can't hit them, and if you get close enough to attack them, they'll usually grab a dagger or something and engage in melee combat.
They're somewhat smart, but not smart enough to be exceptionally challenging or dangerous, if you ask me.

The physics are far from being as good as those in Half-Life 2. Paint brushes float (odd bug) and metal chains might just spazz out completely. Also, cone-shaped objects can roll infinitely. Apparently, friction does not involve them. Bodies also fall just a little bit too slow if you ask me... as if the gravitational force is weaker than it should be.
You don't get hungry, ever. I'm quite sure there is no such thing as mining, and no such thing as cooking. Unless you mean potion creation (which trains your alchemy skill). As for smithing... you can create enchanted weapons if you have a soul captured in a soul gem, quite some gold and a 'clean' (non-magical) weapon and next to that you can repair your weapons by clicking a button, but you can't create your own weapons.
I'm quite sure there's also no such thing as headshots, but if I'm not mistaken, blows to the head/torso do more damage than hits to the limbs. But I'm not sure on this one.
Enemies don't limp, nor do they drop their weapons when you strike their arms.

However, I can recommend you the game based on these points, which are, in my eyes, very important:
- Excellent story. The story keeps you wondering what will happen next.
- Wide variety of quests. Time after time, quests would continue to amaze me by their awesomeness/cleverness. This one quest puts you in a house with five other people who assume that you, just like them, are invited to a party. You must assassinate all the other people without having them notice you're the assassin. Depending on who you kill first, and who you kill after that, and so on, the quest constantly plays out differently. I killed some old woman first, then a man, and then one of the other guests FREAKED OUT and killed yet another guest, thinking he was the murderer. The last remaining guest killed the assailant, leaving only him left for me to kill.
Repeat: Oblivion has some ****ing fascinating quests. Seriously.
- Good voice acting. I like the voice acting
- Wide variety of dialogue. This one time, one of the lizard-men types (forgot the name of the race) was talking to me about a recipe that included powdered deer penis. Yes, really. I might still have a screenshot of that.
- Some unique weapons and items. If you can find them, be sure to get the skeleton key which can open any lock, this odd weapon (forgot the name) that can create an evil twin of your target, this other odd weapon (also forgot the name) that can turn weak enemies into random animals (be warned: even though this weapon could turn a troll into a deer, it could also turn the same troll into an ogre) and Azura's star, a re-usable grand soul gem.
- Leveling up in the various guilds in the game (especially the famous Dark Brotherhoods, assassin's guild) is really fun and rewarding. The fun part comes in the quests (aforementioned five-people-in-house-quest is a Dark Brotherhood quest) and the rewards come in the items/weapons you receive upon quest completion.
- The game looks fascinating, assuming your PC is good enough to crank up some of the more important settings (such as view and item distance).

Also, if you can, buy the Game Of The Year edition. This should include the eighth (out of nine) official plugin ("The Knights of the Nine") and the "Shivering Isles" expansion.

I have all nine official plugins (illegally, though) and they're pretty good. Especially "The Knights of the Nine". I don't have the expansion yet, but I know I should get it sometime in the future.

Final note: I played this game for over 100 hours and I beat the main quest, the Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, the Imperial Arena, all the Daedric quests, and much, much more stuff. Games of exceptional quality manage to keep me playing this long (Unreal Tournament, Half-Life, Freelancer, Star Wars: KotOR, some others I probably forgot) and I must say that Oblivion is, in my eyes, a game of exceptional quality.

 

[WeissberV]

I only read like 3 or 4 lines of all this thread so far, but i'd prefer u getting dark messiah more, the fighting style is better so many secrets and the weapons are so good <3. oblivion is weird though u could hit someone in the foot with a bow and that would do the same amount of damege if u hit anywhere else in the body, as far as i'm aware there is no special kills in oblivion, like neckstabbing, impaling or throwing knives at people or even cutting people in half >.>

edit: i just read half of JM's post and i saw that he said u cannot disarm enemies, with enough sword skill you can doo a move that has a chance to disarm the enemy, with the 75+ sword skill i think u can make enemies fall over.

 

[HomestarR]

Dark Messiah is incredibly linear though, whereas oblivion is, well, not. There is no side quests or anything of the sort in Dark Messiah.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

I knew about the knockback thing but I never knew you could disarm enemies
Proves that there's still new stuff to find out, even after 100 hours of gameplay

Dark Messiah is awesome too, though. I beat that game on all four endings and it kept amazing me. Especially the level design.

 

[Dridmar]

Dark Messiah is awesome too, though. I beat that game on all four endings and it kept amazing me. Especially the level design.

There are four endings? What do you have to do to get each ending?

 

[Blasto121]

the 4 endings are a joke, they are just rehashes of the same thing depending on who lives...

As for oblivion I personally love it, I have a level 45 orc who likes to punch things.

The combat system like JM said is no longer a roll to hit, which I very much enjoy. The game world in general is very well built, the forests feel like forests and open plains feel like well open plains.

I would have to say though picking on the games physics isn't nice, its very hard to develop a game with proper physics while HL2 is good its still not perfect same goes for the oblivion on. While you will find things at times to be bothersome, (bump a table everything goes flying), other things can be very fun.

Considering your coming from morrowind you may find that oblivion is much more restrictive, the game world while vast has a feeling of being small. Your also limited on what you can do with your stats they max out regardless of potions now. This made me sad no longer could one read a scroll and gain the ability to jump across the world. There are also limits set on enchantments, you can't just make a super ring of anything. The biggest one I have been able to make is by only 10 points.

All in all the game is great, I still play it when I feel like some dungeon crawling.

 

[agbrianlee]

thanks for your fast and detailed responses JM and Blasto, maybe i will try buying it from my local store now

will MS:C Source continue the "hit roll" combat system or change to the wayyyyy more convenient "Oblivion-style" hit system? honestly some of these monsters in MS:C could win the lottery with the amount of luck they have!!

my most annoying moment and worst luck EVER in MSC was when i only had a 26% chance of missing my target (giant rat), thats 74% chance of a hit for those who prefer the 'glass is half-full, NOT half-empty' way , and i missed, hmmmmmmm lets see, NINE TIMES in a ROW!! :?
oh noes!!!

 

[villager]

I tried to read you guys (Mostly JMs.) unhumanily long discriptions of Oblivion, but seriously, once you hit level 30 there really is no point in playing it anymore (Unless you go all out and modify it). Level 30+ is like playing with godmode. I could literally stand in lava for 30 seconds without dying and one-hit-kill everything. I explored one too many Oblivions, dungeons and caves, and they got extremely repetitive. I really didn't like the magic in Oblivion either, they really could of just named fire, ice and lightning to "Magic missiles" and I wouldn't even notice the difference.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the game for the first 20 hours, I just leveled to fast. I probably even ruined the game for myself, I really did do every single quest (Including every quest involving you helping a god) and got into every guild in that game before beating the "main" quest, leaving nothing to do after.

Dark Messiah's spiders are scary realistic IMO.

 

[agbrianlee]

there seems to be quite a lot of discussion about "Dark Messiah".
is it really that gud a game? does anyone recommended it over oblivion?
plz help me once more! thanks

 

[villager]

Oblivion is great fun for exploring and expanding your character. Oblivion not only looks good, but is huge. And if you ever do get bored with it, there's a lot of mods out there to play with (I seriously love the one where it makes traps (like swinging logs) kill in one hit)

Dark Messiah is very linear, but you do get to play around with your characters stats (Just like Oblivion, but not as much). I loved Dark Messiah for it's graphics, but, IMO, very poor voice acting. :\ You also got a lot of "environment" to kill your enemies with.

 

[Jeremiah]

if you won't neverending freedom, good graphics and a not yet by any other game reached customizeability get oblivion.

it's so much fun to just go out and explore the hundreds of dungeons, fortresses, ruins and everything else there is. the AI does the things you asked - tho sometimes in good and sometimes in a not the good way.

but it's really worth getting. but the biggest feature not printed on the diskcase is the thousands if not hundredthousands of community made mods/plugins wich are so incredibly easy to inmplement into the game.

an there's a good number of mods wich are better then parts of the game itself. for example: you can push the graphics even further wich new high-res textures, high poly models, better rffects or you can implement new quest guilds, totaly new landsmasses, weapons and armor......

there's basicly nothing you can do not in oblivion.

dark messiah for it's part was fun for the time playing but it's like oneway road of doom, played it once and you'll never need to again since you know every step you have to take. plus the online mode of dark messiah is just plain crap.

it's not developed by the singelplayer team the hired the guys wich made the alien vs. predator 2 addon (wich sucked) and kiss psycho circus wich sucked. imo oblivion is the better choice.

 

[agbrianlee]

thanks jeremiah
it seems oblivion isnt as bad as the majority of those folk at metacritic.com say...

just wondering, have you guyz heard of the game, "Savage - Battle for Newerth"? if anyone has played it i would love to hear their professional opinion on it, and whether or not its a fun game, cause apparently, its FREE

 

[WeissberV]

dark messiah for it's part was fun for the time playing but it's like oneway road of doom, played it once and you'll never need to again since you know every step you have to take. plus the online mode of dark messiah is just plain crap.

it's not developed by the singelplayer team the hired the guys wich made the alien vs. predator 2 addon (wich sucked) and kiss psycho circus wich sucked. imo oblivion is the better choice.

"The one way of doom" is a very good road actually, i've completed dark messiah about 8 times now and i still love it. Each time i find new secrets and yesterday when i finished it again that was the first time using daggers and wow, daggers are so much better than i thought. The Multiplayer mode is good i don't see y u don't like it :/

 

[ceriux]

i bought it when it came out, and it was worth it. i still play it today or well i would be if my pc was here. lets put it this way once my pc is mailed to me "hopefully this week" ill still be playing it to this day. the mods for it are numerous!

 

[HomestarR]

I got savage when it came out, played it for about a month. It is alot like natural selection, except it uses swords and magic rather than bullets and grenades. It is pretty fun. Not sure how many people play it now though, it has been a couple years since I last played

 

[CrazyMonkeyDude]

You know, that comparison with Natural Selection makes me think... What kind of plugin would it take to keep you level 0, and give you bonuses to speed, damage, armor, etc. by shooting, taking hits, jumping and running, and so on and so forth? That'd be neat. You'd have levels in skills, and after so many, you can upgrade to the next weapon of choice or lifeform of choice.

Meh, rambling, just an interesting thought.

 

[Shadeska]

I enjoy the luxury of having both Oblivion and Dark Messiah and I will tell you that both are amazing.

Oblivion has a huge world that will interest you for over 200 hours with it's deeply involved storyline and about 50 sidequests. After that you'll have fun just messing around with the world's citizens using the cool weapons and spells you collected over the (in-game) years.

Dark Messiah is simply an exciting sword game. It has the most depth of any first-person combat system I've ever played with. The sheer number of ways you can interact with your environment more than make up for the lack of game area.

Oh yeah, the graphics are insanely sexy in both games

 

[CrazyMonkeyDude]

*sniff* NVidea GeForce 5500 FX

 

[agbrianlee]

what ways can u interact with the environment in Dark Messiah?

can u set up traps or make obstacles using crates? (HL2 style)

 

[Shadeska]

* A Blackguard appears.
*You kick the Blackguard.
*Blackguard is impaled on conveniently located spikes.
*Blackguard dies.

You'd be surprised how much a simple "kick" button adds to the gameplay.

But Jeremiah is right, the online mode ain't all that great. :? It's fun for about the first ten minutes, then you realize the classes are hopelessly unbalanced.

 

[agbrianlee]

wow that sounds awesome!!
now im wondering whether to get dark messiah OR oblivion
they both sound really great..

just wondering -
1. Can you block enemies attacks manually in Dark M.?
2. Is the stealth system implemented well? (better than say, thief: deadly shadows?)

3.If you had to choose one, which would you prefer to have - Oblivion, or Dark Messiah?

sorri about all these random questions but i just to know which one suits my gamestyle

 

[CrazyMonkeyDude]

I've never played Dark Messiah, though if you like stealthy, Oblivion is great. The more you sneak, the better you get (obviously) and as you advance in the sneak catagory, you get detected less, can wear any weight boots and still sneak quietly, and get bonuses to your attacks such as multipliers or ignoring an enemy's armor completely on an undetected strike.

 

[ceriux]

id get oblivion just because there's more to do in the single player than DM and the multiplayer on DM kinda does suck.

oh and u just get damage multipliers on un detected strike... atleast as far as i got in lvling it.

 

[CrazyMonkeyDude]

When you master it, you bypass armor.