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Moosferatu

Oblivion

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Well, exams ended this morning and today is payday, so it's decision time. I believe thanks to the advice here I'm going to get Dreamfall and Jade Empire. A large factor of this is that Jade Empire + Dreamfall = $60 whereas Oblivion = $60 all by itself. I'm still interested in Oblivion, but I don't know if I'm $60 interested. I'll probably grab it once the price drops/I can find a reasonably priced used copy. Thanks for the tips.

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Well, exams ended this morning and today is payday, so it's decision time. I believe thanks to the advice here I'm going to get Dreamfall and Jade Empire. A large factor of this is that Jade Empire + Dreamfall = $60 whereas Oblivion = $60 all by itself. I'm still interested in Oblivion, but I don't know if I'm $60 interested. I'll probably grab it once the price drops/I can find a reasonably priced used copy. Thanks for the tips.

You made the right choice.

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Granted, Oblivion's visual style isn't unique, but as far as traditional medieval style's go I think it's one of the better looking games. I'm interested in what other games using the same traditional style (ie not WoW) look better than Oblivion. There's nothing wrong with the tried and true as long as it's done well.

Thing is, I don't think it's done all that well. Good technology, bad design.

Neverwinter Nights 2 is looking a lot nicer. So is the Witcher (although that might not count as it's on a modified NWN engine).

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Thing is, I don't think it's done all that well. Good technology, bad design.

Neverwinter Nights 2 is looking a lot nicer. So is the Witcher (although that might not count as it's on a modified NWN engine).

Yeah, The Witcher looks really good. I don't know how they do it, since it's pretty basic fantasy stuff and they certainly don't try to break much new ground with their visual style. Maybe it's just that it's good classic fantasy? I'm looking forward to it anyhow.

Oblivion is pretty so-so overall, since they dumped the fantastic style they had going in Morrowind. Yeah, ok, not too many Dark Elves live in Cyrodiil, but damn if they don't have the best architecture. Instead of mushroom-houses and giant husk's we got a few stone towers and some cottages. Great.

It all just feels very pulled back, like they didn't want to offend anyone, but now they've actually done that anyway, since it's all bland to and beyond the point of offense.

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Yeah, The Witcher looks really good. I don't know how they do it, since it's pretty basic fantasy stuff and they certainly don't try to break much new ground with their visual style. Maybe it's just that it's good classic fantasy? I'm looking forward to it anyhow.

Oblivion is pretty so-so overall, since they dumped the fantastic style they had going in Morrowind. Yeah, ok, not too many Dark Elves live in Cyrodiil, but damn if they don't have the best architecture. Instead of mushroom-houses and giant husk's we got a few stone towers and some cottages. Great.

It all just feels very pulled back, like they didn't want to offend anyone, but now they've actually done that anyway, since it's all bland to and beyond the point of offense.

If you ever needed to sum up fantasy in a game that game would be Oblivion. Its not revolutionary, it just sets the bar for future fantasy games. Its not a fun game but its a game that says "Ok, this is what a fantasy world should be like, now make a better one and add a story"

The story is pretty much "Hey there are gates to Oblivion opening up. Someone should do something." The fighter's guild doesn't do anything and you don't really see anyone fighting there in Oblivion. So much for realism. They should have made the fighter's guild give bonuses for closing the gates or at least make it seem like they cared.

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If you ever needed to sum up fantasy in a game that game would be Oblivion. Its not revolutionary, it just sets the bar for future fantasy games. Its not a fun game but its a game that says "Ok, this is what a fantasy world should be like, now make a better one and add a story"

The story is pretty much "Hey there are gates to Oblivion opening up. Someone should do something." The fighter's guild doesn't do anything and you don't really see anyone fighting there in Oblivion. So much for realism. They should have made the fighter's guild give bonuses for closing the gates or at least make it seem like they cared.

I don't think we're playing the same game here.

Either I'm so biased that it's completely clouded my judgement, or I'm too much of a fan to see what's right in front of me (I was a fan of TES long before 2K picked up oblivion...when I was in a meeting and was told this fact, I giggled like a schoolgirl for about twenty minutes) or you're missing something in this game.

I'm surprised at the complaints about the architecture...what more do you people want? Cheydinhal looks different from Chorral which looks different from Leyawin which looks different from Bruma which looks different from Anvil and so on. These look like real, actual buildings, and you can go inside of them. I challenge you to name a game with better designed buildings, either in real-time or pre-rendered. I can't think of anything.

The only legitimate complaint against the architecture I can think of is that all the chapels look the same, but since they're all to the same gods, that doesn't seem terribly outlandish. And they look really, really, really good (easily the best i've ever seen in a game), so who cares.

Yes, some of the voice acting isn't spectacular, but it's perfectly acceptable. Much of the voice acting in Jade Empire sucked too, but I read most of the text rather than wait for people to speak it anyway. Outside of Legacy of Kain, I can't think of any game that has had perfect dialogue reading from start to finish. You get used to it.

The main quest isn't spectacular, but it's decent enough. When combined with full quest lines for the Fighters, Mages and Thieves guilds, plus the Dark Brotherhood (any one of those is the size of most other games), not to mention the hundreds of other things to do, complaints about the story fall flat. If you haven't done those quest lines, I highly recommend them. Especially the Thieves guild, which has one of the best quests I've ever done in an RPG.

miffy, it's too bad you opted to get Dreamfall and JE instead of Oblivion. Dreamfall has been largely a disappointment from what i've heard (although as a fan of TLJ, I fully intend to play it at some point), and JE was a solid, but uninspired game IMO. Both are games you'll play once and then put away, never to touch again. Oblivion is a game (especially on PC) that you can play many, many, many different times. Hopefully when you've done your solitary playthrough of those you'll come back around to Oblivion.

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I'm surprised at the complaints about the architecture...what more do you people want? Cheydinhal looks different from Chorral which looks different from Leyawin which looks different from Bruma which looks different from Anvil and so on. These look like real, actual buildings, and you can go inside of them. I challenge you to name a game with better designed buildings, either in real-time or pre-rendered. I can't think of anything.

Like I said, I think Morrowind had much better architecture all around. This time it just feels like it's all lifted out of our history and not like it's something that the cultures might have built up to over many centuries. Plus, Cyrodiil was supposedly a jungle in previous lore, which would have helped a lot for me. I guess it's just that "real" buildings isn't what I exclusively expect to find in a world such as that of Tamriel.

I wouldn't say all the architecture is uninteresting, but I find a fair amount of it not to be very fascinating. Just to give a few examples of what I really liked in Morrowind that I haven't seen any counterpart of in Oblivion:

morrowind7small4gu.jpgmorrowind8small0du.jpg

Yes, some of the voice acting isn't spectacular, but it's perfectly acceptable.

I don't mean to come down too hard on Oblivion, since I like it a lot, but the voice acting barely qualifies as acceptable. Things like characters switching voices during your interaction with them, such as how beggars switch voices when you enter the persuasion mini game (which doesn't make a lot of sense either, but that's neither here nor there) or how there's only something like 3 or 4 voices at Cloud Ruler Temple when Martin arrives and they greet him. I really got a good laugh out of how the voices just sounded like they were looping really fast when the Blades cheered, but I don't really think that was what Bethesda meant that scene to do.

Again, I wouldn't say that all of the voice content was bad, but it certainly isn't very good on average. Spread across a few more actors, the material could have been much better read than as is it is now. You get a feeling that they were under a lot of stress when they recorded their work and that really didn't help at all.

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I wouldn't say all the architecture is uninteresting, but I find a fair amount of it not to be very fascinating. Just to give a few examples of what I really liked in Morrowind that I haven't seen any counterpart of in Oblivion:

Sure, I really liked that too, but that's a side effect of it being the imperial province. You won't find that kind of city in Cyrodill.

It is an odd bit of revisionist history that Cyrodill isn't surrounded by Jungle, but that's as much of a gameplay decision as anything else.

I can honestly say that after 90+ hours of playing (so far), I've never been bothered by any of the voice acting. I've never noticed voices changing in mid conversation. The only thing I've really noticed is that some of the reading is very stilted (clearly reading off a piece of paper), and that within the world, there are only four or so individual actors. But it doesn't bother me.

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Sure, I really liked that too, but that's a side effect of it being the imperial province. You won't find that kind of city in Cyrodill.

It is an odd bit of revisionist history that Cyrodill isn't surrounded by Jungle, but that's as much of a gameplay decision as anything else.

I don't know about you, but I see sort of connection between the second and the first paragraph there.

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loonyboi, I agree with you for the most part. I'm surprised by the complaints about the architecture too, because I thought they did quite a good job at capturing the different cultures of the different races. Sure, they're nothing wild or exotic, but they're not supposed to be. As for the quests, they're a bit mixed. Granted, I haven't played in a couple of weeks because of school and I'm not anywhere near completing them all. Some of the I really really enjoyed doing like the Thieves Guild quests, up until they turned into dungeon hacks, and what I've done of the Dark Brotherhood has also been excellent. The dungeon hack quests in general aren't very interesting and tend to be extremely linear. Actually, the linearity of the quests is one of the most disappointing things about the otherwise wide open game. Having said that, there are more than enough enjoyable quests and moments to make the game worth while. I know I'm going to go back to playing it this summer once I'm done with exams.

I have to disagree with you over Dreamfall, though. It's a superb game, and not disappointing in the least.

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....

Why did you remove your signature? How the hell am I supposed to get back to the front page now? :nodance:

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loonyboi, I agree with you for the most part. I'm surprised by the complaints about the architecture too, because I thought they did quite a good job at capturing the different cultures of the different races. Sure, they're nothing wild or exotic, but they're not supposed to be. As for the quests, they're a bit mixed. Granted, I haven't played in a couple of weeks because of school and I'm not anywhere near completing them all. Some of the I really really enjoyed doing like the Thieves Guild quests, up until they turned into dungeon hacks, and what I've done of the Dark Brotherhood has also been excellent. The dungeon hack quests in general aren't very interesting and tend to be extremely linear. Actually, the linearity of the quests is one of the most disappointing things about the otherwise wide open game. Having said that, there are more than enough enjoyable quests and moments to make the game worth while. I know I'm going to go back to playing it this summer once I'm done with exams.

I have to disagree with you over Dreamfall, though. It's a superb game, and not disappointing in the least.

The buildings are beautiful,made realistically, and show the different cultures. But its all too familiar.

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I have to disagree with you over Dreamfall, though. It's a superb game, and not disappointing in the least.

I haven't played it, so you're not disagreeing with me, just reviewers I've read.

I hope Dreamfall is great. I really, really, really liked TLJ, and like a lot of you, I miss adventure games.

If the reviews I've read are to be believed, it's short (not an issue for me...Oblivion aside, I tend to like shorter games), way too easy (I'm not big on super hard, but I like a slight challenge) and the combat is annoying.

But I hope that's all untrue.

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If the reviews I've read are to be believed, it's short (not an issue for me...Oblivion aside, I tend to like shorter games), way too easy (I'm not big on super hard, but I like a slight challenge) and the combat is annoying.

But I hope that's all untrue.

Most of that is true, but those three points don't stand in the way of it being an enthralling game. The combat is annoying, but I never encountered a required fight that I didn't win on my first try. In other words, if you find yourself losing fights there's probably another solution. The game is short (took me 15-20 hours) because the puzzles are easy and not because it was rushed or has pieces missing. The story is complete, fully fleshed out, and very satisfying. The leaves the puzzles which are by far the weakest link in Dreamfall. They took a major step in the right direction by making the puzzles integrated into what was going on in the world instead of contrived obstacles whose only purpose is to prolong the life of the game, but they, unfortunately, didn't take it far enough. This is that big of an issue for me though, because the game has one of the most engrossing stories in any game I've played, so I have no problem forgiving its simple puzzles. Besides, look at Full Throttle. I just remembered that you aren't crazy about Tim Schafer's games, but, regardless, the point stands. Full Throttle is considered a classic despite its length, simplicity, and "fighting" sequences, because of its unique and unforgettable atmosphere and storytelling. The same goes for Dreamfall.

Have you read Adventure Gamers review? It's actually the only review of Dreamfall I've read, and I didn't read it till I started writing this post. It surprised me because I wasn't expecting to agree with it so much. That review is just about dead on.

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miffy, it's too bad you opted to get Dreamfall and JE instead of Oblivion. Dreamfall has been largely a disappointment from what i've heard (although as a fan of TLJ, I fully intend to play it at some point), and JE was a solid, but uninspired game IMO. Both are games you'll play once and then put away, never to touch again. Oblivion is a game (especially on PC) that you can play many, many, many different times. Hopefully when you've done your solitary playthrough of those you'll come back around to Oblivion.

Well, another part of this decision is that I'm taking a course in the spring term, so I only have two weeks off before that begins. Maybe when I get two months off I'll get Oblivion and devote much time to it, but I need stuff that I'll be able to finish before the 15th.

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I don't think Jade Empire was not inspired, it just seemed rushed, not in the sense that it lacks detail or is shorter in some areas than other areas but it seems like they just wanted to get it done. Its a great game and a great concept but its just too short , I think I finished it in 21 hours. Its more of The Simpsons go to China than Baldurs Gate 3: China.

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Why did you remove your signature? How the hell am I supposed to get back to the front page now? :nodance:

I must've clicked that box or something by mistake.

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Yesterday night I finished the main quest. Now that that's out of the way (for a while it felt like that, though I thought the 'ending' had some spectacular merits), I can start a fresh new character that isn't a goody-two-shoes and be a really rotten bastard. The game practically screams for that.

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I also recently finished the main quest... now those damn annoying gates are gone I can finally continue with some more interesting things (e.g. getting export merchant skills in order to be able to invest in stores.. whatever that may be).

btw, is it just me or are the oblivion dungeons even less interesting than the morrowind dungeons. And I still feel way to limited in the the last two TES games.

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By the way, there's one thing that happens near the end of the main quest that really irks me:

After closing the greater Oblivion gate, upon returning we find the siege engine having crashed and bodies lying everywhere. Martin has survived, but both Jauffre and Baurus are DEAD. These were two main characters that drove the storyline, and yet after their demise NO ONE REFERS TO IT EVER. No single Blade, or even Martin himself, ever mentions that they're gone. How on earth was this possible?! What narrative meaning could their deaths have possibly had then?!

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Only Jauffre bit it for me. The first time I tried it, Baurus died in the battle before the big gate opened so I restarted. They both were alive when I went in but Jauffre was toast when I got out. But yeah, that vexed me sorely as well.

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hmm.. don't know who died.. funny thing is that sometimes they die other times they simply faint.

The end battle was a bit annoying, those AI guys never keep up, when that big guy appeared Martin kept fighting those deadra instead of following me. That big guy was kinda nice, but I'm sure Ugh-Zan III would kick his ass

One of the more interesting side quests was the painting quest. Painting like envorinment was quite nice. They should have include more of those surreal missions.

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There are two other neat quests like that that I can think of off the top of my head: The quest with the wizard that had all the weird rooms like the void with the floating land bridge, void with bodies hanging from the blackness, giant furniture, doors that opened to a brick wall on the other side, neat stuff like that. And another were you went into a guy's dream state and mucked around in there. They could have done a lot more with it, but it was still cool. That wizard one though was just awesomely surreal, but the painting one is my favourite, by far.

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What narrative meaning could their deaths have possibly had then?!

It means that you were unlucky. Neither of them have to die, they just lose their protected character status (which means they can only be knocked out and not killed) around then. Both of them can stick with you until the very end, where they both have a couple of things to say to you.

Also, as far as "narrative meaning", it means that the Oblivion crisis is an actual threat, because it wouldn't be much of anything if you didn't know any of the casualties because they were all nameless and expendable.

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