Oblivion

Hold on tight - Yahtzee is reviewing an RPG.

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I am saddened that I am yet to finish this game...

The prison bit? Well I ASSUME that my character was doing time for copyright theft after he was caught in possession of 12 complete bootleg copies of "The Biography of Berenziah", and 5 copies of a poor quality rip off of "A Less Rude Song" titled "A Sort of Polite Thing to Sing".

He has previous convictions, most notably for drawing a series of humourous cartoons depicting Daedra, and for peddling beetles as "baby silt striders".

I am impressed that I managed to be able to see this thing with naught but '1 reply' and yet I am 4th.

nice going yahtzee

lol, i like how you worked in Thief, now thats a great game series.

mmmmm foxy night elves :D

What a fitting review after a JRPG. Even if I am a JRPG fanboy, I don't think that Yahtzee could have chose a better follow-up.

I was positively surprised that he didn't complain about the leveling system. That would've been far too easy, although I think that breaks the immersion the most.

The problem with this review is there are a lot of genuine problems with oblivion and Yahtzee mtions precisely one of them. The open world being a bit samey really doesnt matter compared to the terrible combat, stupid leveling system and the fact that the main plot is incredibly dull...

I think Yahtzee's losing his touch, ladies and gentlemen.

Glad he mentioned the dialogue problems. Surprised he didn't mention the "leveling" system. On immersion, I guess that's why I haven't finished Oblivion.

I have been validated, hooray!

Anarchemitis:
I am impressed that I managed to be able to see this thing with naught but '1 reply' and yet I am 4th.

That's just what you get with everyone typing go yhatzee every week without any thought into it.
But I thought oblivion was great fun when you go off and do your own thing at least.

Okay, totally wasnt expecting that. Some really good points though. While I disagree with Oblivion playing like its all in the same meadow, since I thought it was a fantastic game too look at landscape wise. Certain points did make sense though. I despised the fast travel, but to be fair, I exercised the magically hidden ability to not use it. The NPC's were pretty god damn annoying and all contained a sparse amount of crappy information you will hear 21367286029846 times before finishing the game. Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean did alright though, since its fucking Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean, for gods sake.

I have to say though, I fucking loved Yahtzee's reason for being sent to jail. Pure class.

I still prefer Glastonbury..... I mean Morrowind.

You hit the nail on the head. Infact you hit ALL the nails then went ahead and built a big shitty hut out of it. I like the game, but so many flaws, all of which you pointed out with your usual funny style. My new fav review.

Good fun once again! Personally I loved Oblivion and found it extremely immersive, but that was because I let my imagination fill the horrible blanks in the game.

i have to say my favorite part wof the review was the great song selection by the kinks.
they are better than sex...

I've played ONE Elderscroll's game, Elder Scrolls 2; Daggerfall.

When I heard that they did a sequel on Xbox, and another one on the 360, I was shocked anyone would want to polish that turd, and watching Yahtzee's review made me realize it's more of the boring fucking same, only with better graphics and proving that anything polished shiny enough on the Xbox will get a following.

That and Halo.

Final Fantasy XII might have been a huge time sink, but atleast it didn't look like dirt colored mud with a hint of dirt all the goddamn time and the characters weren't complete boring asstards either.

I actually agree with him on the whole "lack of immersion" the telling moment for me was when I actually got REALLY caught up in the game and came across a group of guards desperately fighting for their lives against a suddenly opened Oblivion Gate, there was only one survivor standing heroicly on the bodies of his fallen comrades, desperately trying to hold back the tide of demonic invasion. So I charge in, kill the demons, then go to talk to the guard and he promptly responds with...

"Good day citizen"

As if nothing had happened... that just broke the immersion factor right then and there.

For some reason that one made me laugh more than usual. I like the way Yahtzee mixes words to create some odd metaphore/analogys. "A dog shit bullet" It's good; and I like it because thats exactly what my freinds and I do. Makes it feel like I'm listening to a rant from Paddy, or Max (Names mean nothing to you ¬¬).

Anyway, enjoyable indeed, time to watch again (incase I miss stuff... again).

I can't say I completely agree with Yahtzee on this little venture into Western RPG-Land, but he does bit the few points I noticed, too.

I'll grant that many of the characters are shallow and unimaginative, and the land itself lacks the detail of, say, Morrowind or WoW, but for those failings, it does have a few rather nice points too:

The combat is vastly improved (although bow combat tends to veer into unrealistic pincushion-fests), with blocking and attacking now taking on a modicom of strategy.

The quests are entertaining, at least the first few times over, and aren't always the boring old 'go there and kill stuff' variety. However, after that, they lose their appeal, and after a while, you end up scouring the UESP Wiki, desperately trying to find something new and shiny to do.

I think the main problem, however, is that on the 360, I couldn't help but feel like I was getting the shitty end of the stick. PC users can usually rely on a solid modding community to fill in the gaps by the developers, but when you're on a console, you have none of that - and as such, we can only look on and weep as the PC Master Race enjoy their various nude-mods and shiny new quests as we try and content ourselves for the eleventh goddamn time with cabbage golf.

I kinda always knew he would review TES IV... I disagree however with that rag about the landscapes. There aren't just meadows, there are snowy mountains, forests, swamps and... that coast near Anvil. Then again I've played too much Oblivion and maybe I just grew accustomed to it...

I never really cared for Oblivion for virtually the same reason that Yahtzee said; the fact that everything looks so samey. I know that I'm the kinda guy that plays the endless worlds of Dynasty Warriors, but at least all of the characters (not the enemies) have a different personality and what's more, each map is completely different.

I've watched friends of mine playing Oblivion, and I also remember waking up 2 hours later thinking he was in the same place only he had actually been playing for the 2 hours I had been asleep, and that he had completed no quests because he was still traveling on the same roads over and over looking what whatnot.

Totally recognised the flaws mentioned, it really is HUGE but lacks "that feeling", the feeling your really involved in saving the world or destroying it.

Another great review, though I would have preffered one of STALKER. STALKER actaully seems to be a good example of the better, right way to make an FPS RPG when compared to Oblivion. A billion times more immersive and a lot more creative, playing it maybe me want to buy a gas mask and learn the guitar.

totally agree about the quick travel, I opted to do none of it, until I lost my horse that is >.<

I've tried playing Oblivion twice, got very bored and gave up both times. It felt more like work than playing. Also, about half the mods I installed for it didn't function - probably because I wasn't willing to invest the time into fiddling with this that and the other file to get them going.

As always, very entertaining review.

Aww I really hoped he would have had ago at my personal gripe, the pointless level system

I get on and decide to check ZP, and what do I find? Oblivion! That was definetly a WTF!!! moment, as I had been hoping that he'd do this for months but assumed it was too old to even care about.

It was a pleasant surprize as he made completely valid points. Yes, the landscape was very pretty, but if I wanted a bunch of the SAME very pretty landscape I'd just go for a walk in the woods. However, one thing I liked about Oblivion is how everyone didn't hate your guts, especially after you'd saved them from a thousand evils (hint hint Bethesda, Morrowind is the most unfriendly continent I've ever visited). I loved a number of the open ended questions that never got resolved (ex: why the hell you're in jail to begin with), but it seemed quite a few of them were just the same old thing we did in morrowind. And screw the lockpicking system. That got on my nerves after 30 seconds. The persuation was actually fun, once you go used to it.

Reminds me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxUch9kLlaI

sigh... i took one look at this and pretty much guessed everything you were going to say...

you confuse me. i thought this game would get the same treatment at the witcher because it's long and complex. i wouldn't say you like games that are "instantly gratifying". like me you appricate a game that feels innovative and like it's had a lot of work put into it.

a game that immersed me recently was your game, Trilby's Notes. so that proves your point that it doesn't have to look good. every time i walked down the corridor i kept expecting to see the tall man behind me.

but still i'm disappointed. Oblivion is an amazing game for the most part. it's true some story-lines are a bit dumb. and yes... lots of the characters are cut directly from "generic fantasy monthly". but next to no fantasy games have good characterisation anyway. i'm a writer and i hate to write sword-and-spell-fantasy things cause i think they always feel fake. same reason i despise animé characters.

i won't ramble on anyway. just made me a bit sad.

I'm not a PC gamer myself, so I really don't know anything about the game except that it's a western RPG.
I'm just glad he said something nice about the Zelda series, lol (even if it was immediately followed up with something hateful).

He really hit why I didn't like the game so well.

In Morrowind, you would really feel like an outlander, especially with all the unique creatures and customs. Weird dogs attacking me? Sweet. Wizards grow their towers? Awesome. Varying architecture, TONS of in game literature and lore, et cetera.

In Oblivion, they cut the books down to about two piddling paragraphs and it basically looks like every other fantasy setting I've seen: castles, wolves, et cetera.

But maybe some people like the fancier combat and physics. Meh.

I agree with Anarchemitis, I like the review but I have nothing to add. I must be ill.

There is only one part I enjoy in Oblivion, the murdering the five people in the house without the others finding out, that was so much fun, it's a save before entering and loading it up again moment.

A good review. I suppose the anaylisis is fair considering he reviewed it on the PC. However, being mainly a console wanker, the version I played was the 360, in which the interface seems a lot more accessible than the pc with simple shoulder button controls making easy browsing

And yes it is true that the fast travel option will ultimatly always win out, but the thing with Oblivion is that whilst it is catered for a more casual RPG player such as myself, it can gradually get immersive the more you played the game, owing to the factions. Owing to how little was said of the factions, particularly the rather awesome Dark Brotherhood, I'm guessing Yahtzee probably didn't bother with all the side quests, which is where the game really gets good. It's best to think of Oblivion like five rather short GTA games which happen to be set in the meadowy version of the GTA3 incarcaration of Liberty City. If you haven't played the Thieves guild, mage guild, main story or Dark brotherhood, then you haven't really played Oblivion (although I found the Fighters Guild relatively dull)