Topic: "Oblivion" gets 4 1/2 yawns on a scale of 5

[UltimatePartyBear]

Incredible.  A console vs. PC debate.  My grandfather told me about these things, but I never thought I'd get to see one!

[Kairon]

So...when I listen to NPR on the radio do I use my PC's cost (since I stream it from online) or the clock radio that I enver use?

Seriously. If you have a computer lying around anyways, there's no sense in factoring in the cost of things you ALREADY own.

You should measure the costs using your current situation as a zero-point.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[Sir_Stabbalot]

Quote
Originally posted by: capamerica
You don't need a Hardrive or Xbox Live to play Oblivion, And the Core system has a wired controller so you don't need a wireless controller too, So subtract $209 from your Xbox360 cost. Thou you do need at least a Memory card to play Oblivion so add $40 for that.

Yes, but since Bill wanted the optimum PC specs, I compared them to the Optimum 360's. The game loads faster with the Hard Drive, and a lot of people would want the wireless controller and X-Box Live for the official mods and stat-tracking. So, I should've used the $400 version.

[Sir_Stabbalot]

Quote
Originally posted by: Professional 666
You forgot Windows XP.  Or maybe not.

Nah, it runs on Windows 2000. No difference between XP and 2k, really. I made the assumption a gamer would have a partially up-to-date PC as far as OS goes (legal or illegal).

[Bill Aurion]

Awww...I forgot that the 360+HD is 400 bucks, stupid Microsoft...(Not including XBox Live because that's a bunch of crap! )

I lose!  (But I hate messing with my PC's interior, so I'm biased...)

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

But i like my legal $10 win98 cd.....  *sniff*

[Infernal Monkey]

Smash has succeeded in making me want this game even more. =D  

[Bill Aurion]

Totally owned!

[Sir_Stabbalot]

I would like to say that Oblivion's main quest has got to have one of the best endings I've ever seen. And it gets bonus points because none of it is actually a FMV. It's ingame, baby (Really, there are only two FMVs in Oblivion, the into and the credits)!

[zakkiel]

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If they had been SO close to real and yet had some bizarre characteristic which always made them seem non-living, then sure, but these were clearly mannequins from the very beginning.

Throw in your earlier comments about creepiness, and that's uh, exactly the reaction of people in the uncanny valley. Like I said, these bothered you in a way that the less realistic, more rigid characters of yore did not. Or so I assume. If not, you must have spent most of your life deeply disappointed in every game you played. If a model becoming more realistic causes less empathy, that's the uncanny valley by definition.

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but I am serious when I say that potential buyers should be warned and should rent the game before buying it if they're on the fence.

Duh? There is no game of which that isn't true, reviewer hype aside, aand I speak as someone who as foolishly wasted money many a time before. Always rent if you have the opportunity. At least, if you don't already know you like that particular genre.

[MysticGohan]

Quote
Originally posted by: Bill Aurion
Awww...I forgot that the 360+HD is 400 bucks, stupid Microsoft...(Not including XBox Live because that's a bunch of crap! )

I lose!  (But I hate messing with my PC's interior, so I'm biased...)

That's ok Bill, I'm used to messing with PC interiors, I have to everytime I wanna Upgrade the Ram, Vid Card, and add a New Driver. I could help you

[Gamebasher]

Smash_Brother: THANKS for making this thread!

I now understand why I felt like NOT buying an XBOX360 with Oblivion! I felt that I wanted to wait until the new Zelda: TLP comes out instead. Not that I won´t be buying the XBOX360, I will, but I will never buy the Oblivion game. In particular the parts where you lament the constant slow-downs which sacrifice gameplay over graphics is the best expample I have yet seen to fully demonstrate how right Nintendo was to NOT  jump on the graphics wagon this time! Gameplay always comes first!  

Funny they named it Oblivion, eh? Because for many people who have played Zelda: OOT or MM adventures, and who have seen the new Zelda adventure coming out later this year on GameCube, Oblivion is one adventure game that will soon fade into... oblivion! It will never be able to beat ZELDA!!

Nobody can beat Nintendo on sheer quality of gameplay and excellence in the accompanying graphics!

The Oblivion game smells badly of being rushed to market, not being done properly in the gaming seems. That I have never seen in any Nintendo game. So that would be why Nintendo never releases a game  to market before it is READY. Something Bethesda could learn from!



   

[Sir_Stabbalot]

Quote
Originally posted by: Gamebasher
Smash_Brother: THANKS for making this thread!

I now understand why I felt like NOT buying an XBOX360 with Oblivion! I felt that I wanted to wait until the new Zelda: TLP comes out instead. Not that I won´t be buying the XBOX360, I will, but I will never buy the Oblivion game. In particular the parts where you lament the constant slow-downs which sacrifice gameplay over graphics is the best expample I have yet seen to fully demonstrate how right Nintendo was to NOT  jump on the graphics wagon this time! Gameplay always comes first!  

Funny they named it Oblivion, eh? Because for many people who have played Zelda: OOT or MM adventures, and who have seen the new Zelda adventure coming out later this year on GameCube, Oblivion is one adventure game that will soon fade into... oblivion! It will never be able to beat ZELDA!!

Nobody can beat Nintendo on sheer quality of gameplay and excellence in the accompanying graphics!

The Oblivion game smells badly of being rushed to market, not being done properly in the gaming seems. That I have never seen in any Nintendo game. So that would be why Nintendo never releases a game  to market before it is READY. Something Bethesda could learn from!

There's so much wrong with that post, I don't know where to begin...

Alright, first off, please don't try to compare TES to Zelda. It's like comparing a grade A apple to a grade A orange. They're both fruits and both taste great, but the similarites end there. Zelda focuses on dungeons, exploration, puzzles and action, while TES focuses on story, exploration, character development and sheer size. They both rock in their own ways. As a PC gamer and loyal Nintendo gamer, I am certain they'll both be A+ games.

Next, I have only gotten slowdown when TRYING to cause it. Normally, the frame rate is smooth as silk. That's with me on the PC version. From what I saw of the 360 version, it didn't seem to slow down from the short bit I saw.

And about it being rushed, it's not. So far I -and two other peolpe I know- have not had it crash once. Nope, not a single time. Heck, I haven't even found a single glitch yet. And Oblivion wasn't rushed. It was set for a December release, but the Devs took the risk of missing the Christmas season to spend more time tubning the game. If they were rushing it, it would have came out then.

[capamerica]

I almost want to hook up my XBox360 to a video capturing device just so I can record how crappy the Xbox360 version is with it pausing every 30 steps and when I change weapons.

One of my friends got the PC version and he did find that all the slow downs were not in the PC version, then again he also had to have the game set on the low settings, His PC only met half of the recommended settings. He also thinks that maybe if you were to set it at the same quality as the Xbox360 you might get all the slow downs if you don't have a Top of the Top of the line PC.

He also didn't care for it and after about a week he grew very tired of it and just stopped playing it all together.

Some people like the game some people hate it. So far all my friends hate the game and feel it was only half made and is very overrated.

[KnowsNothing]

Well nerds it looks like a may be getting a new computer soon (goodbye 1999!) and I'm sure as hell making sure it can play this game well, so you can all cheer for me or whatever.  BUT I HAVE A QUESTION for those of you wh have played botht he Xbox 360 and PC versions KAY?

Which control setup is better?  the real answer is revolution dur.  I know what the interface is like, and honestly I think it'd work quite well with the 360 controller, which is what I've been hearing.  Of course I'd prefer the mouse for looking around, but I have a really hard time playing most games with a keyboard, and I love the feeling of a controller in my hand.  The only complaint I've been hearing is that setting hot keys with the number pad is far superior to using the D-pad, but honestly my brain doens't function well with the number pad.  All these years of console gaming has made me more comfortable using the D-pad, even for hot keys, so I don't think that that would be a probelm.

This is assuming, of course, that I can use the 360 controller for the PC version of oblivion, but since it functions as a PC controller as well I don't see why not.  The thing is, the 360 controler is like $40 and that's kind of a lot, especially since I'm busting the old piggy-bank for this PC (and also borrowing a thousand bucks :S), so I wanted to know if it would be worth it.  I guess it'd basically be like playing the 360 version without all the terrible problems and such.

So, which is better? >_> (or not even which is better, but is the 360 controller not terribly clunky and awkward?)

[Bill Aurion]

I haven't played the PC version, but the controls for the 360 version are very nice...And I have no clue what you are talking about with using the 360 controller on your computer...

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

The male plug goes into the female socket.

[wandering]

You can buy a PC version of the 360 controller. Not sure if you can use just any old 360 controller, though.

[capamerica]

All Xbox360 wired controllers are just normal USB controllers so you can easily just pick up any wired one and use it.
BUT you have to be using Windows XP or Windows Vista since they are the only 2 versions of Windows Microsoft has written drivers for the 360 controller.

[Gamebasher]

Capamerica,

I find your experiences with Oblivion interesting, because unlike Stabbalot you did indeed find the faults that I mentioned I had heard of. Incidentally, I have also SEEN those slow-down problems (in a video demo), and when I saw it, I  felt very bad indeed. For the sake of pure interaction with a game world, intuitive IMMERSION in it, such slow-downs should simply not be there in the first place! I also sampled Oblivion in an EB games shop, and the level I played was inside some underground area with lots of rats and a few goblins. The level I saw with the slow-down, was outside in a field where there was an Oblivion gate, and the slow-downs were there every 20-30 seconds. It looked awfull. When a game does that, I totally lose my immersion in the gameworld, like being hauled out of a good dream by some disturber of sound sleep or something, that is how it felt to me. So basically I don´t care about that game, nomatter how big it may be. Too big for proper hardware handling if you ask me! Nintendo would not have relased such a game to the market, but rather have optimized it again, so  that such issues were fixed right then and there, ironed out good and proper, and only then released to market.

That is why I said Bethesda should learn from Nintendo (concerning gameplay issues).

 

[KDR_11k]

capamerica: There are opensource drivers for the XC controller that work perfectly. I'm using one under 2k.

[Sir_Stabbalot]

KnowsNothing, I prefer the good old fashon keyboard and mouse. It just feels a little more natural to me. It seems easier to look around and aim, but that's just my opinion.

Quote
Originally posted by: Gamebasher
Capamerica,

I find your experiences with Oblivion interesting, because unlike Stabbalot you did indeed find the faults that I mentioned I had heard of. Incidentally, I have also SEEN those slow-down problems (in a video demo), and when I saw it, I  felt very bad indeed. For the sake of pure interaction with a game world, intuitive IMMERSION in it, such slow-downs should simply not be there in the first place! I also sampled Oblivion in an EB games shop, and the level I played was inside some underground area with lots of rats and a few goblins. The level I saw with the slow-down, was outside in a field where there was an Oblivion gate, and the slow-downs were there every 20-30 seconds. It looked awfull. When a game does that, I totally lose my immersion in the gameworld, like being hauled out of a good dream by some disturber of sound sleep or something, that is how it felt to me. So basically I don´t care about that game, nomatter how big it may be. Too big for proper hardware handling if you ask me! Nintendo would not have relased such a game to the market, but rather have optimized it again, so  that such issues were fixed right then and there, ironed out good and proper, and only then released to market.

That is why I said Bethesda should learn from Nintendo (concerning gameplay issues).

Eh, well, I only saw a little bit of the 360 version, mostly in the city of Skingrad and in an Oblivion gate (Didn't see it from outside).  I can't really say anything about that, but I don't see how one or two seconds of slowdown could ruin immersion.

Remember, there are lots of chances for the game to slow down. But how is the framerate dropping bellow 30 FPS in a particularly demanding environment a 'Gameplay Issue'? Oblivion isn't THAT fast-paced.  

And why do you keep comparing Bethesda to Nintendo? It's not very fair. Nintendo has a lot more rescurces then 3rd-party (at least I'm pretty sure) Bethesda, and Nintendo doesn't have to scale their games to run on two completely different platforms, so it's a lot easier to optimise the engine. Both make good games, let's leave it at that.

[capamerica]

It wasn't 1-2sec of slow down, it was easily closer to 10-20sec of show down & 5-8sec pausing. (I didn't have a stop watch, but did do the "1 one thousand, 2 one thousand..." counting)
1-2sec I could easily excuse. But when the game stops long enough that you look to your friends and say "WTF?" then that is a problem.

The PC version from what I've heard was solid. but from my experience and others I have talked to the 360 version was very buggy.  

[Sir_Stabbalot]

It's not a 'bug', just the 360 lacking enough juice. MS could have just let Bethesda set the grass distance, shadows or something a few notches less as far as detail goes for the 360, but no, they had to have the 360 run the same as a high-end PC...

EDIT: Bingo, I just realised what the pausing was from. Did this 360 have the hard drive or no? The game loads faster with the hard drive, and tyou may have been unluck enough to be fighting next to the exterior cell's border. So, you strife a little to the left to dogde that fireball, you cross the boundry and the game needs to load the area you're now in. For me, the change isn't noticable most of the time, but if you were lacking a hard drive, the time may go up. And that constant dumping of the RAM may have been helping the slowdown.

[capamerica]

I had the HDD, and I did the holding 'A' to clean the HDD too. The problems didn't go away.