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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion turns 20 today!

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Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?










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Some archived pics from the X360 version in BC mode.

I really liked the colorful vibes of the game, which in some way future Elder Scrolls games after this have lacked even now.


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I remember picking up my collector's edition for Xbox 360 at the local GameStop. Holding that shit in my hands finally, I couldn't believe it! Took a week off work. Good times.
 
That's… kind of scary to think about. 20 years is a loooong time.

I do remember hitting up a couple of Circuit Cities looking for the deluxe edition on PC after school on the day it came out and eventually finding it after like 3 attempts. Brought it home, installed it, and maaann. What a fucking great time that was. I had a 7800GTX at the time (only the 256mb version, sadly), so it ran pretty damn well it of the gate. And spring break was the next week, so yeah, I basically didn't leave the house to keep playing.

Oddly enough, my favorite part of Oblivion wasn't the open world exploration (though they did a great job with it) - it was the dungeon crawling through random caves and Oblivion portals. Having a first-person RPG where you were doing that was still novel back then, and they did a great job building atmosphere through just the audio - it was super immersive stuff.

While the game has some warts, obviously, I think it absolutely delivered on the promise, and then some. It's a game I really want to replay at some point since it's been a solid… 18 years since I've played it at all, and it'll probably be one of the first games I check out when I finally finish building my dedicated Windows XP gaming computer. Haven't played the remaster and don't want to.

So yeah - lots of fond memories of this one.
 
I remember buying it at launch and being so excited to play it. Game ran fine on my PC going through the prison/sewer area at the beginning but as soon as I emerged into the world it was like a slide show lol. I remember having to spend several hundred to upgrade to a 7000 series gpu just so I could get the game playable.

Hudo said:
The remaster was one of the more recent big disappointments I head. What a lazy piece of shit that is.
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It's a shame they didn't take more time with it and done a proper remaster and they could have released it today.
 
One of the few games I 100% on Xbox including the DLC. I actually bought the guide (which I still have) and that helped me get all the achievements.
 
Hudo said:
The remaster was one of the more recent big disappointments I had. What a lazy piece of shit that is.
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Definitely. I ended up fucking off the remaster and modding the OG with a controller support mod. Loved playing through it again on modern hardware. It's jammy as fuck, but it's old school Bethesda jank, and not the new just utter shit jank we get with the likes of FO4 and Srarfield.
 
Ellis said:
Definitely. I ended up fucking off the remaster and modding the OG with a controller support mod. Loved playing through it again on modern hardware. It's jammy as fuck, but it's old school Bethesda jank, and not the new just utter shit jank we get with the likes of FO4 and Srarfield.
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This is what ended up doing as well.

amigastar said:
Why? It had better graphics and was running on the old engine? Just curious.
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The short version is that it had all the disadvantages of Unreal Engine with all the disadvantages of the original engine underneath. The performance was (and still is) shit and unstable (I can't believe that they seem to have memory leaks, I cannot explain why the game begins to fucking come to a crawl after some hours otherwise), they've managed to introduce more bugs (and even plot-stopping/quest-stopping bugs, where I can't kill certain NPCs or items that I need for a quest just vanish, so I have to fix this shit via a mod console). The controls feel less responsive. The game just isn't finished and neither Bethesda nor Virtuos seem to feel responsible. Yet they had no problem charging 60€ for it. And being the nostalgia-ridden retard that I am, bought it at that price.

If they ever remaster Fallout 3 in the same way, I will certainly wait for some months before I make any decision.
 
Hudo said:
This is what ended up doing as well.


The short version is that it had all the disadvantages of Unreal Engine with all the disadvantages of the original engine underneath. The performance was (and still is) shit and unstable (I can't believe that they seem to have memory leaks, I cannot explain why the game begins to fucking come to a crawl after some hours otherwise), they've managed to introduce more bugs (and even plot-stopping/quest-stopping bugs, where I can't kill certain NPCs or items that I need for a quest just vanish, so I have to fix this shit via a mod console). The controls feel less responsive. The game just isn't finished and neither Bethesda nor Virtuos seem to feel responsible. Yet they had no problem charging 60€ for it. And being the nostalgia-ridden retard that I am, bought it at that price.

If they ever remaster Fallout 3 in the same way, I will certainly wait for some months before I make any decision.
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Yeah, the memory leak sucks, i thought they would have fixed it by now but apparently not. It wasn't finished and no one feels responsible for it thats for sure a minus.
 
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Truly a landmark game. I know Morrowind exists, and I'll play it one day, but Oblivion was my first open world WRPG and very few games have wowed me in the same way.

I'll never forget stepping out of the prison, the first time I've ever been able to really explore the world without any real boundaries. Even though many dungeons were procedurally generated, the way the map was designed drew the eyes and it felt like you could discover new things of interest wherever you went. The level scaling and experience systems were not great in retrospect, but it did help fulfill Oblivion's promise of freedom without artificially gating you from certain areas.

Skyrim (and mods) fixed a lot of what was wrong with Oblivion, but the game's content itself is still unmatched IMO. Each of the guilds had excellent quest lines (especially Dark Brotherhood) and great payoff. Each of the cities were unique and felt alive, the classes were all fun to play, the art style was overall fantastic even if the people's faces looked horrific. The radiant AI was very cool, with each character having a schedule and carrying items that would make sense - like they were interacting with the world just as the player did. It was the perfect after school game to come home to, doing a couple quests and getting sidetracked by random situations.
 
amigastar said:
Yeah, the memory leak sucks, i thought they would have fixed it by now but apparently not. It wasn't finished and no one feels responsible for it thats for sure a minus.
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I think if they fix the game up and work on it some more, it would be a good game. I mean, it's still Oblivion. And Oblivion, for all its flaws, is one of the better Bethesda games.
 
Good game. Played it when it came out and was disappointed, because it felt like a big step down from Morrowind, which I loved. I still enjoyed it, but I couldn't shake the sense that it lost a lot of what made Morrowind special. I played the Remastered version a few months ago, though, from a different vantage point -- now seeing Bethesda's decline and pining for the old days -- and I enjoyed it much more. I still think the main quest sucks, but the rest of the game is perfect for my taste.
 
Played it on 360. Read about it. Saw some videos. But wasnt totally sure what to expect.

I played a tidbit of Arena and Daggerfall back in the day on a 486 I think. Never played Morrowind.

I play the game and get through the sewer tutorial. It's ok I guess...... then you get out and just do your own thing in a big bright open land. Awesome.

My first exploring was just going around the big lake. And then I found an online guide of all the caves and locations to search. Must had been 100s. My plan to clear them all out. Ya right. Didnt come close.
 
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adamsapple said:
This shit was legit mindblowing back in 2005/6.




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One of the truly defining moments in gaming. Realising that, yes, the whole game really did look that good was insane. It seemed impossible. The jump from Morrowind to Oblivion was absolutely massive; cutting edge graphics, full voice acting, the AI scheduling system. This is probably the last truly big generational jump.
I really enjoyed the Remaster, though some of the colours needed tweaking, and Oblivion remains one of my favourite games of all time.
 
I had so many great times playing this on my 8800 GTX back in the day. The graphics were mind blowing and the game was so big. An all time classic.
 
Chuck Berry said:
The game that made me buy a 360 and enter the 7th gen. Top 10 easily.

I had never been pulled into such a world in my life. It was surreal.
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Same here but with the ps3. It was my first "next gen" game, I went from ps2 to this game, and it was absolutely insane.

I have never lived such a "wow" moment again, I mean I've had great times and games I loved since, thankfully, but this was the biggest technological / evolution gap in gaming for me. Nothing since this felt as big of a jump.
 
I still remember coming out of the opening dungeon and seeing the open world for the first time. It was incredible to think you could actually climb those hills and mountains in the distance. They weren't just part of the background.

TESV may have had better combat and gameplay, but it still felt like a dissapointment and downgrade for me. The quest design is miles better in Oblivion and I prefer the whimsical colourful Tolkien-esque high fantasy aesthetic to the dreary greyness of Skyrim. Maybe because the whole "gritty fantasy" setting just feels trite and overdone these days.
 
From a visual point of view, it is the most boring Elder Scrolls game. It's just your generic high-fantasy setting. But they managed to implement this well. Skyrim's a bit "more grounded" fantasy setting and Morrowind's otherworldly fantasy settings just did more for me. Still, Oblivion is a good game. And the fucking level scaling can be removed with mods.

I kinda hope they go for a more Dark Sun inspired Sword & Sorcery setting in TESVI. That would be cool as fuck.
 
I had such a shitty PC back then that most of the game I had to look down when moving in open areas so it won't crash. I managed to play it through and it was such a mind (luckily not pc) blowing experience
 
Ah yes, I vividly remember my 50 hours with a game on a Vaio GT6600M Sony Vaio VGN laptop in glorious 19fps.

Then I bought X360 and was amazed how smotth the 30fps were.
 
Still held up for the most part when I played the remaster last year. The level scaling feels archaic though and ruins the fun a tad in the late game. The early exploration is phenomenal though.
 
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