Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion

[Redlinelies]

Oblivion was a great game honestly. One thing that personally made it so much better however was that Oblivion wasn't some sort of horrid console adaptation like Skyrim was. I understand to a certain point that they wanted it to be easier navigated on consoles and user friendly that way, but the graphical interface Oblivion had was superior in every way, even cozy and fun. Luckily you can download mods that fix this in Skyrim to some extent but things easily get left behind. PC games rarely turn out to the games they could be if the devs focus more on consoles, and it goes for more than only GUI's. #pcmasterrace.

That aside, I found the visual representation of the leveling system and skills in Oblivion so much more interesting and nice looking, the side quests just felt a bit more creative to me. Even though the over all visual representation for Skyrim was great and the main story line felt "greater", you can feel differences on where the energy got put down, I just love myself some great side quests you find yourself. Don't get me wrong though, Skyrim had good ones too, but I didn't quite get the same feel.

Oblivion had it's arena, it had the fighters guild, it had it's funky little way of getting someone to like you with a mini game, it had a more brighter and warmer atmosphere, more interesting towns, and other small things here and there that just didn't exist or were way different that to me makes Oblivion the greater game out of the two, even though Skyrim is a great game too. Yus.

[shell_prisoner]

[Redlinelies]

My post wasn't focusing on Morrorwind though, Shell. It's a bit like someone talking about how they like a certain car since it goes faster than another and then being told it's not true because a jetplane goes even faster.

To my understanding Oblivion was worked on in tandem with the Xbox360 and PC, But the interface worked better for PC which is really what I wanted to point out, and the visuals wasn't held back in the "same manner" by that generations consoles either. Oblivion wasn't a horrid console adaptation that ended up being that cherry on the top I needed.

You know just as much as myself if you played Oblivion that the GUI worked better on a computer than a console still, you also know that Skyrim had so many more setbacks due to it's console focus rather than a PC platform experience. Which was the focus on my post. Just because Morrorwind was an all out hardcore PC game, doesn't make what I said not true regarding Skyrim and Oblivion, so no need to go that far on that matter.

[LordSuragaha]

I have to disagree with a good bit of the stuff you said about Morrowind too Shell. As much as I love Oblivion and Skyrim I enjoyed playing Morrowind far more. A game doesn't need to be sugar coated with pretty graphics or hyped up extra content to be a good game... any true gamer knows that. To me Morrowind had some of the best story writing than even Oblivion & Skyrim. Yes the enormous amounts of text can sometimes be quite a bit to read but if you truly enjoy the story and world itself you can easily get lost in it. Morrowind had much more variety in terms of environment and enemies etc. Morrowind also had a much cooler way of layer clothes and armor. Sure the graphics of Morrowind look a little sad now when compared to the latest Elder Scrolls games but it's a hell of a classic and any true fan of the Elder Scrolls and the universe created in the series would still find a thrill about Morrowind that can't be found in Oblivion or Skyrim regardless of how pretty they look.

Having played Morrowind I honestly felt really disappointed with the later Elder Scrolls editions. While both can be fantastic games on their own they aren't up to standard with the amount of unique story line and environment as you get in Morrowind. Morrowind also offered a chance at more guilds and the enemies were more interesting than compared to the typical wolf, bandit, dragon battles in Skyrim. After playing an exciting game like Morrowind I find it easy to get bored of Skyrim after the first few days of playing. Morrowind had much more secrets and much more of a sense of discovery. The recent editions to the Elder Scrolls barely have secrets or unique interesting treasures as seem in Morrowind.

Now... Since the discussion is directed towards Oblivion I would say that I loved Oblivion. It's difficult to talk about one Elder Scrolls game on it's own really... So yeah, Oblivion had some disappointing moments when you compare certain aspects to Morrowind but it was still very much a beautiful and fun game. As Red said I too thought that Oblivion's environment was warm and colorful compared to Skyrim's more dark and realisticish look. Skyrim's environments seem more grey and "colorless" compared to Oblivion's warm bright greens and colorful spring like hues. Skyrim felt very hyped to me. Don't get me wrong but it's a great game but in my opinion it's not as good as Oblivion or Morrowind. Skyrim's main focus seemed to be visuals because storywise and mission wise I found it to be lacking. I finished playing Skyrim too quickly because it also isn't very challenging. Skyrim was shaped into too much of a mainstream game and I strongly feel that the team that worked on it lost all sense of what made the Elder Scrolls such a unique, beautiful, and truly engaging experience. To me the dragon main story felt too much like other dragon themed games and the enemies just weren't unique. Had the plot been more unique I wouldn't have minded the dragons but the main quest just felt so flat and common. When compared to Morrowind or Oblivion Skyrim is really just a pretty shell of what the game once was and could still be.

Oblivion had an interesting plot. The environments were beautiful. The character editor was disgusting in my opinion... When it came to humanish characters especially females it was difficult to get a desirable look. The Khajiits had such limited customization... Argonians looked frogish and less feral and reptilian like they did in Morrowind or even Skyrim. As for the side quests Oblivion was pretty fun with those. Dungeons, ruins, and caves got very old in Oblivion though. In Morrowind Dungeons, ruins, and caves always offered the excitement of a good battle and awesome spoils... In Skyrim & Oblivion however they just end up feeling like the same old thing every time just with a slightly different layout. Same can be said for Oblivion's oblivion gates. The first few gates and perhaps the main story gates are interesting but the rest of the time the gates just become annoying and predictable. The only thing that makes the gates worth while is exploring the contents or the flesh bags or getting the stone when you close the gate. I did like the enemies in Oblivion however I didn't like the fact that you had to level up fairly high to see the really cool enemies spawn in game like the spider lady etc. Scamps etc get old fast and if you don't have the patience to stay with the game long enough to level up you never get to see the cool enemies. This problem didn't exist in Morrowind. While the games difficulty did level up with the player there were still some hard areas with scary enemies that could be accessed without needing to level up. The whole fun of the game is the challenge really.

The lack of more unique guilds also made Skyrim & Oblivion a little disappointing to me. I think the most interesting guild in both is the Dark Brotherhood. In Morrowind however deciding on a guild was much more difficult and interesting. Depending on the guild your games story would play out differently. There were also many more guilds and factions in Morrowind. Morrowind can easily be played over as well. Oblivion and Skyrim can be very boring to play over due to the constant repetitive main quest...

Honestly I can go on forever here but I think the main point I want to make is that all these games are good, but they're good in their own unique ways. Depending on the player's interest you might find one more enjoyable than the others. Best thing to do though is to try them all and most importantly not judge them solely on graphics.

[shell_prisoner]

But the interface worked better for PC which is really what I wanted to point out, and the visuals wasn't held back in the "same manner" by that generations consoles either

You should check some old TES-related forums. There were so many console-hate threads back in 2006... Basically, they dropped a lot of features, because of Xbox limits. Most well-known of them - city gates. Yep, originally it was supposed that you would not need to see a loading screen when entering the city.

[Redlinelies]

Yet again, my comparison was between Skyrim and Oblivion and not Morrorwind that you pulled into my case. I will not argue with anything said over Morrorwind or Morrorwind compared with skyrim or even Oblivion. But it would be nice if my post could be read for what it is first rather than what it isn't in this case.

Wording is quite important, I suppose I could say "Oblivion wasn't as much as some sort of horrid console port" if that would get you to move on, but untrue the post is not. Feel like it has been read a bit out of context.