The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (GotY Edition Deluxe) - 3.5 / 5 - Abandoned
After about 35 hours of playing I've officially grown tired of Oblivion, and I'm abandoning the game. Maybe I'll pick it up again in a few months, but then again, I said the same about Fallout: New Vegas over a year ago, and that one's completely off my radar now.
Since I spent 35 hours in it, and got to level 22 in the process, you can't say I didn't give it a fair shot.
I'm just going to have to admit that these "open world" games are just not my thing. Towards the end I started skipping dungeons and Oblivion gates, because they were just more of the same each time. I started using the console to advance faster through the game, and worst of all: I started skipping dialogues without reading them. All the proof I need that the game has outstayed its welcome.
So I've abandoned it.
And it's not that it's a bad game. The world map is insanely huge, no two dungeons are the same (Mass Effect 1
Dragon Age 2
), side quests are really interesting, variety is enormous, and you can really play it however you feel like playing.
It's just that - like in Fallout 3 - the main quest is actually uninteresting (despite the presence of Sean Bean's voice and the epic imminent doom), and the constant exploring gets tedious after a while. Plus the entire map is just far too hostile. You can't walk 30 seconds in any direction without having some beast or some monster or some bandit trying to bite/burn/slice your face off. And this game lacks the VATS to beautify the combat.
The leveling system is also seriously flawed. The concept of it is good, though: you get better at a skill simply by *using* that skill, and the game is leveled in such a way that you can tackle any quest even at level 1. But it's also designed in such a way that you need to put far too much effort in efficient leveling as to not get overrun by the enemies at higher levels. Plus the fact that the world around you changes when you do is a bad game design decision. At level 1 you can encounter wolves in the woods, and weak bandits and goblins all around. At level 20 there are no wolves to be found, but they're replaced by trolls, minotaurs and other increasingly difficult enemies. Even bandits get stronger and stronger.
Not only is it unrealistic and immersion-breaking that the creatures you encounter change when you grow stronger, it's also bad for the gameplay as you never feel like you're actually growing stronger. At level 20, it takes just as much effort to take down a simple road bandit as it does at level 1. That's just awful. They should pose difficulties at level 1 and you should be able to stomp them like ants at level 20, THAT's how leveling should work...
I liked the game well enough, but I think the "open world" is just not really my cup of tea. It worked for Fallout 3, failed for Fallout: New Vegas, and it failed here. I guess I prefer having a more linear story and having the developers "hold my hand" a bit more Ã* la BioWare.
Otherwise, how could I spend 120 hours playing the entire Baldur's Gate Trilogy (plus all the extra content and even some fan-made mod content) in one single month, yet not get beyond half of one Elder Scrolls game?
I also really missed having some companions to interact with, as well as romantic options in the game. Even though Bethesda's RPGs have a complexity to them that BioWare can only dream of, I'll happily take the BioWare RPGs over these any day of the week...
I'm glad I only payed a fraction of what Skyrim would've cost me. At least now I know I can safely skip that one and focus back on adventure games instead...
...until BioWare releases another RPG, that is... 