For anyone interested in Oblivion

SoMisss2000 · Post by **SoMisss2000** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 10:01 pm

Compusa beats Fry's price and will have it Tuesday for 44.99 for 360 and 39.99 for PC.

Leebo33 · Post by **Leebo33** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 12:49 am

Are there any Best Buy coupons floating around there anywhere? I'd like to get it, but I'm not going to play full price.

SoMisss2000 · Post by **SoMisss2000** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 2:45 am

Compusa beats Fry's price and will have it Tuesday for 44.99 for 360 and 39.99 for PC.

not sure how much cheaper you want to buy it for cus that's as it gets.

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 3:04 am

Man, you guys need to read your posts before pressing the "submit" button.

vader29 · Post by **vader29** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 6:51 am

Leebo33 wrote:Are there any Best Buy coupons floating around there anywhere? I'd like to get it, but I'm not going to play full price.

This 10% off coupon is still good until March 25th:
http://www.dealcatcher.com/redir.asp?m=681&c=61692

Leebo33 · Post by **Leebo33** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 9:36 am

Thanks, Vader. I don't have a Fry's or CompUSA in this area. Those 10% or $10 off Best Buy coupons are about the best I can do unless I buy off ebay.

sportdan30 · Post by **sportdan30** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 9:59 am

$44.99 is heck of a great price for a game as deep and immersive as Oblivion. I just wish I had more excitement for this genre. I'm interested to hear how this game is from those who don't especially get in to RPGs.

SoMisss2000 · Post by **SoMisss2000** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 10:14 am

sportdan30 wrote:$44.99 is heck of a great price for a game as deep and immersive as Oblivion. I just wish I had more excitement for this genre. I'm interested to hear how this game is from those who don't especially get in to RPGs.

I'm not particularly into the genre either and the only way I'd get it now is if it were on sale at Fry's. Compusa just 1up'd them so I'll probably go ahead and get it.

You could always order it from outpost.com or compusa.com and wait a few days.

Leebo33 · Post by **Leebo33** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 10:49 am

SoMisss2000 wrote:You could always order it from outpost.com or compusa.com and wait a few days.

I checked outpost.com last night and the price was $59.99. I will not use compusa.com due to a bad prior experience.

kevinpars · Post by **kevinpars** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:19 am

I know what you mean about Compusa. But to save $15, i will check with them later today. Does Fry's have any deal going? I saw the PC version is on sale but nothing about the 360 version.

I can't wait to play Oblivion, even though I am not a big fantasy - role playing guy. I am going to try to play it similar to 'Thief' and 1st person sneak around the world. I may also try more of a 'warrior' character and try to become a fighter. I do like walking around a wide open world and checking things out. I may like it or I may not.

It beats the alternative fantasy world I am living in at work.

Leebo33 · Post by **Leebo33** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:27 am

kevinpars wrote:It beats the alternative fantasy world I am living in at work.

LOL. I know what you mean.

Leebo33 · Post by **Leebo33** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:29 am

I've only played a few fantasy games, but enjoyed them all. KOTOR, Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance, Untold Legends, Golden Sun, and Final Fantasy X. Which one does Oblivion most closely resemble?

Airdog · Post by **Airdog** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:41 am

Leebo33 wrote:I've only played a few fantasy games, but enjoyed them all. KOTOR, Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance, Untold Legends, Golden Sun, and Final Fantasy X. Which one does Oblivion most closely resemble?

KOTOR but Oblivion will be more open ended in a huge way compared to it.

davet010 · Post by **davet010** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:41 am

Probably none of them - it isn't turn based, and while there is a 'plot', you can effectively do what you want and develop your character how you like.

Just imagine it as like an MMO without other people playing.

Gurantsu · Post by **Gurantsu** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 12:00 pm

A disembodied female robot voice called me last night to tell me that my copy of Oblivion will be in today. If it's in at lunch I may grab it and create a character quick.

Post by **ScoopBrady** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 12:28 pm

I picked it up last night and was able to play for about an-hour-and-a-half. I was able to finish the first quest/training area and made my way towards the town I need to go to for the next quest. The first hour, or so, takes place in a dungeon atmosphere where you kill rats, orcs, and a few zombies. Once you get through it and step outside for the first time it's amazing. The Morrowind world is simply beautiful. It seemed huge too. I was a big fan of Morrowind on the Xbox so this was a no-brainer for me.

To those who are curious but unsure all I can say is if you like sandbox-type games like GTA you might want to check it out. This game is the ultimate sandbox game. There's literally a whole world out there for you to explore. This includes going into house and stores. You can tailor your character to how you want to play. You can steal anything in any of the houses or stores, though you can get caught and face the consequences. You can pick mushrooms and wild roots to make your own potions. You can repair your own armor and weapons. They even added horses to the game so you can really explore the land on horseback now.

When your characters' skill level up it's because of what you did. The more you sneak, the more your sneak skill goes up. The more you fight with a sword, the more your blade skill goes up.

So far it appears as if all NPC speak their lines when you talk to them so there's less reading to do. There's so much to do in this game it's not even funny. $60 is easily a bargain when it comes to this game. I put in over 60 hours with Morrowind for the Xbox and didn't even finish the game. I'll easily get another 60 hours + from this title. When you can get $1 per hour entertainment on a video game I call it a bargain.

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 1:14 pm

I put in about the same time as Scoop and I don't really have a feeling on the game yet. Since the first part of the game is in a dungeon / sewer it was pretty dark, then when I stepped outside it was dusk and quickly turned into night. While the graphics looked good, I haven't seen anything to make me go WOW just yet. I think that was due to the time of day during the game and my mindset last night (i was very tired).

Anyway I wanted to type this to convey how opened ended the game is, even though we stepped out at the same spot. Scoop choose to head straight for the town, however a structure that looked like a temple was illuminated in the nighttime sky right across the river from where i exited.

I decided to check this out, all I got was a name. Upon descending into the ruins, I was immediately attacked by some men. Dispatching them I procided further down and encounter more resistance and some spirits. At this point I felt I was pressing my luck and headed back for the surface.

Some of my problems with the above scenario, is i never knew who these people where or what they were doing. Besides shouting to kill me, they didn't do much and i didn't find any clues as to what was going on. I'm not convinced i would either if I kept going.

Also the world is so rich in backstory, that you will always be picking up items you have no clue what they are. An for whatever reason, I am not finding a place to give me an item description.

I was luke warm on Morrowind, but somehow this game feels better to me in limited play, but not enough to make a judgement. It's a littrle unatural playing it on a console at this point, but I think once i invest some time in getting used to things that will go away.

JRod · Post by **JRod** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 1:59 pm

GTA was not openended. GTA San Andreas was probably that most open ended out of the series but its just mission based. Start at point A go to point b - mission done. To be fair I have never liked the GTA series.

I loved KOTOR.

I have never played a MMOG or an RPG since maybe Kotor and before that Zelda. I'm intrigued by this game but I have to admit, I hate games that make you walk around. It just gets boring walking from a town to a mountain and back just to unlock a mission or something. That's why I stay away from these types of games. But something tells me the 360 might have done this game justice.

I'd appreciate more feedback although that might mean Scoop and Danimal will cost me 60 bones.

kevinpars · Post by **kevinpars** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:17 pm

A few technical issues found surfing the web:

If you use a VGA monitor, this game is like PGR in that it looks distored on a 4:3 monitor. The solution is to select 1024x768 and play letterboxed.

This is from a Bethesda employee and might be of use at some point:

Oblivion uses the Xbox 360 hard drive extensively to cache (copy and reuse) game data. This is done to optimize all loading the game does. It has been found in rare cases on some Xbox 360s that the cached data can get overly fragmented. This exhibits itself by the game taking a long time to load anything from menus, dialogue, sounds, objects, levels, and more.

To solve this problem, reset your Xbox, and hold down the A button as the game is booting up. If any button is held while Oblivion is loading, it will clear its hard drive cache, and create a new one. Once you see the “Bethesda Softworks” logo video, the game is already loaded, and the cache should have been cleared.

Note, this does not effect your game in any way other than loading. You will not lose any saved data.

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:21 pm

Uhh...so how do the people with the core system play that game if they are really using the hard drive extensively? Yeah...uhhh...I believe that.

Post by **ScoopBrady** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:39 pm

JRod wrote:GTA was not openended. GTA San Andreas was probably that most open ended out of the series but its just mission based. Start at point A go to point b - mission done. To be fair I have never liked the GTA series.

That's precisely the point I was trying to make JRod. GTA is lauded as an open-ended game but in reality there's not much you can do outside of banging a few prosititutes, jacking a few cars, and killing some randoms. In Oblivion you can enter all of the buildings (provided you can pick the lock if they are locked), explore a HUGE world, work on creating potions and spells, join different guilds (the Blades, the Thieves, etc.), and there's a story you can advance as you wish. It truly is open-ended. Hell, you can try to rob a whole town blind if you wanted. There's also a lot of different ways you can play it (focus on weapons, focus on magic, balance the two, be sneaky).

JRod wrote:I'm intrigued by this game but I have to admit, I hate games that make you walk around. It just gets boring walking from a town to a mountain and back just to unlock a mission or something. That's why I stay away from these types of games. But something tells me the 360 might have done this game justice.

One cool thing they added was the ability to open up the map and instantly transport yourself to different towns or even the next place you have to visit for a quest. This allows you to wander when you want and to quickly get on with your quest when you want to do that. I was a big fan of Morrowind so take my comments as you will. It just seems like they improved a lot things from the Xbox version and made it awfully purty.

Danimal,
You can sleep to move the clock ahead. Wait until you see the world in the daytime.

It's still impressive at night when it's raining and the wind is blowing too but it's just so crisp and beautiful during the day.

sportdan30 · Post by **sportdan30** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 3:25 pm

Scoop and Danimal,

Have either of you experienced long load times?

Taken from a poster at Gamefaqs:

I know not everyone is having this issue... but i DO have a hard drive, and yet the game still takes roughly 1-2 minutes to load a scene and i get the roaming loads that take 15-30 seconds, searching objects often take 15-30 seconds, and even scrolling through the map/item/character menus takes 15-30 seconds of loading.

I really hope this is addressed in a patch because its just absolutely annoying and completely kilsl the immersion factor for me.

So if anyone else there has this problem, please post and maybe the devs will hear wind of it and take a look at fixing it.

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 3:35 pm

Again I only played for an 90 minutes, but the loads times were of the 5 second type. It would hit an area and say loading area, it was very fast. So i have not had that issue.

I plan to spend some good time withthis one tonight. So I'll have better impressions tomorrow, hopefully they will be of better use then my DDO ones

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 3:48 pm

I've never wanted to kick your ass more than when I saw you online with it last night, Danimal

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 4:27 pm

TCrouch wrote:I've never wanted to kick your ass more than when I saw you online with it last night, Danimal

That would imply you have wanted to kick my ass at other times, not sure i want to know.