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[Bizzquik]

Loved the game on Xbox 360.

Still wish Bethesda would implement native controller support for the PC so I can play it with mods....

 

[Inkvoterad]

despite being a huge ES fan it's the only game i never really played much of (besides Arena and Daggerfall) so i'm revisiting the game right now all modded out

i really regret not playing the game around the time it came out. i'm sure it would've blown my head off.

definitely aged the worse of the three modern elder scrolls but still pretty great. had a lot of fun on my short time with it on 360, warts and all

Would you like to link your mod list in a PM, maybe? I want to go back to it but i have no clue where to begin with the modding. I played this tons on xbox before i even got a decent pc.

 

[queequegs__coffin]

It was my first Beth game, and really the first game I played after a 5 year gaming haitus. I'll never forget leaving the sewers in the beginning. It was at night game-time, and seeing twilight with Jeremy Soule's string arrangement was a singular gaming moment for me.

 

[Herp Derpington]

By Azura by Azura by Azura!

The soundtrack to is is GOAT worthy. It's really amazing. In fact I have it cued up in youtube right now lol.

 

[thenexus6]

I remember it very well. I had played Morrowind a little on the Xbox but this was the first time I jumped into The Elder Scrolls. Got the game and big guide book on launch day.

Absolutely Legendary music in that game.

 

[BigDug13]

Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul made it a completely different and great game.

 

[thefil]

I "was there" for Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. I love all the games equally and differently.

When I look back on Oblivion, the wonderful things I remember are:
+ the NPCs moving around and responding (Radiant AI)
+ a much more open and visible world than Morrowind
+ the phenomenal quests, especially Daedric Shrines
+ again, collecting the Daedric artifacts
+ great glitches
+ enchanting my mage with enough +martial skill heavy armor to switch to warrior in the end-game
+ Shivering Isles, obviously
+ the moment coming out of the sewers

It's a lot easier to credit Oblivion for making sane accessibility decisions in a post-Skyrim, post-Fallout 4 world. When I think about what changed from IV->V, what was lost from III->IV doesn't seem nearly as bad.

 

[SparksterMeta0]

I remember searching through Oblivion gates for those core things. One particular type I was after allowed to enchant "feather" on your armor, which was always convenient, because we all know how much of a pain Bethesda over-encumbrance is.

 

[8bitsuperhero]

I got this game with my 360 back when I graduated from high school. Such a good game.

Anyone else remember Bethesda said that the game would be coming out on the PSP?

 

[paragonpro]

This was one of the first 360 games i got, and by far the early 360 game i put the most time into.

 

[Proposed Law]

Dark brotherhood quest line and the Adoring fan.

 

[Sotha_Sil]

I thought the faction quests were well designed and told solid stories. Radiant AI wasn't all it was meant to be, but was a big step forward in creating convincing open worlds. The main quest was a little bland, the oblivion planes and dungeons repetitive, and the loot/enemy scaling was atrocious. Throw in the incredible Shivering Isles expansion and solid Knights of the Nine DLC, and this odd combination of poor and quality gaming is a unique package to say the least.

 

[NormalFish]

It's a lot easier to credit Oblivion for making sane accessibility decisions in a post-Skyrim, post-Fallout 4 world. When I think about what changed from IV->V, what was lost from III->IV doesn't seem nearly as bad.

This is a good point well made. I love Oblivion, but I've also spent time with Morrowind and Skyrim. Lots of people rag on Oblivion for moving too far but Morrowind, but at least it still has obvious RPG-ness in pretty much everything you do. Skyrim feels exponentially more streamlined.

In my mind, Oblivion is like a middle ground between the lack of classic RPG holdovers in Skyrim, and the relatively archaic systems of Morrowind. I feel for the Morrowind lovers, since I think a fair number of the changes from it to Oblivion detract from the world building (fast travel, quest markers, etc), but damn if the game doesn't feel like it's a million years old in comparison.

Spoiler

Also best quests in the series.

 

[SirMossyBloke]

In regards to setting I think it's probably the worst TES game (though I've barely touched Arena). But I still have a real fondness for this game, I played a whole lot of it during a really happy period of my life, so it's hard not to associate those good feelings with the game automatically.

That said there are a few things I think it does really well. Some of the questlines in Oblivion are really good, and I actually think it does a better job of making the quest's feel more involved than other games in the series. The Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild are great all around.


The playable space in Morrowind is smaller than that of Oblivion.

I know. I never said Morrowind had a bigger map.

 

[SOR5]

I still remember that one male elf voice, the most instantly recognizable and charismatic dulcet tones in the industry.

 

[Alpha Phoenix]

I prefer Skyrim, but Oblivion certainly had its magic.

 

[PapaEmeritus]

My favorite thing was G4 saying to pass on this game on Attack of the Show - LOL

 

[MrRudiMentary]

The Thieves Guild, Shivering Isles and Dark Brotherhood questlines are probably the three best in all Bethesda games.

 

[tea_and_crumpets]

I remember playing it on the 360 and finding it a total revelation. I had Morrowind on the Xbox but could never really get in to it. With Oblivion I was actually able to get to grips with games systems and once I had spent a little time with it I got seriously sucked in and the game totally blew me away.

I've played through the game several subsequent times on PC, and the mods certainly keep it fresh. The combat is probably the most boring part of the game though; its incredibly basic and pales in comparison to the likes of Dark Souls as an action RPG.The levelling system isn't great either.

Still the world and the quest lines are of a very high quality and still bring back fond memories. The dark brotherhood quest line is vastly better than Skyrim's one and I loved 'The collector' quest line where you had to track down the Annelid (sic) artefacts and give them to the rich and obsessive elf in the capital.

 

[Imp the Dimp]

It was absolutely terrible. One of the worst sequels I have played to date and I'm not exaggerating. Coming from Morrowind this felt like a downgrade in virtually every department save the combat (which I actually didn't like in either game) and its graphics I guess. In terms of art I prefered Morrowind by a lot.

 

[Linkyn]

I know it's a really flawed game, but Oblivion was a huge deal to me when it came out. I've sunk hundreds of hours into various characters, and I actually prefer it to Skyrim, mostly because some of its principal side quest lines are so well done (the Dark Brotherhood and Thieve's Guild mercilessly put their Skyrim counterparts to shame). Also, despite the fact that the game world was quite monotonous, I really liked traversing it, and all the random nonsense that tended to happen along the way. I think it took me years to get to a point where I'd actually completed everything (the Vampire cure quest must have been one of the last things left), and I still like to start up a new character maybe once a year when I have time on my hand.

 

[AlteredForms]

Shame it wasn't a very tuned and polished experience. That would have made it more special.

 

[LordOfChaos]

I remember this being *the* benchmark of the time until Crysis came along, with people considering dual x1950XTX cards to run it on PC.

(still a handsome card, actually)

 

[dalin80]

The Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood questlines are probably the two best in all Bethesda games.

The mages guild quest line was also substantially better then Skyrims. And to be honest the atmosphere as a whole while less realistic just felt cozier.

Knights of the nice was good even if a *little* cliche and cheesy. Shivering Isles was an awesome expansion, I remember returning to Cyrodiil after and walking around the imperial city just wanting to tell people 'I have seen things... Done things... The shit I have been through man, you just don't man. You weren't there!'.


Recently tried replaying it though but asides from the Patrick Stewart / Sean Bean moments the voice acting made me want to slaughter everybody.

 

[BobLoblaw]

To me, Oblivion is the worse Elder Scrolls game of the past three released (Morrowind 1, Skyrim 2). The only people I usually see saying it's "the best" were people who had never played an ES game prior to it.

 

[Farks!]

However, when it comes time to actually sit-down and play it, Oblivion has a strange place in my memories. When compared to the mechanical depth of Morrowind which preceded it, and the gameplay refinements in Skyrim which followed on from it, Oblivion from a purely gameplay standpoint is perhaps the weakest Elder Scrolls game, combat in Skyrim is of the brain dead variety, but it almost seems more honest that way, a sort of admission from Bethesda that they know they can’t do melee combat and have just given up by letting you play whack a mole. Oblivion’s gameplay by contrast is stuck in the middle, between satisfying the hard statistical underpinnings present in Morrowind and the action combat which Skyrim would build itself around. Oblivion is a wonderful game to reminisce about, but playing it involves wading through lumpy, leaden combat with a needlessly simplified version of Morrowind’s crafting and magic system.

Oblivion, warts and all (and it has some nasty Gamebyro looking ones) is perhaps the Elder Scrolls game I am least likely to replay, but it paradoxically holds the warmest memories that I have of any Elder Scrolls. It was massive, it was hyped to high heavens and every time the game gets brought up I’m reminded of the excitement I felt when seeing those first screenshots on Gamespy all those years ago;

So Neogaf, what are your memories of Oblivion over the last decade?

I have similair feelings. I loved the game when it came out, and it was the game that truly made me a wRPG fan. But when I tried to replay it years later, all I could think is "man, I don't remember it being this terrible". Aside from all the bugs (problary the buggiest Gamebryo game to date), the mechanics and systems were poorly implemented and executed. The games weird level scaling is problary the best example. As bad as Skyrim was, it at least ditched a lot of the janky mechanics. Not to mention how poorly the game has aged visually.

Still, it was pretty novel and exciting to experience one of the first modern open world RPG's and the atmosphere it had to offer.

 

[ajim]

Shivering Isles is still the best thing in the elder scrolls world IMO. Absolutely phenomenal experience by all accounts.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

I remember playing this on PC and not having that great a time outside of its novelty to me. Little nuggets of crunchy goodness (ghostbusting that house down SW, that one real deep ruin, the Deliverance town, Dark Brotherhood) in vast swaths of tapioca filler.

It looks even worse after W3.

 

[lame gag]

Well we did get this class from Oblivion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMIoAAnZt_4

 

[Kosma]

I thought it was very boring amd bland.


This was later confirmed to be true by bland writing in Skyrim and Fallout.

 

[dalin80]

To me, Oblivion is the worse Elder Scrolls game of the past three released (Morrowind 1, Skyrim 2). The only people I usually see saying it's "the best" were people who had never played an ES game prior to it.

I found Morrowind a very empty and bland experience, the world felt lonely and just uncomfortable. To me Oblivion was the first open world game that felt like a living world even though it's limitations are very well known.

The voice acting was awful, the characters a whole new world of Fugly and the scaled leveling actually made a lot of progress a bad idea but it still felt like a better experience.

 

[Cranster]

Oblivion still has my favourite Bethesda music.

 

[Bartholomuse]

Well we did get this class from Oblivion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMIoAAnZt_4

He has a good point there does Rab, in the previous generation you absolutely couldn't throw boots on top of roofs.

 

[Artdayne]

It was my first real Elder Scrolls game and I absolutely loved it on my first play-through. I wish I had played Morrowind when it was fresh but I didn't have a PC at the time. Anyway, I did really enjoy my time with the game

 

[nemisis0]

My first elderscrolls game and to this day it is still my favourite. The dark brotherhood quest line was just amazing.

 

[ASilentProtagonist]

My first Bethesda RPG. This game blew my mind in 06. Still have that Rated T version sitting around.

So much nostalgia with everything about this game and Greg Kasavin....

To me this is Bethesda's best work. It had the perfect balance of content, and quality. Dark Brotherhood, and Thieves guild questlines are among the greatest in gaming. The soundtrack really takes me back too.

 

[Kieli]

Really was a generational leap for consoles. I didn't have a 7th gen console until December 2008, so I played Oblivion on my PC. This was a PC created from old parts slapped together for very little by my dad. Pentium 4 3Ghz, 1GB DDR RAM, something like a GTX 660, and an AGP motherboard. Could play Oblivion on High settings for the most part iirc...those were good times.
Although, for the most part I think I just enjoyed using console cheats and running amok rather than doing the story, which I have yet to complete despite buying the GOTY edition on PS3 last year...

Are you a time traveler?

 

[Kovacs]

I bought it on release for the 360 then played it through to leaving the first dungeon and immediately became paralysed because I didn't have any idea what I was doing. The concept of 'go anywhere' and do things in any order just went over my head and frustrated me.

I sold it to a mate that same weekend.

Fast forward a few years and thanks to a heck of a lot of experience in open world RPG's thanks to an education in titles like Dragon Age, Fallout 3 & NV and the Mass Effect series I started taking an interest in Skyrim even though I hadn't through a lot of its predecessor. It completely hooked me and I spent hundreds of hours exploring that world.

Another leap forward to early 2013 and I found myself in that transitional period waiting for Witcher 3 and DA: Inquisition and generally being massively impatient for a new RPG experience to come out. That's when I realised that it was very likely that I was the one with a problem with Oblivion and not that the game itself was confusing and bad. I picked up a used copy on 360 and proceeded to have my first real experience with it.

Yes, it looks a little dated in comparison to its more modern brethren but that really only impacts the character models. The world itself looks fantastic and more importantly feels like a real and populated world. Sure, a couple of the mechanics felt a little rough but it still played well and engrossed me for weeks.

That's why I've always been a little amused by recollection threads like these as the opinions tend to fall between three camps - 'it was great when first played, but dated now' or 'it wasn't as good as what came before, even on release', or 'way better than Skyrim'. I came to it so much later than most and yet still had a really enjoyable time with it. Maybe I'm a little more sympathetic judge as I can overlook UI faults or jankiness providing the environment and quests grab me and keep me immersed. From that regard I think it holds up exceptionally well and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking for an open world RPG experience.

 

[Enduin]

I refused to play Oblivion for years after it's release because I was such a huge Morrowind fan and all the changes just put me off so much.

I finally did play it though around 2010 or so when I got new PC and went ham on it with mods. It is a an enjoyable game, but at its core the changes made and quality just wasn't on par with Morrowind.

Shivering Isles was legit great though and Knights of the Nine was pretty fun. Mods certainly helped a ton. I likely would have been pretty disappointed more than anything if I just played vanilla in 06.

 

[Illucio]

Great game with amazing written dialogue and racism between races.

Some of the best quests in terms of having to actually prepare for them unlike Skyrim where it's like: (LOL I'm just going to run through this cave from start to finish.)

 

[socksfelloff]

I had just gotten a 360 after a good 2+ hear hiatus from gaming and grabbed oblivion on a whim from gamestop after a buddy told me about it.

I was hooked instantly. It's the first console game that ever got its hooks into me. It made me buy a play and charge kit instead of dollar store batteries and it made me buy a vga cable to play it on my monitor instead of my sdtv.

I explored every corner and got every achievement. It was the first ( and still one of the few) games I ever bought dlc for.

A year or 2 ago I played through it again for pc with a fuck ton of mods.

I love oblivion.

 

[Spiritwalker]

Miss those days terribly

I really liked the geometry in this game. Lots of steep hills and stuff.

 

[mindfreak191]

I would probably not love it if this wasn't my first Elder Scrolls game....and boy do I love it! I remember being hyped because it was supposed to be the firs true "next gen" tittle, and man was I disappointed when I saw that the game was running at 5fps on my fx5200 xD
And I still remember the moment I rejoiced when I installed the "ultra low" mod and the game finally ran at a playable framerate....it looked like ass, but hey I was finally able to play it. Don't get me started on the music, it's one of the best OST's that I have ever heard and I still listen to the soundtrack from time to time. Oblivion was a wonderful experience to me and even though I wouldn't be able to enjoy it today as I did back in 2006, it will always be among the top 10 games I've ever played in my life.

 

[KefkaPalazzo]

So many good memories of it. It had it's flaws (repetitive dungeons, level scaling, those faces, etc.) but upon release it was a beautiful and immersive open world with some truly memorable quests. It may not be as refined as Skyrim or as free as Morrowind, but I put a ton of time into it and have no regrets. I've been feeling an itch to replay it and Morrowind.

Hard to think that it's been 10 years, I was in the 8th grade when it came out, i'm getting old.

Dat OST though, damn.

 

[OmegaDL50]

I put hundreds of hours into Oblivion years ago.

My expectations were somewhat tempered since I knew it would be in a different locale than Morrowind, just how Morrowind was different than Daggerfall as well.

On the subject of Morrowind and Oblivion, Ken Rolston was one of the designers for both games and both Morrowind and Oblivion used the same leveling mechanics of needing to raise a specific number of skills 10 times to raise a primary attribute.

Ken Rolston left Bethesda shortly after Oblivion's release and I think this attributed to some of the RPG mechanics being lessened during the transition over to Skyrim being more emphasis on action and less dice roll mechanics in the background also less emphasis on stats and just narrowing it down to perks with three major attributes of Health, Magicka, and Stamina.

While the grassy plains of Oblivion and the Ash Wastes of Morrowind from a setting is always in debate. I think both games were excellent for what they had to offer.

One of my last saves on Oblivion was running F.C.O.M and Quarl's Texture pack. FCOM itself was a very complicated mod setup that changed many mechanics of the game in terms of enemy and loot being deleveled similar to Morrowind, as well as combat being more tactile.

I guess the closest thing Skyrim has to FCOM would be PerMa or perhaps Requiem.

I think the biggest thing Skyrim had over Oblivion in terms of mod support was the landmass expansions such as Falskaar, Wyrmstooth, and perhaps Moonpath to Elsweyr.

I pretty much enjoyed my experience with each of the Elder Scrolls games from it's transition to an unmodded first encounter to a complete full modded experience.

I'm currently doing the same thing with Fallout 4 and will do the same when Elder Scrolls VI comes around.

Oblivion was a good memory for me, despite not having the same exoticness in terms of locales as Morrowind had.

 

[gblues]

Oh man, Oblivion.

I played it on a rickety GeForce 660 (not to be confused with a GTX 660 which is a much newer and much faster card). This thing was a cheap POS barely better than integrated graphics. It ran at like 25fps and actually managed to be playable at low settings until the end game. That last boss fight was a literal slideshow and I ended up abusing cheats to beat it.

In the moment, it was epic and awesome. The gates went from a total PITA to a minor annoyance once I got my speed up high enough that I could just sprint my way up the tower, grab the eye thingy, and dodge long enough for the teleport to kick in.

Today, it's been eclipsed in almost every way, except one: quests. The Dark Brotherhood line is arguably GOAT. Even the more pedestrian quests tend to have more flair than Skyrim, largely because Skyrim's quest writing is ridiculously anemic.

I would like to see Oblivion remade (not remastered), at a proper scale. The Imperial City is supposed to be about the size of Ba Sing Se in "Avatar: the Last Airbender", with thousands of people in it, and instead there's maybe 50-100 NPCs and you can run across the entire city in a few minutes.

But as-is, it's still enjoyable, warts-and-all.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I was entranced by it for the first ten hours or so.

I really just loved walking around the world in which it felt almost anything was possible.

However, I really disliked all of the Oblivion portal nonsense. Spent dozens of hours just messing around, but never finished the game until I decided to power through the main story many years later.

 

[gblues]

On the subject of Morrowind and Oblivion, Ken Rolston was one of the designers for both games and both Morrowind and Oblivion used the same leveling mechanics of needing to raise a specific number of skills 10 times to raise a primary attribute.

Ken Rolston left Bethesda shortly after Oblivion's release and I think this attributed to some of the RPG mechanics being lessened during the transition over to Skyrim being more emphasis on action and less dice roll mechanics in the background also less emphasis on stats and just narrowing it down to perks with three major attributes of Health, Magicka, and Stamina

Likewise, most of the cool lore from Morrowind was written by Michael Kirkbride. He's since left Bethesda as well.

Skyrim didn't grab me like Oblivion and Morrowind did. A Kirkbride-less, Ralston-less TESVI makes me kinda nervous, especially with how Fallout 4 turned out.

 

[lazygecko]

I would like to see Oblivion remade (not remastered), at a proper scale. The Imperial City is supposed to be about the size of Omashu in "Avatar: the Last Airbender", with thousands of people in it, and instead there's maybe 50-100 NPCs and you can run across the entire city in a few minutes.

Open world game scales are abstracted to hell, and it's just going to keep getting worse as production values increase and require more work for the same content, and the public actively praises densely made worlds.

The messed up scale is one of the main reasons I can't get into the new Fallouts because it actively works against the wasteland atmosphere and I simply cannot suspend my disbelief to that extent.

 

[Gurnlei]

It was the first and only game on 360 I earned every achievement for including Shivering Isles. Was a great experience, but I prefer Morrowind and Skyrim.