Favourite computer games of all time. [2]

Read a rumour the other day they might be remastering the original three Spyro The Dragon games for PS4 next year, which (coupled with the release of Red Dead 3) might be enough to persuade me to upgrade to the next gen.

The Spyro games are quite simplistic and dated by today's standards (being nearly 20 years old) and I'm not so sure they'd find much of an audience today (not least because the crappy sequels and endless spinoffs have rather tarnished the brand i.m.o) but were a huge part of my childhood gaming, great, innocent fun with solid level design and colourful artwork and a good balance between tricky platformer and bash and crash combat, I still have the original PS1 versions knocking around somewhere (or I did last time I checked) and dig them out every few years for a blast of nostalgia, I had previously read various rights issues made the chance of a remaster very unlikely, but I'm going to hope there is some truth in these rumours/theories as a HD remaster would be wonderful (though also kinda weird, hard to believe it's been 15+ years since I first got those games...)

{{{Visiting a nice ring world in ED }}

{{{Had to get a lift from Nagual in ED due to excessive drunkenness! Impressive ship Contains some swearing!}}}

{{Been mucking about in Skyrim and just started a new game. As its the strart of a new game the locations should be mainly familiar to anyone who has played through the games first few quests.
Main stuff on the visuals here: Vivid landscapes, noble skyrim, majestic mountains, nordic snow, better snow, realistic water 2, simply bigger trees, verdant grass, better roads, vivid weathers, realistic lighting overhaul, static mesh improvement mod, Nvidea ENB, UNP body, RS Children and Prince and Pauper, rustic clothing and a ton of improved clutter mods.

Pictures are in spoilers just to save loading up every time you come to the page. }}

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Baltimore Convention Center in Minecraft. Still very much unfinished. This is based on a real structure, the former home of Otakon from 1999 to 2016. The majority of this work was done over the course of about six to eight weeks this spring. At this point it's unlikely that I will come back to it anytime soon, but I wanted to at least share some screenshots since this was a fairly major endeavor.



Overhead view of the more finished half of the convention center.



I built this in a superflat world so I had enough space, but in order to get the slope you see I had to use WorldEdit to clear away tens of thousands of blocks (extending far enough so that the edge of the landscaped area is beyond rendering range) even before excavating out the basement/foundation of the actual building.



Traffic island and entrance to the Charles Street lobby. In real life there are curbs but Minecraft doesn't have enough fine detail to really depict that. Ice cream trucks would park here on Friday and Saturday nights during the con.



Ground level view of the Charles Street lobby. The doors to the center-right lead to the video game room, while the doors to the left (mostly obscured by the stairs) lead to Hall A (see below).



View of the lobby from the mezzanine. The space in front of the fountains was a popular spot for cosplay photoshoots.



Trying to adapt the RL handicap access ramp to Minecraft, which doesn't have ramp blocks and is all right angles instead of the curves of the real thing, was a real pain.



Walkway between the outdoor terrace and the Charles Street lobby. The doorway in the center of this image (sliding glass doors IRL) was generally kept locked IIRC.



Better view of the terrace. I never finished adding vegetation; the real thing had quite a bit.



Another view of the inside. This level (the 300 level) had a lot of the panel rooms, but I didn't get around to building those. You can also see that the roof is made of glass blocks (with carpet on top of them). This was done so that sunlight could pass through unhindered. Poor interior lighting was a major concern in both this and the Hogwarts build.



Looking down from the 300 level towards the walkway that, in real life, snaked between hotels and office buildings until it reached the Inner Harbor.



Exterior view. You can see the carpet roofing here.



Back (south-facing) side of the building. The real one is only marginally more exciting than in my model.



Hall A, one of the smallest of the exhibition halls on the lowest (100) level. During most (maybe all) of the years that I attended this was the largest video screening room, and was therefore much darker than in this image. I watched Evangelion 3.0 with about 2000 people in this room in 2013.



The combined Halls B and C, which was the video game room during the last several years of Otakon in Baltimore. The reason the exhibition halls are so bright, despite being underground, is that the floor is entirely glowstone covered in grey carpet to resemble concrete. Credit belongs to Baingil for this suggestion.



This is the same level as the mezzanine (200 level), but near the western end of the eastern half of the building. Because of the slope of the land, it is at ground level here.



Same area, looking the other way. You can see the steps leading downstairs to Hall D...



...which housed the rave on Friday and Saturday nights, as well as performances by some of the musical guests. My sister always spent a lot of time at the rave, and some people attended the con basically just so they could get in to dance. It was pretty fun but it always conflicted with late-night panels so I didn't spend as much time there.



Sharp Street, which runs beneath the skywalk and divides the two halves of the convention center (though they are continuous at the 100 level, which is entirely below ground this far west.



Wider view of Sharp Street, also showing the unfinished state of the western half of the convention center.



The even more unfinished part. The ceilings of the 100 level exhibition halls are in place, but the superstructure of the building is not (yet) constructed. As you could see from the above pictures of the 200 level, interior lighting in Minecraft is pretty poor if you don't make the whole floor glow. This half of the building also has a 400 level so there would be a lot of space (with more in it than the 200 level) in deep shadow if I continued.



Stairs leading down towards the dealer's room, which is the largest of the exhibition halls.



Looking down the dealer's room from the end that you enter by (which is the south end).



Dealer's room from the other direction. I dunno if the model can really convey how massive the thing is. Walking in for the first time in my first year, and seeing how full of vendors and stalls and signs and everything that it is during the con, was a pretty awesome (in both senses of the word) experience.



The adjacent artist alley (the ceiling of which could be glimpsed, alongside that of the dealer's room, in the screencap a couple pictures up).



Another view of the incomplete area. The gold blocks along the edge of the building are there to help me keep count of how long it is, and the quartz blocks were to mark out where additional walls and such would go.

{{{ I have been lucky enough between birthday and other things to have got three new VR games to play of late and 1 older game that is not VR, exactly, but sort of is, and can be modded to play in VR.

Here's my thoughts on them.

Rez Infinite- old playstation 2 hands might be familiar with this one- its an on-rails shooter in a sort of retro vectory setting, played out to thumping sets of dance tracks. The gameplay could not be simpler, as you hurtle forwards you can target enemies singly or in groups by holding down the fire button, when you let the button go you release your fire and wipe out anything you have targeted. Power ups come in the form of white glowy things which when you fill up a bank of them 'evolves' your main character to a higher stage- this basically acts as lives- if you take a hit you 'de-evolve' to the previous stage- back to your starting one, get hit again and you die. Red glowy things on the other hand are your basic smart bomb.
At the end of each of the games 5 levels there is a unique boss to fight and these are some of the most fun parts to play with imaginative and engaging enemies.

The VR version plays much the same as the 2d version with the exception that you can simply target enemies by holding down fire and looking at them- very useful for when enemies are flooding in from behind or from the sides.

Its simple but addictive, if not as challenging as it should be- which does bring me onto a bit of crabbit- you have to complete all 5 levels to unlock the bonus levels- and then you have to play through the entire game start to finish, all 5 levels to unlock each of the bonus levels individually- the main difference between these versions being different colour schemes and increasing difficulty. My problem here is that I had to complete the main game, then play through it all again in two other bonus modes before I unlocked a level where I found the difficulty challenging and so more fun. Something as straightforward as increased difficulty and enemy patterns should not be hidden away behind about 2-3 hours of game to unlock.

Besides the main game which is the same as the 2d version there are some bonus 'lost levels' and a modern 'update' for VR, which is shorter at only a few levels, prettier and full of particle effects making it very reminiscent of a Jeff Minter game at times and allows for freedom of movement in any direction, you travel in the direction you are looking, rather than it being on rails like the original- and its really good, just disappointingly short.

Over all its great fun, addictive old skool shooter action that works well in VR as a converted 2d game, and very well as a, albeit way too short, updated dedicated VR version. Maybe we will get a Rez 2 for VR that fulfills fully the potential here.



Game two was Star Trek Bridge Crew.
This is a single or multiplayer game which lets you take one of a number of bridge positions on a starfleet ship. Its set in the Abrams version of events sadly but its still hard not feel a swell of something when you begin on a shuttle craft rounding  space dock to reveal your ship.
If you've ever played the classic Star Trek Bridge Commander this is much the same thing but in VR and with multiplayer. I cant comment on the multiplayer yet as I am making my way through the campaign playing as the Captain.
As Captain you can issue orders to the various bridge positions like helm, or tactical, or engineering, or you can take over those positions directly if you wish too.
Controls are straight forward enough- in multiplayer you issue commands just by talking, in single player its all done in pop up holographic windows, activated by tapping the buttons on your chair arms. It all works well enough though you can get a bit cluttered with holo screens all around your chair in the heat of things. Most of the time your view is limited through the viewscreen though you can switch to an exterior view fixed above the ships main dish. I haven't found much use for it except to occasionally look at the pretties.
I cant comment too much on this one yet as I haven't played enough of the campaign, so far its quite slow paced in its gameplay which i dont mind so much, but the story is not as good as that of the aging Bridge Commander, and in particular the ai shipmates are nowhere near as interesting, engaging, or properly written, being just bots basically filling in for real people.
The touch controls work very well but overall if Bridge Commander were available in VR., Id rather play it again.



The third new game is Lone Echo. This one so far is very impressive. It's from occulus themselves and its very polished, both graphically, it looks stunning, with natural realistic models and good lighting and in its story.
You play an android serving on a mining station orbiting Saturn and are second in command essentially to the stations only human personal, its Captain. She has nicknamed you Jack. The entire game is set in a no gravity environment and you move about mainly by just grabbing surfaces and pushing off them, or one of the many handles placed all over the station to aid movement- its incredibly natural very quickly, and the touch controllers are great at accurately portraying where surfaces are- when you reach out a hand towards  a wall to push off it it's always exactly where your brain is telling you it should be in relation to your body.
But the highlight of it so far is how well written the two main characters are, and their relationship as a mysterious anomaly on Saturn begin to threaten the station.
Beautiful looking with engaging leads,interesting environments with lots to interact with, an innovative and very successful locomotion system.
Overall on what I have played so far its a fantastic Vr game and experience and shows off a lot of the good things about VR gaming and what makes it unique and special- you simply could not have this game working in the fashion it does in 2d.



Lastly an older game with a new mod. Alien Isolation now has a simple fan made mod, just two little files, you pop into your installation folder to make it run in VR.
In one of the weirder moves by a games company Alien Isolation was meant to have a VR mode, and indeed it does, except they decided at the last minute simply not to activate it- this mod activates it again.
Now I found this game in the dark with headphones on in 2d pretty damn tense and scary at time, setting the heart pounding- its nothing to the experience in virtual reality- first just walking about the locations is fantastic, like being on the actual Alien set- but when you actually encounter the alien, well there is no other way to say it, its fucking terrifying! Not only that, something which just doesn't come across in 2d, or even in the cinema really- they are fucking huge hulking things that look easily capable of tearing you limb from limb with no effort as they tower over you.
Sadly no touch controller support yet, though its being worked on by the modder, but it does support the controller option.
If you like your blood pressure through the roof and your heart pounding against your chest then Alien Isolation in VR is the game for you.



 }}}

{{Some of my personal favourite snapshots Ive taken whilst playing modded Skyrim SE, in no particular order- click on an image to see a better quality version- bunged them in spoiler brackets just to save on loading them all at once }}

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{{{Been off on a deep space exploration mission in Elite Dangerous- far, far away now from the bubble of civilization discovering new worlds and charting new systems, and occasionally parking my ship- 'The Buckie Barrel' on them and stopping for a drink!   }}}

{{Ring planets never get old, especially in VR as it really takes your breath away when you glance to your side and see this out the side window!}}



{{{Rings in the shadow cast by their planet}}



{{Planetoid with a view! }}



{{ Stars and close orbiting planets always make for nice visuals }}











{{But sometimes you just got to park up soak in the view and enjoy a buckie! }}}

Eldo-
Why'd Otakon move to Vegas?

Petty-
Skyrim looking georgious, of course. I don't quite get ED. Doesn't the exploration feel rather lifeless? I think I'd get bored without some kind of story to follow.

I tried playing minecraft again the other day, I have the crappier Ps3 version but even so I don't normally have the patience to sit down and actually build stuff on it, usually get bored and just blow shit up with dynamite, surprisingly fiddly and complex for a kids game.

Also trying to complete a 100% play through of Red Dead Redemption, amazing game

{{{Forest- With ED you make your own story- but there are 'events' if your more story orientated- the game is basically DM'd with things happening - for example when the game began people started discovering 'unknown probes' that emanated weird sounds when scanned and did weird things if taken  into your cargo hold- such screw up systems and eat through your hull. Eventually very smart players worked out that there was hidden information in the sound giving coordinates, which lead to more stuff, which eventually lead to weird organic things dubbed' barnacles' being discovered on some planets. These clues led to further clues hinting towards the alien Thargoid race making a return- at the point in the game now the Thargoids have turned up and the most recent event is they have started attacking spacestations.
There are community goals to achieve related to this and there are missions you can take ect to get involved- new weapons are being researched to combat the Thargoids that players can try out ect.

I on the other-hand like to explore, to go out there and just enjoy the view and crack open a buckie, so I am not doing any of that- but I could b eif I wanted to- and thats kind of the point., You role play your own character and pick what you want to do- you are never told to do anything. Im on a planned round trip right now, eventually I'll return back to the civilised bits and sell all my exploration data, but I may be going back to a war- who knows! But what I do about that- take part, bugger off exploring again and ignore it, try to make a fast buck trading in war zones or running illegal weapons or join one of the militaries and get involved that way, or just put myself up as a gun for hire- but all up to me.












Malick- loved Red Dead -played that to death. Was always surprised how well it captured (not just visually but in the characters and dialogue) a feel of the time period. Very much hoping the equal gets a pc release this time or Ill miss out!  }}}

Forest Shepherd wrote:Eldo-
Why'd Otakon move to Vegas?

Otakon Vegas is actually a sister convention that's run by the same non-profit, though I've never attended. The main Otakon event moved from Baltimore to DC this year because the Baltimore Convention Center is old and relatively small compared to the one in DC. I miss it being close and I have a lot of good memories of the BCC (hence wanting to build it in Minecraft ) but based on my experience in 2017 the Washington convention center is definitely a step up.

malickfan wrote:I tried playing minecraft again the other day, I have the crappier Ps3 version but even so I don't normally have the patience to sit down and actually build stuff on it, usually get bored and just blow shit up with dynamite, surprisingly fiddly and complex for a kids game.

My stepbrother has the Xbox version of Minecraft which I've played with him a couple times but I much prefer the controls on the computer version (I've played it on Linux and Mac but I assume the PC version is very similar). It'd probably be even nicer if I had a cordless mouse to use instead of my trackpad, but there's very little other use I'd have for a mouse, and it wouldn't be very practical to use while lying down on my bed or a couch like I often am anyway (since I no longer have a desk on hand most of the time).

I enjoyed the drunken ED video from a while back Petty. I don't think I'd heard your voice before actually. Nice brogue.

Anyway, that's cool about the Thargoid invasion thing. I think I'd be more interested in working my way up through better ships or playing the game in a social way by planning raids or whatever on nearby enemies. But then I don't really play computer games anymore. They depress me for some reason.

{{I'd forgotten about that vid! Does emphasis another aspect of the game though- you can fly with other players in wings- or you can do what I was doing there and fly on another persons ship, acting as gunner or just sight-seeing if your um too drunk!

Regards working your way up through ships- you have to do that anyway no matter what you do.
One of the things that new players (especially younger ones who grew up on games that hold your hand the whole way) find off-putting is the game starts old skool- so old skool in fact that its exactly how the original Elite began way back in 1983 on a BBC Micro B- you get a crappy base ship, a pitiful sum of money and dumped randomly in a station in inhabited space- and then the game just walks away for you saying 'right there's a galaxy out there- go make something of yourself' and leaves you to it. After that entirely up to you how you make it, what you do, whether you play solo or in a group with friends, if you take community goals and follow the Thargoid stories, or get involved in the power play fighitng for various factions for a variety of reasons in different systems, trying to change the balance of power there- Blue could find many a good cause to fight for there freeing systems from Empire rule ect. You could make your cash being a merchant, or you could be an illegal merchant running weapons, drugs or slaves into systems they are illegal in, running the police scans and hoping to make a quick buck. Or you could go mine asteroids for some money, or do what I did when I was saving up to buy my Asp Explorer, be a bounty hunter and take out wanted ships and collect on the bounties.
Whatever you do you will want at some point to upgrade to a better ship, so you will find yourself doing that no matter how you choose to spend your time in the game. }}}

{{{{ I recently repurchased Oblivion- Game of the Year Edition (damn you Bethseida that's the third time I've bought this damn game!!!) when I previously owned it it was on my old pc, and whilst I heavily modded it it couldn't run an ENB and I couldn't even run it on ultra settings- and even then I often struggled with frame dips to 10fps when things got actiony! That was also years ago so I was very curious to see what graphic mods have appeared since then and if my new rig would still struggle with this, now, 12 year old game.

The result was pretty amazing.
If you want to mod Oblivion (and the game is on steam for about 8 quid and all the mods are free, make sure you get the Game of the Year Edition with all the DLC) be warned even when you're used to using all the mod tools its a whole evenings work to mod the game like this.

I highly recommend following Bevilx's excellent guide which I used as the base for my own installation-

https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/47591/?tab=description

Here's the result of my own modding efforts of Oblivion in 2018- (oh and no my pc with its Nvidea 1070 still cant run it flat out fully modded like this- I get a consistent 45fps, if I want 60 I need to reduce the distance it draws in objects and characters from 100% to about 75%) }}}

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{{{ Just some more Oblivion screenshots taken as I play }}

{{Oblivion realm- the lighting, lava and fire effects make it much more hellish looking now, but if you note on the last of the Oblivion realm pics the foreground rock is still the original vanilla low poly texture, need to see if I can find and retexture those rock types!}}

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{{This is all from early on in the main quest, the destruction of Kvatch- which I think is still more impressive than the destruction of Helgen at the beginning of Skyrim- this place really does looked totally screwed}}

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{{ One of the most impressive mods for immersion lets you see out of windows when you are indoors, this applies to the stained glass windows in Chapels too- its simple yet so amazingly effective}}

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{{There is no volumetric lighting system like in Skyrim but the ENB combined with All Natural Weathers still gives impressive effects as you go about Tamriel }}

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{{ Why Oblivion is a better game than Skyrim.


I will caveat this before I start- I play Oblivion and Skyrim on pc which means I mod both- a lot. This comparison therefore is between a modded Oblivion and a modded Skyrim, not the out the box vanilla game (does anyone play that ?!) therefore if something under discussion is purely the result of a mod I will say so, but for the most part what will be covered here is applicable to both games in their vanilla state.
A quick mention too for the game engine and its long history. The game engine both Oblivion and Skyrim was created on was originally made for Morrowind (yup its that old), it was then updated for Oblivion, updated again to make Fallout 3, updated some more for Skyrim, updated again for Fallout 4, and finally that version of the engine was used to create Skyrim Special Edition.
But under the hood its the same old game engine from Morrowind.
The upshot of this is fully modded Oblivion does not look 7 years older than a modded Skyrim- its not as good looking dont get me wrong, but the gulf between them is not that large either given the time frame.

Ok now that's out the way onto the main meat of this debate.

Location, Location, Location!

Skyrim's map (and therefore the gameworld,) is bigger than Oblivion's. Skyrim's map has more stuff on it that Oblivion's and so has more locations to explore.
So in theory at first glance Skyrim improves on Oblivion.
But does it? Because whilst there is more of Skyrim, a lot of it is very samey visually.

For those who dont know Oblivion is set in the realm of Cyrodill, which as far as thinking about it visually think medieval northern Europe with a dash of Roman Empire thrown in.
Skyrim is set further north in the realm of Skyrim naturally enough, for this think medieval Scandinavia, we are in Viking influenced territory here.

The main difference this makes is that Skyrim has a lot of mountains, a lot of snow and a lot of grey and muted colours. Whereas Oblivion has a lot of trees, a lot of green grass  and more in the way of rolling hills.

To put it simply if you had a choice of going on holiday would you choose to visit Skyrim-



or here?-



In my view Oblivion is simply more pleasing on the eye- after putting over 100 hours into Skyrim living and breathing its snowy mountainous lands leaves you with a somewhat bleak feeling absent from Oblivion's visuals.

But the biggest issue for Skyrim is a lack of visual variety.
Take towns and cities in Skyrim. Firstly nothing in Skyrim, not even the three major city locations- Windhelm, Whiterun and Solitude- are actually large enough to count as a city, despite the name, they are at best small towns and worse big castles. And only these three show any notable variety in architect and even then its still largely in shades of grey and brown.
The rest of the towns and villages scattered across Skyrim all use the same building models with occasional slight alterations. So a Blacksmiths in Riverwood will look the same as one in Morthal, as will the generic houses. Yes they all fit the one style (based on Scandinavian architect) to represent the Nord culture of Skyrim- but it's boring.

Morthal and Riverwood- opposite ends of the map, different climate, but notice how similar in style.





Compare that to Oblivion- the Imperial City is just that- clearly a city- its huge you can see it in the distance from almost everywhere in Cryodill- you could probably fit all of Whiterun (ostensibly Skyrim's trading capital and hub) into a single district of the Imperial City.

Whiterun (Skyrim) and the Imperial City (Oblivion)





And compare Skyrims 'cities' to the city of Cheydinal, or Skingard or the Imperail City- no two towns the same, each with their own influences and architectural style.

Cheydinal, Skingard and the Imperial City







If someone randomly plonked you down in a town in Skyrim you'd be hard pressed to work out at a glance where you were- not so in Oblivion where the distinct appearance of each town and city makes them immediately recognizable.

So whilst on a technical level Skyrim is graphical superior to Oblivion in almost every way- the actual world its creating is a lot less interesting to look at than Oblivion's, less pleasant to spend hours and hours in and lacks variety in some of the basic areas- like distinct towns and cities (or anything big enough to even truly qualify as a city).

You Want Me To Do What?- quests and adventures.

I will start with the two games main quest lines.

The story of Oblivion begins with the death of the Emperor- as the player you were a prisoner who gets embroiled along the way by accident- the Emperor having seen you in a vision chooses you to give the Amulet of Kings to- a hugely important symbolic and magical artifact- and take it to a secret heir, Martin, who not knowing he is the heir is working as a priest in the city of Kvatch. When you finally arrive in Kvatch you find it in ruins and under attack- a gateway has opened between this world and the world of Oblivion, a sort of hell like place if you will- and you go in and find a way to shut down the portal and then find Martin and so begins the quest to work out who is behind the portals opening up, why, how to stop them and how to finally restore Martin to the Emperors throne.

Skyrim's plot you start once more as a prisoner- on the way to the block this time, when the sudden appearance of a dragon -things thought long extinct if not legendary- turns up and you get free. Teaming up with either some Imperials or the local Nords you escape the dragon attack and soon afterwards after encountering and killing a second dragon you discover you are 'Dragonborn' the only person who can absorb the soul of a dragon and so make sure it stays dead and so the only person who can save the world. You uncover a plot that the head dragon Alduin the World Eater is here to bring about the end of the world as prophecies (and his name) say and its up to you to stop him.
To complicate matters Skyrim is also in the middle of a civl war between the indigenous Nords and the Empire and its Imperials. A civil war you will have to end by eventually picking a side and fighting for them.

To discuss the relative merits of how these plots work in term of gameplay we will first take a slight diversion into the world of Fallout4- it was released after Skyrim using an updated version of the Skyrim engine- and its main plot and main character got a lot of (deserved) heat from players. The main issue is the lack of making up stuff in your head- this is crucial to a role playing game. Who your character is whether they react to things calmly or with anger or violence or however is up to you and how you want to role play- not so in Fallout 4 where you are given a character, with a voice- but worse the main plot is designed to drive you forward to it at every point- everything is important, everything is imminent- that makes for strong narrative but destroys role playing.

Now Skyrim is not so bad, you still create your own character you can still choose to be good, bad or something inbetween but the plot likewise tries to drive you on through it by making everything sound imminent and important. The Falllout 4 rot begins here in Skyrim.

To give an example, after you kill you first dragon, absorb its soul and are hailed as the legendary Dragonborn you are told you have to go see some old guys on a mountain who can explain what it means and what you have to do. This is presented as all rather important world in the balance stuff making it hard if you are roleplaying to come up with a good excuse in your head for why your character would instead just bugger off and explore some caves somewhere instead- you feel like you are acting against the plot.

The civil war in some respects is even worse because it relies entirely on the player to advance whilst pretending otherwise. The civil war is presented as this huge, important battle for the heart and soul of Skyrim- and you can pick a side and go join up and take the fight to the other side- but then if you stop midway through to go off and do something else, the whole civil war just stops, awaiting your return to start civil war quests again. You could bugger off for a day in game or 10 years in game it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to the progress of the war- only the player can advance it- but the way its presented to the player makes walking away in the middle to do something else again seem like a betrayal of the plot your character is in- the end is you feel railroaded into doing certian things in quick order- or the plot feels odd if you ignore it and just walk away and the stroy fall apart in terms of your immersion in it.

Oblivion on the other-hand breaks its plot up into natural 'now go bugger off and do what you want bits'- an early example of this is acquiring the cult books needed to discover who is behind the Emperor's assassination- once you acquire the books you cant read them, you need a specialist, so you take them to one in the Imperial City- they tell you they need some time to decipher them to come back later- in other words go off do what you want for a bit come back when you want the plot to continue, but it doesn't break our immersion because there is a gap in the story to go do stuff in- this happens again after you have rescued Martin from Kvatch and have to take him to safety at a temple in the mountains- once there he needs time to suss out what the enemy are up to- again its a go bugger about space and come back when you want to advance the plot again.
You rarely feel that something is presented as 'must do now or world ends' as you do in Skyrim, even though if you don't do anyhting in Skyrim nothing will actually happen anyway. This kills the story telling.

The upshot is that Oblivion's plot is far less intrusive into your role playing, and when you are not doing the main plot you dont feel like you  really ought to be (Oblivion's plot is also in my view a superior story superiorly told- partly because its about putting someone else on the throne, you become legendary in the land through your actions in the game, unlike Skyrim where you are born destined for greatness as the Dragonborn right from the off and its all about self aggrandizement.)

So what do the games offer besides the main plot?

Well Skyrim's big claim here is that basically quests can be infinite because it has two types- hand written quests where everything is plotted and scripted as in Oblivion and 'radiant ai' quests, where the program randomly generates on the fly quests- these are the infinte ones, as it can keep generating these sort of missions forever.
Problem is they are all the same in a few variations- what the radiant quest stuff does is pick an npc as the quest giver, pick a random nearby cave/fort/dungeon and create a quest around it- go fetch me this, kill these bandits, rescue my kidnapped family member- that sort of thing. But they all basically boil down to go somewhere, kill everything, come back for the reward.
And this too accounts for the vast majority of the main story quests too- go somewhere kill stuff come back. In fact I am struggling to think of a standout quest in Skyrim for inventiveness or variety- maybe the Sam one where you get drunk with him and have to work out the next day what you did whilst drunk. But that's notable as an exception not the rule. Most stuff comes down to killing a lot of stuff and either getting something to take back to the quest giver or killing someone for the quest-giver or rescuing someone for the quest giver.

Now whilst Oblivion has these sort of quests too it also has way more variety alongside them- how about a painter who becomes trapped inside his own painting and you have to enter an oil paint version of Cryodill to find him- almost anything from the Dark Brotherhood quests- where you might be dropping wall mounted hunting trophies onto someone's head to make their death seem accidental, poisoning apples at someone's dinner table then waiting til they have a meal. And where quests are more the go here, kill stuff get thing variety they are far better disguised by the narative.

Here's two examples- in Skyrim you have a quest to get a symbolic horn- the quest giver sends you off to a typical dungeon crawl: you fight your way through it to the end only to find the horn is gone and a note has been left for you to meet the persn who took it at an inn- you go to the inn and get told everything you need to know and get given the horn. Its just an excuse to make you slog through a dungeon fighting stuff first.
In Oblivion you are tasked with acquiring the final cultist book needed to work out who the assassins are- you get a message from a guy in the Imperial City who can help, you meet him and as he knows the City inside out he leads you through the sewer system to the rendezvous- you decide between you who will make the deal and who will be lookout from a hidden vantage point- yes it breaks down into a fight at the end and you get the book. But the narrative disguise: the other character involved, the meeting set up, deciding who does what and then putting the plan into action- all disguise the mundanity of go here kill x take thing. Its just so much more inventive and clever than the Skyrim version.

In summary of the quests Skyrim's largely suck and are repetitive and thinly disguised repetition at that but with the odd stand out. Yes there are some great quest mods available for Skyrim that do give you a lot more variety in missions and quests, but then so too are there for Oblivion and that's on top of the variety the base game already offers you.

In Part Two- So you want a fight? Combat compared. Who is Who? Characters and races compared. And the conclusion.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:The main difference this makes is that Skyrim has a lot of mountains, a lot of snow and a lot of grey and muted colours. Whereas Oblivion has a lot of trees, a lot of green grass  and more in the way of rolling hills.

Is it the right length and kind of green, though?

In all seriousness, there's not much I can say since I haven't played either game (the limit of my Elder Scrolls experience was a very brief bit of Morrowind years and years ago), but it's always interesting to read your thoughts on games.

Is it the right length and kind of green, though?- Eldo

{{Depends which mod you use!

But thanks Eldo- I try to make it at least an interesting read even for those who dont play these particular games. }}}

{{{ Why Oblivion is better than Skyrim part Two


Who Are You Again?


One of the things that's a lot of fun about Elder Scrolls is the world its set in has many different races.
You have a couple variants on human- the Nords of Skyrim and the Imperials of Cryodiil, the Bretons and the Redguards. But you also have Argonians, talking lizard people. And you have Khajiits, talking cat people. And you have several flavours of elf and orcs.

Now Oblivion's character faces are famous, or infamous as being 'potato' people. And out the box vanilla this is true and is an area where, graphically, the game shows its age in comparison to Skyrim.

Here's a comparison, with Skyrim's versions on the top and Oblivion's vanilla faces below.



Its clear in Skyrim they have tried to make all the races more 'realistic'. But I have a problem with this- its a fantasy world not everything has to look ultra realistic by human standards- we are dealing with a world with talking cats and lizards here.
For me I can tell at a distance and at a glance what race someone is in Oblivion- but its a lot less obvious in Skyrim (beast races excluded) and once you add in a mod like say character overhaul to Oblivion the issue of 'potato' heads largely goes away, but the artistic choices to make each race look very distinct remains.

Oblivion Character Overhaul

Argonian


Imperial male and female




Khajiit male and female




Nord


Bosmer elf


Dunmer elf


Redguard


Orc



Whilst Skyrim retains the variety of species, it does not maintain the same variety of species differences- honestly try to tell two races of elves apart in Skyrim at a distance- you cant.
Which brings me onto another issue with character models in Skyrim, one that might not immediately be apparent.

Examine this picture from Skyrim and tell me whats wrong about the people?



You probably wont notice, then when you do you can't unsee it.
Everyone is exactly the same height.
Now there are mods to fix this problem- but they come with a drawback thanks to Skyrim's engine- whenever your resized character interacts with the games static objects- sits on a chair, uses a forge ect they will auto resize to default to fit, then when they finish they will re-scale to whatever the mod set them as. As you can imagine this rather breaks immersion.
Oblivion on the other-hand has folk of all sizes wandering about and you never think about it because it just looks and feels right and natural.

A tall Redguard woman with an even taller Imperial Guard behind her and a short Nord.


So whilst there is no doubt that characters look better in Skyrim than in Oblivion (especially vanilla versions) they also lack realism in their sizing and suffer from a lack of visual distinction in comparison to earlier Elder Scrolls versions of the same races. Everything in Skyrim is both more realistic and less immersive as a fantasy world because of it.

And it would be remiss of me not to talk here about character creation and skills and perks- this one is a bit more subjective to the player, but in short Skyrim greatly simplifies and streamlines the RPG elements from Oblvion- gone are the class system where you pick or create your own class to play as, this works much like a traditional table top RPG- each class has a set of skills associated with it, or you create own class and pick your own skills to associate with it. Doing things which relate to those skills will help you improve them quicker and level up your character.

In Skyrim this is all done away with and instead you just get better at whatever you do- do a lot of archery you get better at archery, hit a lot of folk with a sword get better at combat ect. And rather than skills Skyrim has the all too modern perks tree- unfortunately a large number of the perks simply increase damage you do or mean you take less- and some of them are outright nonsensical in my view- prime among them being the perk tree for using a shield- you have to unlock three perks before your shield is capable of blocking an arrow- this means prior to this if you hold up your shield when an arrow is fired at you it does nothing and may as well be made of smoke, rather defying physics. In Oblivion a shield will block stuff from the off because its a fucking shield! (Sorry that one really, really bugs me). Fortunately there are some excellent mods out there to salvage Skyrim's dull as ditch water perk trees and make them into something more useful, inventive and fun as a gameplay element (I highly recommend Ordinator).


All of these change for some, myself included, leads to a worrying notion that Skyrim is a lot less an RPG than Oblivion and a lot more an arcade adventure. Some call this process dumbing down, some call it streamlining. But the aim either way is the same, to make the game simpler and therefore more accessible to more players and in particular more casual players and so increase the player base and profits. This is rarely in my view a reason which leads to improved gaming.

And that line of thought neatly brings me onto combat, which similarly has undergone a conversion from leaning towards traditional role playing to action adventure.

First lets briefly mention Morrowinds combat system, it being the first of the Elder Scrolls games to be made in this style.
Morrowind is shamelessly old skool table top rpg in its combat. Yes you still click a mouse button to swing a weapon, but regardless of if it visually looks like it hit someone or not how much damage you do is worked out by the computer mimicking basically old fashioned dice rolling. It works out your level, your combat skills, the stats of the weapon you are using, then compares that with the stats of the person you are trying to hit, their armour ect and works out if you were successful or not.

Whilst this was traditional for RPG combat in first person in real time it created issues- the visuals were telling the player one thing- you were swinging your sword about at someone hitting them, you can see it happening- whilst the damage being done was telling a different story- that you keep missing say. This apparent mismatch between you the player flailing wildly at an enemy and the game calculating if you hit or not behind the scenes was an issue for many players- the visual information and the results simply did not seem to match. And it did not feel like your direct actions were being translated to what was happening on screen.

Now I'm going to skip Oblivion for now and jump ahead to Skyrim combat, as it is at the other end of this scale.
One of the major things it was clear they wanted to do with combat in Skyrim was make it immediate- you press a button something happens and what you see happening is what happens. No under the hood calculations, no hidden stats, just the player clicking a button and getting an instant response. Problem solved?

Well not exactly. You see in Skyrim the way they managed this is actually quite simple, when you swing a weapon and then press the button to swing again the move 'resets'- its almost impossible to notice in first person its so fast, but you can see it from the third person view.
Imagine you are swinging a sword right to left, but you miss, so before its finished the swing you swing it again to have another go- in Skyrim this is done by the game resetting your position to neutral ready to swing again as soon as you press that button the second time. In this way it ensures that when you press a button the sword swings.
This sounds good, it means every press has an immediate response. And yes it does, but its like an arcade game. Fighting in Skyrim with swords and axes largely consists of battering the attack button and swinging wildly at your opponent until one of you is dead- there is some strategy in blocking, using the terrain and deciding when to time a power attack which is a slower but more damaging move. But that's it really. Its arcadey, immediate, and makes fights samey.

Now lets jump back a game to Oblivion. It needed to address the problems in Morrowinds combat but it does not go so far as to make it arcadey like Skyrim.
The first thing you will notice when pressing a button to swing a weapon is that its not an instant reaction- the first swing is, but that's all. If you try to press the attack button again immediately as in Skyrim nothing will seem to happen, then shortly afterwards the move you tried to do will perform.
This has led many to think the controls are sluggish and slow to respond, they are not its just a different way of thinking and in the long term better.
The logic here is simple, if you swing a huge great lump of steel it ain't stopping until its finished its swing. Unlike Skyrim pressing attack again will not instantly reset the weapon to default position and swing it again for you. The game will wait til the first move is completed before trying to do the next one.

The knack therefore is to be very precise about when you swing a sword about. This is a good thing for lots of reasons.
Firstly it adds a huge deal of jeopardy to making a risky big combat move- if you miss, until the move is complete, your totally vulnerable and no amount of desperately mashing buttons will help you. Timing your moves becomes crucial, watching your opponent for openings and opportunities becomes crucial.
The other major advantage to combat in Oblivion is blocking and parrying. In Skyrim you can do both if you want but its not really necessary most of the time- in Oblivion its essential- if you dont learn to time blocks with shields or parry with your weapon you're dead. But better than that successfully parrying an attack can deflect your opponents weapon temporarily leaving them open to a counter attack. In Skyrim power attacks have a chance to stagger your opponent or you if done against you, but that's it. In Oblivion every clash of weaponry has that potential. This really makes every fight very individual, and you really need to concentrate against better opposition to beat them and you have to employ a fair bit of strategy and good timing.

As an aside here to combat is healing- there are two main ways to heal yourself in both games- a magic healing spell, or drinking a healing potion- magic is limited by your characters abilities in both and that's fine when you run out of magic energy you cant cast any more, but when it comes to potions there is a big difference. In Oblivion you can only drink a few potions in quick succession before you can't have any more- this make sense to me, if you have a cold and take cough medicine, drinking bottle after bottle of the stuff is not going to help! But in Skyrim potions are plentiful, easy to make if your an alchemist, buy or find and you can carry as many as you can hold and you can take as many as you want one after the other. This means fights often degenerate into just hacking away at each other, occasionally popping into the menu when your health gets low to spam drink some potions and put your health back to max again- ensuring your eventual victory against even the toughest of opponents, just so long as you have enough potions on you. This is simply broken gameplay in my view and works like a built in cheat- why they removed Oblivion's limits on taking potions at once I have no idea save to make the game easier.

So is Oblivion's combat as instinctive, as instant or as reactionary as Skyrim's?- no. Is it worse than Skyrim's?- also no, its better if you play along with the mechanics and dont just jab buttons like in Skyrim.
In short Skyrim's combat is more arcade orientated, aimed more towards a casual player who doesn't want to worry about the mechanics of it or having to get prefect timing in their attacks and blocks and Oblivion is more RPG, but not the hard core RPG of Morrowind, its a middle ground between the full on RPG and the arcade action of Skyrim. And better for it in my view.

So that's all the major areas covered- location, story, quests, characters and combat.

Oh one more thing, voice acting.
In some ways this is one for Skyrim, it has far more voice actors- a drawback in Oblivion is that the entire population is voiced by about 10 different actors doing multiple voices, and there is certainly a bit of sameness to it all. Skyrim has a way, way larger cast of voice actors and so there is far greater distinction in voices.

Both games have some big names cast too- Skyrim gives us Max Von Sydow as Esbern, Christopher Plummer as the head of the GreyBeards, Joan Allen as Delhine, Michael Hogan as General Tulius and Vladmir Kulich as Ulfric. And they all do a good job, problem is none of those characters are particularly memorable so much as they are functionary in the story.

Oblivion gives us a Patrick Stewart cameo as the ill-fated doomed Emperor,but its ok he dies because the heir Martin is voiced by Sean Bean. And in general they are better written, or at least have more interesting or dramatic things to say than anyone in Skyrim does. In fact characters in general are more memorable in Oblivion, whether its Martin or  Lucien head of the Dark Brotherhood or the Adoring Fan. They tend to stick in the mind in a way Skyrim's cast of forgettable dullards never really does.

Finally I should mention some stuff I think Skyrim actually improves on - chief among them the extended crafting -being able to forge your own weapons and armour ect rather than relying on shops to buy them in or finding them on quests These are hugely welcome additions- losing the ability to craft your own spells and enchantments from Oblivion on the other-hand is a detriment against Skyrim and reduces options as well as taking a very fun element out of the game and is a choice I find rather inexplicable.

In summing up overall if you want an rpg experience in a huge open world Oblivion is damn near perfect for it and even closer modded.
If you want an arcade adventure experience in a huge open world then Skyrim is damn near perfect for it and even closer modded.
I love both games in their own ways, but Skyrim is part of a worrying trend followed through in Fallout4 of moving ever further away from the games RPG routes and ever closer to some arcadey ease of play hybrid that lacks a lot of the subtlety, skill and dedication that the older games demanded and rewarded the player for. The desire to reach as many potential gamers as possible is slowly but surely eroding what made the Elder Scrolls series great in the first place.
Skyrim is not so far down that misbegotten path as Fallout4 is, but its on the same road.

For me if you want the best first person RPG in gaming its modded Oblivion, not Skyrim for all the reasons I have given above.

So there you have it, why I think Oblivion is better than Skyrim.

Any comments welcome, or anyone who has played either game it would be great to hear your views too.

}}}

Skyrim fixed some of Oblivion's problems, but ignored others and created some of its own, I'm a console player and wouldn't understand how to mod properly even if I could so I just judge them on the basic game.

Oblivion had fantastic music, art design, missions, spell crafting and yes perhaps better (and certainly more traditional) rpg/levelling mechanics (the latter could be especially brutal once the Oblivion gates open) but I found the potato faces and voice acting rather bland and disappointing even for 2007 (though the hilarious character modifications you can choose in the opening scene make the line 'it's you, the one from my dreams!' sound hillarious in Patrick Stewart's voice), as evocative as the tone and design of the interior dungeons are, there's a very limited selection of designs that are only slightly tweaked and crossposted to different places, the combat and riding mechanics haven't aged well, some of the enchanted weaponry is ludicrously overpowered (especially with that infamous item cloning glitch). The Shivering Isles expansion was amazing though...

Skyrim has much improved levelling, combat, graphics (even if much of the map is covered with dirty drabby mountains to break the illusion of draw distance limitations), dragons!, better voice acting, lots of minor and major tweaks to the engine that add to the depth of the world...but at the same time for me, it's only got more depth on a surface level entry way-it's bigger, shinier, easier and much more expansive in scope and scale but is missing some of the spirit of Oblivion, wasn't overly impressed with the variety of missions in Skyrim, too much reliant on repeating collect an item/kill this guy/clear this dungeon missions.

'wouldn't understand how to mod properly'- malick

{{ Oblivion can be a bit of a bugger to mod, but Skyrim is pretty straightforward with a mod manager, tesedit, loot and wrye bash- which in order- load up your mods for you in all the right folders in your Skyrim install, clean any crap left over in the files for you, sort the order your mods should load in for you, creates a patch it automatically applies for you that brings all your mods together so they work with one another. I am sure it is quite within your considerable capalities Malick my lad!

'I found the potato faces and voice acting rather bland and disappointing even for 2007'

{{I wouldn't disagree- this of course is where modding comes in as you can see from the screenshots from the character overhaul above, they look fine now. The voice acting issue is a different one, I like Patrick Stewart's performance, its overblown and suits the overblown nature of the scenario. And I think Sean Bean is very good as Martin. The rest is terrible of course in the sense that there are so few voice actors that it often seems in conversations the same person is talking to themselves as they are voiced by the same person- again mods help here- adding a variety of character and npc modes tends to add in a variety of voices to go with them and somewhat breaks up the repetitive familiar voices of the small vanilla cast.

'there's a very limited selection of designs that are only slightly tweaked and cross posted to different places'

Again this a place mods help greatly- I use Better Dungeons as well as a variety of quest mods that add their own custom dungeons, giving a far greater variety of design.
But even taking vanilla I would argue that Skyrim does not have a greater variety just more. The dungeons in Skyrim only come in four flavours, nord burial tombs- the most common like Bleak Falls Barrow- Dwimmer Ruins, Forts and their dungeons, caves.
And they are all very similar to one another. Plonked down randomly in a Nord tomb and it would be near impossible to name which one they all look so alike.
Again, as with Oblivion, mods help out a lot here to add are greater variety.

'the combat and riding mechanics haven't aged well'

I disagree on the combat for the reasons I gave above and prefer it to Skyrims arcadey version of combat. When it comes to riding I dont think it works well in Skyrim either, the nature of the animation, and especially in Skyrim the often steep terrain if you go off-road means you horse is often floating a little above the ground as the model cant find a flat surface to stand on and doesn't have the animation to compensate for it. I tend not to use horses at all in either game so I am not the best judge of them. But when going along Oblivion's roads I did not encounter any problems when riding in fist person at least.

Basically in short get it on pc and mod it!

'it's only got more depth on a surface level entry way'

That sentiment I entirely agree with.

'too much reliant on repeating collect an item/kill this guy/clear this dungeon missions.'

Also concur. }}

Another thing I missed in Skyrim was A) the poison apples you could buy from the Dark Brotherhood, I once spent several hours traversing each city in Oblivion doing a kill everything run only pickpocketing with those apples and B) The paintbrush step glitch, would have made throat of the world easier...

{{ I have mentioned this persons videos before (I always thought it was a fat bloke, turns out its a woman- shows how hard can be to judge sex from a voice! Anyhow, they are one of the best UK retro games journalists I have seen, read or heard- Kim Justice.
I put this vid up not for the game under review (as you will see its terrible) but because the game was loosely connected to Jimmy Saville, and the opening piece backgrounding Saville, his crimes and his modus operandi is one of the best and most succinct I have seen. Its not just the horror of the crimes its the sheer audacity of the man in how he went about it (and incidentally the reason I think the Sherlock episode with Culvert/Saville character is underrated and the one episode I have a real hard time watching due to content. Its that close to the bone.) Anyhow worth a watch if just for the Saville bit. }}}



{{And if you want a very comprehensive, easy to listen to, fact filled history of the UK computer and console scene of years of yore there is none better- check out her playlists some great vids there }}}