The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Preview


GAME INFO publisher: ZeniMax Media developer: Bethesda Softworks genre: RPG MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS PIV 2000, 512MB RAM, 4.6GB HDD, 128MB video card	ESRB rating: T homepage: www.theelderscrolls.com release date: Mar 20, 06 (released)

» All About The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on ActionTrip

SCREENSHOTS

VIDEOS

COMMENTS

Even with all the information that I have included in the preview, there are still many details that I have failed to mention. Like the fact that for the first time in a first-person RPG, players will be able to go on quests that take place in complex environments like forests with all their many leaves and compound shapes. And if you had ever run 3D Mark 2005, you'd know how taxing that can be on your hardware; clearly another indication that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion will be a next-gen game true and true.

I don't remember ever reading about a more complex game project in my life. I certainly hope that Bethesda comes through on their promises and we get to play the kind of game they have envisioned Oblivion to be (Fable left a bad taste in my mouth in that sense). For us single-player RPG junkies this would be a dream come true, a huge open-ended fantasy world to lose ourselves in. I tell you what though, if Oblivion turns out to be as kick-ass as Bethesda claims it will (barring any major delays or unforeseen issues that could arise from designing such a complex game), I know that my wife will personally fly over to Maryland to kick Tod Howard's ass. "This is for taking my husband away from me and having me use dildos, you bastard!" These will probably be the last words Tod ever hears as one of the katanas I have laying around at home will end up being lodged in his skull. (Ed. - That's it, I'm NEVER visiting your house.)

START «

PAGE 1 2 3

13 post(s)

Reader Comments

	NiteX	[mail] Oct 25 2004, 03:20 pm EDT
	Reply The game looks very very nice. The worlds will be huge. I really can't wait to try this one out.

	King Speedy	[mail] Oct 25 2004, 03:30 pm EDT
	Reply I'm aching to play this game....seriously....I think I need to see a doctor or something..... .....ya know....I just got an idea.....Bethesda is about 20 minutes away from me.....hmmmmm......I'll need a grappling hook, some rope, and a goat.....
	Moesha: And after you are done, you can leave your house and go visi... 2lions: LOL!!! Mo, you nut!! King Speedy: you're right, I'll need an extra goat King Speedy: or I could always substitute one of the goat's with Six....h... BadCRC: I'm coming with you Dude!(+ I'm taking my goat with me!)

	2lions	[STAFF] [mail] Oct 25 2004, 05:51 pm EDT
	Reply I don't think they'll limit your choices, quite the contrary. But they will provide you with a way to travel faster and play faster if you so desire. I guess no one will be twisting your arm to use the mini map or anything.

	DEATH AT THE DOOR	[mail] Oct 25 2004, 06:03 pm EDT
	Reply You know, the AI engine sounds like Fable should've been. In return, Fable sounds like Ultima 7 AI was... I do hope that this game's developement will go smoothly. By that, I also want the developers to admit that they need more time, instead of blaming it on some random hacker, like another well-known company. However, when designing something of such complexity, I highly doubt they'll make the game just as they expected. Great preview, though.

	Hitman	[mail] Oct 25 2004, 06:14 pm EDT
	Reply Looks good.. those woods look scary ass, I would just stop and finger fuck myself to death.. not dying at the claws of any wolves.
	blood_lust: omfg...you pathetic scaredy cat! it's just a goddamn game! ...

	fatBastard();	[mail] Oct 26 2004, 05:26 am EDT
	Reply Man, was I exceited when I first heard about Oblivion and those first screenshots almost made me soil my pants. After the inital woody had played itself out, a few things started to rear to mar the otherwise perfect picture. 1) Bethesda has NEVER released a game on time, so a game as ambitious as Oblivion is not likely to change that. If the release of Oblivion is to coincide with the Xbox2 launch then it will either be an Xbox2 exclusive title (at least for a limited time period) or a lot of the proposed features will have to go. If they choose to focus on the Xbox2 version in order to meet the Xbox2 launch date the PC will once again receive a ported console game instead of a true PC game. 2) A lot of the "new" features are suspiciously similar to what the hype surrounding Morrowind was saying. In regards to Hype vs. final game, Bethesda are easily comparable to Lion Head Studios (i.e. the hype promises more than the final game can deliver). Let's just say that I'll believe it when I see it. 3) Morrowind ran like a 3 legged dog with a severe case of arthritis even on state of the art rigs when it was released and IF Oblivion will indeed have graphics as detailed as the "screenshots" we see here indicates, then your brand new 8600Ultra/X800XT is going to have to race the aforementioned 3 legged dog and lose ... big time. 4) "All blocking and attacks will be done manually, and stats (or "rolling the dice") won't play a direct role in the outcome of the battle." Yes well, hurrah for the limpdicked console morons. Pardon my french but I'm seriously getting sick and tired of having one game after the other reduced to the complexity level of Pong in order to accommodate the retarded ADD striken console audience ..... Aaargghh POP ... Damn, another aneurism. ;o) Mind you, "action" based fight controls CAN be done properly. Just look at Gothic. The difference, however, is that Gothic had action based fight controls because Piranha Bytes CHOSE to make the game that way, not because a part of the audience couldn't manage to focus long enough for their legal guardian/house nurse to explain the basic game concepts for them before they started playing. 5) Though I really like Morrowind it was indeed in the shallow end of the RPG spectrum and with all the proposed simplifications to Oblivion one can hardly call it an RPG anymore and that's a friggin shame if you ask me. You don't play D&D games if you don't like the D&D universe/rule set. You don't play Heroes of Might & Magic if you don't like Turn Based gameplay ... and you don't play ElderScroll games if you don't like the freedom to do what you want, when you want to. The greatest simplification of them all is to remove that aspect from Oblivion (I know they claim it is still there but if you can zip from one "important" location to the other without having to travel the distance then there is no way in hell the developers are going to pay as much attention to the route between these points as the points themselves making the choice of travel theoretical at best). Bah, enough said for now. Let the hype machine roll and then you'll all see the truth of it when the game finally arrives ... but you might as well be prepared to ... REPENT SINNERS! The resident pessimist has spoken ;o)

	Hunter	[mail] Oct 26 2004, 07:07 am EDT
	Reply Man when you say massive it's massive, nice preview i'm really looking forward for this one! good job 2l!
	2lions: Thanks. King Speedy: suck-up

	freefall	[mail] Oct 26 2004, 12:01 pm EDT
	Reply The only Elder Scrolls game that I played was Arena, so I'm not going to pass judgement on the other games. From what you write though, it's encouraging to know that Oblivion is keeping all the ingredients of it predecessors. The release date at the moment is immaterial, since there's probably no way the game will be ready this year, and even if it is, most PCs won't be able to run it in the first place. Since the game is far along for a preview, what I'm genuinely worried about is the game going the way of the console. After all, Micro$oft did make sure SW:KOTOR make it on the XBox first before it made it on the PC. Who's to say M$ won't pull a stunt like that, especially considering how M$ can afford to buy anyone in the game industry off. Worse, it could be Halo all over again, with M$ buying the rights to the game and releasing it as an XBox 2 flagship title, which'll easily set the game's release date on the PC by two years, if at all.

	DEATH AT THE DOOR	[mail] Oct 26 2004, 03:09 pm EDT
	Reply The best action RPG was Blade of Darkness (okay it was a lot of ACTION and a little of rpg). It required precise timing and well-mastered combos. If only the animations were smoother, the game could be much better. Morrowind, on the other hand, has pitful combat. You rarely know if you didn't hit because you were too far or because you missed. Daggerfall, on the other hand, was the best ES game. The whole idea that you can "draw" your sword attack was great. I always said that consoles have their own types of games, PC has another type of games. GTA, for example, good or not, is typically console. Dawn of War is typically PC. Trying to make a game suitable for both systems is having console gamers shouting "This game is too PC!" and PC gamers angrily declaring "This is a fucking console game!". A good example would be Thief III: one console reviewer stated "yet in it's heart, Deadly Shadows is a PC game..." whereas a PC reviewer said "even if DS is actually a typical console game...".
	fatBastard();: Very true. Severance: Blade of Darkness was almost a melee s... DEATH AT THE DOOR: I felt cheated with Morrowind's interface, to be exact. At t...

	MrBored	[mail] Oct 27 2004, 03:53 am EDT
	Reply Hmm, what you said kinda oozed Deus Ex 2, remember how we all were wetting ourselves for it and the word Xbox came up a lot then it sucked? /me gets religion and starts to pray to the PC Gods to smite the console Demi-gods ( Microsoft ). Maybe they can make it work though...............
	BadCRC: Damn truth!

	BadCRC	[mail] Oct 27 2004, 05:02 pm EDT
	Reply 2lions how com you know all this dude?!(nice preview!) Oh and about that Pixel Shader 3.0 -I thought that Xbox2 will have x800 from ATI which doesn't come with PS3.0(as I know)... Soo they will like add this feature to next XBOX or it will be a shader 2.0 ?!

	daftshadow	[mail] Oct 29 2004, 04:00 pm EDT
	Reply damn, this game looks really really really nice!!! i hope it wont be anything like the previous elder scroll series. it's not fun when you dont know where to go because the world is so damn huge. and plus the traveling took so damn long. the new elder scroll's game should have teleportation like i fable. or at least include something to increase the game's speed. but damn, the graphics looks so sweet. bless pixel shader 3.0

	Odm	[mail] Nov 03 2004, 04:17 pm EDT
	Reply You know, I'm sort of lucky in this respect. Because when I finally get a decent computer (in about 2 or so years) I'll have missed most of the hype surrounding this game and it might even have released. I hate hype because it makes good (or at least okay) games seem bad. I really do hope they make the combat system much better, though. I basically played this game until I could pretty much ignore enemies as I ran along, and then I got bored.

COMMENTS PAGE 1


My longest non-stop gaming session was:
	1h
	2h
	4h
	8h
	16h
	24h
	More than one full day.

» view results » view poll archives

	"It's Official!" 06/30/2008 Jojic/Grabovic 32237 views
	"A Worthy Sacrifice" 07/09/2008 Jojic/Grabovic 23693 views
	"Finding New Religion" 06/23/2008 Jojic/Grabovic 20392 views
	"Microsoft Miis" 06/16/2008 Jojic/Grabovic 12659 views
	WoW Comic: "Cheat Death" 05/30/2008 Jojic/Grabovic 10147 views

	This month's 9.3 07/09/2008 33212 views
	This month's 8.9 07/10/2008 24802 views
	This month's 8.6 07/11/2008 20728 views
	This month's 9.3 07/12/2008 14988 views
	Last week's 8.2 07/14/2008 11522 views

	Wolfenstein E3 2008 Trailer 0:24
	Fallout 3 E3 2008 Trailer 3:13
	Tomb Raider Underworld E3 2008 Trailer 2:49
	Street Fighter 4 E3 2008 Trailer 4:33
	Singularity E3 2008 Trailer 0:59

USER PASSWORD
	Forgot username or password? Click here.

TOP COMICS

TOP BABES

TOP VIDEOS