Will I like Oblivion? - help me decide

[cliffski]

So Oblivion is the PC gamer UK 'best game evar', and I need a new game to play. Is it the one for me? (normally I'd try the demo, but they have decided a demo is beaneath them, don't get me started...). So given the following factors, should I buy it:

I adore freeform games that let me do what i want.
I like games with cool AI, and an immersive world.
I like humour in games.
I absolutely hate and dread unskippable FMV with really long exposition. I prefer interaction.
I like variety in games.
I'm not really that fussed by big arcing storylines, they bore me.
I don't mind the fantasy setting, as long as its well written and acted, and not massively cliched.
I really liked the first level or two of fable (didnt play the rest).
I dont like sexist games full of buxom elf damsels.
I dislike games with hideous loading / startup times. They bug me beyond belief.
I have fairly decent PC with a 6800 geforce card, 1.5Gig RAM.

Tragically nobody I know has the game, so I can't borrow it or see it played. I don't trust just watching the trailers (hilariously described as 'demos' hahahahah), as they are probably cunningly edited

[Hawkeye Fierce]

Oblivion hits most of your bullet points dead on. You'll probably enjoy it, especially if you stay away from the main quest.

[claybob]

I think you will like it. I have a rig similar to yours and did have to futz with a lot of settings to get a good frame rate for 1600x1200. It was worth it though. I played for well over 100 hrs.

[slantz]

Oblivion hits most of your bullet points dead on. You'll probably enjoy it, especially if you stay away from the main quest.
Or slog through that nasty first quest (Brill, was it?) before you get over level 5.

But yeah, it sounds like you're describing Oblivion, and it's the rest of the game that's really great -- not the main quest line.

[Sharpe]

I adore freeform games that let me do what i want.
I like games with cool AI, and an immersive world.
I like humour in games.
I absolutely hate and dread unskippable FMV with really long exposition. I prefer interaction.
I like variety in games.
I'm not really that fussed by big arcing storylines, they bore me.
I don't mind the fantasy setting, as long as its well written and acted, and not massively cliched.
I really liked the first level or two of fable (didnt play the rest).
I dont like sexist games full of buxom elf damsels.
I dislike games with hideous loading / startup times. They bug me beyond belief.


Freeform - yes, Oblivion is the best example of a freeform game that I've played. You can go in many different directions at your own pace.

Cool AI and Immersive world - Oblivion is mixed on this front. The world is immersive a lot of the time, especially in dungeons, but also has some flaws (repetitive speech, limited conversation options) that can limit immersion. The AI is also mixed: sometimes the radiant AI does some amazing things and other times its just game-breakingly bizarre. The devs were definitely TRYING to make an immersive world with cool AI so I'd say its worth a shot.

Humour - there is some in the game, particularly in some of the Daedric quests, and to a less degree some of the Dark Brotherhood and Thieve's Guild quests. But humor is a fairly light element in the game. You can DO some bizarre and funny things in the game by messing with the AI and other things, but that's pretty unreliable. There is one quest (Mazoga the Orc) that had me laughing pretty hard, but that's just my weird sense of humor.

As to FMV, I believe its all skippable although you will want to watch or listen
to some of the dialogue in order to understand some of the quests. Most of the exposition is in the form of dialogue trees or the ubiquitous books that you can read.

Variety - Oblivion is the king of variety. It has a quite good melee system, a good archery system, a somewhat weak spell combat system, a fairly good stealth engine, pretty good physics, a fairly detailed enchantment and alchemy system, a spell creation system, a mediocre but somewhat interesting conversation system, and a huge variety of content. The content ranges from combat to exploration to dialogue to escorts, with some pretty innovative variations. There's even a bit of puzzle solving in some quests.

Big arcing storylines: you can take or leave the main quest, and the 4 main guilds also have long arcs which you can take or leave. If you avoid all arcs, there is still a ton of content: every town has quests, there are numerous random quests, Daedric quests and so forth. And some of the arcs are well worth doing (Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, especially).

Fantasy cliches: well Oblivion has some but it also has a fair amount of innovation. The Daedric stuff is a mix of cool and cliche, the Dark Brotherhood quest line is excellent, and I liked the Thieves Guild stuff. The Fighter and Mage arcs are fairly cliche but again those are optional. Some of the local town quests are VERY innovative, some are cliche.

As for buxom damsels there are a few but I found the female models in the game a bit odd. Faces especially. It's not like Baldur' Gate Dark Alliance.

As for load times, they seemed fairly tolerable to me on the PC.

Bottom line is: given your preferences, Oblivion is strongly recommended.

[spiffy]

I agree with Sharpe on pretty much everything.

A thing to keep in mind: although the game doesn't give you big breasted elves and such, it also goes the other end of the spectrum in creative visuals; even though the land is vast and well represented, the aesthetic style is very ho-hum and quite a bit repetitive. Expect most towns, caves, oblivion gates and dungeons (the four templates of your adventure) to look very similar and generally bland.

Granted, like Sharpe says, within these locals are no end of things you can do.

On humor, very limited. Most conversation is dry, no-nonsense fantasy speak.

[cliffski]

Variety - Oblivion is the king of variety. It has a quite good melee system, a good archery system,

CONSIDER ME A CUSTOMER

(I do archery as a hobby).

Cheers for the advice gang.

[Sean Hargraves]

http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_1.html

I would say some of the tweaks are almost essential for good framerates.

The one that seemed to have the most impact for the outdoors was grass density. The multi-threading options for dual core CPUs are good too.

[Moggraider]

I adore freeform games that let me do what i want.
I like games with cool AI, and an immersive world.
I like humour in games.
I absolutely hate and dread unskippable FMV with really long exposition. I prefer interaction.
I like variety in games.
I'm not really that fussed by big arcing storylines, they bore me.
I don't mind the fantasy setting, as long as its well written and acted, and not massively cliched.
I really liked the first level or two of fable (didnt play the rest).
I dont like sexist games full of buxom elf damsels.
I dislike games with hideous loading / startup times. They bug me beyond belief.
I have fairly decent PC with a 6800 geforce card, 1.5Gig RAM.


It seems from the relevance of all the items on the list, you already knew much about the game and just wanted us to say "yes." Well... "Yes."

[cliffski]

No not at all, thats genuinely what I want in a game. I just dont normally buy fantasy games, which is why I hadnt got it yet. But I've ordered it now.

[spiffy]

No not at all, thats genuinely what I want in a game. I just dont normally buy fantasy games, which is why I hadnt got it yet. But I've ordered it now.

Then you ought to be getting pretty excited about Gothic 3 then, as well. I am!

[Jason McMaster]

I can't freaking wait for Gothic 3