Another console port to pc disaster.
Reviewers tilt
I have been playing pc games for years and had high expectations for this triple A title as it was setting some graphic standards and supposedly some gaming standards from all the pre-release press. I have played many great rpgs through the years including the original, Morrowind, which had some greatness and serious flaws as well.
The Highs
As you first create your character and begin the game I had very high hopes. This may be one of the most impressive openings I have seen to a game in a long time. Great voice-over, excellent presentation and an enticing story to boot. This expectation did not fail as I began my first crawl through the dungeon following the king. I was genuinely excited as I saw the story begin to unfold and my part in it, the production values were high and the scripting was pulling me in.
As I saw the outside world I appreciated the artwork and time spent making it feel like a real world. You needed a fairly high end machine to appreciate this and I had one so just looking around was a delight. The first few quests were somewhat enjoyable and the story seemed to keep things moving along as long as you followed it.
The Lows
As soon as I started following the king and went into my first dungeon and saw the console type menus that I had to interact with on a pc, the game took a serious dive. No ragdoll of my current armor, no easy to navigate spell interface, everything was accessible only in huge console type menus that were very clunky and way to big for a pc experience. If you hotkey things it does help but the way you had to equip your armor and the visual representation of the equipment was just aweful.
The game took an immediate feel from a AAA title to a title that was from an independent company struggling on a shoestring budget. Everything after that took me out of the suspension of disbelief and put me into a "I can't believe they let consoles drive the pc experience" mode, which pretty much killed the game for me.
I love console games, I have several consoles and enjoy many types of games and understand why you need to create menus like this for those types of experiences but for the pc, the premier system to deeply immerse yourself into an rpg, this simply won't do.
I tried to get past this huge oversight so the publisher could rush this title out of the doors and have a simultaneous pc/console release and just get into the game. The game itself took a turn for the worse after a couple of hours too as the story line didn't have the same quality that the opening half hour did and it left you on your own to figure out difficult spell paths and how to build yourself as a mage. I spent tons of money buying spells when it could have been more evident somewhere that you could just create them if you stayed with the arcane path. Besides that the game is built for someone who has tons of hours to waste, not a casual gamer or someone who wants to enjoy a good romp without giving up their life for a while.
If you fall into the category of wanting hundreds of hours to wonder around building up skill trees in boring grind quests then this game is for you.
If you like the fact that a developer shoved a console title down your throat and you bought it for the pc then you have your wish here in Oblivion.