Gerade eben hat
Rendelius, der Chef-Editor von
RPGDot nun seine sicherlich
schon mit großem Interesse erwartete
Rezension von "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion"[/i]veröffentlicht - und eine mMn. sehr durchdachte, ausgewogene und faire
Version davon.
Er geht ziemlich detailiert und durchaus kritisch auf die einzelnen Aspekte ein,
insbesondere einige Designentscheidungen von [i]Bethesda, die auch seiner
Meinung der Spielqualität eher abträglich sind, ohne die unzweifelhaften
Vorzüge und das Potenzial des Spiels auf der anderen Seite in Abrede zu
stellen.
Das positivste daraus:
Unsere Hoffnung (zumindest die der PC-Besitzer unter uns <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> ) in Bezug auf die
hier schon offenkundig sehr berechtigten Kritikpunkte an dem im Vorfeld so
gehypeten RPG-Blockbuster (wie man nach den Verkaufszahlen in so kurzer Zeit
wohl schon sagen muß) scheint glücklicherweise aufzugehen - in einem Wort:
MODS !!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" />
Ein Auszug:
"... Let me tell you about some of the mods I have installed right now.
They are all simple ones, but they have big effects on the game. I know that
other mods take the game in a different direction, but here is what I use:
The first mod tones
down levelling by the factor of 3. It takes three times as long to level than
in the original game (the mod offers 2x, 3x, 4x, 8x and 10x slowdowns). Gaining
levels feels right again for me. Another mod doubles the length of a day
in the gameworld.
This allows me to have more relaxed and less rushed game sessions. A third
mod removes the ability to fast travel to a location before you have visited
it, including the cities (I do not fast travel at all, but I think this is how
it should have been in the original release, IMHO). Then there is a mod
that makes the interface more PC-like, with more lines and smaller text, and
I use it as well. A nifty little mod lets fauna disappear after you have
harvested it, and it only returns after a certain amount of time. The guild
item ownership has been fixed by a mod I use, and now you can only use things
there for free according to your rank.
It's back to the graphics now. Out of the box, the distant textures look washed
out and blurred. Funny enough, this fact is much more hidden on the Xbox360,
where you just don't notice it that much. Anyhow, the modding community
has found a solution that - at least on my system - doesn't impact FPS at all,
but turns the visual into something really next-gen: I have installed new
textures for distant terrain, as well as a LOD normal map replacement (it
smoothes the shadows on the distant landscape). The result is that there is
little difference between what you see close to you and what you see far away,
which improves the visual quality of the game enormously. I also am using a
mod that makes dungeons and nights darker, and one that makes the water
look even more realistic.
The most important mod for me is this one: Tom Servos's Rare Items (at the
time being version is 1.18). It fixes the loot problem for me completely. Rare
items are now rare, really rare, and you don't find daedric armor on bandits
anymore. Magical items are rarer, too, and this all is done without tampering
with the levelling of creatures (as I said, I have no problem with that).
These and a couple of other cosmetic mods, which do not change the game
system, have turned Oblivion into the game I wanted to play. It looks good,
plays good and is so much fun it's hard to describe.
Going back to the vanilla Oblivion as it was shipped: Does it deserve the high
ratings it has received? And again, my answer has three parts: Yes, no, and
hell yes. Yes, because this game really is the next step in the series and works
for most folks out there as it is. It's not a bigger game than Morrowind,
it's a game of its own. Changes have been made, and it's good that Oblivion
is more than a sequel. No, because I feel that they sometimes took the
easy route when designing game mechanics, not the best route. And hell yes,
because they once again included the construction set. So we can tune the
game to our liking.
..."Ragon, der vorfreudige Magier
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
