Elder Scrolls: Oblivion

The last 10Gb are downloading now. My first ever pc game. Played the crap out of it on my first gaming laptop, the Dell XPS M1710 back in 2007. Looking forward to giving it a go, my pc is surely able to run it somewhat decently, hopefully.

That shader preload on starting the PC version is a reminder of how things are nowadays.

TBH...it's one of the quicker ones compared to Uncharted etc

Game appears to run quite well in the initial sections, ultra wide support, DLSS/FSR options, frame generation etc

Be interesting to get it across to handheld like the Steam Deck and such to see how it fares

Skyrim is better.

My ES intro was Morrowind, Oblivion was technically far superior and while still really good lacked some of Morrowind's magic. When Skyrim was being released one of the devs said they deliberately aimed to put that sense of wonder at unique looking things on the horizon or top of a mountain, the need to go there and find out what it was leading your adventures along the way because they knew they'd missed it with Oblivion. There are still some great stories and gameplay but I think so much of it happens in underground dungeons with little overworld presence that it felt muted. Still it's well worth playing and if Skyrim is a 10, MW a 9 then Oblivion is about an 8 to me.

Ah, just finished downloading. See you all in a few months :).

I'm outside now and it's gorgeous, not just a reskin. UE5s nanite and the way it can render incredible 3d landscape variety and detail is on full show and really suits the setting. It hits the system hard, with everything maxed at 4K+DLSS-Quality I was getting around 90fps inside, outside that dropped to around 60 with some stuttering. FG smoothed it out mostly but still some stutter occasionally.

Gameplay has been really smooth, no crashes, oddities or being hit with archaic systems I'd forgotten about.

Really enjoying it so far. A great nostalgia trip. I love Oblivion!

Anyone playing on a PC using a controller?

If so how is it compared to a controller for Skyrim?

Have read mixed reports on it today.

Can't do keyboard and mouse playing.

The original game didn't have native controller support, and the community fix for it was not great. Have read the controller support on this remake wasn't great, note on Steam as having partial controller support.

Catching vampirism is every bit the pain in the hole that I remember it to be in this game.

Outside of that, I'm really enjoying being back in the game. They did a great job.

You have 9 quick slots, from the inventory click the left analog stick, use the right stick to highlight which number you want to fill and press X/[] on whatever item you want in the quickslot. Then in game, hold the left bumper (LB/L1). Plays fine on an Xbox controller for me.

They did a great job making the game look good, but the rose tinted glasses are off now and its still the same game behind it, so it still plays old. If you've never played it, but have played Skyrim, you'll want to play Skyrim. You can see where Skyrim put all the improvements, and I miss them tbh! Even how skills and perks upgrade is just a poorer version of Skyrim, which makes sense.

Not sure how long more I'll play, and I've seen comparison videos of the PS5 Pro and my rig can't do the same level of quality and performance, so might stop and wait for it to be cheap/free on PS5. Even then, I don't think I'll play it to completion because while I don't remember most of it, I still get the "played it already" feeling now the graphical shine is making way to old systems which were great in 2007. Graphically, it looks like a remake, but it is still 100% a remaster behind it. Modern games just highlight how much we've evolved, and it's hard to go back to what Oblivion offers in gameplay, because Skyrim improved on it in every way. Which again, makes sense. Or should. Sequels should always build on the original, and Skyrim really did do that, especially the rerererereleased version they last did!