American Ninja Posted February 7, 2007 Share Posted February 7, 2007 (edited) The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Hands-onWe escape the gates of Oblivion for these hands-on impressions. by Jeff Haynes February 6, 2007 - Fans of the Elder Scrolls series have always loved the flexibility the franchise afforded them during their adventures, but when the eagerly awaited Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was released last March, even they were astounded by its depth. Players could literally choose their own adventure within the massive game, which offered over 200 hours of play. Characters could be customized in various ways, and it was easy for gamers to make powerful magic users, fighters, thieves or other classes as they attempted to close the gates of Oblivion. For PC and Xbox 360 gamers, it was a match made in RPG heaven. Fortunately for PS3 owners, Oblivion will soon be descending upon the system. We got the chance to play the latest build of the game today, and we came away with new impressions from the land of Cyrodiil. Apart from the initial scale of Oblivion, which was simply huge, Bethesda Game Studios augmented the adventure with eight downloadable plug-in features. Items like the Horse Armor download seemed much more of a minor adjustment than a significant addition to the gameplay. Others like the Orrery or Mehrunes' Razor provided separate locations for players to battle through, collecting experience and valuable items. Unlike the PC and 360 versions, the PS3 edition will not feature all eight of the currently available plug-ins for the game. They may find their way to the PlayStation Store at some point in time in the future, but they will not be added into the version as a "PS3 Collector's Edition" or a special copy of Oblivion. Instead, the title will only include the recently released Knights of the Nine side quest, as you attempt to recover lost artifacts of the Divine Crusader and restore glory to the order of warriors. PS3 owners will get their own taste of Oblivion this March. Players of the PC or 360 version of the quest know that only those characters who don't have any infamy associated to their name can begin the pilgrimage to start the Knights of the Nine quest. However, there have been a few changes made for the PS3 version. Characters can now immediately set out on their pilgrimage to the Wayshrines of the Divines as soon as they exit the sewers at the start of the game (which served as a tutorial). This immediately lets you bypass having to track down the rumor about the attack on Anvil Chapel and start on your quest for righteousness. The PS3 version of Oblivion isn't a simple port of the game either, although players who have picked up the 360 version will be very familiar with the control scheme. For one thing, the PS3 version has been optimized to take advantage of the Cell processor and hardware that the system offers. As a result, the game runs a lot faster than the 360 build. Entering dungeons or buildings results in a load of 3-5 seconds, compared to the 7-10 seconds or longer for the 360 version of the game. Similarly, the amount of framerate drops or hitches that cropped up in the wilderness as you accessed a new area on the 360 have been substantially reduced on the PS3 version. There is a plan to completely eradicate these issues as the game nears release, as well as fixing a number of bugs that were present in the other builds. Kiss the item duplication glitch goodbye. Visual textures are much sharper in the PS3 version of the game. The visual presentation of Oblivion has also been significantly enhanced. While it was a beautiful title on the 360, far off environmental details often displayed low resolution textures. This has been fixed with new shaders dedicated to rendering the foreground cleanly with sharper details, so rocky landscapes now have craggy appearances instead of smooth, non-distinct surfaces. While there is still a fair amount of pop-in that occurs (which can't be helped due to the size of the world), the draw distance is farther than the 360 version. As a result, screens from the PS3 version should approach those from high end PCs running Oblivion, which is an impressive feat. We'll have more on Oblivion soon, but for now, check out these new screens. Source: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/762/762108p1.html Wow looks like the delay was worth it :o Edited February 7, 2007 by American Ninja Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheppard Posted February 7, 2007 Share Posted February 7, 2007 Oh dear, its attributing the fact that Oblivion on the PS3 is better because its the PS3? What about the fact that its been in development a lot longer than the 360 version, what a joke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spartan_X Posted February 7, 2007 Share Posted February 7, 2007 /me waits for the same old excuses all over again... :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TDQuiksilver Posted February 7, 2007 Share Posted February 7, 2007 Nice! Can't wait to try this one out! :yes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheppard Posted February 7, 2007 Share Posted February 7, 2007 From what i heared on the latest 1up show video podcast there are severe limitations in ram, it cant have all the addons on at once like the 360 version, you have to pick and choose between what you want and what you can live without. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ienhz Posted February 7, 2007 Share Posted February 7, 2007 I thought the 360 version was also receiving a visual upgrade? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elliott Posted February 7, 2007 Share Posted February 7, 2007 I thought the 360 version was also receiving a visual upgrade? It is. :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadFerIt Posted February 7, 2007 Share Posted February 7, 2007 Yeah guys I already posted about the 360 version. The improvements they've made concerning the PS3 version are being carried over to the 360 version. Most likely this will happen when Shivering Isle is released. So this is great news for both the PS3 and 360 :D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
troist Posted February 7, 2007 Share Posted February 7, 2007 those screens look pretty impressive ^_^ although it would've been helpful to do a side by side comparison for that textures shot because i couldn't really tell the difference. what i want to see most though is a draw distance screenie... that'd show the difference a lot better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadFerIt Posted February 7, 2007 Share Posted February 7, 2007 I don't really see any difference either.. There's one shot of the textures in the far background, and they still look very ugly/poor quality (as with the 360 version). But with the shader improvement the draw distance on things such as grass/foliage should be improved, which was probably my biggest issue with the 360 version (although the load times were a close 2nd). Hopefully along with the visual improvement for the 360 version they also managed to pass over the loading time improvement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunnerhkjp Posted February 8, 2007 Share Posted February 8, 2007 When this comes out, I'm getting a PS3 :yes: Oblivion rocks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TDQuiksilver Posted February 8, 2007 Share Posted February 8, 2007 Agreed. Load time reduction is a definite must on any platform. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+virtorio MVC Posted February 8, 2007 MVC Share Posted February 8, 2007 Just a shame that most people who wanted the game probably already have it on their Xbox 360 or PC. As for the screen shots, maybe a little sharper - who cares? No sharper than what you'd expect from a game that?s been in development longer for a console that is "newer?, technically "more powerful" (in some areas) and more expensive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadFerIt Posted February 8, 2007 Share Posted February 8, 2007 Just a shame that most people who wanted the game probably already have it on their Xbox 360 or PC.As for the screen shots, maybe a little sharper - who cares? No sharper than what you'd expect from a game that?s been in development longer for a console that is "newer?, technically "more powerful" (in some areas) and more expensive. As I've stated and many others, the visual improvements are coming to the 360 as well, so it isn't exactly unfair to 360/PC owners (especially PC owners since they've been able to adjust the .ini files and get it looking even better if their hardware can take it). But the thing that's still up in the air is the loading time for the 360 version, and whether or not the patch to bring the visual improvements will also include the loading time fix. I'm curious what the PS3 version does to get that better loading time. Maybe it gives the option to install on the hard drive? If not, it's very impressive that they managed to do this despite the slower read speed of the blue-ray drive in the PS3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
etempest Posted February 8, 2007 Share Posted February 8, 2007 From what i heared on the latest 1up show video podcast there are severe limitations in ram, it cant have all the addons on at once like the 360 version, you have to pick and choose between what you want and what you can live without. Actually the screen shots for the PS3 show Knights of the Nine and possible the add-on thats due out this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheppard Posted February 8, 2007 Share Posted February 8, 2007 Actually the screen shots for the PS3 show Knights of the Nine and possible the add-on thats due out this year. Whats that gotta do with the limitations in how many addons and mods you can have loaded at once? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
etempest Posted February 8, 2007 Share Posted February 8, 2007 (edited) Whats that gotta do with the limitations in how many addons and mods you can have loaded at once? That in all likely hood the PS3 will have all the official plugins + expansion that the Xbox360 & PC have. Add-ons ad nothing more then more resources files (graphics) and there may be more "scripts" runnings in the back ground. Just like the scripts that control everything else. When there are add-ons with the pc / xbox360, there doesn't seem to be any additional hardware resources required / not impact on performance just by adding any of the download content. I still prefer the PC version, due the sheer amount of user created mods. Edited February 8, 2007 by jstillion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elliott Posted February 8, 2007 Share Posted February 8, 2007 That in all likely hood the PS3 will have all the official plugins + expansion that the Xbox360 & PC have. He means you might have to pick and choose which addons to load at the same time (and not have all them on at the same time like the 360 and PC). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.Markus Posted February 8, 2007 Share Posted February 8, 2007 I'll wait until xmas before buying PS3, already got the 360 to play this absolutely amazing game on... My hands are starting to itch for The Elder Scrolls: V though ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob_c_b Posted February 8, 2007 Share Posted February 8, 2007 So funny how some of you guys have to just try and kill any good news for PS3 owners :no: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
American Ninja Posted February 8, 2007 Author Share Posted February 8, 2007 So funny how some of you guys have to just try and kill any good news for PS3 owners :no: I know it's really sad. Fanboys only like good news for their fav. system and bash other consoles when there is good news for other systems. :no: :cry: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elliott Posted February 8, 2007 Share Posted February 8, 2007 I know it's really sad. Fanboys only like good news for their fav. system and bash other consoles when there is good news for other systems. :no: :cry: This has nothing to do with bashing. IGN has praised this game so highly against the X360 version yet fails to point out that these improvements aren't necessarily exclusive to the PS3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SimplySchizo Posted February 8, 2007 Share Posted February 8, 2007 This has nothing to do with bashing. IGN has praised this game so highly against the X360 version yet fails to point out that these improvements aren't necessarily exclusive to the PS3. No, but when they say images look sharper and load 3-5 seconds faster, than the '360', i tend to think its pretty darn close to being an 'exclusive'. :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheppard Posted February 8, 2007 Share Posted February 8, 2007 No, but when they say images look sharper and load [i/3-5[/i] seconds faster, than the '360', i tend to think its pretty darn close to being an 'exclusive'. :p Yes but you fail to read that the 360 and PC will be getting these enhancements, so its not exclusive to the PS3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SimplySchizo Posted February 8, 2007 Share Posted February 8, 2007 Yes but you fail to read that the 360 and PC will be getting these enhancements, so its not exclusive to the PS3. The visual presentation of Oblivion has also been significantly enhanced. While it was a beautiful title on the 360, far off environmental details often displayed low resolution textures. This has been fixed with new shaders dedicated to rendering the foreground cleanly with sharper details, so rocky landscapes now have craggy appearances instead of smooth, non-distinct surfaces. While there is still a fair amount of pop-in that occurs (which can't be helped due to the size of the world), the draw distance is farther than the 360 version. As a result, screens from the PS3 version should approach those from high end PCs running Oblivion, which is an impressive feat Yea, you're right. :whistle: I understand this is play-putty to alot of fannies, and would probably spend the next couple hours trying to sculpt these quotes into something negative against the ps3. :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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