Ecchi-Oni Posted February 19, 2011 Share Posted February 19, 2011 Bleh. That's all i have to say for sandbox games. Just an excuse to ditch good writing. Yeah you can go anywhere, but what's the point if the quests are the same, the NPCs have same dialog lines, and monsters level up with you, so even if you want to you can't get those pesky rats in the basement a beating they deserve after being a pain in the ass on level 1. I am much more exited about Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 2. Bethesda can go and rot in hell for what they did to Fallout franchise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fan Posted February 19, 2011 Share Posted February 19, 2011 Bleh. That's all i have to say for sandbox games. Just an excuse to ditch good writing. Yeah you can go anywhere, but what's the point if the quests are the same, the NPCs have same dialog lines, and monsters level up with you...Is the concept no good because it has yet to be done VERY well? Imagine a sandbox game with superb writing, more than 5 voice actors and an enormous amount of attention to detail pored into it.My first experience with it was Daggerfall, and in it I saw a rudimentary but brilliant idea. Many years later I played Fallout 3 and saw a much more refined brilliant idea. A to B to C to D, roll credits is no way to make a game, except perhaps for people with no imagination. Now the idea of dropping someone into a foreign world and they have to explore and learn and develop to achieve some distant goal really appeals to me. I then played Oblivion, and although graphically it was a step back, and the voice acting, and repetitive nature of dialogue was disappointing, I can see the massive potential of this genre. Now imagine that game with the excellent writing and attention to detail dropped you into Westeros.... mmmmmm...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merentha Posted February 19, 2011 Share Posted February 19, 2011 Bethesda can go and rot in hell for what they did to Fallout franchise.Well, we got New Vegas out of the deal. I'd say its worth it. Besides, Morrowind had well written quests, one of the best in modern RPGs that I saw. It also had a sense of progression (once I was running House Telvanni, guards tended to apologize after they came to arrest me, then ran away) and sensible scaling. So, uh, basically, you played Oblivion and wrote the whole genre off? Good for you, I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Returned Posted February 19, 2011 Share Posted February 19, 2011 Bleh. That's all i have to say for sandbox games. Just an excuse to ditch good writing. Yeah you can go anywhere, but what's the point if the quests are the same, the NPCs have same dialog lines, and monsters level up with you, so even if you want to you can't get those pesky rats in the basement a beating they deserve after being a pain in the ass on level 1. I am much more exited about Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 2. Bethesda can go and rot in hell for what they did to Fallout franchise.Dragon Age is in every way inferior to Bethesda products. Bethesda games have few voice actors, true, but they're extremely good, the lore of the games is very rich and exciting. The music is just mindblowing, especially Elder Scrolls music, it easily contains the best music in gaming. The gameplay is fun and original, Bethesda doesn't take things too serious, with some really unique surprises, unlike dragon age, which read like a book from beginning to end(GET ALLIES(You get allies) TALK TO THEM(You talk to them), DEFEAT EVIL DRAGON(You defeat evil dragon). I do not understand why you'd say Dragon Age is better, it's a good game but inferior on all grounds. Music, voice acting, gameplay, lore, economy, diversity. And I don't really know what you think they "did" to the Fallout franchise. You're just saying things that are either untrue or should have no impact on your gaming experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Durckad Posted February 19, 2011 Share Posted February 19, 2011 I do not understand why you'd say Dragon Age is better, it's a good game but inferior on all grounds. Music, voice acting, gameplay, lore, economy, diversity. Really? Really? Voice acting? Oblivion's voice acting is appallingly bad and FO3's only reaches the glorious heights of 'kinda okay.' I have my problems with Dragon Age, but it absolutely destroys anything Bethesda has and will do in the voice acting and gameplay departments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Returned Posted February 19, 2011 Share Posted February 19, 2011 Really? Really? Voice acting? Oblivion's voice acting is appallingly bad and FO3's only reaches the glorious heights of 'kinda okay.' I have my problems with Dragon Age, but it absolutely destroys anything Bethesda has and will do in the voice acting and gameplay departments.I wasn't necessarily saying Oblivion's voice acting was good, I was saying Dragon Age's voice acting really wasn't any better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WrathOfTinyKittens Posted February 19, 2011 Share Posted February 19, 2011 I wasn't necessarily saying Oblivion's voice acting was good, I was saying Dragon Age's voice acting really wasn't any better.I have to disagree. DA had great voice acting from what I recall. Except for Sean Bean, Oblivion did not (probably spent their whole budget on Sean Bean and then had the designers do the rest). DA is inferior to Oblivion in certain ways, but it is also a fine game in its own right, and besides, since DA is not really an open-ended RPG they aren't directly comparable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Returned Posted February 19, 2011 Share Posted February 19, 2011 I have to disagree. DA had great voice acting from what I recall. Except for Sean Bean, Oblivion did not (probably spent their whole budget on Sean Bean and then had the designers do the rest). DA is inferior to Oblivion in certain ways, but it is also a fine game in its own right, and besides, since DA is not really an open-ended RPG they aren't directly comparable.True, it comes down to preference if one wishes to compare such games.I prefer sandbox over linearity, from the first time I played games like the early GTA, zelda and dragon quest games I've been smitten. I can enjoy other RPGs just as much but not with such a lasting impact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poobah Posted February 19, 2011 Share Posted February 19, 2011 I have to disagree. DA had great voice acting from what I recall. Except for Sean Bean, Oblivion did not (probably spent their whole budget on Sean Bean and then had the designers do the rest). DA is inferior to Oblivion in certain ways, but it is also a fine game in its own right, and besides, since DA is not really an open-ended RPG they aren't directly comparable.I assume you mean Patrick Stewart? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anatole Kuragin Posted February 19, 2011 Share Posted February 19, 2011 I assume you mean Patrick Stewart?Patrick Stewart was in the game for all of ten minutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poobah Posted February 19, 2011 Share Posted February 19, 2011 Patrick Stewart was in the game for all of ten minutes.The only part of oblivion that was any good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fan Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 I assume you mean Patrick Stewart?I recall Patrick Stewart for sure as the Emporer, but if Sean "Eddard" Bean was one of the 4 voice actors cast for all of the Oblivion characters, I was unaware.I have heard him in interviews and his voice is pretty distinct, off-hand, do you recall one of the characters he voiced? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Durckad Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 I recall Patrick Stewart for sure as the Emporer, but if Sean "Eddard" Bean was one of the 4 voice actors cast for all of the Oblivion characters, I was unaware.I have heard him in interviews and his voice is pretty distinct, off-hand, do you recall one of the characters he voiced?He was Martin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fan Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 He was Martin.Ahhh... no wonder, in my 150 hours, I only advanced the main plot to the point where I escorted Martin to the Blades fortress.He does speak, but not enough that I recognized him. I will pay special attention during the next step, thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WrathOfTinyKittens Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 I assume you mean Patrick Stewart?No - although I'd forgotten that he was in it, and he was good too.Patrick Stewart was in the game for all of ten minutes.Yes.He was Martin.Precisely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reiver Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 Terrence Stamp played the villain as well iirc and did a good job. The problem with voices in OB was that, like has been mentioned, they seemed to blow all their money on big names and leave the vast majority of dialogue to a cast of about 8. So you got the ridiculous looping convos of "mudcrabs" between characters with the same voice, beggars that lurched between "crone" and lord of the manor and the high elf and orc soundign the same. I understand they wanted to mainstream it but i think going all voiced was a terrible choice. The restrictions to responses and solutions sucked and the dialogue all seemed weirdly stunted. Either way i'm sure they could have afforded another 10 or so talented voice actors to round things out and had them do impersonations of Sharpe and Captain Picard for much cheaperAnd I don't really know what you think they "did" to the Fallout franchise. You're just saying things that are either untrue or should have no impact on your gaming experience. Is this trolling? Are you seriously suggesting turning an isometric, party, turn based RPG with a wonderfully rich story and some of the best dialogue/C&C into a sandbox FPS had "no impact" on his gaming experience? Don't get me wrong. FO3 is a fun enough game with some nice ideas but as an RPG it's pretty poor and as a part of the FO series it feels like fan fic with every cliche thrown in with little thought to consistency or sense. Also Liam Neeson sucks. You can literally feel the "don't give a shit" from his whole performance and i swear there's one point where either their sound went tits up or he literally did phone in his performance. NV was great though. Best thing Beth has done since they released Bloodmoon was farm dev duties out to Obsidian. If only they could farm Skyrim out to decent Devs i'd be pretty hopeful we weren't getting another simplified, insipid hiking sim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kungtotte Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 Here are some numbers to put Oblivion's poor voice-acting in perspective:Oblivion has 15 voice actors in total, Fallout 3 has 36, Neverwinter Nights 2 has 63, Fallout: New Vegas has 74, Dragon Age has 147 and Mass Effect 2 has 93.And before you point out that Oblivion had some big names in Patrick Stewart, Sean Bean and Terence Stamp, you should remember that all those other games (apart from NWN2) had big names attached to them as well.Fallout 3: Liam Neeson, Malcolm McDowell, Ron Perlman, Odette Yustman.Fallout New Vegas: Matthew Perry, Ron Perlman, Zachary Levi, Kris Kristofferson, Wayne Newton, William Sadler, Rene Auberjonois, Michael Dorn, Danny Trejo, Felicia Day.Dragon Age Origins: Kate Mulgrew, Tim Curry, Claudia Black, Steve Valentine.Mass Effect 2: Martin Sheen, Adam Baldwin, Claudia Black, Keith David, Seth Green, Yvonne Strahovski, Tricia Helfer, Michael Hogan.This is of course aside from the issue that reiver brings up in that in Oblivion characters would switch between the voice of a beggar-crone to that of a highfalutin noble-born lady between breaths. I guess we should be glad the voices at least had gender assignments so that gruff, male guards didn't start speaking like women out of the blue. Anybody who tries to argue that any game has worse voice-acting than Oblivion is talking out of their bum.ETAAnd if you want to compare to some real sandbox games you could always look to GTA: San Andreas and GTA IV. San Andreas sports 340 voice-actors and IV has a mere 273, and both include big names as well so it's not a quantity over quality issue there either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Durckad Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 Anybody who tries to argue that any game has worse voice-acting than Oblivion is talking out of their bum.Deus Ex had worse voice acting. :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merentha Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 Deus Ex had worse voice acting. :PI don't think it did. JC was supposed to be completely emotionless, I thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Durckad Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 Okay, maybe I was slightly exaggerating, but it was still ridiculously, hilariously bad at times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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