Morrowind VS Oblivion Part 2

Posted on 2/06/2010 -

Last time we left, Morrowind was at 2 and Oblivion with 3. I am counting Tribunal and Bloodmoon for Morrowind and Shivering Isles for Oblivion. Knights of the Nine does not count as it is a plugin and not an official expansion.

-Character Creation-
In The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, your character is being shipped to the island of Vvardenfell as a prisoner. The crime you committed is never revealed, but you are soon set free after exiting the boat and going through the Census and Excise Office. I used to think this was a pain. The whole process was neat at first, as it's interactive. Jiub, another prisoner aboard the ship, asks you your name, a guard asks where you hail from (your race), and so on. Then I played Oblivion...

Again, you were bad and ended up in prison. An elf makes you feel like crap, guards come in, a secret passage is opened, you follow the guards and the emperor, they block you off, you go into a dungeon, you get back to the guards, you travel with them, the emperor gets killed, then you run out of the passage through a sewer, and then you may finally play the real game. It's less interactive than Morrowind's, by having you do your name and race from the start. The only interactive part is when the emperor asks for your sign and a guard asks what class you are.

I really don't see the need for a whole dungeon right at the start. It is just randomly thrown in as a small tutorial. I like how Bioware does it, you get a tutorial in the beginning of their games, but it always ties into the story somewhere. Morrowind is simple, gets to the chase, and you play right away. Oblivion's is just too long and you end up running through it as fast as possible when you forget to keep a second save at the sewer exit. Morrowind gets this one. Morrowind: 3 Obllivion: 3

-Character Options-
Both games have the same basic race, class, skill, attributes, and birthsign options. There are only small differences. For example: Morrowind's beast races could not wear full helms or boots. The amount of races is the same. The pre-made classes are the exact same. The birthsigns are the exact same. The attributes are the exact same. The major difference is in the skills you can learn.

Morrowind has 27 skills. It gets detailed. Do you want light, medium, or heavy armor? How about short or long sword? What about spear, axe, blunt, or hand-to-hand? Oblivion only has 21, with many of it's options squished into one. You may only have blade, hand-to-hand, or blunt. Axes go into blunt, spears are gone, and both types of swords count as blades. Medium armor is gone. Little things like that take away from the game. I'm not sure what they were thinking; it really cuts down on the unique characters you can create. Morrowind gets this one. Morrowind: 4 Oblivion: 3

-In-game use of skills-
Even though both of the Elder Scrolls titles have tons of skills at your disposal, not all of them work well. Speechcraft, for example, isn't very useful is either game. It takes forever to level and the bribe/taunt menu is broken in Morrowind. It has to be very high to even be remotely useful. Same with Oblivion, with that damned mini-game. It's much easier to just bribe the NPC or kill them so fast the guards won't notice (although that doesn't always work).

Oblivion has special actions that game be performed as you level your skills. For instance, when you level Acrobatics enough, you can roll. In both games, a higher acrobatics lessens your damage when falling from heights. Of course it sometimes bugs out in Oblivion and you can fall an inch into a rock and instantly die. On the flip side, it is very fun having 100 speed and 100 Athletics and run faster than horses.

I guess I'll have to give it to Oblivion. It is neat being able to roll across Cyrodiil like Link. Morrowind: 4 Oblivion: 4

-Combat-
It's pretty difficult to screw up "Click to swing!" but it's also difficult to make it truly interactive. When I first played Morrowind as my 10 year old self, I was like "What the shit is this?" at the auto-best attack option. I never had played a game where you move your mouse left to right to slash, then up and down to stab, and various options like that. So I turned it off and never gave it another thought. Now, I don't care either way if it's off or on. It's cool that the option is there for people who prefer that.

In Oblivion, this is gone. You get to just stab and do nothing else. But in this game, you have to hit down a button to hold up your shield, instead of Morrowind where it's automatic. It's pretty much a trade off. Hold up the shield manually, or have the option for detailed attacks?

I'd rather have detailed attacks. In Oblivion, you either kill the enemies right away, or struggle. It's normally easier to just run to the left or right to move out of the way anyway. Morrowind: 5 Oblivion: 4

-Monster and item scaling-
Scaling did not exist in Morrowind. You could immediately run to Ghost Gate, steal some glass armor, and run around with Vivec's head mounted on your spread at level 1. Of course, that's only if you choose to go and skip a head like that. The difficulty slider is there for a reason, and it can make the game harder or easier. It is true that by level 10 you pretty much rule the world, but that's why they have Bloodmoon and Tribunal.

Oblivion does has the monster and item scaling. As certain levels, the monsters will jump up in difficulty (no matter what the slider is on) and you will find better items. The scaling is ridiculous. From one level, the game can become a nightmare. I was wondering around in the wilderness, killed a wolf, slept somewhere to level, then went back, and the wolves were then slaughtering me. I had to turn the difficultly down to almost easy to even put up a fight. This also means, you can never truly feel powerful because everything just gets harder. Technically, the player is suppose to do Shivering Isles after doing the main quest for Oblivion, but the level scaling eliminates that and you can directly head to the Isles at level 1.

It's pretty obvious Morrowind gets this one. The scaling is one of the few things of Oblivion that just irritate me to pieces. Morrowind: 6 Oblivion: 4

-Stealth and Crime-
When you start out in Morrowind, it's very easy to gain thousands of gold as soon as the Census and Excise Office sets you free. See all those goodies on the walls? Grab them. Sometimes, you don't even have to be stealthed. If an NPC can't see you (as in, you're upstairs and he's downstairs) it's pretty safe. In fact, you could loot his house, run downstairs, then sell his shit all back to him. Sometimes the NPC's won't alert the guards if you attack them or steal in front of their face. A message will pop up if they have, and expect for guards to run after you as soon as you walk outside. You can either resist, pay gold (and surrender your stolen goods), or goto jail. It's a pretty black and white system. Joining the Thieves Guild allows you to pay off your bounty. Lock Picking is simple as well. Just buy a lock pick and use it.

They mixed it up for Oblivion. You have to be very cautious and sneaky. The NPC's will follow you if you choose to go into their homes upstairs. You have to be stealthed. You also cannot sell stolen goods to anybody. You have to join the Thieves Guild and goto fences. Guards can enter houses now. I can't tell you the countless times I've shit my pants when a guards yells "STOP!" when I'm busy raiding an NPC's chests. The Lock Picking is a pain now. Like the Speechcraft, it's been turned into a mini-game. I normally just use the auto feature to skip it. Each lock pick can only be used once, instead of over and over like in Morrowind. There are to traps to deactivate through the use of probes either. Guards can be alerted about...anything and not even tell you. Stepping into somebody's property can put them on you. I do wonder how they alert the guards when you enter in, completely cloaked, steal, and get out with no problem? But then, a guard appears and tries to arrest you. The Thieves Guild can get rid of your bounty too. Jail can either be served out, or you can break out.

I would immediately say Oblivion's system is better, but it dips into the pool of unfairness. How do those guards get alerted when you completely safe and your stealth icon never vanishes? It isn't really hard to get away from the guards and just pay the Thieves Guild to get rid of your records, but it's a tad annoying to have to run out of town to get them off of you. Morrowind's system is too easy. Although I don't like the removal of probes, Oblivion gets this because it at least adds a bit more challenge to stealing and sneaking. Morrowind: 6 Oblivion: 5


Come back Tuesday for Part 3. And just a heads up, Dragon Age: Origins and Bayonetta will be reviewed in the near future. Well...maybe not Dragon Age because the game is so damn long, but it's on my list.
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