Khrest said:
When you consider the relative complexities of what the two engines are doing, Far Cry a simple shooter, Oblivion a full on RPG with spells, weapons, stats, NPCs and so on, it's clear which is the major achievement I think. Given the whole package, it's incredible how good Oblivion looks when you think about how much is going on behind the graphics all the time.
Far Cry will have just as much, if not more going on at once as an RPG. Oblivion is only different due to the NPCs acting out throughout the world, this is a major step, but it doesn't make Far Cry any less impressive
For example, you hit someone in an RPG its just a roll of the dice to detect the hit - in an FPS you need collision detection (relatively slow & complicated), and in the case of more modern FPS games, multiple collision detections (aka hit-zones) for each and every bullet.
The stats behind an RPG actually make it simpler for a computer to play the game out than an FPS. Oblivion is good, don't get me wrong. But the NPCs doing their own thing out of the level will be done with a mixture of dice rolls (like any sandbox game). Check out the X (space sim) series
Anyway, I'm finding Oblivion rather boring tbh. Its a case of wandering around occasionally bumping into some bandits / highway man, and hammering the right trigger while occasionally holding the left trigger. The combat has seriously disappointed me, when you have games like Fable and Jade Empire with smooth combat with plenty of moves and then you play Oblivion which brings a whole new meaning to hack & slash. Also loading when entering a tiny house - whats that about!?!
Clearing the cache too is rather stupid, definitely a hack fix that shouldn't have made it to retail. Worse still are the level load times which get longer and longer and longer until you shut the game down, hold A to clear the cache, and then resume. Its a CONSOLE, these things shouldn't happen.
Either way if the combat was actually any good I would probably love this game. But as it stands it makes a hack 'n' slash seem like an evolved form of game-based combat.
as PC games are cheaper.
