IGN's Oblivion Hands-on

[Jon Liu]

Originally Posted by ign.com

he 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.

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.

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Freakin' awesome!!!

[D_Litch]

Cool! Although I doubt I'll buy it on PS3, cool nonetheless.

[Jon Liu]

yeah, a lot of the gripes when I played it on the 360 have seemed to have been answered with the PS3 version! Doubtful that I'll be picking it up for the PS3, but like you said, cool nonetheless!

[GoatMother]

sweet. I'm having a hard time imagine the draw distance being even further, it was already pretty freaking far in the 360 version.. Good to hear that it runs faster.

[Jon Liu]

runs faster, less glitchy, farther draw distance, sharper details, All the more to love!!!

The one thing that it still has, that bothered me some, was texture/model pop-in's. Ex. You're walking around and all of a sudden you start to see foliage pop form right before you...

A small sacrifice but, still one gripe nonetheless.

[GoatMother]

yeah, watching plants and rocks appear 8 feet in front of you in the 360 version wasn't all that exciting, lol. The framerate bothered me more though. I hope they have a demo to try out, I'm very curious about it now.

[Jon Liu]

Yeah, same here! Although, I am sticking firm to not getting it!!!

[GoatMother]

Yeah, considering I didn't last too long in the 360 version I'll probably pass. Game sucks away too much time IMO. I guess that could be good or bad depending on the person. I did like it while I was playing it, just seemed like every turn I made a new quest appeared like a virus.