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[LEAK] - TES Travels: Oblivion (PSP)

Taker34

Banned
Hey guys,

So the Oblivion PSP builds have been finally leaked, found them online. I do not know who leaked this and I'm NOT the owner of those game builds.

dsc_0002b5ooz.jpg


So, I thought I'd share my thoughts on the 5 Oblivion builds so far:

The Set-Up:
I didn't manage to play every build in its entirety. Thanks to random crashes and freezes. It actually requires a lot of luck to get through an area. I'm using a PSPgo with 6.60 PRO-C2 CFW, extra CPU and RAM enabled, as well as using the UMD M33 driver.
Unfortunately any version of 6.XX LME X.X didn't work for me and caused a black screen after starting the games.

dsc_0003e3rky.jpg


Surprisingly there's a lot of content in those demos, I wonder how far in development the game was, before being cancelled. Kotaku reported about rumors of Climax cancelling the title in August 2007. The released screens of the game confirm that, as all shown locations are present in the demos...
dsc_0006gipuz.jpg


Back to the game -> the submitted build, along with another two are very different from the two latest ones. In the oldest builds essentially all important features of TES IV are actually present in the game (except sneaking which only works in the newest three builds).

img-20160601-wa0000ijqae.jpeg


Gameplay:
The gameplay is actually excellent for a game in first person view. What many probably won't realize during combat is that the L shoulder button automatically locks the camera onto an enemy, so it is possible to move around and strike/block dynamically at the same time. Making magic and a bow/ arrow combination an effective and viable way to play, despite the restrictions of just one analogue stick.
Leveling up and allocating skill points is possible as well and works just like the PC and console version - at least in the old builds.
If someone is trying to complete the most content rich builds, I'd guess we're looking at about 3-6 hours of content per demo. There are some hidden rooms to explore and extra gold chests here and there.
The story is ok and very Elder Scrolls like and mostly revolves around the mages guild, which is expected since the game takes places in High Rock. While Anticlere and Glenpoint are cities known to the TES universe Rhalta and the prison where the MC wakes up are not. The mages guild is also located in Rhalta, along with their mysterious crystal cave - which is home to a glowing green crystal.
Lore-wise I haven't exactly found anything worth mentioning, while the architecture of High Rock is a very interesting bonus.

PRO TIP:
If you feel like experimenting and obtaining weapons, spells and other items right from the start -> simply go the character stats menu and hit the square button. A goodie bag will drop. Hitting the square button 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 times spawns another goodie bag with other very useful items. Please note that you can't have more than 9999 gold in your inventory! Armor isn't working as of now and makes your character invisible. Daedric, iron and steel weapons work, as well as the elven longsword.
dsc_0005u9o9k.jpg

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Final Thoughts:
I could go more into detail about several cool things I've noticed but I need more days or even weeks to get a good feel of every build and content differences.
After all Oblivion on PSP is pretty big for such an early build. I wouldn't have thought a portable version of a large scale RPG franchise like TES was even possible, especially on limited hardware like the PSP.
This game is legitimately fun and in my opinion a outstanding technical achievement on the PSP hardware, even at this early state. The game (file) size, content and quality prove that this easily could've become a benchmark for the platform and one of the most successful titles on the console. Of course that doesn't matter if the title wasn't profitable to begin with or simply a risky financial endeavor for Zenimax.

Im fairly certain all of these are using Renderware. The format is the same as Silent Hill Origins if anyone wants to poke in the ARC files.

The latest build is the most polished, with the demo zombie combat and quest, but it doesnt have all of the content from the earlier builds. The submitted build is not the latest, and in fact it may be the second earliest of what was found if Im remembering correctly.

And no, I didn't leak it myself, not worth the hassle.


And LME works fine on my Go, just make sure the RAM is enabled.

Full Video with Commentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzkyv6PEfjQ
June 2006 Build Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRUSM4kj2B4
January 2007 Build Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrWtz7M_OHc

Keep in mind too that these builds dont represent everything that was completed on the game.

Send me to Oblivion if old.
 

Elios83

Member
Why the game wasn't released?
There must be some serious problem (game breaking bugs, simply unfinished with missing parts and no ending etc).
 

Borman

Member
Im fairly certain all of these are using Renderware. The format is the same as Silent Hill Origins if anyone wants to poke in the ARC files.

The latest build is the most polished, with the demo zombie combat and quest, but it doesnt have all of the content from the earlier builds. The submitted build is not the latest, and in fact it may be the second earliest of what was found if Im remembering correctly.

And no, I didn't leak it myself, not worth the hassle.


And LME works fine on my Go, just make sure the RAM is enabled.

Full Video with Commentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzkyv6PEfjQ
June 2006 Build Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRUSM4kj2B4
January 2007 Build Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrWtz7M_OHc

Keep in mind too that these builds dont represent everything that was completed on the game.
 
I think the pixelated look really adds to the game, compared to standard Oblivion where the textures were very flat/ smooth. I think it really adds more depth to the aesthetic.
 

Shanlei91

Sonic handles my blue balls
Am I in the right year? Wtf is going on right now, Gaf help me out here how come I have never heard of this?

It's like the Berenstein Bears phenomenon. You're in an alternate timeline due to the actions of a time traveler. Half the population will side with you and the other half will say you just weren't paying attention.
 
Im fairly certain all of these are using Renderware. The format is the same as Silent Hill Origins if anyone wants to poke in the ARC files.

The latest build is the most polished, with the demo zombie combat and quest, but it doesnt have all of the content from the earlier builds. The submitted build is not the latest, and in fact it may be the second earliest of what was found if Im remembering correctly.

And no, I didn't leak it myself, not worth the hassle.

And LME works fine on my Go, just make sure the RAM is enabled.

Full Video with Commentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzkyv6PEfjQ
June 2006 Build Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRUSM4kj2B4
January 2007 Build Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrWtz7M_OHc

Did wonder if it was you that had leaked it. Surprising that after getting so far with the engine etc they decided to dump the whole thing :(
 

Borman

Member
Did wonder if it was you that had leaked it. Surprising that after getting so far with the engine etc they decided to dump the whole thing :(

Na. I helped get the game working as it should and made videos that were promptly pulled and now went back up. I don't need the legal issue of leaking something like this, not with Zenimax.
 

Taker34

Banned
Im fairly certain all of these are using Renderware. The format is the same as Silent Hill Origins if anyone wants to poke in the ARC files.

The latest build is the most polished, with the demo zombie combat and quest, but it doesnt have all of the content from the earlier builds. The submitted build is not the latest, and in fact it may be the second earliest of what was found if Im remembering correctly.

And no, I didn't leak it myself, not worth the hassle.

And LME works fine on my Go, just make sure the RAM is enabled.

Oh and I was under the impression that the latest demos (3 of them) are older versions. While they're a lot closer to Oblivion on consoles, they lack a bunch of features of the older demos.
I currently don't have a lot of time and played the better of the two 240 mb demos (the one which features merchants who actually offer stuff.
 

Borman

Member
Wonder how it runs in PPSSPP

Windows version crashed. For OSX version, look at my main video.

I do believe I dated all the builds.

Submitted version is September 6, 2006
November 21, 2006
January 31, 2007
February 1, 2007 (This one and the one above is the most content rich)
April 27, 2007 (The Combat and Quest demo. Much more polished. Like meant for a demonstration of some kind, whether that is e3 or internally, I dont know)
 

bomblord1

Banned
Windows version crashed. For OSX version, look at my main video.

I do believe I dated all the builds.

Submitted version is September 6, 2006
November 21, 2006
January 2, 2007 build
January 31, 2007
February 1, 2007 (This one and the one above is the most content rich)
April 27, 2007 (The Combat and Quest demo. Much more polished. Like meant for a demonstration of some kind, whether that is e3 or internally, I dont know)

Cool thanks
 

CamHostage

Member
Im fairly certain all of these are using Renderware. The format is the same as Silent Hill Origins if anyone wants to poke in the ARC files.

Yeah, I think the "engine switch" thing might have been confusion from the Unseen64 article, I'm not sure the engine was ever actually switched in mid-production?

The article reads, "In early development Climax were going to use their own internal 3D engine for PSP, but when that didn’t move quick enough they switched over to using Renderware Studio (which was already been used on other games) for an easier and faster development." That doesn't mean they made half the game and backtracked, that reads more now that I read it again that it was at one point going to be on a Climax engine and then they realized that what they were doing with Silent Hill Origins (I knew it looked familiar...) might work nicely for an RPG.

Climax's games at the time were the racing games (ATV Fury 3/4 & MotoGP 06/07, I don't know the engine?), Silent Hill Origins (which they actually rescued from Konami LA, so the ability to get that up and awesome on Renderware must have turned some heads towards that engine in a big way), Ghost Rider PS2/PSP (Renderware, less a big way,) Delta Force: Black Hawk Down Xbox (probably internal or Novalogic engine), and just shortly before all this was 2004's Sudeki (internal, I assume.) Climax was also experimenting with some technology for its next-gen titles like Elveon. By the timeline, I assume they were already transitioning out of internal engines and TES Travels was maybe not even prototyped on Sudeki tech or anything like that.
 

Borman

Member
Sudeki tech was used for demos shortly after the game came out, but I havent found evidence of it being used a whole lot. The LA based studio didnt seem to always know what was going on in the UK, and the other way around too it seems.

Silent Hill pre-dates Oblivion, and it would seem as though other tech was briefly considered before Oblivion. They actually used Quake 3 to start mapping things for Silent Hill. Development on both Silent Hill and Oblivion used Bombdog (or Bumdog, as it was put) at first.

Around Mid May 2006, some people from the LA branch visited the UK branch to learn how to use Renderware, so that is when that switch happened for Silent Hill, and likely around the same time or shortly thereafter for Oblivion.

Climax had their hands dipped in a lot of little projects that they werent credited for. They also had a lot of almosts, including Tomb Raider.

They also liked to play Battlefield at Climax LA. The Engineers apparently cheated a lot. Or so some say.
 

Elios83

Member
I think the budget was the issue. The game itself is totally fine.



Ok guys but if the game was finished and was good what's the point in not releasing it?
They would have still recouped some money instead of nothing?
Usually when things are cancelled it's because a game is not finished or has issues and they need extra money to finish/fix it but since they already do not expect to have a positive return on the current investement, canceling it is way to cut the overall losses on the project.
 
A shame this never was completed. I was really anticipating it back when it was still in development.

Really happy about the builds leaking. I wonder how it would work on emulators.
 

Borman

Member
Ok guys but if the game was finished and was good what's the point in not releasing it?
They would have still recouped some money instead of nothing?
Usually when things are cancelled it's because a game is not finished or has issues and they need extra money to finish/fix it but since they already do not expect to have a positive return on the current investement, canceling it is way to cut the overall losses on the project.

It wasn't done. The money wasn't there to finish it.

A shame this never was completed. I was really anticipating it back when it was still in development.

Really happy about the builds leaking. I wonder how it would work on emulators.

As I mentioned, works in OSX for PPSSPP, doesnt work in Windows for some reason. Heard that version 1.1.1 might work though, so check that out.
 

CamHostage

Member
=LOTS OF OTHER INFO, DO READ THE POST=

Silent Hill pre-dates Oblivion, and it would seem as though other tech was briefly considered before Oblivion. They actually used Quake 3 to start mapping things for Silent Hill. Development on both Silent Hill and Oblivion used Bombdog (or Bumdog, as it was put) at first.

Around Mid May 2006, some people from the LA branch visited the UK branch to learn how to use Renderware, so that is when that switch happened for Silent Hill, and likely around the same time or shortly thereafter for Oblivion.

Really appreciate the info! I remember Climax was one of those studios that showed a lot of prototypes (still is, going by its website) and talked about its tech a lot. Mostly the name came from the racers from the Brighton, but they've been a workhorse studio from the beginning and have made a play for the big leagues a few times over their run. I have always especially appreciated their portable work, as they did important things on PSP and on Vita like the Dead Nation conversion, Smart As, and the unexpected Assassin's Creed Chronicles Vita release.

Possible correction or question, though...
You say Silent Hill pre-dates Oblivion, and I don't doubt you there, but didn't Silent Hill Origins have an incredibly tumultuous development path that included a time at an internal Konami California office? When did Climax get that project, and when did it go from the haphazard over-the-shoulder game that Climax LA was making to the more traditional SH that Climax UK shipped?

Both Silent Hill Origins and TES Travels were announced for PSP the same year (SH at E3 in May, Elder Scrolls sometime in September with I think a Game Informer pictorial in October.) The demo of SH Origins at E3 and GC 2006 was that goofy old version, while the 2006/2007 Elder Scrolls PSP demo you're talking about (with the SH Origins engine similarities) was already on the more familiar engine/tech tree we saw in the final Origins. (Granted, even the previous SH Origins could have been on Renderware and they just had to throw stuff out when it switched staff and stories.) Judging by what you showed in a June 2006 build, Elder Scrolls Travels was much further along (or at least just demoed much better, but you say both builds are content-rich prototypes as well as looking and running decently) than Silent Hill Origins in that same time period.

So I wonder how the timelines line up? I would believe that SH Origins was contracted way before Elder Scrolls Travels, but I wonder, as far as builds and baseline engines that the teams saw as viable, which came first? Was Elder Scrolls' tech what made Climax UK realize they could save the floundering Silent Hill project, or was Silent Hill's tech what turned the crew's heads to abandon other engine experiments when they saw they could get everything they'd need right there for an Elder Scrolls RPG?

Which was the chicken and which was the egg?
 

CamHostage

Member
Yeah, I rather have them cut the game in half than cancelling it. It's a massive game so at its release it wouldve been the biggest title on PSP.

No no, this wasn't Elder Scrolls Oblivion, this was a PSP side-game set in that world. This was much more of a dungeon crawler / RPG brawler than the RPG chat-and-loot-and-walk-and-walk that Elder Scrolls largely plays out as. Size of the PSP game world or even of the project scope wasn't necessarily what killed the game (there was some talk that it'd push to be a 2-UMD release if it came to that, but I doubt that actually would have happened; my guess would be they'd more likely make a sequel than split up one semi-story-based game into two discs.) Financial factors and market value seem to be the ender for Elder Scrolls PSP. And despite the playable builds, it would have taken what sounds like 6-12 months or more work to have an actual game ready to sell. Cutting stuff out would have been the least of their worries for Climax if it meant that the studio would actually greenlight them to finish and ship it.
 
This, I wouldn't mind a remaster of. I don't know what it was about that game that made me love it. Probably being a vampire lol.
 

Borman

Member
Possible correction or question, though...
You say Silent Hill pre-dates Oblivion, and I don't doubt you there, but didn't Silent Hill Origins have an incredibly tumultuous development path that included a time at an internal Konami California office? When did Climax get that project, and when did it go from the haphazard over-the-shoulder game that Climax LA was making to the more traditional SH that Climax UK shipped?

Im actually building an entire timeline of what happened. Like I said, May is when Oblivion started to show up, so they likely started prior to that. This side of things is a bit shakier for me right now, but I should, if all goes well, have a better answer on that.

Silent Hill is less of a mystery though. The contract for that game was to be signed on October 7, 2005 through Climax LA, with the pitch taking place prior to that. The shift happened sometime after Leipzig 2006, possibly immediately after based on what was happening in July. My information does get shakier at that point, but again, stay tuned for more hah.

I get the impression that it wasn't a huge lead on Oblivion's development, but there does seem to be one none-the-less.
 

CamHostage

Member
First Saints Row, now this.

Just show Vigil's Sly Raccoon PSP demo then!

Love to see it, but I don't know if there was ever a demo of Vigil's Sly PSP? I think it was just a pitch with some Joe Madureira art.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.752699488076809.1073741831.157043750975722&type=1

There are a few mothballed PSP games that, now that Elder Scrolls PSP and Saints Row PSP have been shown, I'd love to see. DMC PSP probably never got very far, and we saw Earthworm Jim, Landstalker, Ushiro, Advent Shadow (there's video of it finally!), and Duke Nukem: Critical Mass. Bloodrayne and Mirror's Edge and Battlefield 2 would I assume have been ports, if they were ever worked in the first place (although then again, EA was way into custom PSP games, so maybe BF PSP would have been something different?) The PSP version of Painkiller would be fun for somebody to find someday as it was totally playable (though I assume it looked little like the official screenshots which weren't even widescreen,) but that franchise didn't leave a lot of memories.

The one every-penny-I-have ROM I'd like to see, if it exists, is Resident Evil PSP. Black & White Creatures should have been pretty far along but it never leaked. I always wish we could have seen more of the game Gekido bu Italy's Naps Team. There was also a lost FarCry game on PSP that a friend of mine worked on that I'm always curious to see something of.

A look at Sony Bend's Infamous prototype and sci-fi project would be pretty rad as well.
 

Borman

Member
Im doing what I can to track down lost PSP games.

The big thing that held back a lot of ports was Sony's rule that every port had to have at least 30% new content. I doubted how much this had an impact on developers, but it keeps coming up time and time again.
 
J

JeremyEtcetera

Unconfirmed Member
First Saints Row, now this.

It's heartbreaking. People are more into handhelds now(and phones). Imagine how amazing it would have been to have not only portable Saint's Row but portable Elder Scrolls as well on PSPs/Vita and being able to play them during travels. Games like these(especially huge western AAA IPs) would have been game changers for these systems sales wise, and PlayStation portable systems would have been actual better competition for Nintendo's DS(in the west).
 

CamHostage

Member
It's heartbreaking. People are more into handhelds now(and phones). Imagine how amazing it would have been to have not only portable Saint's Row but portable Elder Scrolls as well on PSPs/Vita and being able to play them during travels. Games like these(especially huge western AAA IPs) would have been game changers for these systems sales wise, and PlayStation portable systems would have been actual better competition for Nintendo's DS(in the west).

Eh, while I think this game looks really impressive, I think you're overestimating the impact it could have had. PSP had three GTAs (and the two 3D ones were truly console-quality, while the PSP Saints Row was a rough facsimile; this wasn't going to be "real" Elder Scrolls either, it was a dungeon crawler/brawler RPG,) it had all of the EA Sports brands, some Final Fantasy games, two God of Wars, a few SOCOMs, a number of Metal Gears, Tekkens, Burnouts, some Silent Hills, some Monster Hunter, a couple Tails, a Kingdom Hearts, a Phantasy Star, a Gran Turismo ... the system had plenty of "game-changers" and the game wasn't changed. It just wasn't the game system that enough gamers were interested in over in the west.

(BTW, although Oblivion was massive, I'm not sure I'd say Elder Scrolls was unavoidable until Skyrim? Either way, back then, when it came to portable versions of hot brands, everybody assumed that the portable version was some cut-down knock-off outside of canon by an unaffiliated developer or a b-team down in the crew, and whether or not that was a fair assessment, they just generally ignored the portable games even if they were good. Lots of people didn't even know a PSP Elder Scrolls title was in the works.)
 
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