I recently started up a new Oblivion game on 360 (haven't played in a long while). I've noticed that the dungeons in the game are extremely dark. Like, I can barely see anything unless I use a torch or nighteye. I even have the brightness turned up a few notches and they're still very dark.

Are the dungeons supposed to be like this? I actually loaded up Oblivion on my laptop and entered a dungeon and it was no where near as dark, and I'm sort of wondering about this.

Check the brightness/contrast settings on your TV.

Every other game looks fine, I don't think the TV is the problem

Heck I use mods to make it that way.

I know! Isn't it great?!?

Are they supposed to be like that? The dungeons on my laptop don't look anywhere near as dark, you can see fine without a torch.

To me that's what dungeons should be like that you can not see without having a light source.

I noticed the same thing, so I carry a torch all the time.... but then I got a night eye ring and wow does it make my exploring easier

Khajiit master race!

I prefer the Torch over my night-eye power, though. I guess it is for the immersion, I don't know why I chose that over the other.

Alright well I guess I'll just continue on with these dungeons. I did try turning up the brightness even more and it was easier to see in the dungeons but it made the game look very washed out. Also I think I do remember always trying to rush to make a night eye ring on my characters when I played the game way back, maybe I was just used to the dungeons in Skyrim.

Likely that is the case since for Skyrim I need to use lighting mods since even having the brightness all the way to the left it is still too bright for my liking in dungeons.

That has happened to me before: Going back to a game after a while and it seems darker. In this case, it was Skyrim and TF2. After I got tired of Skyrim and went back to TF2, I thought I was going blind when playing on my favorite maps.

All of Bethesda's dungeons are too unrealistically bright for my tastes. This is true of Morrowind and Skyrim as well as Oblivion. But, reading this thread, I think I may understand now why they light dungeons so brightly in these games: they need to account for the different technology of the platforms, which may produce differing lighting levels.

Interesting. I think this is the first time anyone has said the Oblivion dungeons are too dark!

I get the same thing, and I love it. Even if it means occasionally bumping into a rat during the tutorial because I couldn't tell where it was until it squeaked.

Well lit dungeons aren't as atmospheric anyway

I always try to make myself a ring of nighteye as early in the game as I can to make dungeon delving easier. Without it I can hardly see anything.

360 is darker than all other platforms. Plus, frankly, I think you should revel in the fact that they are so dark. My early characters used night eye a lot. My mages would make a spell which combined Detect Life and Nighteye.

But now, it's only a torch. Don't even use Detect Life anymore. It's more fun (and scary) to try to pick out your issues in the darkness.

Also, try turning your music off. There are some nice sound effects for wind in the caves. Also, don't look at your map.

The only thing I find super annoying for all Bethesda games that I have played, is how bright your menu is, if you pull it up in the darkness. Totally kills your night vision. You PCers got a mod that reduces menu brightness when inside?

Yes, the DarK UI mod is one of Oblivion's most popular mods.

I tried to play a vanilla game last year and, for the first time in years, I encountered the dreaded, retina-destroying "Oblivion Menu Brightness" syndrome that has sent so many hapless gamers to so many optometrists with complaints of headaches and temporary blindness.

I tend to play in dark rooms - the darker the better - and in that vanilla game I very quickly began to dread having to open a menu. I use a variety of texture replacers to color my menus green, blue, wood grain, even hot pink. My menus are like mood rings. My Significant Other can tell what mood I am in by looking at the color of my Oblivion menu.

I mix up my hotkey setup, depending on what my character is about to do, in an attempt to reduce me going into a menu in the total darkness of a cave. I assume your mod also addresses the bright white background of a chest's contents? Sigh.