Oblivion might look amazing at first, but in the end it's just a pale sequel to the much more engaging Morrowind.
But alas and after playing the game for more than 100 hours the horrible and unforgivable flaws start to emerge.
Let's start with the good things about oblivion:
1-Large map to explore.
2-nice visuals.
Now let's list the flaws, but before that I just want to say that I'm a veteran gamer, which means I have spent a good percentage of my natural life playing games on all consoles from Atari to PC now, I have millions of gaming hours under my belt and I'm a graphic designer so I know what I'm talking about (sometime :P)
1-large EMPTY world to explore.
2-the leveling system is so horrible it makes "leveling up" a useless endeavor, the enemies level up with you and everything stays in a static form which is unchallenging and simple horrible.
3-few magic items that matter, in fact the hack and slash games like Diablo have something to teach oblivion about magic items, which are a big part of any fantasy game, and since the monsters level up with you, why even bother to seek new equipment! Just for the looks probably.
4-combat system is the biggest disaster EVER, and instead of improving morrowind's simple combat system they actually made it worst, melee combat is about pressing mouse 1 until target is dead, which is boring as **** especially after 100 hours of play.
5-magic system is worst, every spell is either touch or ball, fire ball, frost ball, paralyses ball, same system from Morrowind with LESS spells, it's a complete disaster, and also gets boring after a while, and magic is weak as hell so you have to play melee to do real damage. What about flame wave, frost nova, chain lightning, sleep, charm, stone skin, arrow shield, meteor, rain of fire, ice lance……etc it's a fantasy game with magic, SO MAKE MAGIC FUN and challenging to use but also powerful. In oblivion Ice doesn't freeze, lightning doesn't electrocute WHY!!
6-stealth system is lame just like in Morrowind, no improvements, no hiding in shadows as it should be, no interesting houses to robe, and God guards that know all, even if you steal a piece of bread in a cave 100 km from any city the guards in all the lands will know your face and will send armies to hunt you down, ok maybe not :P, but it is annoying to have every guard know what u did all the time, BAD BAD system. I guess Bethesda never played thief 1,2,3 oh well moving on.
7- Ranged combat is also bad, firing an arrow than does so little damage even with leveling is just bad game design, and arrows fly like they are made from lead, slow and unimpressive, and where are the Xbows and throw able weapons, Morrowind had those I mean this is suppose to improve over the ES 3 right!!!
8- The NPCs are lifeless, and quests are poorly conceived, even the main quest is not all that impressive, I remember how amazing the main quest in Morrowind was, and this game just fails to compare to that. Actually some of the game's side quests are a lot more entertaining to be honest.
9-All NPC's are ugly and don't sound "real" they are forgettable, unlike Dagoth Ur, and Vivic, and other Morrowind characters.
10-The worm king is a silly skinny guy that has lots of HP and is hiding in a lame cave… OMG even I can design better bosses and levels than this.
11-The world is big sure but it's all the same trees and meadows, meadows and trees, cave, cave, cave, elf ruin, elf ruin, elf ruin, all the same all have ZERO good treasure, ZERO big bosses, ZERO fun. It's just an empty world with no exiting levels in it.
12-cities are not cities and are DEAD.
13-oblivion gates get repetitive after a while.
14- Skills! rpg elements ?? What are those? Character building and progress is not there, the game is an action game with no guns and no explosions which = lameness.
In the end if oblivion had a dragon age like story and characters, a dark messiah combat system and level design, an assassin creed lively cities, a thief like stealth system, a gothic like open world and realism, it would have been the best game on earth. But it's just a lame visual fest at best that can entertain you for a while then you send this game to oblivion.
SI made some nice additions but the game is in essence average at best and is seriously lacking in the areas that matter which are skills, rpg elements, voices, nice quests, engaging world….etc, but as I said SI added a nice environment, and some nice quest line, but after what *sigh*.
Anyway if you want a great rpg action game look elsewhere, play dragon age and the gothic games, they are SOOOOOOO much better than this average lifeless excuses of a game.
Before I go I must mention that the game can become a little more interesting with HEAVY modding, (100 mods and more) which range from small tweaks to TOTAL overhauls, the modding community is so much better than the original developing team I go to sleep thinking "why the **** don't Bethesda hire THEM and fire the team they had!!" they truly add new life to this dead game but even they can't give this sorry excuse of a game a new main quest and new combat system.