Minor annoyances aside, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is the best game in the series and one of the best RPGs ever.
The first noticeable change that you find from Morrowind to Oblivion is the graphical one. The character models are very well done, especially the regular citizens. The environments also look very well done, especially the long-bragged forests have more detail than any current-generation game currently on the market. Even the textures have a distinct amount of detail to them. But there are a few graphical upgrades that I could have done without. When you get a horse in the game and view it in third-person, which I will talk about later, you will notice that almost every external body part has been revealed. Sure, I like riding a horse as much as the next guy, but when I do it in third-person, I don't want to look at a horse's ass all day with an incredible amount of detail. I mean, what if something comes out of it? Will I have that used horse smell? All kidding aside, the crisp and realistic graphics are the second biggest draw to get an Xbox 360 right away. The sound design, voiceovers, and soundtrack have been given near-equal attention to, as well. When you first hear Patrick Stewart's ambient voice throughout the opening (and only) cinematic, he really sets the mood of the story and makes you feel like you are carrying a heavy burden. The soundtrack, composed by none other than Jeremy Soule from Morrowind, is also top-notch, rivaling that of such epic movies like King Kong. The sound design for what you interact with immerse you so much, that you will forget that you are playing a game.
But the biggest draw comes from the gameplay. Sure, it is extremely linear when you crawl through the first story mission. But once you get your class, birthsign, and finish tweaking your look, the open-ended chains are off and you can feel free to do whatever you want. Just blowing throught the story without doing any sidequests makes Oblivion a dull boy, but you will still encounter a side quest (if you can even call it that), one way or another. Whether you decide to join the Imperial Arena, join the local Mages or Fighters guilds, help the citizens out, steal from the merchants and sell it to the Thieves Guild, or even become a vampire (yes, a Dracula-type vampire, but without the bat form), the options are limitless. You can even get a horse in any point of the game, whether it comes to buying, earning, or stealing it, and you can ride like the wind. You can even find out that one of the most unexpected girl fantasies in the world has come to Microsoft's new white box: the unicorn (yes, a unicorn). The basic controls are reminiscent of Shadow of the Colossus. You basically control it like a car with hooves. The horses in the game are fun to control and save up a lot of time when getting from place to place, although not as much as quick traveling. While I like this game so much, I do have a few problems with the game. While the on-foot parts in first-person and the horse-riding and stealth parts in third-person are excellent, when you switch to the other views, it just becomes nerve-wrecking. When you're walking around in third-person, the camera swings around loosely (although not as much as the critic absorbent Bulletproof) and when you try to ride a horse or sneak around in first-person, you don't get as much of a tactical advantage as the third-person view. Another problem is that, while free-roaming, while you're outside, there are very short but noticeable load times that makes it less open-ended than a game like, say, Grand Theft Auto. But my biggest complaint is that, while they have different voices, the non-quest characters always seem to repeat the same line when given a certain topic, no matter how diverse the accent or tone is and that's a damn shame.
Minor annoyances aside, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is the best game in the series and one of the best RPGs ever. The graphics are extraordinarily beautiful, the audio is aurally excellent, and the game's huge amount of content will keep you hooked up to Xbox Live for a long time. As a bonus, the Xbox 360 owners can download some of the better PC-made mods for a nominal amount of Microsoft Points, which make an already long game even longer than before. If you do not have an Xbox 360, it is games like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion that will make you want to get an Xbox 360 immediately. If this is the first game that you have played in the Elder Scrolls series, then you will think that this game is excellent. If you have played any of the other games in the series or, more recently, Morrowind, then you will think that it is a masterpiece.