Amidst the hype and rave reviews, Oblivion meets all expectations and delivers even more. A masterpiece RPG.
Gameplay is excellent; the open world design allows you to roam freely and do whatever you want. Linear, this game is not -- you can spend hours on side quests (for the guilds, daedric shrines, etc...) or you can finish the main storyline with very little side-quests. Overall the stories are very interesting, immersing you completely in a fantasy world (although most of the quests are "kill" or "retrieve").
Given the game's extremely open design, replayability is a foregone conclusion. You can repeat the game, but there are so many things to do that it will not play like exactly the same game over again. I played the game twice -- once as a spellsword specializing in destruction and swordplay, and the other as a hand-to-hand expert who later on became a Vampire.
Volume of content is absolutely SUPERB. In the GOTY edition, you have shivering isles and knights of the nine on top of the more than 150 hours plus required to complete the main game (with side quests). Great, great value.
The interface is designed for simplicity and quick decision making. I especially like the fact that you can access everything with the circle button -- maps, character development, inventory and quests. Combat is especially intuitive with the L1, R1 and R2 buttons providing most of the action and the availability of a quick-select tool for various weapons and inventory items.
In terms of production values, the graphics are decent but the sounds are excellent. Music and voice-acting are well executed despite the dialogue being somewhat cliched. But I must admit that the voice casting is spot-on, with many of the races and characters consistent with their corresponding voice actors.
The in-game environment for me is well-done. Your hand and weapons are quite detailed, with blood showing up whenever you strike an enemy (then slowly fading away with time); Trees, hills and rocks have realistic texture and the change of weather and time flows smoothly. On my HDTV, mountains, structures and cities in the distance look great and realistically rendered. The draw distance is also decent.
Oblivion is not without its weak points though. For me the following items prevented the game from getting a flat-out 10.
One of its weaker aspect is character modelling and animation. Execution looks somewhat "dated" in this day and age where we have graphic powerhouses like Uncharted 2, Killzone 2 and Fight Night Rd 4. The game shouldn't be faulted though, since its over 2 years old. Still, while the texture quality is decent and holds up well enough to suspend disbelief, in the end there are better looking games out there.
But for me the main problem was the game polish. In many instances, you would find characters walking into doors or trees or rocks and not be able to walk around (this happens a lot during combat situations). Your character can also get stuck in some frustrating situations. For example, I had forgotten to save prior to Sancre Tor (Blood of the Divine Quest), and I did not expect Liches to be on the outside of the dungeon. While fleeing the Liches, I was trying to get on my horse which happened to be positioned between boulders. For some reason, my character could not get on the horse even with repeated tries on my part. Needless to say, this happened also in several other inconvenient situations.
Then there's also the load times. Everytime you rest or wait or enter a door, there are signficant load times in between. I think almost 10% of my time playing the game was dedicated to waiting for these load times (especially with repeated loads during combat situations).
Finally, there were imbalances in creature difficulty. For example, in the quest to get Chillrend, the difficulty level varies a lot depending on your character's level. If you're doing the quest early, then the goblins are quite easy to defeat. But try doing it at level 20 or more, and the goblins become tough -- real tough. Other unreasonably tough creatures were the Trolls and the Spider Daedra (with the small spider paralyzing you every so often).
Still, at the end of the day, Oblivion is undoubtedly an RPG masterpiece, and a must-have for any collection --- especially the GOTY edition. This one belongs up there with the elite PS3 games --- as rightfully claimed by so many others who played this before me.