Satisfying action framed in an intriguing collection of quests make this a must-play for nearly any type of gamer.
The Best Thing: The intriguing and variety-packed collection of quests that raises the standards of conversation, quest lines, and quest objectives in role-playing games.
The Worst Thing: The graphical pop-ins and less-than-stellar distant land textures can really kill some great visual scenes (both of these issues can be potentially be fixed by using mods).
9.4
(rounded up to a 9.5 for The Man)
I was a huge fan of Morrowind. I must have merrily pranced around for over a hundred hours before finally moving on with my life. And if you've never played the game, you may be surprised to hear that I never actually beat it. I didn't feel like it. There was a whole world to explore, and I didn't necessarily want to see it in the order the game wanted me to. And as any Morrowind fan will tell you, that fundamental freedom that lay at the center of its design made for one of the most memorable role-playing games ever crafted.
Oblivion is a different beast more than I thought it would be. To put it kindly, its world is geographically much more conventional than Morrowind's – to put it bluntly, it borders on boring and monotonous once the wonder of the technical beauty begins to dim. The towering mushroom trees and endless ash deserts of Morrowind are replaced by grass, trees, and then some more grass and trees (to be fair, the Oblivion gates are strange and exciting at first, but quickly become repetitive because of level design). Dungeon difficulties scales to your character's level, giving you even more freedom on where to travel and when but removes virtually all threats and their fatal (but exciting) consequences.
Of course, there's another side to the story. Morrowind had a creative and intriguing world filled with dull and monotonous characters. Oblivion has a dull and monotonus world filled with creative and intriguing characters. Once I caught onto that fundamental switch, the Elder Scrolls magic was reborn. Oblivion sets a new standard for creating quests that are actually interesting, unique, and usually pretty funny too. This excludes the main storyline that starts off strong but falls into an unfortunate routine of fetch quests as the actual narrative becomes slower and thinner as it progresses. But the side quests and guild quests, which there are hundreds, are easily some of the most entertaining quests you'll find in any role-playing game. Very strong voice acting and writing combine to exceed your expectations of how interesting a simple NPC conversation can be.
The combat of Oblivion has been refined incredibly since Morrowind, and it'd be hard to understate how much this improves the entire game. Combat in Morrowind often felt like a chore, but the combat in Oblivion proves to be some of the most satisfying and intense combat you will find in any role-playing game to-date. At its worst, it's what we've been playing for years, except with fancy physics. But at its best, the raw intensity of the battles transcends the entire genre of role-playing games.
There's a prominent group of people that insist Morrowind is the superior game. But like with most things in life, it's not that black and white. While on the surface Morrowind and Oblivion seem like very similar games, they have a surprising amount of differences. Morrowind is a great game for anyone who loves challenging and rewarding exploration without anyone holding their hand, while Oblivion is more suited for the average gamer looking for intense and refined action framed in some very entertaining quests. Many have argued that Bethesda made Oblivion friendlier towards casual gamers and role-playing newbies, and sacrificed the creativity and uniqueness of Morrowind to do so. Again, on the surface this seems true, but what really has happened is Bethesda drained the uniqueness and creativity from the world, and has directly infused it into the NPCs and their quests. The magic is still there, it's just in a different place.
In summary, if you've ever leveled up and liked it, Oblivion is the game for you. If you've ever enjoyed a conversation with a NPC, Oblivion is the game for you. If you've ever lost yourself in the intensity of a battle and loved doing so, Oblivion is the game for you. And if all of those apply to you, then Oblivion is absolutely a must-play for dozens of hours, if not hundreds.