Touted as one of the best RPGs of this era by so many players and reviewers. Is it really the case?
This game claims to at least possess choices, hell, even the instruction manual has the line:
"... our goal has always been to create a game that offers unlimited possibilities..."
Was the Oblivion Team successful? A resounding "NO" would have to be my response. But before throwing around the shopping list of flaws and negativity, let's see what this game does right.
The few things this game gets right, at first, is immersion. Upon leaving the tutorial dungeon/cave/sewer, seeing the (apparent) vastness of the game world is actually quite gripping and makes you forget about trying to deliver the amulet altogether.
-aside ahead-
Of course this is problematic in of itself as the main quest or even the world's lore isn't compellingly told by supposedly one of the most important characters in the game that apparently gave everyone hope; a Patrick Stewart-voiced king (blame the writers, not the amazing talent). And it is enough that the story starts off with the overdone "wake up in a dungeon-shtick." It has gotten old, and in fact it was used at least for the very Elder Scrolls game. Though I'm not sure if it was used in Daggerfall and Morrowind.
-end of aside-
With a large world to explore, it first felt like a lot was possible. Cave exploration, ruin exploration, underwater exploration, fight X creature, find a random town and talk to random denizen, etc. After about 10 hours, it became more obvious that, yeah there is a lot you can do on the side, just none of it was all that interesting. At a certain point it just felt like I was playing GTA, in that the game allows you to do so much... it's just done poorly. All the caves/ruins become interchangeable. The waters offer nothing of excitement. Combat feels simple and uninspired. All the towns/cities are boring in design and much-less look less lived-in. There are slight differences between the towns, like, OMG SNOW in the northern portion of the game world. And NPCs, as well as the dialogue in this game has to be some of the worst in any "RPG" to offer any speech options which hurts the ability to actually Role-Play (one of the selling points of the genre).
This leads exactly to of the games biggest weakness, the failure to deliver upon the promise given in the Oblivion PDF Manual (http://www.pdfusermanual.info/xbox-360-oblivion-games-pdf-manual.html) in the line:
"A game where you could be whoever you wanted and do whatever you wanted. "Live another life, in another world" has been our motto, and we want you to do just that."
Yet, for example, when in Kvatch you are approached by several Legion troops, your only response to them is "FOLLOW ME!"
Why is this bad? Well, where are the options? No option to go it alone, no snarky comeback that attacks competence, no option that works the same as FOLLOW ME but a little less direct. Something more… anything else, just give me the options you advertised. This is just one of hundreds of similar examples. Further more, "Speech" as a skill is a waste of time as all "Speech" is about is spinning a wheel and eventually getting the humanoid to like you. The only thing gained out of it the possibility of being able to ask quest-related questions. You can't even convince, without paying, a highwayman to leave you alone. And what is the point of the Personality trait? And further more, there really is no reason to ever talk to anyone simply because hearing anyone talk in this game is simply torture (5 voice actors for a game of this "scale" is laughable). But anyway, regardless of your personality stat, bandits will run up and attack for no reason anyway.
Running up and attacking will happen a lot as well as the AI in the game is also quite bad. Now, yes, archers don't do it, but that's one exception. With this terrible AI, combat devolves to running backwards and casting the same spell until the opponent drops dead. Yeah, there are other options for combat to look at, and here they are:
Sword/Axe/Mace/Unarmed combat is extremely boring and too simply. Having played Mount and Blade for several years (even with the betas) any other melee combat game fails to compare (though Might and Magic: Dark Messiah has decent combat). Strikes and blocks in this game suck, feeling extremely rigid and uninspiring, with limited options. Of course you get access to different power attacks later on if you are willing to pour your time into this heap of a game (I got nearly all skills up to a 100 with my main character), but they're generally useless because as you advance through the levels, so do your enemies. So what once would have be a killing blow, only fazes a poorly designed creature/bandit.
Bow combat is similar to magic except much slower, requires arrows, and is unsatisfying like melee.
What could have really helped combat in this game would have been to incorporate hit-location damage... you, give a reason to aim for the legs or head in combat. Instead, against higher level opponents you'll often be charged by a bandit blindly swinging his/her axe with 10+ arrows sticking out of X-part of the body. No limping, no damage modifiers, no reason to aim because there is simply no reward for it.
With magic, you have a few different spells, all of them behave the same. Summoning spells do what you'd expect, except your minion is no more intelligent then the enemies and isn't controllable. Offensive spells all work the same, all the projectiles move in the same manner (and speed), touch… blah. Basically you have identical spells with identical results with different effects. That's it. Granted, there is a spell maker in the game, but with the given template, there isn't that many options. Of course this set up is great for increasing your levels, simply make a low mana costing spell, set the cast key to the space bar (so you can put a small, but heavy object on it), and go perform more interesting errands in the real world. Do it while sneaking, and you increase your agility too! I certainly don't need to go into why leveling up skills to level up your character is just terrible design (because I kinda already did).
So what we got is a game that claims to give the player an unlimited way to participate in the world, but being a pacifist subjects you to terrible writing (and to a certain point no where), and the game has a huge bias towards combat. This would be great, but the way it was executed (I.E. some of the worst melee combat ever seen [worse than TF2]) will only bring disappointment.
Perhaps I'll add more later, if ever, but why spend more time writing about a game with boring choices in it's approach, a Runescape-style leveling system that requires boring lengths of skill-farming (which is highly exploitable), utterly un-compelling main/side story/ies, and even lack variety in the kinds of equipment to wear/use (not to mention looking really bland, so why wear anything but a robe? There should be at least a cloth or unarmored skill like in the earlier games). This game is just blah and it's a total shame that this is the definitive RPG experience for many of the younger players or others who have really poor standards in game design and writing.
Some gaming suggestions if you want a better game and crave a game with the swords/medieval feel:
Mount and Blade is the game to go to if you crave an awesome medieval combat sim (wouldn't call it an RPG)
Thief series (excellent First-Peron-Sneakers)
Arcanum (an engrossing fantasy world set during a industrial-revolution... can you say awesome? Kay, not everyone is a fan of studying The Gilded Age)