Never before have I seen such a game that sucks you into the world and lets you do whatever you want, whenever you want.
This game is also very centered on alloying any player to play as they wish. It is rare to find two people playing the exact same way. One person may like to take the sneaky approach and sneak up on their enemy without it even seeing them. Others may like to stand back and show off their skills with a bow and arrow. Some may like to just run into the battle "guns blazing" and prove that nothing is better than a sharp blade at your side. And finally, others may even wish to use magic to control their enemies to fight on their side, or just blast them away with a powerful destruction spell. Not only can you choose to play as any of those character archetypes, you may also be a combination. This game fully allows you to play as you wish. You may want to focus on sneaking AND magic. This is certainly allowed. In fact, the only way you will focus on playing with just one method, is if you purposely choose to. Most likely you will do a little of each. There are 10 different races and 13 birthsigns, which allows the player to customize their player to fit the style they wish to play. You will likely play through the game at least once, to ensure you get the most out of the gameplay. I'll give you an example. On my first playthrough, I chose to focus mostly on magic and fighting with a sword. Once I finished the story missions, and even though there were still many other quests to complete, I realized that I had missed out on how much fun it is to play as a character that used a bow as well. So I saved my game, and began a new one, this time focusing on bows and swords.
There is so much to do in this game; it will certainly keep you busy. Not only can the main storyline quests take quite some time, there are also many other side quests that can lead to some valuable treasures. There are a total of 231 quests in Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and the main storyline quests are only a handful of those (I believe it's like 17 or something). That leaves 214 other quests that you can complete whenever you want (or not at all, if you don't want to). They say that the average time to complete ALL the quests is about 200 hours. Now I don't know if that's true, but I have been playing even more than that, and I haven't even done HALF of all the total quests. When you accept a quest, you may forget about it for a little and decide to go do something else instead, or choose to finish that quest immediately. You may also switch whichever quest you want to be on right now to be your "Active Quest". When you have an active quest, a marker will appear on your map that will tell you where to go for the next part of that quest. This is very helpful, to ensure that you don't get lost in the huge open world.
Now, don't get the wrong impression. Even though there are huge areas of meadows and forests, there are still many cities to explore - containing people that could use your help for the promise of gold or valuables. You may wish to join the fighter's guild and help the locals with any problems they may have. Perhaps fighting isn't your forte, and you want to join the mages guild and help Archmage Traven root out necromancy. Don't forget about the thieves guild, where you can work in the shadows to affect the government around you without them even knowing. Regardless, there are far too many options for one playthrough. I, myself, actually put the main storyline quests on hold for a bit right when I came out of the prison at the beginning of the game and began getting myself better acquainted with the guilds, and even bought a few houses. No matter what you chose to do and when you chose to do it, the game gives you an unprecedented freedom when choosing how you wish to play. Be careful though, this game is certainly realistic. Let's say for instance that you decide to kill Ogier Georick, the owner of "The Main Ingredient" in the Market District of the Imperial City. Once he is dead…he is dead for GOOD. His shop is now closed to you, and you cannot shop there anymore. Also, any quests that required you to speak with him to get information from him are now completely lost (meaning those quests can't be completed anymore, and you forfeit any gold or valuables you might have gotten from finishing that quest.)
In closing, I find it really difficult to give any game a perfect score (10). I simply had no choice when it came to this game. It has already been out for 4 years, and it is still selling like crazy. If you are an RPG fan looking for the best RPG out there, you owe it to yourself to try Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. This is a game that will throw a huge open world in your face, and say "Here…do whatever you want with it!"