Beautiful graphics, shame about the game
The good: State of the art cinematic graphics, physics and first person battle sequences. The nature in this land lives and breathes...
The bad: ... the people do not. They seem real until you talk to them.
Fairly predictable main-plot punctuated with irrelevant side-quests to occupy your time.
Convoluted and intrusive character improvement mechanics.
Very 'average' voice acting.
In fairness this is the best looking game ever. Being able to see cities, mountains and forests right up to the horizon gives you the feeling of really being outdoors rather than being in an indoor 3d world with outdoor textures. My euphoric initial impressions of this game began to ebb when I encountered my first deer and it seemed to act like I simply wasn't there. Maybe it had grown accustomed to a stream of 'harmless' prisoners escaping from the sewers and had become tame. Normally a detail like this wouldn't bother anyone, however since this game's main purpose is to fully immerse you 'the player' in this living breathing evolving world even the smallest things like this can give you an unsettling feeling of something not quite being right. It gets worse...
I must have almost entirely ignored the initial conversations with the Emperor in my excitement to experience this new game phenomenon, or maybe I thought he was deliberately quirky, because it was only when I got to Imperial City I suddenly realized that I was the only living person in a world inhabited by expressionless cyborgs. You could actually make them smile or sneer but only when you playing the speechcraft mini-game which had nothing to do with the actual dialogs. The rest of the time they would just regard you with their neutral expression and almost in an effort to convince you there is some life there they would occasionally look away, often at inappropriate moments, making you wonder if someone had spiked the water supplies to the city with vallium. Even if the voice acting had been first class these expressionless faces would have probably ruined it, any attempt to convey emotion or excitement during the dialog scenes has been rendered utterly impossible by the limitations of the game engine. It's probably worth mentioning at this point that the beggar in Imperial City changes her voice when you use your speechcraft skill on her. Maybe I'm being fussy again? This almost seems inexcusable for a game of this apparent quality and is another slap in the face as I'm trying to stay immersed. As far as I know they haven't pulled that actor switch stunt since the old 1980's soap operas.
I found the main plot of the game to be uninteresting and shallow. The main element missing was character development, especially your own. It feels like the game makers deliberately wanted to avoid any references or plot or backstory relating to your own character in case this somehow conflicted with what you were trying to roleplay. I consider this decision to be detrimental to the game experience but mileage may vary. This smacked of the worst kind of action movies (the good ones are good because they have character development) and really the story could be broken down into quite simple 'find this, kill these, escort him' category of objectives. The highlight for me was encountering my first oblivion gate. Did I mention this game is beautiful? Ah yes I did.
Finally I'd like to talk about the 'RPG' elements, specifically character development. Even the most hardened Elder Scrolls fans seem to be admitting that the leveling/advancement system is just plain wrong, yet Bethesda seem to cling to this system like it is the 'secret sauce' of their success. Thankfully there are some really good mods out there that completely alter this part of the game into something generally more acceptable although that will not help my console brothers and sisters. The reason I think the system is flawed is because it is utterly intrusive to the flow of the game and how you play it. In theory the idea of practice related skill gain seems more 'realistic' and in-role, however 5 minutes of play testing should make you realize what a terrible mistake this is. How many of you have jumped all the way to Kvatch? Come on! I don't know about you, but when I rolled my character I wasn't thinking about role-playing a kangaroo, yet if you want to increase your acrobatics skill this is exactly what you must do. It's a brave attempt to do something different other than the traditional XP/level system, but honestly I feel that gaining XP from quests and kills and allowing that to improve the abilities of your character at least keeps you in the flow of the game and links your development to progression within the game rather than putting them at complete tangents to each other.
The game 'evolves' with your character meaning the tougher you get the tougher everything else gets. I'm sure this idea seemed good at the time it was first conceived, however my personal preference is to feel a little outgunned at the start of an RPG then overcome that initial inferiority with a little blood and sweat and then in the end game unleash your now godly powers on the unsuspecting world. This game deprives you of that by attempting to deliver a linear experience from start to end, although unforgivably it fails to do even that as most people who don’t take the time to research the extremely counter-intuitive leveling mechanics will rapidly 'gimp' their character by making skills like security and acrobatics their main class skills and committing the utter faux-pas of advancing them early! What this will do is raise your character in levels without actually developing combat abilities, and as soon as you step out of town you will be eaten alive by the first wolf you meet.
Summary: If you want to see a cinematic-quality fantasy world with epic battles and breathtaking action scenes, watch Lord of the Rings. If you want to play a good RPG with an interesting plot and well thought out character progression, play Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. If you want to experience the beauty of the landscape, wade in long grass, pick mushrooms and call to deer then take a trip to the park this weekend. If you want something that makes you say 'wow' after you buy a new graphics card or upgrade your PC, run this game for a few minutes.