Best of the series by far!!
I absolutely loved oblivion, it was the first single player rpg that really gripped me.
I had high hopes for skyrim and luckily I'm not disappointed. There are some changes, some things have been dropped, some things tweaked and a whole bunch of stuff added.
Magic for example, there seem to be less spells now but the ones you are given are more powerful. You cant create your own spells, you have to buy or find spell tomes to get them, but being able to dual wield spells makes up for it. And you dont have to worry as much about early spells becoming obsolete as you can use the perk system to increase their power. At lvl 19 I still often use the first flame spell I got as it hardly uses any magika and will easily take out most bandits and critters but I do have some more powerful spells for the boss types.
The main thing that spoiled oblivion was the tough levelling system. It was supposed to allow you to get better at the things you do most but didn't really work that way. Depending on your class you had to keep track of, and use certain minor skills a certain amount of times in order to be able to substantially increase the associated major skill upon levelling up. Trouble was it was all too easy to increase the wrong minor skill by doing something as silly as jumping too many times or running/swimming too much. This was very confusing and hard to keep track of and no matter what build of character i tried to make I would always end up a "jack of all trades master of none" and would only end up being able to increase the major skills I wanted by 2 or 3 (out of possible 5)
Now though they have completely got rid of the minor/major skills system along with the class system. You choose your race and then just get on playing the way you want to play. The more you use any skill the more that skill increases, then upon leveling up you choose whether to increase either magic, health, or stamina then choose a perk (much like fallout)
Just because you dont choose a class at the begining doesn't mean the game doesn't know what type of player you are trying to be. For example I am currently at level 19 and have been playing as a breton using mainly conjuration and destruction to battle through the world with. NPC's in the game will often comment on me being a skilled conjurour, This being an icey cold world passers by often ask me if I can conjour up something to help keep them warm.
Basically this is a much more refined, detailed upgrade of oblivion. On the whole the graphics are great, the scenery can be astonishingly gorgeous but sometimes things dont look quite as spectacular close up. Its not as much of a system hog as the previous game either (relatively speaking).
My system specs are
i7 930 @ stock speed
6GB RAM
2x GTX 460 SLI
Dont get me wrong, I know this is a pretty hefty machine but im playing with everything absolutley maxed @ 1600x900 with 4xAA and 8x anisotrpic filtering and its running smooth as silk. I'm sure I have enough power left over to run any graphics mods that are sure to come out. When oblivion came out I had a system as close to high end yet I could only manage medium settings @ 1040x768 or medium/high settings @ 800x600
The only time ive seen any slight slow down is in some of the towns at certain times but even then it doesn't effect gameplay at all and I expect the console versions probably stutter even more.
Anyway I am wasting valuable questing time writing this so I'm putting my robes back on, closing the curtains switching my phone off and going back into the land of skyrim, there is some dragon slaying to be done!