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Has anyone else here checked out Oblivion? I've been playing it for the last month or so, and I'm stunned by this game. It has a huge game world (literally hundreds of caves / ruins to explore, and tons NPC's to interact with...), amazing graphics (highly customizable for performance tweaking), a deep gaming experience, with many effective play styles and it's incredibly mod friendly too. It does take a while to get used to / learn the combat interface, but I like that... it takes skill to fight effectively (even at higher levels). An in-game toggle of first person / third person view is handy sometimes, with character models that are amazingly life like (especially if you download some mods to improve on the originals...). A main quest line, plus four guild quest lines, and even more miscellaneous quests scattered around leave you with many options of what to do. Hop on your horse and explore, or take on a quest... it's completely open. And the outdoor world has no load screens either (there are load screens when going inside / outside, entering / leaving a city, or fast travelling though). Occasionally there is a quick message about loading the next area when moving quickly, but considering the size of the world I think it works surprisingly well.

There are drawbacks of course, one being a certain aspect of the levelling system (it encourages odd playing practices) but that's adjustable with a mod... The game also requires a powerful machine to run smoothly during intense battles with lots of combatants (lots of rendering of moving characters, with special effects that go along with certain enemies / weapons / magic use). Such large battles are very rare though, so that's not a big problem.

Right now, I've explored most of the ruins / caves moving on to closing Oblivion Gates (almost 20 so far) having completed the Fighters Guild and Mage's Guild quests, as well as the Knights of the Nine mini-expansion questline. I have yet to visit the Shivering Isles (I bought the GOTY edition) but I'm probably going to wait until I've finished the main quest line first. After that I might check out the Thieves Guild, but I don't know about joining the Dark Brotherhood... the whole assassin for hire thing is kind of a turn-off for me. That being said, I might briefly try an evil character just to check it out... possibly becoming a vampire as well to see what that's like (and to go through the cure quest).

Anyways, I've rambled enough for now...