When I had initially played Oblivion for my Xbox 360 I had pretty much stopped following the main storyline and went quest crazy. I mean I literally returned to the 2^nd quest in the main story after nearly 40 hours of doing other stuff.  There are so many different quests to take part in and because they are so varied you’ll be at them for hours Some quests can be as simple as returning a specific item to someone or one of my favorites having you solve a murder mystery inside a mansion.

When the gates open you’ll even be able to talk leisurely strolls through the happy world of Oblivion itself. There is always something to do. You will be hooked trust me.  Probably one of the best parts of the game are the Guild missions. You can join the Dark Brotherhood and perform hired hits and just be evil in general. Join the Fighters guild to increase your battle skills and lead your own band of mercenaries there are a few others but you can discover them on your own. These all play into the main storyline as you complete certain missions.

My personal favorite has you completing the ultimate heist during that particular guilds final mission, probably the most exciting one in the entire game. As you rank up in the guild you are given certain skill boosts, rare items and so on. Completing them nets you some of rarest items in the game. There is plenty of incentive to go through and complete them on your own. You’ll hear NPC’s gossiping to each other about some events that you had a direct hand in. I have to give it to Bethesda they did a fantastic job of tying it all together. For long time Elder Scroll players in particular you Morrowind fanatics some surprise characters make an appearing in the province of Tamriel. Don’t forget now that you have the huge full fledged expansion pack The Shivering isles to add to your experience and that’s another 10 – 15 hours right there. On top of the main story which goes at least 40 hours and can be doubled if you add in all the guild quests, needless to say you’ll be playing Oblivion for a long time.

Graphics and Sound 

Now what would fantastic game play and storytelling be like if there weren’t excellent production values to back it up. To set things straight the PS3 version looks moderately better than its 360 counterpart, load times are definitely faster, textures are a bit cleaner and draw distances are very impressive. The level of detail in this game in this game is just flat out incredible.  Everything from the vegetables to the weapons are given exquisite levels of detailing. Some of the more powerful weapons with their intricate designs and textures are extremely impressive. Each environment, city, characters, clothing, weapon, armor okay pretty much everything in this game has its own unique design and look. Once again Bethesda are masters when it comes to details. And just wait until you first enter the Shivering Isles, very cool stuff indeed.