[KillerGremlin]

It's very hard to do this to Oblivion, but, I must be honest, this game isn't as much fun as Daggerfall or Morrowind duely based on a couple or three/four/five things.

First of all let me say for the most part if you have a mid/high end system the graphics are superb. As we well know though graphics alone do not make a great or fun game.

The initial parts are fun and quite challenging and to keep it mysterious for anyone still thinking about purchasing this I'm not going to go through them. I'm going to focus on what has made this game not fun for me and totally different from any other single player rpg I've ever played.

1) The PC UI is horrible totally horrible. It truely shows this game was made for the XBOX and ported over to the PC with XBOX controls, you have to go through several functions to get to the page of the game you want like inventory or journal etc. etc. There's no ability to "set" hotkeys to these function like you normally would with a PC where "I" = Inventory or "M" = Map or "C" equals character stats or "J" = journal etc etc. You are forced to use what the game offers you and must memorize and learn a console system to play a PC game.

2) This one takes the cake the scaled npc/mob leveling system where no matter what level you are the majority of the npc/mobs are the same level or better. If you happened to find something you think would be extremely tough at level 1 like a DRAGON guess what? It's level ONE also. Only a handful of things don't scale level with you, but, things like wolves have a counter part like timberwolves that will be your level. It's kind of funny when you level up something that was a wolf when you wake from leveling up will be a timberwolf just like that.

3) Instant guard omni-presence constantly. Those of you who enjoyed playing a theif in Morrowind are in for a shock and surprise this time around. If you so much as "touch" an item that is not yours and belongs to another, gang bang guard(s) are going to appear and cart you off to jail (unless you pay the fine). Also as a thief "what you see is not what you get" You may see some glass weapons, they look like they would bring a fortune and you go through all the trouble to steal them and get away only to find out you can't use them or they are an illusion and nothing more than a cardboard copy of the real thing.

4) Sadly just like npc/mobs LOOT also scales by your level in this game now. You can forget daedric armor or any decent armor/weapons for a long time, and it doesn't matter if you clear out what you think is the toughest dungeon you ever saw, if you ain't the right level yet, you are going to get trash from the drops and trash from the chests and things you have to use lockpicks to open.

It almost feels like many mmorpgs where you have level restrictions on weapons and armor,the only open endedness of this game is where you explore. Everything else is predetermined from the getgo to the end. Now in Everquest I enjoyed tweaking out my level 1 character in level 50 gear and then soloing through the game as far as I could. Well, you can forget that in Oblivion, you're only going to get and find stuff and fight stuff at your level period.

I'm certainly glad that the store I buy my games from has a 7 day return policy, because this one certainly went back before the 7 days were up. I know there are many out there that like this game (mostly xboxers), but, the PC version was horribly designed and the design elements of the game do not allow roleplaying or godlike characters to be created through their adventure. Sadly as you level up instead of things getting easier by your level everything gets harder because it's always equal. 45 arrows to kill one goblin is rather rediculous when you could kill the same goblin with 3 to 5 arrows at a much lower level. Stuff like that just makes this game a poor effort in the "roleplaying" minded aspects of it.

Just an Amazon review. It's making me rethink how much time I really want to spend towards trying to build an uber character.