Well if you're playing on console, the graphics would indeed be very comparable considering it's virtually the same engine (even if it does have a different name).

I think vanilla Oblivion is too flawed to be enjoyable so I'd never ever play it on consoles (not that I would anyway, RPGs like this are simply better on PC). But when you consider how many faults it has ... :

- randomised dungeons that feel incredibly generic and serve little point of doing
- poor auto-levelling system where everything levels with you (note: Skyrim has some fixed loot and some level-independent mechanisms in place at least)
- flawed AI - psychic guards for example
- unbalanced skills
- horrible oblivion gates / daedric worlds - mostly because they are 95% copy paste and all feel identical

There's many more but Skyrim fixes nearly all of them - being a thief/assassin is actually a lot of fun now whereas it used to be frustrating as hell in Oblivion due to the poor coding. Mods could fix some problems but the generic dungeons was my biggest annoyance because they were so dull to do! In Skyrim I actually enjoy doing them because they often have small stories involved and actually feel part of the world instead of generic crap dumps that are a bore to go through.

I love when people act like you have to have mods for Oblivion to be enjoyable when the Xbox was where the vast majority of it's success and audience was found and there are no mods there.

People really just need to face the fact that Oblivion was a great game people loved.

... and that Radiant AI was brilliant and a huge improvement for the series.

I'm not sure what you're baiting me with there, but to clarify: my favorite game of the series is Morrowind. My least favorite is Oblivion (excluding Arena, which I never played). Neither of these opinions I have change the fact that Oblivion is a great game people loved.

When you're not sure what I'm baiting you with, it might mean that I'm not baiting you at all :-P I'm just saying that Radiant AI was really, really good and immersive, contrary to popular beliefs based on a few rare bugs and combat AI.

I'm playing through Arena at the moment (for the first time) and it's pretty surprisingly good. It's a dungeon crawler first and foremost, and it stays close to its genre. You won't find any TES-like distractions here like joinable factions or skills that level up as you use them. It's just a simple [get quest, enter dungeon, kill monsters, pick up loot] kind of game, but it's really fun.

Daggerfall is better though in pretty much every aspect.

Ya I love the fact that I do not have to maintain my weapons. It is a pointless system anyway, carrying hammers around. Once you reach level 100 in smithing or whatever it was called, all you need is 1 hammer (it became unbreakbale) and just repair whenever you feel like it. It was pointless.

Yeah, I don't really get Bethesda's fascination with removing things from their sequels. This regression of detail has been going on for a while, starting with Morrowind unfortunately. It was a really amazing game that started a really bad trend. And while I love Skyrim, it's the most basic TES game mechanics-wise since Arena. (It doesn't help that the new perk system is an uninspired, duller ripoff of the vastly superior Fallout perk system.)

I would actually like to see a leveling system that was kinda like Skyrim's perk system crossed with FFX's Sphere Grid. I always like the Sphere Grid, it'd be cool if they did something similar where you worked your way around a big tree of bonuses and perks.

Couldn't disagree more on perks, but I will save that for the other thread. I do think they added a lot that was missing in Oblivion back into Skyrim though, at least among the things I care about. Oblivion was a disappointment but I love Skyrim (and other than poor writing I loved Fallout 3).

I'll gladly debate Skyrim's perk system wherever you want me to, but I agree that Skyrim is a much better game than Oblivion. Oblivion was a major disappointment for me, while Skyrim met all of my expectations (except spears :P). Granted, by then my expectations were lowered quite a bit by Oblivion, and I pretty much knew Bethesda would continue the erosion of game mechanics in the TES series.

But to clarify I'll say it again, I love Skyrim. It's a game with soul and everyone should play it because it's good.

I reinstalled Oblivion the other night, and I have to agree. It's aged well.

Concerning the "perk" system in Skyrim: I think it sucks. Why do I think so? Because it screws over the player! I mean, a perk is meant to be a BONUS, something you get which is not essential yet still positive.

To Bethesda, a "perk" translates into "something that you need to make any skill worth using". That's not a perk! If you need to add perks to be allowed to use dwarven ore as a blacksmith, you're doing it WRONG. Some of the perks in Skyrim really ARE perks, but a lot of them aren't and are actually vital to the skill and even in general, it feels a bit weak that you could bust your ass getting a skill levelled only to find out it's barely better than it was before unless you get every perk. That's simply a poor system.

I much prefer a system where you'll automatically gain a sub-skill of a skill by simply levelling that skill. If I'm a level 100 blacksmith, for example, explain to me how I can only use regular iron unless I get the perks? It's ridiculous and lore-wise a disaster. It's also the one area where I cheat in Skyrim - I ignore the perks and simply use a mod to give me all the perks as they become available, as it should be. Crafting perks are too numerous anyway and soak up all your perks quickly - the entire system is unbalanced of sorts.