A few years ago, in Fall of 2006 as a senior in high school, I realized I wanted an Xbox 360. Most notably, Oblivion and Gears of War looked AMAZING. Due to a lot of factors (serving an LDS mission) and bad decisions (buying a Wii instead) I didn't permanently have a 360 until late 2009. That was the first time I really tried to finally dive into Oblivion with the Game of the Year edition, and I even bought all the little DLC packs except Horse Armor. I was excited to embark on a huge expansive quest and explore that world...

Except after several hours of playing, I realized I hated the execution of basically everything in Oblivion. It looked hideous, was still pretty buggy, had horrible combat, the story quest was horrifically bad, and the differences between classes seemed superficial at best. Leveling and customizing my character seemed to not have much of an effect on my actual enjoyment of the game. The "radiant A.I." I had heard about a lot actually didn't work and NPCs were lame. I wandered around exploring for a while, taking on scattered quests, but everything was constructed so poorly I just couldn't get immersed in it and just gave up. It felt like it lied about a lot of its features and never delivered, and even was able to fool a lot of people into thinking it was deeper than it was. Most notably, a major problem I have with these styles of RPGs is that it expects me to know how I want to play right up front before I've played anything, and it takes a LOT of play time to actually figure out if it was a good choice I made. That's simply obnoxious. My hatred of that game kept me away from both of their Fallout games as well.

From everything I've seen and heard of Skyrim (watched a lot of Greg's 12-hour marathon, the quick look and Brad's review) they really seem to have finally delivered on what was faked in 2006. Now, the game kind of frightens me because of how huge it really is and how those side quests actually seem interesting this time around, so I'd have to be sure I have plenty of time to play it (not right now). Maybe during Christmas break they'll have issued those patches and I'll pick it up for the 360.

But things that I've heard that make it more exciting for me and may make all the difference are:

• Better character models and a much, much prettier world
• Quality, fun story quest
• Improved (but not perfect) combat with much better options and fun new abilities - plus meaningful differences in play styles
• Much better AI scripting
• No identical pitch-black caves as their idea of "exploration"
• Dragons.
• General improvements across the board - sprinting, better quest logs, better console UI
• Flexible character classes and plenty of opportunities to change play styles during the game

That is all. I anticipate buying and enjoying this game instead of loathing it like I did with Oblivion. Good job, Bethesda. You've won.

I hated Oblivion with a passion, and I didn't think Morrowwind was anything good. Daggerfall was the only game I had actually enjoyed at all in Elder Scrolls.

With that said, Skyrim is fucking genius. I love it.

Yeah I didn't like oblivion because I thought a lot of the world was bare and not interesting. Skyrim's world really pretty and is packed with quality quests, i mean it's fucking packed son.

Skyrim is the game I have always wanted to play.

Oblivion was darksided.

Picked it up today along with Assassin's Creed and Halo. It's pretty fun. Graphics are pretty ass in places, but I can look past that. I'm kind of getting the feeling that it's gonna hook me like Dragon Age.

Yeah, I didn't like Oblivion. I tried to like it, but after few hours I was just bored of it - it failed to grab me.

But I'm loving Skyrim - I didn't think I was going to get it, but watching Greg's playthrough convinced me and I ended up pre-ordering it few hours before it unlocked.

Besides looking gorgeous (I'm a sucker for beautiful scenery) and having improved gameplay - the magic ingredient seems to be that the quests are actually interesting. I'm well over 20 hours in and have barely started the main quest (visiting Greybeards next), because I keep getting sidetracked by other stuff and all of it is just as interesting. In Oblivion I couldn't find any interesting quests and I couldn't care less about the main plot.

Oblivion was fine.

Pretty much how I feel also OP. Skyrim, though not without it's problems, is a brilliant game and actually delivers on some older promises. Oblivion was complete shit.

Damn! I just bought oblivion and the Shivering Isles for 6.75 at Steam just now...I'M SCREWED!

More like, probably buy and play Skyrim, and never get around to these....

Didn't like Oblivion either but Skyrim went straight to my GOTY candidate list. 

@MormonWarrior: I'm in the same boat with Oblivion. I wanted to love it, but I found that to be impossible. I hated too many things about it. However, I try end up trying Fallout 3 anyway, and it's now one of my top 10 all-time favorite games. Maybe it would do you well to check out the Fallout games. They're everything Oblivion should have been. You can see how much the Fallout games influenced Skyrim, which looks quite amazing. I was uninterested in Skyrim up until about a week ago. Now I look forward to playing it.

@Vexxan said:

Didn't like Oblivion either but Skyrim went straight to my GOTY candidate list.

Same here, I really didn't like Oblivion and I wasn't even very excited for Skyrim as a result. Then I ended up buying it because I was bored one night and man, I am not regretting that decision. It's a fantastic game!

I loved Oblivion on my first playthrough. Hated it on my second. I loved/will love every second of Skyrim. Although, the the mage guild quests in Oblivion were much better.
@MormonWarrior said:

My hatred of that game kept me away from both of their Fallout games as well.

I must say...

I hated Oblivion too.

But skyrim is amaaazing.

I didn't like Oblivion at all. The faces snapping right in front of your face really put me off for some reason. But, I am in total love with Skyrim. Think I'll give Oblivion another shot since it is only 5 bucks on Steam