Following Morrowind, Bethesda Softworks has a new addition to the heroic fantasy series The Elder Scrolls on PS3, the game series known to give players total freedom of movement. This role-playing game takes you the province of Cyrodiil in search of the heir to the throne after the mysterious assassination of the Emperor. Ever since this event, the Doors of Oblivion have been wide open to the world of Tamriel, leaving way to hoards of demons to pour forth upon Cyrodiil and its peaceful inhabitants. The fate of the known world depends upon you and your quest!

Bethesda Game Studios achieved something that is to-date, unrivaled on any next-gen console in my opinion.

Oblivion is both beautiful and harrowing, vast but at the same time very intriquit, it has immense depth whilst giving the option to explore only if you desire.

Your character is customizable in nearly all aspects from the race, type of player you wish to be and exactly how you wish your character to appear in game. Depending on what race you choose depends on what attributes you will be assigned like how intelligent you will be or how good you are at bartering to how you fair with different kind of weaponry. Will all these aspects, the game has such longevity and replayability it is untrue. I have owned this game on 2 separate occasions now as the first time I traded it in. Then I came across the "Game of the Year Edition" which I didn't previously have. My Oh My, the game is EPIC in every which way what with the additional expansions (Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine). I must have played this game well over 60 hours with much more to play and I was not once bored. Okay so some caves, castes etc are identikit in that they look identical but I could see past that. Missions are plenty and varied, like the following guilds you can join (all at the same time if you like):-

The Fighters Guild - you are there as an army for hire.
The Mages Guild - You are there for the good of the mages, you will learn magic etc
The Thieves Guild - You are hired to steal many items for the guild
The Dark Brotherhood - You are sent on assassination plots, here you get to act like a hitman & "whack" people.

Then you have the expansion packs, they add easily an additional 20 hours (minimum) to the overall game. They really are the cherry on the icing and blew me completely away. Where you actually can become a god or get a team of knights together - FANTASTIC stuff, the stuff of boyhood dreams!

The graphics are great and the sound is really good with voice acting from such people as Patrick Steward (Captain Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek and Sean Bean (Silent Hill movie or the TV series Sharp). Although these two legends are just a couple of the voice actors, the dialogue can become overused and many of the characters have the same voice but nevertheless, this doesn't distract from the brilliance of the game too much). There are a few bugs and glitches that I came across but for the size of this game, I simply didn't care. There has been so much effort poured into this game you really do appreciate what has been done.

I cannot do this game justice and put into words how wonderful this game is and just how engrossing I personally found it to be.

I'm actually thinking about buying it for a third time!

Now, i'm going to start off by saying i LOVE Oblivion, its freedom, its land, its combat, its characters.
And by almost all respects it's a masterpiece beyond what any other dev could even IMAGINE.
So...what keeps it fropm a five star?
One word: GLITCHES!
Within the first hour the game froze up, forcing me to reboot.
Pop-up is constant and frame rate drops are more than comman.
This is the PS3 FOR CHRISSAKE!
But, enough of that.
The gameplay and freedom is stunning, allowing you to be whoever you want in this huge, free world.
I have yet to start playing the main quest, or the Knights of the Nine secvondery main quest, all i have done is roamed around enjoying myselff and messing about.
That's where the joy lies

I bought this and wish I hadn't. I treid to get into it but found it very annoying. The attacks/fighting are rubbish. I played it for a week but still got bored. dont buy it unless you really really like RPG's.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is simply the greatest game I have ever played. It is fun and action packed from start to ...well...end? The game never really does end although I hear people saying they have "completed" it, that is unlikely unless they have done every guild, main quest, cave, mine, fort etc.. In the game. There is hours of gamplay in this game and is well worth amazon's current ??17 price. What a buy. I've been playing it since it came out on Playstation 3 (the best version) and I never once got bored with it, there is something in it for everyone - Mage's, Warrior's, Theif's or Assassins this is your game.
If you are new to RPG's or free-roaming games like Oblivion then it may take you a while to fully understand it, but when you do, you will love it. The huge landscapes and pure freedom make Oblivion what it is. - The Greatest Game of all Time. I am a huge fan of Fallout 3 as well, but even know it does not match up to this truly unique experience.
Good knews is that Bethseda are starting work on a fifth installment which will no doubt fail to dissapoint.
The last time I checked, my first character (I have many) I had played for 198+ hours and I am still not done.
Another great feature is the races select, there is plenty of choice and characters you talk to outside of towns have some great rumours that will lead you to treasure's.
There is also an ability to become a vampire which in my case was accidental and although some people enjoy the thrill, I don't that's why I abbondoned my Level 41 for a few months.
I would reccomend this game to anyone with a Playstation 3 - it is amazing.

I'm sure the gist of the game can be gleaned from all the other reviews and product description, so I'll stick to my own personal experiences of playing the game.

I originally bought the GOTY edition thinking that it would be better, bigger, with more patches and bug fixes; how wrong I was. The GOTY has more bugs and glitches and for what - the (in my opinion) hugely over-rated Shivering Isles expansion; I played through the Shivering Isles and found it to be repetitive, tiresome, lacking in imagination (things there are just mad, hardly anything nice or worth seeing is to be found in the whole land). So, after getting sick of the bugs I sold my GOTY edition and bought this instead, and enjoyed playing the game several times over from then on!

I played as a sneaky elf character originally in GOTY, so when I started a new character in this version I decided to go all-out as a warrior Red Guard class, what a contrast in play styles! Although I played many of the same missions, the way they are played changes entirely so it is like playing a different set of missions for the most part. Having enjoyed that play style (but not touching the main quest), I started again with a Paladin type of character with healing and summoning abilities, another very different play style again, and a different way of completing the same missions. I completed Knights of the Nine fairly early on so I got all the benefits of the quest items during subsequent quests, and decided not to do any of the evil quest lines (I killed the Dark Brotherhood messenger guy!!)

Anyone who plays this through once and then thinks "Is that it?" obviously lacks the imagination that this game requires to get the most out of it. It's not about completing the quests efficiently or as quickly as possible, it's about using your imagination to complete the quests in new and novel ways, and to enjoy yourself for as long as you want to while the game still holds your attention. It held my attention for several months before I decided I'd had enough, literally it was the only disc in my PS3 for that period.

If I have one big criticism of the game it would be this: heavy armour should provide more protection than light, but apparently that's not the case here. It doesn't seem to matter what armour you decide to wear, the best set of armour will always provide the same maximum amount of protection against any weapons. Another criticism is that there is little magic in the game that's really fantastic, it mostly seems to be the standard set of damage, enchantment, or healing spells; oh, and where is the enchanted armour that deals damage to attackers? The closest I could find in this game is damage reflection enchantments which is not really the same thing, although very useful in it's own right. Why can't I make or find a pair of fire gauntlets?? The magic system has been dumbed down compared to games like the Baldur's Gate series.