Oblivion was one of those games where I looked down on it for years like how could that be any fun, snobbishly playing my jrpgs. But when I finally tried it on pc it was a pretty special experience. All the gameplay elements introduced in the beginning had me feeling like I could do all these for a good 30 hours or so. But when I stepped outside that sewer was when I knew this was going to be something special from the beauty and realistic topography in the land. It gave off the wonder that there were hundreds of adventures to be had out there and when I was in my 60th, 70th, 80th hour of gameplay I was consistently surprised with just how imaginative and unique the quests were. I don't know of any game with the kind of depth and breadth of fantasy quests to match Oblivion but I'm really hoping Skyrim hits the same mark for me. It seems to be an Elder Scrolls curse that fans of one game don't like the immediately next installment.

I also really have to give it up to the dungeon design. The traps and puzzles and door switches and vertical layout made me really feel for the first time in a video game that I was inside a dungeon straight out of D&D.

Lastly, the mods really are something special and make this game shine as BoB pointed out. Not only can you take its beauty even further, as far as your rig can go, but huge sections of imperial provinces have been added, some of them highly rated like Valenwood, Black Marsh, Elsweyr, High Rock and Hammerfell.