This is a great game, but damn, the women are ugly. I don't mean kind of ugly, either--I mean Monty Python dressed in drag ugly. And one of the female character voices sounds like Marge Simpson's sisters.
The way some of those female characters look, I think that one of the most serious problems facing Tamriel in the future will be a declining population.
Surprisingly, Mount & Blade's horseback riding is far superior, and combat on horseback is done brilliantly in M&M but not at all in Oblivion. It feels very artificial to dismount your horse to begin a battle. That's a small nit to pick with a great game, but I mention it because it points out just how sensational Mount & Blade is in certain ways. With a husband and wife as the development team.
One other note. Mods play a tremendously important role in Oblivion because Bethesda has done a terrific job making the Construction Set accessible and usable. People can turn out these very small mods, like the hunter mod, in just a few days, and it makes it possible to customize the game to an amazing degree.
One last thing: the Dark Brotherhood missions are really, really fun. Heh.
Here's a story from Matt Kreuch:
I was in a small town just tooling around. As I scoped things out, I took a little stroll outside the gates tracing the outer wall. I stumbled across a small mine so, of course, I had to go on in. The atmosphere in this mine blew me away. The specific detail that truly caught my attention was while underground the wall around the town (like a structure's foundation) was part of the mine's wall underground. It was as if the mine was forced to curve around the town because the stones for the towns wall extended so deep underground. Like you say... "exactly as it should be."
And here's one more from Tim Lesnick:
I was in a dungeon with two groups of bandits on either side of a pool. As I was sneaking along (hmmm... a lot of the best stories in this game seem to come while sneaking), I shot a flare over the shoulders of one group into the mage of the other group. I'm not sure if it was deliberate or a missed shot, but he fireballed one of the thieves in the group between us, and a huge firefight erupted between the groups. Each side was swearing at the other! I stood back in awe, and finished off the last one standing. This game truly feels like a living world.