My Rating: 8/10

I hate RPGs. They slowly drag you along an endless storyline, you spend as much time reading the story as you do actually playing, and most of the “playing” involves numerous tedious tasks and boring lengths of time doing nothing but trekking across the game’s map from one tedious task to the next.

So, I rented Oblivion mainly just to see what all the fuss was about, and because I had already rented just about every other 360 game to date.

Long story short: I liked it.

Just the open-ended book, So many directions to go in, kept me interested. Screw the main story line. What is an oblivion gate? lol.

Oblivion did have some of the tediousness of traveling back and forth across the map to for small tasks, but mostly it was fairly constant action, with great battles. There are hundreds of side missions you can accomplish as you follow the game’s main story, and you can tackle whatever mission you want whenever you want.

The graphics are fantastic, and there is just so much to strive for — from increasing your character’s skills and levels, to gaining Acheivement points, to just FINISHING the game — that it keeps you hooked.

With that said, after I accomplished the game’s main storyline, I grew bored quickly. There were still MANY side goals I had not yet accomplished, but I no longer had the desire to play for hours and hours to be the leader of the Fighter’s Guild, or whatever. At that point, if I had bought the game, it would have been destined for my game cabinet, never to see my 360 again.

So, coming from a guy that doesn’t like RPG’s, Oblivion is definitely worth renting. If you do like RPG’s, then you probably already own it. Big RPG gamers could likely play it forever, as I’m sure it would take that long to accomplish everything, and even after that there are about 10 other races of characters to choose from, and start all over with different skills and powers.