Oblivion GOTY (Game of the Year edition) is a re-release of the massively popular cRPG Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion with a couple of expansion packs (Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles) built in. KON is supposedly the most popular, and Shivering Isles is the hugest (clocking in at just over a gig as a download). Even now, more than a year after release, the question of whether to play Oblivion on a console or PC still rages on.

It should be noted that the question is never "should I play it", because that's pretty much a given. Hello? Yehes. The PC and console versions both have their merits (and pitfalls), and your choice can have significant impact on how much (but not if) you enjoy this game.

Oblivion, like its predecessor Morrowind, is a first person, open ended role-playing game set in a magical medieval land filled with good guys, bad guys, good gods, bad gods, monsters, tons of quests, and books. Books are everywhere and readable. Just sitting around reading all the books you find could take hours upon hours. Getting them back on the bookshelf, on the other hand, is kind of a pain in the ass because the physics system is a bit jumpy. I just stick mine in a box.

As cRPGs go, Oblivion is one of the more open-ended I've seen, matched in my mind, only by its precursor, Morrowind. In the main quest (as per usual) you are tasked with saving the world from certain doom. Oblivion Gates are opening up all over the place, demons are pouring out of them, and you need close them for good. But, you're free to ignore the main quest as there's no time-limit on quest events. Though, once you pass a certain point in the main quest, the world will become littered with Oblivion gates.

Based on the save game files on both my PC and 360, I've played Oblivion in excess of 120 hours. And, I've never finished the main quest. One day, I think I shall. But there's so much interesting and fun stuff to do. Between faction quests and random tasks that you can have assigned by everyone from Joe Blow on the street to Sheogorath, an insane (and hilarious) god, you could keep busy fetching fish and BBQ skewers until Armageddon comes.

The feature most debated upon is Oblivion's leveled encounter system. Basically, the game will level your foes, their gear, and what you find in chests to be appropriate for your level. On the one hand, this means that you can truly do whatever you want whenever you want. The odds that you'll stumble upon an encounter that you won't at least survive are pretty small. Even so, if you have no magic and no silver, a ghost of any level, will still probably kill you.

While I approve of this system because it prevents the player from accidentally committing suicide by walking into a cave filled with fire giants (and that is not fun), it does have some issues.

The first issue is the level number itself. Because Oblivion levels you based on primary skill progression, and skill progression is determined by actual use, it's super easy to gimp yourself. If your primary skills are non-combat, and heavily used, then you will be able to raise your level quickly without increasing your combat skills. But, it is your level that determines encounter difficulty, not your skill.

A more thorough examination of character leveling issues and strategies can be found here.

Another issue is that many killable quest NPCs do not level. This can mean that when attempting to do certain quests at a high level, the monsters will level up, but NPCs that are traveling with you will not. This can lead to their death, which generally considered a bad thing, as it may affect your quest rewards. On the other hand, if a level 5 NPC attacks a level 10 goblin, instead of letting you dispatch the monster, well, that's just chlorine in the gene-pool.

The mathematic aspects of the leveled-world can be dealt with by understanding the math and planning ahead accordingly. Character planning actually requires a counter-intuitive approach if you really want to max out your character since your "major" skills should be those least often used. But the game/world/design-philosophy issues are not so easily put to bed. Which is to say that people bitch about it endlessly on the official forums.

The main complaint is that a leveled world lessens the realism of the game by limiting enemy levels. They argue that an immersive world should have areas that a newbie adventurer should never go. They would argue that sometimes you find bandits that are pathetic and that other times you would realistically find murderous and skilled highwaymen (and women). And they complain that loot is limited as well. Why should I only find 5 or 10 gold just because I'm low level?

These complaints (and all those related) stem from one source: knowledge about the game's underlying mechanics. Oblivion is not a world simulator. It is a game. A game that strives for a sense of realism, sure, but more than anything, a game must be balanced and fun. And that's what it is, balanced and fun. It's designed to be as balanced as possible as often as possible. If it's a little too easy, crank up the difficulty. If it's a little too hard, move it down. There's a slider for just this purpose in the game options.

Oblivion is one of those games where knowing to much about the game can ruin your fun. Let say you're a low level sneaky bow using character. Right after you escape your initial imprisonment, you swim across the river to find three bad guys. Upon killing them, you loot some flimsy armor and low quality weapons. After fully searching the immediate area, you find a total of probably 50g in loot. Nice! Not even a full day out of the slammer and you're up 50g plus a mix and match set of leather armor!

As your skills improve, you find and take on more powerful prey and discover ever richer sources of treasure. As your skill in finding the good loot increases, you find richer and richer people to rob, and you're on your way!

This is a fun game. You find better and better stuff. You kill more and more terrifying monsters. Yay!

Now, lets look at it from the point of view of someone who knows and deeply cares about the underlying numbers:

Just out of jail, I spy some bandits, kill them and find a mere 50g worth of stuff. I am annoyed because if I had waited a couple of levels, they'd have better stuff. I am further annoyed by the fact that no matter where I look, I'll never find a sword worth 10k gold, no matter how hard I try. Not until I really get up in the levels that is. I can't, for example, sneak into a dungeon full of high level gold hoarding monsters and rob them blind.

Of course you can't. A first level thief would be spotted right away and be eaten. Duh.

The cynic looks around and sees that everything is the same where ever he goes. The naive gamer looks around and sees that no matter where he goes, the quests and foes he encounters progress with him, making for a smooth progression from newb to monster thrasher. As a naive gamer, I love Oblivion. As someone that's aware of its issues, I pay just enough attention to the underlying numbers that I remain ungimped.

If you look at the world from the perspective of your character, then the entire game, every series of events that occurs tells the story of an incredibly lucky, plucky adventurer that was just about always at the right place at the right time. And this makes some sense because you are, after all, playing the accidental hero. You start out in jail, in a cell that just happens to have a secret passage that the emperor, of all people, just happens to need to escape assassins. You follow him out, but he dies (and you, inexplicably, do not), but not before he places the fate of the world in your hands. Most people would simply walk out into the world and get eaten by the first mudcrab that came along. But not you. You get lucky. From the perspective of your character, it's as though each choice he (or she) makes, each path he walks, each quest he accepts just happens to be exactly the right one. From the moment he meets that emperor onward, he leads a charmed life. And he'd better, too. Because only someone who lives a charmed life is going to be able to run the gauntlet from jailed nobody to savior of the known world.

So, to those that bitch about the mechanics of a leveled world, I have only one thing to say: piffle.

As I said before, the question is not whether to buy Oblivion (if you haven't already) but rather: which platform? The console versions and the PC version are, content-wise, identical. Each has its merits. Each has its problems. The most compelling reason to play the PC version is third party mods, or the wish to create your own. The most compelling reason to get the console version is consistency of experience.

The mod maker is given the same game building tools as those who put Oblivion together in the first place. Mods can add anything to the game from a single item to an entire scripted adventure. There are plenty of user created mods out there for download, and some of them are potentially game breaking. One such mod is the book of teleportation. It allows the owner to mark something like 10 different locations and to return to them at any time by using the magic book. As it happens, Bethesda took teleportation and levitation out of the game for a reason. Levitation got taken out because of engine related issues. The world is not 100% seamless, and levitation makes that apparent. Teleportation was taken out because it breaks the main quest line. You're only supposed to be able to enter and leave Oblivion by very specific methods. And teleporting back into Oblivion after you've closed a gate, well, that's bad hoodoo.

There's also a huge set of mods designed to "fix" the leveled content system. Instead of everything being based on your level, they've made it somewhat more random. So, if you really, really hate the idea of a leveled game world, the PC version might be the one for you.

The most compelling reason I find for playing the console version is consistency and reliability. The console version just works. You don't have to update you video drivers. You don't have to troubleshoot blue screens of death. And you don't have to tweak the graphics settings to get a decent framerate. When Oblivion came out, a lot of people basically had to buy (or build) brand new machines. Myself included. On the PS3 and Xbox 360, the game just works and looks nice. Additionally, you can sit back on the couch and put your feet up whilst you play on that 50 inch plasma TV.

Having played both, I find the console experience to be superior. I enjoy playing the game that Bethesda created as they created it, and I don't feel the need to fiddle with the underlying mechanics of the game. But hey, if you like mods or you like to mod, grab the PC version, and have fun.

Either way, if you don't already have it, you should probably go get it.