Completely agree with everything said.
Why didn't one of them say any of this back then?
Now, PC Gamer is one of the less evil publications out there, but I think that most game reviews written when a game is still current (press-wise, we know that all Elder Scrolls games are ETERNAL!), judge it mostly within the context of that year. Meaning that in 2006, they felt pretty much Oblivion destroyed the competition against its contemporaries. I definitely agree there. It's not until the retrospectives that people are brave enough to point out flaws in a game. Personally the biggest causes for recent criticism about TES V's future are derived from New Vegas. Obsidian more or less proved you can have a challenging relatively non-levelled world, marginally pleasant Facegen heads, a wide cast of voice actors, and an engrossing story and still be a success within the scope of the modern RPG.
Basically, everybody's hopinig Bethesda doesn't cut any corners. I'm pretty hopeful though that TES V has a lot of polish - Todd, Pete Hines, they all sound
really enthused about the game and their timed announcements and release date show that they're pretty confident in what they've created. If anything, right now I'm more worried about whether or not TES VI will live up to Skyrim. :ninja: