Oblivion's graphics were good. Nothing amazing, but they were good. Certainly an improvement over Morrowind's graphics. And I guess that's my complaint... Skyrim's graphics don't look like much of an improvement over Oblivion's. It looks almost like it could be DLC for Oblivion.
I guess that's a natural result of developing something for a console that's several years old, eh?
It is.
And that's part of why it annoys me so much.
I'm tired of games being built for the lowest factor out there.
You cripple the graphics engine because you're going to run it on hardware that maxes out at HDTV resolutions. Instead of building a nice graphics engine that can scale with the hardware and take advantage of the higher resolutions, speed, and more abundant RAM on a PC.
You rip out most of the UI and simplify it to the point where it's actually harder to use a mouse than it is to go out and buy a gamepad for your PC.
You remove half your skills and break the other half because you want to appeal to all those console gamers who apparently can't handle anything more complex than rock, paper, scissors.
You simplify your storyline down to the bare essentials. Add plenty of guidance. Practically drag your players from one goal to the next. Because console gamers obviously can't figure out what to do on their own.
And before you know it, the game you're playing looks absolutely nothing like The Elder Scrolls.