Being in an absolutely foul mood yesterday I needed some retail therapy and so picked up Oblivion on the PS3 despite having played and done just about everything on the 360 version (still not got SI but done everything else).

Graphically I would have to say that any improvement is a matter of subtlety rather than an evolution, after having gone through the sewers, visited the Abbey and having gone to Kvatch there is certainly nothing that has really stood out as being anything amazingly new and standout-ish (let's face it Oblivion was always a beautiful looking game anyway on the 360). The draw distance does seem a little better with crisper distant objects when you stop to look around the landscape but again an innovation rather than a revelation.

The biggest improvement is definately whilst travelling around the map as the pauses are certainly less intrusive as the next area is loaded, a definate pro for the onboard HD which MS should really have made a fixed feature. However there is a downside to the reduced pausing since now the game does have quite a popup effect on the scenery as you move between areas which makes you frown from time to time when a big lump of rocks or trees suddenly appears in front of you.

While travelling on the main map is definately better it does seem to take longer to load towns/caves as you enter them which was a surprise to find, I thought this was meant to be improved also but perhaps the change is limited to main transit. With Motorstorm I had been disappointed in the disk reading speed but kind of had hoped that was limited to the one game but perhaps the 'issue' seems to be more fundamental than that. I've not tried horseback to see if that is better but then I was kind of put off using them from the 360 version, no doubt it will be better though. This is also noticable when initially creating the character where there are quite noticable pauses while it gets textures that change quite a bit (such as changing the sex, race, or age of the character).

Few little annoyances with the game such as pauses when you cast a spell while it gets the arm casting graphic displayed (could get annoying since this time I thought to actually go for a full on mage character rather than spellsword like my 360 character was). The lack of rumble is also quite a detracting element from the game as altogether too easy to get hit a few times before you realise that the opponent you are trying to locate (courtesy of the music change) is actually right bahind you and hitting away on you already.

General:

If you never played the 360 version then this is an absolute must have title and just as it was on the 360 for a long time is now the PS3's most must have title. If like me you were thinking of starting the game again on the 360 and have a PS3, plus the spare dosh, then might as well get the PS3 version as a few niggles aside the main game does play smoother courtesy of the HD cached data (about 4GB worth)... although based on the disk performance from the game disk I dread to think what it would have been like without the HD there. Some things better than the 360 and some things worse... so all in all I would say they run about even over all. It's Oblivion though... no more needs to be said really