Skyrim looks twice as good as Oblivion and the framerate is way way smoother.
The content is not randomly generated generic bore. The content is amazing. I have only begun to enter the second town after five hours of play (not hauling grass for speed).
I have to say, Im impressed. Bethesda clearly paid attention, learned thier lessons and progressed.
Hiring the full team of serious artisans was just as important. and done.

The biggest improvement I see is Polygon technique. oblivion was "paste as many polygons around as you can". the polycount of skyrim is perfectly optimized.
I no longer see spewwage of polycount hoping to make up for design (Like fallout and oblivion) keeping polygons under control is the key to performance and detail (Which blizzard excels at.)
Im glad to see Bethesda games taking note. Ill continue to buy their games if the content stays like this.

First game in the history of planet earth to actually (nearly) be worth 60 bucks.


2.7ghz AMD Dual core
9800gt Nvidia card
4 gigs ram (20 dollar chips x2 - 2gig)
win7 dx11

Amazingly playable. impressively playable.

Best content of the year.
Optimized like a champ (I hope I dont speak too soon, the two beginner cities show no slowdown.) (Hopefully that level of poly-conservation remains later.) Im pretty certian it will. especially in dungeons.