With the release of shivering isle, it has once again sparked my interest in oblivion, which up to this point i have not played.

My question is: I dont really like reading a lot while playing video games. I like to be in the action and games really have to draw me in within the first hour or so or i dont like them.

So in short, will i spend a great deal of time reading stuff, or is most of hte time in oblivion filled with action?

Oblivions style of gameplay is what ever you want it to be, you control your own destiny,go where you want to go, talk to who ever you want to talk, etc.

you could pretty much do what ever you want in the game.

Right i understand, but in some RPG particularly like final fantasy 8, i found myself talking to NPC most of the time, and reading what they were telling me like 40 percent of the time. To me thats boring. is this a requirement of oblivion?

There is a fair amount of dialog in Oblivion, but you can skip through most of it. Your journal conveniently gives you the required information to complete the quest, so you really don't have to listen to the NPC dialog.

There are a LOT of books in the game as well, but they are only there to give you background on the setting. A few of the books do provide skill boosts, but you only have to open them to get these and are not required to read the whole book.

The dialogue between the character and the NPC. Are you suppose to hear voiceover when you're talking one-on-one. I'm not getting any sound.

i think it depends, i cant remember if there is 100% voice acting or not, but a majority of the time there should be voice-over.

i think it depends, i cant remember if there is 100% voice acting or not, but a majority of the time there should be voice-over.It's 100% voice-acting for interaction with NPCs. The only time you might have to read anything is the occasional note or journal that you encounter. There are numerous books, but they aren't required reading and I tended to skip them.