No Mutants Allowed - The Rybicki Maneuver

Staying with the current trend of examining the gaming press, NMA has an editorial titled The Rybicki Maneuver.  This early clip does a good job of explaining the topic:

The first sign of a paradigm shift on the horizon was PC Zone's top 101 games of all time (ref), where they placed Morrowind (#4) above Oblivion (#13) with the note Ooh, aren't we controversial? Yes, but constant bickering among the PCZ team has left the Vvardenfell lobby victorious. The argument runs thusly: Morrowind is a better game than Oblivion, if only for the things that Bethesda sacrificed in their pursuit of making the latter that bit more action-orientated.

That looks odd when you compare it to the opening of their review of Oblivion (ref): Magesterial. That's the word we're looking for. Morrowind can take the plaudits for laying the groundwork and scrubbing out the rules of location linearity in role-playing, but The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion takes that model, streamlines it, seamlessly integrates exhilarating combat, smothers it in beautiful graphics and takes both Tamriel and the art of role-playing to an unprecedented new height.

So which one is it?