The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Review (360)
Those who’ve played any other game in either the later Fallout titles or Elder Scrolls series know: Bethesda pours its heart and souls into its games.
So it should come as no surprise that Skyrim is everything you’ll want it to be and more. Gone are things you thought you’d miss, like weapon’s degradation and the level of granularity for upgrading skills, but don’t. Added are things you never knew you wanted, like duel wielding weapons/spells, a streamline character creation system, and crafting systems for potions, weapons and armor.
There’s someone out there that’s going “They dumbed it down for a console audience” – and that was my first impression as well. However, after spending over 50 hours in Skyrim, I’ve noticed two things: 1) There aren’t a terribly large amount of mechanical differences between Oblivion and Skyrim and 2) The changes that were made were things that we were hampering the experience for new players.
This game begins like most of the others. Four hundred years have passed since the Oblivion crisis. You’re a prisoner on your way to be executed for unknown crimes along with a ‘traitor’ to the empire and head of the resistance. You’re about to be killed when a dragon, which hasn’t been seen in ages, lays waste to the town. It isn’t just any dragon, but the prophesied Aludin The World Eater, a dragon said to bring about the end of days.
Players then learn they are ‘Dovahkiin’ or ‘dragon born’ meaning they are one of few capable of speaking the dragon’s language, used to cast special magic, and might be able to help slay or banish Aludin.
The main plot has plenty for you to do and will see you running all over Skyrim. To make things more interesting, dragons randomly populate the world – so you can expect a ‘boss’ fight of sorts at random times when dragons show up. Furthermore, there are a number of side quest lines you can complete like joining the Mage’s College of Winterhold, joining the Dark Brotherhood, the Thieves Guild and more. There are also innumerable smaller quests that populate the world, along with randomly generated quests that the game’s AI comes up with on the fly. There is almost an unlimited amount of game for you to enjoy.
That being said, I found that the ending of Skyrim’s main quest line somewhat abrupt. I was in the last quest and didn’t even realize it when I started my final combat and ended the game. It wasn’t nearly as personal and didn’t grant me the satisfaction completing Oblivion did.
The one other criticism is that Skyrim, like all games in the Elder Scrolls series, is glitchy. Very glitchy. Aside from my console locking up once, getting stuck once and a giant killing me and launching me into low orbit over Tamriel – my experience had no game inhibiting hiccups.
If you’re into open world games, this is it. I haven’t played Uncharted 3 or finished Modern Warfare 3 – but I think my search for this year’s Game of the Year is over. Bluntly – I’ve not had as much fun playing anything else this year.
The Good
The only game you’ll ever need: Skyrim is huge. You could probally invest well over 100 hours and still not experience all of the content.
Streamlined, not dumber: Many mechanics are somewhat streamlined while layering new content on top of it – this does not mean that they’ve ‘console-ified’ it. They’ve also made early decisions less critical.
Pretty! Oh so pretty!: … For an Elder Scrolls game. A lot of time has gone into overhauling how the game looks and it pays off. It may not be the best looking game of this holiday season but there’s something impressive about a entire town’s guard fighting a dragon.
The Bad
Runs out of fire: I found the main storyline’s ending couple quests to be … lacking. Your mileage may vary.
The Ugly
I can haz DLC?: You know its coming. It’s just a matter of when. Oh, and no horse armor, please.
