The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Is now two weeks old and honestly I have not noticed this time passing so quickly. I wanted to do this review over a week ago… but I’ve been lost in the beautiful world that is Skyrim.
Trailer, BOOM:
The world of Skyrim is visually stunning. It’s a beautiful place that feels real. The map is epic and filled with stunning locations, vast snowy mountains mixed with the lush Tundra; fields of ice; dark caves; villages; towns and major cities all filled with amazing detail, populated with wildlife and people to meet. For the huge scale of this game it’s amazing how much effort Bethesda have put in the title, you can’t say a bad thing about how great the game looks. It’s a huge step up from Elder Scrolls past and even they looked great for the time.
The Story, well ‘the story’ is whatever you make it really. The game is stuffed full of content you can go and do what you like and have an amazing time. The main quest will teach you all about the dragons and what they are doing back in Skyrim. This main quest is about 2% of the game. Like the previous titles in the series you can join guilds such as The Thieves Guild and The Dark Brotherhood. These act like side quests and take you and your character in completely different directions. It’s hard to write a review on a game like this because no way could I cover it all, all I can say is this game is still fun 100+ hours later and you will still be uncovering amazing things to do. All of which are fun, exciting and interesting, no one could get bored with a copy of this game!
So much gameplay, it keeps you going for hours and it’s all smooth. Magic and spells have been revamped and are now better than ever. You can dual wield magic allowing you to have two spells going at once in each hand. Use fire whilst healing, shield yourself whilst electrifying an enemy, it’s all great fun. Combat is as great as ever and you will be spending a vast amount of time fighting, it seems most things in Skyrim are out to get you. The combat system is nice and easy to get to grips with. The fighting at times can seem floaty and doesn’t feel like you are cutting through flesh but overall it’s a good experience. 3rd person combat is also much better now. As you progress you can unlock the ability to use one spell in both hands making it more deadly, this ability would be unlocked in the perk tree, or should I say perk star-chart.
Abilities and perks have been given a makeover. You start the game by creating your character, this time round though you don’t choose his or hers main abilities, these abilities are chosen by you and how you play the game. If you like archery then just use a bow and your skill level will raise helping you level up and unlocking perks for that skill. It’s not as hard as I’m making it sound either, it’s simple and is the same for every kind of skill, eg: pickpocketing, sneaking and one-handed weapons. The game is yours, play it and build your character the way you choose. The freedom is great, best ever in an RPG.
Dragons are a big part of this game. These dragons lead to a whole new ability: Shouts. These shouts require no magicka. Learning shouts is done by learning a word of shout, this can be done by exploring however, to use one you need to absorb a dragon soul by killing it. See what I mean about content in this game? Jeez, I know I’ve missed something important out!
Characters no longer feel fake and artificial, they now seem to have personality, not just the main and important characters you meet along the way but EVERYONE you meet. Conversation flows now and the characters look a lot less stiff than in Oblivion. Some face animations however, particularly in non-human races still look a tad shoddy.
On a less significant note, but still nice is the soundtrack you are constantly treated to whilst playing is lovely. It’s no big deal but a nice touch that I personally enjoyed.
With a game so huge and epic there are bound to be some bugs and glitches, and there is but they are so few and little that they honestly make no difference to how great this game is, so nothing to worry about there.
With the mix of stunning visuals, epic scale; great gameplay; great characters; amazing skills and level ups; huge amount of content; dragons; shouts and much, much, much more here we not only have a possible game of the year but a possible game of all time, without a doubt best RPG I have ever played. Honestly a review could never cover how great this game is, just go buy it!
Out now on PC, XBOX360 and PS3.
