Summary [ 10 out of 10]

The fifth installment of the incredible Elder Scrolls franchise once again proves why this series is the gold standard for western RPGs. With an enormous amount of content and streamlined UI and tightened controls, Skyrim is head and shoulders the best game in the series and arguably the best game of its kind full stop. There are some glitch and AI issues here that dampen the proceedings just a bit but when you are dealing with a title this huge that kind of thing is pretty much unavoidable and most of the time it makes for some pretty funny moments.

The scope of this game is pretty difficult to express in writing and it needs to be seen to be believed. Pretty much every shortcoming I felt the previous entry Oblivion had has been addressed and improved here. The quest lines are more focused and offer more direction without holding the player’s hand and there is so much to do in the world you can’t help but to explore and discover all of the nooks and crannies in the game. And there are a lot of nooks and crannies. Skyrim is the game that keeps on giving and will give you plenty of things to do long after the main quest is put to bed.

What’s It Like:

• Previous Elder Scrolls Games: Obviously when you get to the 5th installment there are certain conventions that are set in place. While there are a lot of streamlined changes and tweaks here, the core experience is true to the series and offers up even more of what you loved from Morrowind and Oblivion. The continuity is also preserved here and this feels like the expansion on the world and story it is making the whole of the experience a bit richer if you have been with the series for awhile.

• Fallout 3: This was developed by the same team that worked on Fallout 3 and while that game benefited from a lot of influences from Oblivion, Skyrim benefits from many of the innovations and refinements from that system. Some are cosmetic tweaks like short cut scenes when you ruin an enemy’s shit in a particularly awesome way and others are more functional like the addition of perks that help with the streamlining of leveling and character maintenance and specialization. The lockpicking mechanic is so similar that my skills transferred over to such a degree that I was opening Master level locks in three tries with a skill level of 15 or 17. It is good to see that these tweaks and improvements are carried over across the games like this as it makes for progressively better games each time.

• Red Dead Redemption: This might seem an odd comparison but the hunting and skinning mechanics along with the lush outdoor environments really reminded me of RDR. This is a pretty high compliment indeed. The sense of having a bunch of cool things to do in the wilderness and actually wanting to do them is alive and well here and is similar between the two titles.

The Great:

• Graphics: This game is amazingly gorgeous. With weather and blood particles all individually rendered you have an incredibly detailed game that feels very real. The environments are phenomenal and it can be hard not to get lost in the scenery around you. More than once I found myself getting hacked on by a bandit because I stopped to watch the stream or admire distant mountaintops. Everything in the game is immaculately detailed and the graphics have been massively upgraded from Oblivion and still retained the general style of the series. I could go on about how pretty this thing is but really it needs to be seen to be believed. It might not be the best looking game I have ever played but it definitely ranks.

• Amount of Content: All of the Elder Scrolls games, at least the three on consoles, are filled to overflowing with content so this isn’t a big surprise. Still, Skyrim does the previous games one better and makes that content the sort of things that players will actually want to do. There have been some side quests in previous games that have been kind of busy work throw away tasks…hell the whole ‘Oblivion gate’ thing in the last game was so irritating that I never pursued the main quest at all. Skyrim offers more compelling quests and tasks and there is always something to take your attention for a bit if you just wander around or talk to people. Some of the content is pretty dark as well which is nice. Elder Scrolls have never shied away from dark content at all but Skyrim goes a bit farther which makes for a nice mature experience that makes you think a bit more about what you are doing and what the consequences might be for it. The game lets you do whatever you want and makes no moral judgements aside from getting a bounty on your head for breaking laws so there is just tons of things to do. The developers at E3 said that the game had over 300 hours of gameplay. I found that to be unlikely at the time but digging into this thing I think it is probably pretty accurate. This thing is huge.

• Streamlining: In past Elder Scrolls games, the UI, combat, leveling and pretty much everything you wanted to do could get a bit complicated and there was a lot to manage from stats to inventory. Running with improvements made in Fallout 3, Bethesda has offered a very clean and uncluttered experience here. There are no classes to worry about and leveling is handled solely from building skills you use. When you swing your sword you are getting one (or two I suppose) handed experience which builds toward leveling. When you level, you don’t have to mess with attribute points or major or minor skills. You choose if you want to improve health, magicka or stamina and then pick a perk. The perks are assigned to different skills so if you use particular skills a lot you can choose perks to bolster those skills. The whole process is very clean and intuitive and I am surprised it took us this long to get here. Inventory management is also streamlined thanks to easy to navigate menus and the ability to choose favorite equipment and spells to use on the fly. Combat also benefits from this streamlining as each shoulder button controls the corresponding hand. If you want to duel wield then you put a weapon in each hand and press the triggers in tandem. Want to have a spell in one hand and a weapon in another? Easy. Navigation is likewise streamlined with an easy to use map that makes your destination clear and easy to reach (at least from a navigation standpoint). This game just flat works efficiently and keeps you doing the stuff you want to instead of boring upkeep.

• Variety: We’ve covered that there is a lot to do in the game but a lot of content would get pretty boring if it was just the same thing over and over again. Skyrim offers up a good variety of things to do from interesting quests to intuitive but challenging puzzles. There are all sorts of crafting things you can do, side jobs to make extra money or curry favor with locals, romance, exploring and collecting. Aside from that the different quest lines from the various factions and guilds offer up unique twists on the more typical tasks and they are all interesting and engaging. Radiant quests also spice things up with seemingly random encounters or moments that crop up out of the blue to open up more things to do. There is a lot of content but more importantly it is all interesting and varied.

• Mechanics: The way the game works is both simple and complex at the same time. There is a lot of nuance to be had here and the game is built to allow the player to effortlessly dig into that. You can play a very straight forward game if you want but if you want to go deeper there are more layers to go into than Inception. The mechanics have to be in place to allow the player to do this and Skyrim is a well oiled machine firing on all cylinders. Everything you do works in an intuitive way, which again keeps the player focused on fun things instead of trying to figure out how the hell to do something. In a game this big that is a godsend.

• Character creator/character models: In previous Elder Scrolls games you loved the game despite the way the characters looked. Everyone looked like they had their face stepped on by an elephant. The environments and items were beautiful but the world was populated by a cast of characters all born from the ugly tree after hitting every branch as they fell to the ground. The player character creation was no different and you had to just put up with having a butt ugly character. Thankfully, Skyrim changes all that with character models and assets that look gorgeous. Sure there are some ugly people but that is by design rather than necessity. It is nice to talk to NPCs that don’t look like post murder slasher victims. It is likewise nice to put a character together that doesn’t look like something you left in the toilet behind you after an all you can eat Mexican buffet.

• Story: From the main story to the radiant and side quests, the storylines running through the game are all compelling and worthwhile. The main quest features twists and turns and some hard moral choices that make it something I actually want to pay attention to this time around and which compels the player to go to the next part just to see what happens. The guild quest lines are all very different from a story perspective and add a richness to the game that has been missing in some of the previous installments. I often found myself overwhelmed by the number of storylines I had going on and trying to figure out which one to pursue next to see how it unfolded was one of the most difficult choices to make. It is all very good and nothing feels tacked on. That being said, if any one of them feels boring or tacked on you can skip them pretty easily. The writing is rich and well done and it keeps you going even after hours of game play. You just want to see what is going to happen next.

The Good

• Quest structures: This ties in a bit with the story section but the quest structures are built to keep you going and are often set up like chapters in a spellbinding book. The end of one makes you want to dive into the next. There is an ebb and flow to the quests that can be predicted if you are paying attention but also keeps everything moving and keeps the player moving with it. Most important it keeps the quest lines from getting boring.

• NPC: The characters in this game are really well drawn and it is easy to get lost in some of the personal story lines of the people you meet on your travels. This makes things like murder more difficult and it makes you feel more invested in what you are doing. Great voice acting helps this along and makes the people encountered in the game more realistic and engaging. It is a nice change to actually give a crap about the people you meet as opposed to just writing them off as soulless ciphers existing only to sell you stuff or hand out quests.

• Dungeon/cave layouts: In previous installments I found some of the caves and dungeons to be maddeningly confusing and annoying. Without hand holding, Skyrim manages to give dungeons that are fun to explore but not maddening to navigate. Part of it is how sharp the graphics look which lets you see where you are going better instead of it looking muddled but the layouts are just generally well thought out and executed.

• Glitches: Normally glitches wouldn’t be a plus but many of the glitches in Skyrim are pretty hilarious. You have horses that do flips and walk backwards and giants that launch characters into the clouds with a single club strike. There are tons of Youtube videos out there of these things and they are pretty amusing. If you have to have glitches then they might as well be entertaining and hilarious.

• Dragon attacks: This is a HUGE step up from those goddamn Oblivion gates in the last outing. These are pretty random and can happen at any time. It is not always awesome when they show up when you are in the middle of nowhere with no healing potions and no companions but generally it adds a bit of spice and danger to exploring. Given that they can attack in the middle of towns makes the stakes that much higher. Dragons are also pretty cool to look at and you get pretty decent stuff for defeating them. They are a spice that can sometimes be too hot but they are pretty fun and keep you on your toes.

The Bad

• Glitches: So in addition to the awesome and funny glitches, there are some game killing ones that will freeze the system or make questlines unsolvable. A lot of these are being fixed in a patch and as long as you save often they shouldn’t be big problem but they are there are irritating.

• Spotty AI: Occasionally your companions will do stupid things like stand in the door you need to walk out of. This is annoying and makes you want to hit them. Not really a big problem but it is a nuisance.

Conclusion [10 out of 10]

Trying to score this game was very difficult. I love it deeply and it delivers a game play experience that makes most games look like 80’s arcade offerings. On the other hand, there are some glitches here that hurt the experience a bit. If a 10 is a flawless game then this shouldn’t get that score. But if you award a score for the overall experience and what is offered then Skyrim earns an 11. This game is huge and offers an enormous amount of compelling content with systems that are as simple as they are complex and give you so many options that you might not know which way to go first. You get this game and you are going to be playing it for a long, long time. So, I’ve decided to give this what I think it deserves despite the glitches. This is my current game of the year contender and it is a formidable opponent for all the things it has to offer. I am not sure when I am going to get around to playing other games but I can promise that when those have long been traded in I will be back playing Skyrim. This isn’t just a game it is an investment.