The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a lot of things; it's a large open world game, the fifth in a long standing highly respected series of games, a game of the year contender, and a marvel in technological achievement in video gaming.Like most of Bethesda's games, their strength lies in the journey you take to complete them. The tasks you are given on the other hand aren't the most interesting, aren't the most challenging, and are really glorified fetch questing giving the player a carrot on a stick guiding them through what would otherwise be a game too big to be played but more enjoyable without the carrot to begin with. Skyrim is no exception to the Bethesda rule, build a large, detailed, gorgeous world rife with characters, scenery, ambiance, and history and fill it with missions that a common courier would naturally accept and complete with ease. Within the first 45 minutes of playing this game my quest list had grown to no more than 15 quests all of which were go find this, deliver these, or collect x number of whatever. I was so compelled to complete these quests that I immediately struck down the hag that walked up to me on the street telling me to gather wolf pelts, robbed her corpse and stole the nearest horse in town. That was the best quest I did up until that point, and it wasn't on my quest list.
Gameplay:
Which leads me to my main point about these kinds of games Bethesda is known to make, they are at their most fun when you aren't doing what you're supposed to do. The main quest lines or side quests never really amount to anything grand or even all that interesting. But going off the path, traversing a mountain or discovering a cave that wasn't marked on your map previously, finding a wild unicorn, or swimming under the ocean into the unknown provides the most memories and excitement that no amount of "deliver this" quests could ever offer.
For the uninitiated, the Elder Scrolls games are large sandbox role playing games where you are usually the character to save the world from some random threat. The game is played largely in first person view in the magic and swords vein and handles like a clumsy hack n' slash game. I say clumsy because the battles you encounter throughout the game all play out exactly the same way. In a good hack n' slash game normally you develop different tactics against different enemies, but in Skyrim one size fits all and that's partially the fault of the AI and partially the fault of the upgrade system.
Still, if you pick a heavy melee character you will always encounter every resistance by rushing up to the enemy and slashing away. If you have a magic using character you will stay at a medium distance casting spells. There's also the sneaky assassin character you can make, but in my experience the AI doesn't really make this type a feasible or practical build. You certainly can TRY to get through the game doing critical strikes in sneak mode against everything in the game, but it quickly becomes a nuisance getting the AI to look the other way. Further adding to the AI issue is the dungeons or castles you explore are ALL hallways and long corridors with very few open spaces outside of the over-world. Because of this fact sneaking up on enemies is nigh impossible when you can't actually flank them.
So the battles quickly become very repetitive, but admittedly an improvement over the previous game Oblivion. In Oblivion the AI wouldn't even react to being hit which was irritating. At least in Skyrim when you slash something you get some satisfaction out of it. Also there are death scenes against enemies reminiscent of Fallout 3 and New Vegas which are VERY satisfying no matter how many times you see your character lob a head off a guy. It's probably always satisfying just because it breaks away from the monotony of the battles you have throughout the game.
The level up system is vastly superior to Oblivion also. Here you level up and gain perks for your most often used attributes and the perks themselves are very satisfying to acquire and add noticeable improvements to your character. My personal favorite is probably the speech perk that lets you sell anything to any vendor nullifying my constant headaches of finding the correct merchants to offload my shit unto. It's the kind of thing that makes me not ever want to go back to Oblivion.
Story:
The story in Skyrim is you are the Dragonborn, a human with the ability to speak the Dragon language who is foretold to save the world from the dragons. The rise of the dragons is something of legend as in the Elder Scrolls games they have always been extinct. Their return should have been something amazing and interesting, but the writing here makes the whole experience dull and uninteresting.
There's really nothing to get excited about, no obvious villain to hate, and no one to really cheer for. You don't really care whether the dragons dust the world or not since there's no one in it to care about. Every character in the game teeters so gently on the line of good and evil that you can't honestly decide to sympathize with them or begrudge them, not that there's much to go on in the first place.
The stories that are good and interesting come in the guild quests. These quest lines have interesting characters, funny quests, and downright offensive quests too. It amazes me that in these games the guild quests are always longer and more enjoyable than the main quest line. Oblivion is no different, and to some extent the same can be said for Fallout 3.
Graphics:
The environments are beautiful, some of the best landscapes I've ever seen in a video game...as long as there are no character models to get in the way. That's not to say Skyrim has the worst character models I've ever seen, but they are pretty awful. Still, as long as you're not looking directly at them and instead gaping at the sprawling landscapes this will be one of the best looking games you'll ever see.
Music:
The music in Skyrim is another huge improvement over Oblivion. While Oblivion did have one really awesome overwolrd theme it didn't really have anything else of note. But every piece in Skyrim was epic and made even boring moments of the game somewhat exhilarating.
Conclusion:
Skyrim is a big beautiful place filled with many things to do. Even though the most interesting thing to do is simply to explore the world, that in and of itself is worth the price of admission. Gamers of yore (like myself) oft dreamed of games like this, nearly borderless exploration with intrigue around every corner and that's what Skyrim offers. Fighting Dragons becomes stale after a while though...and sometimes they die on their own falling out of the sky...they really become non-threatening 20 hours into the game. It's odd they made the Dragons powerless compared to a roaming Giant arguably the strongest enemy in the game.
One thing I would like to see this series do is add large scale enemies, or big one shot bosses. Playing Dark Souls and running across a huge Hydra, or fighting a Dragon that actually is threatening made me long for an epic fight like that in Skyrim. I just like having my RPG's offer an Emerald or Ruby weapon if you will to test the limits of my character, or overcome the fight in a strategic way of sorts. Swimming in the deep oceans of Skyrim I always wanted to see a Kraken just come out and eat me, or do battle with one. Just something awesome like that, something memorable to the journey instead of trees, rocks, rivers, cliffs....mountains and fetch quests.
Alas it is not to be in this game, but it's still worth playing since it's the best open world game available these days.
*I had something for this part of the review, but then I took an arrow to the knee*
