A overall great game. Never gets old, so many missions you'll explode with awesomness. It will leave you with the feeling that this made you a real gamer feeling after you play this. All true gamers must get this game. Even if they don't like RPG's they will still love this.
2 of 2 found this review helpful.
Overall rating
5/ 5
Gameplay
5/ 5
Graphics
5/ 5
Sound
5/ 5
Lasting Appeal
5/ 5
evbo08
fromRochester, Ny
This game is perfect for:hardcore gamers
Bethesda: Good Game?
PostedDecember 11, 2011
From my past experiences of trying to play Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas but figuring out that those games were boring, I didn't think that this game which was made by the same company, Bethesda, would be good. But I was completely taken into it, I couldn't stop playing all Thanksgiving break, it's one of those long games(games that I love) and games that don't make you mad. It's fun, invigorating, and innovative. But again Bethesda made some boring games so I didn't have high hopes for this one,however, as I playing it I found out that it was amazing and the graphics blew me away. If you're a first-time oblivion player, or a first-time rpg player, this is the right game for anyone young or old. Just pop it in and in the first hour of gameplay you'll be hooked, I know I was.
God where do I even begin. As always I’m going to write a very detailed review, try to resist spoilers as much as possible, but for Skyrim a decent review would be hundreds of pages in length.
TES is always a giant sim world. By sim I mean it’s one player, but the world is so realistic, so detailed that it’s more of a simulation then a game. When you talk to NPC’s, even simple merchants, it’s not a simple press button and trade with them. You can do that, but you can also say “hows buisiness” “how do you get your supplies” “what’s new around town” etc. A lot of times they will have a misc quest you can do for them. You interact with them just like you would a real world vendor. This is how it is with every friendly NPC, and there are thousands, maybe tens of thousands of them in this game.
The in game world itself is probably like 50-200 square miles. And that’s just the outdoors. There’s a couple hundred dungeons, shops, buildings, etc that you can go into, that total into millions of indoor square feet. One dungeon I did last night took me almost 3 hours to complete, and I explored less then half of it. You can spend weeks in this game exploring alone. See that mountain in the distance? In the real world if you really wanted to you could get to the top of it right? Same goes for Skyrim. This isn’t Fable, or some other RPG that has set paths. You can run over rocks, jump EVERY fence (not just select fences like fable) jump off a cliff (unhealthy choice) etc etc. If you could run through it, over it, or around it in the real world, you can in this world. In general you can’t grasp cliff sides to rock climb, but you can find a way around.
TES as always has so much to offer. Most games have one main story quest that takes a few hours, to complete, and a handful of very short side quests. This game, the main story alone takes days. There are four big factions who offer so much content, you might as well consider them 4 more “main stories”. So technically this game has 4 main story lines, all of them are gigantic. It’s intimidating to say the least, you could have 100 out of thousands, maybe tens of thousands of quests, and it’s hard to decide what one u want to do. The main quest rewards you with dragon shouts, which are very useful. Anywhere from spewing fire, freezing an opponent in place, and special ones like making a quick sprint, and later the ability to summon a dragon. As well as unique weapons, gear, companions, etc. Then again there are side quests that award you with the ability to become a warewolf (won’t say who, keep spoilers minimal), the dark brotherhood returns, and as always is a ton of fun. Etc. As is the case with most Bethesda RPG’s it so overwhelming at first, that it’s not very fun, but it grows on you. The more you get into the game, the more you find it impossible to put down the controller.
Now the big selling point, dragons. The story this time around is that Alduin the world eater (big bad dragon) has returned to Skyrim. He has the strength to destroy entire towns without breaking a sweat, and to resurrect fallen dragons. Hence why they say dragons are “returning”. Alduin is the evil of the world. With his return, comes his opposite but equal opponent, the dragonborn. You are the dragonborn. You must master your skills, investigate the plot, and find out how to destroy him before it’s too late. Most games simply B-line to the end. The campaign or main story can take maybe 10 hours tops, even on the hardest of modes. This game takes days (as I said) and has plenty of interesting twists and turns. Also to the TES fans, there are plenty of references to previous TES games, and areas of tamriel. The dragons look amazing. They fly around majestically, bombarding the insects below (the hero included), sometimes hovering to get a precise shot, etc. Then they land. Very few games have detailed dragons, and none that I can recall have them land with such precise detail. As a modder I know all too well how hard it is to have such a large creature go from the air animation to the land animation. The way they walk is very realistic, it looks like an amazing CGI movie that avatar would rival. The detail doesn’t stop their. They attack you with flames (ice, screams, etc depending on the dragon type) they also bite at you. The thing that I find amazing and has always been nearly impossible, is the CGI connection. What I mean is that if a dragon attacks an NPC on the ground, it won’t just bite at the npc and it falls over. It’ll put it’s entire mouth around the npc, clamp down, thrash it about, then release it sending him flying dozens of feet. They also use this on the hero when the hero is low health, as a “finishing blow.” It doesn’t stop their. When they are low health you can use a finishing blow on it. One blow includes knocking the dragons head to the side with your weapon, climbing up onto it’s head, riding it like a wild bull, then when it rears back, you let go sending you flying above it, and you come down with a downward chop deep into it’s skull. Their deaths are amazing as well. You collect the dragons soul, which is a way of leveling up your shouts, but the skeleton stays their. You can come back several hours and quests later, and it’s usually still their.
Now some info about the character. This game has a very customizable character menu. If you played TES oblivion, then you should have the general idea of what it’s like. On many points it has more detail on facial creation then oblivion, on other points it has considerably less. In the end I prefer the face creator on Skyrim much more then Oblivion. It’s a lot better looking, and it’s more user friendly. Rather then shaping the nose, it has like 50 presets for the nose, which you can then decide to shape how you want. I like this a lot more. As always there’s plenty of hair customization, eyes, lips, cheeks, jaw bones, eye brows, fore head, ears, horns (argonians), skin color, skin complexion, etc. Aside from the fact that theirs “more options” some new features include war paint, battle scars, and body type. For males you get 3 body types, slim, medium, and buff. Of coarse as a medieval hero I went with buff. As for the females I didn’t check if it’s a anorexic chick vs Helga, or if it’s maybe “bust” customization. This system applies to NPC’s as well. It’s not always the same exact body, just slightly different skin color, and a different head/face. There’s plenty of body variety. The kids look a lot better two. They actually look like children, rather then shrunken down adults. There’s no one fat or “fluffy”, kinda hurts on the realism, but the increase in variety is a nice new detail.
If you have played Fallout, then note this is from the creators of fallout. I think they say that since Fallout is a big GOTY, and much more recent the oblivion. Oblivion also got tons of awards, but it’s so old that if they said “from the creators of oblivions” all but true fans would be like “what’s oblivion?” So trust me this is EVERYTHING TES, and some good stuff from fall out. If you remember in fallout, there are finishing moves that would be in slow motion. If you got a headshot, it would be in slow motion. In this one there are finishing moves. They don’t always happen, but when they do they are cool. The variety of them is relatively low, I think I’ve seen maybe 8 different finishing moves, but they always make you feel like a bad*** killing machine. There is no “VATS” system like in fallout, which I’m thankful for. The VATS system was way overpowered, was basically letting the game fight the fights for you.
Leveling up is also similar to oblivion, yet considerably different. For one when you leveled in Oblivion, you would choose a few attributes to level up. Strength let you carry more gear at a time, stamina for health, etc. Now it’s just three stats which are your three HUD bars. One is for health, one is for fatigue (used to sprint and do power attacks) and one is for magic. Much simpler, but at the same time kinda disappointing. In Oblivion you could have your guy carry an additional 100 pounds of gear by level 10. In skyrim, you can’t select strength, it automatically goes up with your level, so my level 18 only has an additional 20 pounds to carry. Also magica, you can increase the amount you have, but not the speed it recharges at. This is also included with each level, not nearly as potent. Ultimately in oblivion by level 50 you’ve seen most of the game. I think they made the stats go up slower cause we will probably be level 50 by the time we see less then half of the game. Skyrims level 100 is Oblivions level 50. Perks are a new addition, and similar to fallout. They include base attribute increases. The one handed blade skill tree, you can end up getting 100% more damage when using one handed blades. Very useful. You can also get the perk that increases damage when dual wielding, makes power attacks take less fatigue, chance to decapitate, etc. For marksman you also start with increasing the base damage, but then you get into things like the ability to zoom in on your target. After that you get a perk that slows time by 40% when zooming, as if your adrenaline is pumping, allowing you to make much easier shots, although they are still a challenge. Smithing you learn how to make armor/weapons for yourself, how to improve them a little vs improving them a lot, how to improve enchanted items, etc.
