The Elder Scrolls series is one of the most successful series in all of gaming. Ever since Todd Howard and Bethesda created the first game, Arena, back in 1994, the series has been going strong. No other game blends a first person RPG experience and an epic open world setting like the Elder Scrolls series does.
The Elder scrolls series started with the game Arena which introduced gamers to an open world where they had freedom to explore anything. Daggerfall, the next game, introduced an expansive storyline to the series. Morrowind, released 6 years after Daggerfall, rebooted the series in a huge way, it introduced a new world with improved graphics and gameplay. Oblivion, the fourth Elder Scrolls game released in 2006, was an epic game with voice acting from Patrick Stewart and a huge expensive storyline. Oblivion sold over 3 million copies, and was received well by critics.
So there are plenty of high expectations set on Bethesda studios and Skyrim. Skyrim became a huge financial success selling 7 million games in November, but now that all the hype and smoke has cleared, is Skyrim truly a great game? This is an unbiased look at Skyrim.
The setting of Skyrim is very diverse and beautiful. Skyrim features an increased draw distance from all the previous games, which enables the player to look at objects that are faraway. All the wide open mountain views were hand drawn by artists, and if there's one way to describe Skyrim, it is quite simply: Art. Everything you see on the horizon, whether it be mountains or valleys, can all be traveled to.
Skyrim has 16 cubic miles of land to explore. Every single one of those miles is packed with an incredible amount of detail. As you travel, just looking at the ground reveals beautifully drawn leaves and grass. The forests, giant towers, and mountains all look photo-realistic in Skyrim. Apart from all the wilderness type areas, Skyrim also includes many towns. These range from small towns to sleepy villages all the way up to huge, bustling cities.
Each building looks very authentic, and the exteriors show remarkable detail. But the interior is the real deal. Pubs are full of drinks, tables, singing people, and a warm fire to drink by. Castles are packed with pictures of past royalty, jewels, and various other items. Cities are extremely diverse with some being situated on a river, while others are abundant with castles, and others are deep in the mountains.
While the cities, wilderness, and scenery are breathtaking, the character models are on a different level entirely. Skyrim has 10 main (playable) races of people: High Elves, Argonians, Wood Elves, Bretons, Dark Elves, Redguards, Orc, Khajiit, Imperials, and Nords. Each race has an extremely distinct look.
Not only do they have a distinct look, but they each have facial characteristics that reflect their nature. For example, a Nordic warrior has a weathered, wrinkled look presumably from years of battle. In addition, each character has various facial expressions that range from happiness to disgust and anger. These traits really make Skyrim an interactive experience.
The characters look good, but the enemies look even better. Enemies in Skyrim look extremely fierce and intimidating. There are over 94 types of enemies in the game. Moreover, you can attack virtually anyone you please in the game.
The music in Skyrim was composed by Jeremy Soule, the composer of Oblivion and Morrowind. The music in Skyrim is truly amazing and does a great job of setting the stage for such an epic game. There is 4 hours of music throughout the game, and on the soundtrack around 53 tracks. The music changes from haunting, beautiful themes when you're high up in the mountain peaks to joyful, fun ballads in Taverns, to epic, intense music during battle sequences. Overall, the music in Skyrim is superb.
A major underrated aspect of modern gaming are the sound effects. A great game can be hampered down and sometimes ruined by lackluster sound effects and vice versa. Skyrim is not one of these games, the sound effects are second to none in Skyrim. Everything from the clash of swords, to the whizzing of arrows passing you by, to the roast of a fine not only look real, but sound real as well. Skyrim's sound effects are authentic and fantastic.
The voice acting in Skyrim is solid, and there are 70 voice actors in the game. The main actors in the cast are Christopher Plummer, Joan Allen, and Michael Hogan. There are many different accents and voices in Skyrim. Overall, the game's voice acting can be a bit repetitive, and it felt like it was the same 3 voices over and over. The game didn't have as strong voice acting as it's predecessor, Oblivion. Maybe this was because of a lack of Patrick Stewart, but Skyrim still has solid voice acting.
The controls in Skyrim are both easy and hard to learn. They're easy in the sense that if you have played any FPS game, the controls are second nature. If you are new to PS3 FPS games, they can tricky to get used to.
In Skyrim, you move with the left analog stick, and the right analog stick is used to look around. If you press the left analog stick, it enables you to sneak. Pressing the right analog stick sets you in third person. The X button is the activate button, circle is used to open the inventory, square pulls out your weapon, and triangle is used to jump. Pressing L1 or R1 allows you to attack with your right or left weapon. L2 allows you to sprint, while R2 is used to shout.
Depending on what weapon you have equipped or spell you are casting, the controls can vary a bit. Skyrim could have made shield blocking faster, it feels slow at times, other than that, the controls are fluid to get used to.
As mentioned before Skyrim has 10 playable races. When you start the game, you can select any of them. Each race has it's pros and cons, but Skyrim is designed in a way that you can choose any race and still achieve whatever class you want to be an expert in. When you start the game, it throws you into the story by having a dragon attack right away on the town of Helgen.
The game drops you into the story in an exciting way right away. The beginning intro to the game is a good way to showcase the game and teach the player controls. After you complete the opening sequence of the game, many story lines open up. You can choose to follow the main quest line, conversely you can get involved in Skyrim's civil war, or go and set on your own adventure and level as you go. Leveling in Skyrim is unique from the other Elder Scrolls games in that the skills you use the most level progressively as you go. To gain access to new skills and abilities, you have to select perks. Perks are essentially a new skill you can learn.
In Skyrim there are 18 skills you can train and level up. They are divided into 3 families: Combat, Magic, and Stealth. The combat skills are Archery, Block, Heavy Armor, One-Handed, Smithing, and Two-Handed. The magic skills are Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, Enchanting, Illusion, and Restoration. The stealth skills include Alchemy, Light Armor, Lockpicking, Pickpocket, Sneak, and Speech. You can practice any of these skills and level as you go. Skyrim has a level cap of 81, and you can become proficient at everything by that time.
The game also includes a new feature called "Shouts". Without spoiling anything, shouts are words from the dragon language and using them has different effects. Some shouts slow time, while others are used to push objects faraway. Shouts are very unique and an awesome addition in Skyrim. Another new feature in Skyrim is dual wielding. The game allows you to equipped a weapon in both hands or have a spell cast and control them independently with the R1/L1 triggers. There are hundreds of weapons in Skyrim that range from one-handed to two-handed to range weapons. All of these are incredibly detailed and fun to use.
The major selling point of Skyrim was the addition of Dragons, and they don't disappoint. The dragons in the game are unscripted and can appear at anytime. This can be either extremely fun or annoying. For the most part, it's a lot of fun. They can appear in towns and than have you and other villagers fight them off. The dragons look incredibly fierce, and are very powerful. The only bad part is their AI. The AI of dragons is pretty bad, and after awhile they become very easy to kill. All in all, dragons are a great addition to the game.
The game is based all around freedom. Freedom to level the skills you want to level, or explore a cave you passed, or follow the story. You can even buy a house and get married. There's just so much to do, and even quick gamers will pour hundreds of hours into this game. There's over 200 quests in the game, and Bethesda announced they are releasing new Downloadable content soon. However, not everything in Skyrim is great.
Skyrim has some flaws. In fact, it has many flaws. The biggest problem is there are a large amount of bugs and glitches in the game. Skyrim is a HUGE game, and it's obviously going to have some bugs, but there are so many that it makes people question whether Bethesda just rushed the release. It seems the more you play the game, the slower it gets. It's important to know that manually saving is almost a requirement, because if you auto-save and run into a glitch which is more than likely bound to happen, it can ruin the whole game. To Bethesda's credit they have made the game more playable with each subsequent patch, but compared to how smooth the PC game runs and even the 360 version, the PS3 version seems like it's an afterthought to them. The game could've definitely been more bug free. Apart from the bugs, the game felt bland at times.
Even though there's 194 enemies, it didn't feel as intense as it should have been a few hours in. The formula becomes repetitive: You enter a dungeon/cave/hall/mountain, fight some skeletons, get the item you went there for, and then leave. Rinse and repeat. If Bethesda added unscripted events to the mix, such as walls caving in or different kinds of enemies inside the dungeons it would've been more exciting, but for the most part it's just the same. Honestly, the loading times aren't that bad, but the more you play the game, the longer they become. This can be kind of annoying, if you're having to wait 3-4 minutes to enter a house. Missions do vary, but some can become repetitive (i.e. the dark brotherhood quests), they follow the same formula, travel somewhere, kill someone, come back, etc.
Skyrim is graphically and musically a masterpiece. The game has some of the most beautiful scenery of any game. It is a massive world that allows you to do whatever you want. But, the gameplay in the game brings down the overall experience. Even the gameplay is solid, but the bugs are absolutely horrible. The PlayStation 3 version is 50/50, you don't know what your going to get. Either it works fine, and you never run into a glitch or you run into bugs that can ruin the entire experience. In spite of this, I would recommend buying Skyrim if you don't have it for the PC or 360. The PS3 version of Skyrim is the worst of the three, but it still is a game that deserves to be in every gamers collection. I give Skyrim a 8/10.
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