Just Honest Game Reviews and News: Skyrim

Highs

Amazing Open World

Stunning Graphics

Complex Combat

Lows

Glitches

Repetitive Side Quests

Unintelligent NPC's

To fully review this game with the detail that it deserves I first have to look back at its predecessor Oblivion, Oblivion was one of the games that truly showed off what the 360 was capable of, it was a game that took the Xbox experience up to the next level, yes there were many problems with the game but the game showed that a massive open world with thousands of NPC's was possible and could be done to create an excellent video game. This of course was in 2006, the Xbox has come on so much since then and so much more is possible, developers really are maxing out the capability of the Xbox to create wonderful games, so I like everyone else was asking myself what can we expect from Skyrim and how far has the series come on from Oblivion. As you can expect my level of excitement for this game was through the roof.

Upon starting your game you have a scene where you are imprisoned for an unexplained crime like in most Elder Scrolls games, this is where you can choose what class you want to be, their are a range of classes that offer different bonuses and styles and each have their own combat style, although it is important to note that you can sculpt your character to be how you want so the decision you make is not critically important, if you choose an High Elf like I did you are not restricted to just using magic. You escape from your imprisonment and are free to begin your journey into Skyrim.

Explore the world right from the off

As ever I like to start with a positive aspect although this isn't hard with a game as good as this, one of the things that impresses me personally about this game is that after you complete the prologue level at the beginning the game just says to you "go and have fun", nearly the entire game world is open to you from the start of the game, if you don't want to do the main quest then just don't, go visit a city or explore a cave it is entirely up to you, in this game you are free to make your own choices and decisions.

If you remember back to Oblivion the variety in the combat was their but it felt very clunky and odd, in Skyrim the combat has been improved tremendously, there are so many different ways you can approach an enemy, you can get on a platform above him and rain down arrows onto him like a scene from 300 or you can sneak up behind him like Jason Bourne and strike him quickly with a dagger, you could just simply walk right up to him and hit him with a combination of fire and ice, in fact you don't have to fight him at all you could just conjure up a zombie to fight for you. A massive theme of this game is freedom, you have nearly complete freedom, you could spend 10 hours on this game just walking around and exploring one small part of the map. I won't talk too much about dragon shouts as I don't want to spoil anything but these are another combat option.

A lot of time you spent in Skyrim will be spent in various different caves and dungeons, exploring and completing quests, in Oblivion there was one designer who designed all the caves and dungeons but for Skyrim their was 8, this means that the areas you explore will be massively different but more impressively they will be massively detailed, each area you go into will have different pieces of loot to find, different books to read and different enemies and mini bosses to fight, you will spend a lot of hours in dungeons, I've put 160 hours into the game and I've still got quests left, but you will not get bored there is always more to explore, this game gives you so much at the offset but still managers to surprise you and mix it up, even 100 hours into the game.

Skyrim Skill Tree

The way that you level up in Skyrim is one of the best level up systems I have seen in any game before, it is unbelievably versatile, you are never burdened to one way of playing, you can start the game using magic with light armour and then 80 hours in you can say to yourself I'm not enjoying this any more, and put on some heavy armour and equip a two handed weapon and you will start levelling those stats up, I've never played a game before that has a level up system as versatile and complex as this one. Within each skill there are perks that can be accessed through spending points you get when you level up, you can again spend these points how you desire, you can put some points into sneaking and get a perk that allows you to run silently, or you can put your points into destruction and then get a perk where casting a destruction spell costs half magicka.

"I've never played a game before that has a level up system as versatile and complex as this one"

Alternative

There is an elephant in the room when discussing this game though and that it the amount of glitches, I played this game on the 360 so I haven't experienced how bad the glitches where on the PS3 so I can't comment on them but it is well documented how broken the PS3 version of this game was, I don't know if its been patched now or not. Luckily I played through the game (160 hours worth) and never experience any game breaking glitches like I know many people have, game files corrupting seems to be the worst glitch that is happening to people, the only glitches I had where graphics popping and people sinking into the floor or floating into the air.

Skyrim is an amazing achievement, like Oblivion it is a showcase of what the Xbox can do and how far it has come since its launch, the visually stunning visuals, massive open world and brilliant soundtrack all add up to make an amazing experience.

9.2/10 Buy or Rent .... Buy