The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Moby ID: 53545
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Two hundred years after the events described in Oblivion, the continent of Tamriel is in turmoil. The Emperor's throne remained without heir; the Blades, Empire's elite guards, have been disassembled; elven nations began capturing territory from the Empire. The assassination of the King of Skyrim, Tamriel's Northern-most province and home of the Nord race, led to a civil war between those who wish independence for Skyrim and those who wanted it to remain under the Empire's control.

A prisoner is brought to a small town, awaiting execution for alleged involvement with the Stormcloaks, a group that was founded by the king's assassin Ulfric Stormcloak. Just before the executioner's axe lands on the prisoner's neck, a dragon attacks the city, forcing most people to flee. The unexpected freedom leads the ex-prisoner into the snowy Skyrim, where the rumors of the dragon begin to circulate.

Like its predecessors in the Elder Scrolls series, Skyrim is an open-ended role-playing game with action-based combat. The player may explore the vast environments of Skyrim from either first- (default) or third-person perspective, being unrestricted in his or her travels and free to undertake any side quests in any order, or follow the main quest. It is possible to fast-travel to previously visited locations directly from the world map. The player can also opt to buy (or steal) and ride a horse.

There are ten races to choose from: Altmer (High Elves), Argonian (reptile people), Bosmer (Wood Elves), Breton, Dunmer (Dark Elves), Imperial, Khajiit (cat people), Nord, Orc, and Redguard. Each race has their own perks and limitations, such as Nord being resistant to cold, Khajiit being weak with magic, etc. Unlike the previous games in the series, the player cannot choose a class for the main character; rather, the latter evolves into any class-like combination gradually, according to the play style. When the protagonist reaches a new level, the player may increase his or her Health, Magicka, or Stamina and a new perk may be added to one of the skills. There are eighteen skills altogether, and each skill has several levels and perks which may be obtained. Most perks are only accessible after a certain level has been reached in said perk. For instance, in order to reach higher perks with Destruction, destructive spells must be leveled up. Skill levels can increase either through extensive use, skill books, or even paying for training from certain non-playable characters.

The game contains some features that were introduced in Fallout 3. Enemy level-scaling is done in a similar way, as opposed to the more intrusive system of Oblivion. The player may hire other fighters to follow the hero around and lend a helping hand in combat. Also, the lockpicking system of the previous installment has been replaced by the lockpicking methods of the recent Fallout games. Conversations with NPCs now occur in real time rather than "freezing" time as in Oblivion.

Players can craft, cook, or build any number of items depending on ingredients and skill levels. Alchemy allows players to make potions, Enchanting allows players to imbue armor and items with magical abilities (such as increasing the effectiveness of magic resistance), and Smithing allows players to either craft or improve weapons and armor. Smelting, tanning and cooking are also a part of this mix as well: Smelting is the skill of turning raw mined mineral ores into usable ingots for smithing; Tanning is the process of drying animal hides to make leather strips, useful in creating or improving armor and weapons; Cooking allows players to turn otherwise minimally useful food ingredients into much more beneficial meals.

Melee attacks can be performed using either two or one-handed weapons. Blocking reduces damage and allows for the opportunity to bash an opponent with a shield. Archery is also available for some ranged attacks, as is quite a bit of magicka. Each race also has a distinct magic-like power ability; only one power may be equipped at a time. For instance, a Nord power is to frighten enemies away for a while. New to the series is the Shout ability, which is a special power based on Dragon language. These require a special set of circumstances to unlock: first, the ancient words must be learned from Word Walls hidden all over Skyrim; secondly, they can only be activated by acquiring a dragon soul (from slaying a dragon).

Crimes may be committed by stealing, pickpocketing, murder or attacking innocent people, or even by trespassing. Generally this puts a bounty on the head of the player character, unless said character is quick enough to eliminate all witnesses. Fines and jail time, or a beat-down from authorities, are likely to ensue if the hero commits too many crimes or merely ends up getting caught. The protagonist can serve out his or her sentence on the jail bed, or pick the lock and escape; however, going to jail is likely to cause current skill progress to be lost.

As before, there are several groups, guilds, and the like that the player may encounter and join, each with their own advantages or disadvantages, each with their own views on the current events of the world, and each with their own quests. The abilities to become a werewolf or vampire are also present and have been somewhat streamlined: for instance, sunlight is not instantly deadly to vampires, and lycanthropy can be spread around.

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Credits (Windows version)

810 People (782 developers, 28 thanks) · View all

Game Design
  • Bethesda Game Studio
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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 91% (based on 73 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 188 ratings with 8 reviews)

Mediocrity all over

The Good
- Visually quite stunning. - A lot of customization. - Interface is pretty easy to understand. - Strong writing.

The Bad
- Poor fighting mechanics. - Useless shouts. - Lackluster storyline. - Boring scenery and world design. - Doesn't feel epic in the slightest. - Too easy. - Too many inexcusable glitches.

The Bottom Line
I already reviewed this game, but I wasn't quite satisfied with the first version of it. Not only was it very rushed, but it also lacked some of the details I wanted to include and it was more positive than intended, so I figured I would give it another shot.

As the game starts we are treated on a little cart trip through Skyrim along with some other prisoners (we are going to make a running gag out of this, aren't we Bethesda? -_-). Turns out we were trying to cross the border and for some reason that is illegal and punished with a trip to Dead Row and no trial. As far as opening scenes go it works pretty well as it does a pretty good job at getting me in the mood to play it and it at least contains more action than that boring prison-scene at the start of Oblivion. So naturally you escape from the man with the axe and soon after you end up in the great outdoors, beautiful Skyrim.

After this intro I went straight for the main quest which involves an evil dragon who wants to cause an apocalypse and reset the world. I wasn't expecting to be dumped straight into a great storyline, but after like five hours of playing the "peak" of the whole storyline had already occurred. The first time I had to fight a dragon was amazing, it seemed so big and so challenging to slay a beast of this size, but this was two hours in and the rest of the story was rather boring. Every quest you got was either telling you to go somewhere and talk to somebody or to go into a copy & pasted cave and fetch something.

It was around this time I figured a little break would do me some good and I dived into one of the side-stories, namely the whole rebellion that is going on in Skyrim. It is the Empire versus the Nords and I wanted to get in on the fun, so I headed straight for the Nord city of Winterhelm (or was it Winterhold?), It was around this time that I started to notice that the world design is pretty boring, sure it is amazing at first when you first emerge from a cave and see an endless field of adventure before you, but there is just very little to do in this world and the moment you see your first mountain you have pretty much seen it all. Broken down into percentages Skyrim is: 5% city, 2% mountain and 100% snow. No matter where you look, you'll see f*cking snow.

Anyway I got to the city and for the first time since I started playing I was send to an area with different scenery. As exciting as it may sound, I am sad to inform you that the answer to your question is "ice" and well... more snow. Another thing I started to notice was that as I started looting more valuable treasure and I could carry more and more items the shops weren't doing a very good job at keeping up with my desire to sell them stuff. In Oblivion all shopkeepers had a maximum amount of money they could give you for each item, but here they only have a limited amount of cash to spend per day. This means that selling one treasure will likely bankrupt them instantly and by the time you find another vendor you'll already have found more treasure, creating a loop that you simply can't escape.

The whole rebellion sidestory was okay, but it heavily relied on assaulting cities and settlements. Again, just like with the dragon, this is amazing the first time, but after you do it five times in the same hour it starts to grow rather dull and predictable. This is a major problem in Skyrim, everything that could be an amazing setpiece is leeched of all impact because you will start doing it at level 3 and continue to do it for as long as you play with no tweaking in difficulty. Every dragon or city you take down feels like something that should have been the finally of the game, which instead of putting you in a constant state of amazement, makes you immune to its attempts to impress you by constantly doing the same elaborate tricks. It could have been paced better is what I am trying to say.

A big argument I keep hearing however is that the combat and leveling are the best they have ever been in the series, something that around this time started to strike me as rather odd. Leveling in Skyrim isn't in any way different from leveling in Oblivion and neither is training your skills. Sure, you no longer select primary and secondary skills, but that only allows you to level yourself in a corner if you only train skills like Alchemy and Smithing. "But now you can play however you want and that is what your character will get good at" doesn't make any kind of sense because that is always the case in every RPG. The fighting is for the most part okay and feels like it has remained unchanged, but this is the first time we actually get to fight big battles with both friendly and enemy NPC's. Sometimes you'd get lucky and some random guards would help you beat down a bandit in Oblivion, but in Skyrim there are a lot of organized attacks and they aren't as fun as you'd think. Been an archer and sneak combination I was pretty much forced into fighting with a friendly army during the rebel quests and this turned the combat into an uncontrollable mess where dozens of soldiers danced around each other and friends were hard to differentiate from foes.

After rounding up the rebel business I returned to the main quest just in time to finally see the game's most hyped, new feature. Using the Right Button you can unleash a shout that will have a magical effect on enemies and your surroundings. Wait what? Magical effect? You mean like a spell? Yes, I am dead serious, the shouts are a 1 on 1 copy of the magical spells every fantasy game has used since god knows long. You have shouts for shooting fire, ice, wind, becoming invisible and stopping time just to name a few, but is this the great feature everybody was hyped for? In the time it takes my character to shout some random gibberish I could have already opened the menu and equipped a magic spell that does the exact same thing.

I continued working my way through a few more dull caves and pretty good character dialog until I finally made it to the last boss, or so I though. Though technically a Round 1 of 2 the first fight with the big, bad dragon was an absolute nightmare. Not because it was hard, but because it was more glitched than Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Big Rigs combined. After dying once because I got a little too excited and forgot to watch my health, the boss just went into insanity mode. I couldn't inflict any damage on him with anything I had, not even my backup could do anything to harm the dragon who was casually spewing fire on us while we were putting enough holes in him to make a bunker fall apart. Eventually I solved the glitch and in my very next try he managed to get stuck in the scenery. Fantastic. What makes this so weird for me is that I can't seem to figure out how you can possibly cock up so badly that a boss becomes completely invulnerable? How did you get that programmed into the game? And while we are on the subject: Why didn't this get taken out in the two patches we have seen since the release of the game?

Anyway, I finished up the main storyline which I won't spoil for you, but after that I kinda stopped playing. While I accumulated a total of 500+ hours played in Oblivion, I don't even think I reached the 30+ hours that I got on Kingdom Hearts and Skyward Sword with this game. I tried getting into the Thieves guild questline, but yeah... lots of dark caves.

My main problem with the game is that everything it contains could potentially be very amazing, but because you see everything in the first five hours of playtime and then just continue to wallow in it, it takes away from how epic it could have been. Consider it has also been a while since Oblivion came out, I kind of wonder what all the time went into because it certainly wasn't the storyline or the bug fixing.

While Skyrim has received a lot of praise from the press, I don't think it deserves such awards as the Game of the Year from the Escapist, simply because personally trying to enjoy this game felt a lot like clinging to the nostalgia I felt for Oblivion. I am not sure if this is the case for everybody, but the way I see professional websites handing out 10/10's makes me feel like these people weren't enjoying Skyrim as much as they forced themselves too and that is a pretty depressing thought.

If you are a die-hard fan of Oblivion than you may be able to see past the many problems of Skyrim, but everybody else will just see it for the mess it actually is. It is a big realm filled with a lot of copies of the same three areas and that occasionally pisses itself and dies. All-around mediocrity.

Xbox 360 · by Asinine (957) · 2012

Bethesda marches forward

The Good
My feelings for Elder Scrolls games changed from complete indifference to annoyance and finally admiration. Over the course of my game-playing career I've come to appreciate and enjoy all of its installments, from Arena to Oblivion. I eagerly anticipated Skyrim and was eventually rewarded with a game that, while not exactly re-inventing the formula, polishes and embellishes it to the utmost degree.

Skyrim has everything we love in Bethesda's RPGs - above all, of course, a huge, engrossing open world full of things to try out. I won't go into detail here; anyone familiar with the company's previous works will instantly recall the addictiveness of nearly unlimited exploration and the joy of methodically developing a character in a free-form way. Skyrim keeps everything intact: it is one gigantic, delicious chunk of gaming to entertain us for hours upon hours.

In this review I'll concentrate of what Skyrim does better than its predecessors. In two words, that would be "almost everything". Indeed, Skyrim is a clear example of developers actually listening to fans and working to improve and rectify whatever was wrong in their previous games. So much of the criticism leveled against Morrowind and Oblivion has been addressed that many of these predecessors' most aggravating issues disappeared almost fully.

Elder Scrolls games were gradually getting better at concealing the randomness of their enormous worlds, the artificial way they were constructed, the lack of personality in places and people. Skyrim feels much more "seamless", more homogeneous than Bethesda's previous games. Everything is designed with greater care, and it really shows. The NPCs are by far more life-like, more natural; locations ooze poetic atmosphere; the detail is overwhelming. It is hard to define this volatile sensation, but Skyrim does away with unpleasant stiffness that plagued all its predecessors. Its world may be covered by snow and ice, but it is much warmer.

Earlier games in the series had problems with dungeon design. Skyrim offers atmospheric, interesting dungeons which are a pleasure to explore. Long and reasonably complex (without the excesses of Daggerfall), they are rewarding and fairly unique in style. Many of them have puzzles and other clear distinguishing features, and some are very impressive in design and scope. Comparing them to the monotonous copy-pasted caves of Dragon Age II, we see that Bethesda beats the competitors at their own game.

The radiant AI of the NPCs works better than in Oblivion, and everyone seem to behave more naturally in general. A lot of effort has been put into personalizing NPC lines and updating them as the game evolves. One time I chatted with a nameless guard in a quiet town and he first commented upon recent political changes and then expressed his solidarity with my decision to use one-handed weapons. In short, the conversation felt more like a verbal exchange between two normal people than a few random lines rigidly stuck into a video game to fill space. This is just an example of how the developers of Skyrim paid attention to detail.

Combat system is, in essence, the same as in the previous game, but battles are more visceral and exciting. Combat just feels right, and is enjoyable throughout. One of the best things Skyrim does is fix the terrible level-scaling system of Oblivion. Some of the enemies still scale with you, but overall the effect is by far less noticeable. There is a sense of danger when an underleveled character encounters a stronger foe, and a sense of accomplishment when preparation and tactics lead to victory. The new skill trees are interesting and do not in the least interfere with the old system. On the contrary, they add another layer of depth and complement skill development very nicely. Leveling up is faster, clearer, more logical and less confusing than in any previous Elder Scrolls game. Archery and magic have clear advantages even when fighting regular enemies, and there is a good incentive to explore different development venues. Everything is better balanced and challenging in a good way.

The game's story is decidedly better than in Oblivion and has quite a few memorable moments. The main quests are interesting and take you to spectacular locations. Some of the scenes are genuinely thrilling; the first battle against the dragon, for example, masterfully conveys the feelings of awe and fear. Dragon battles in general are fascinating, and belong to the most exciting RPG confrontations in recent memory. Besides dragons, there is plenty of interesting wildlife; all kinds of creatures, from deer to mammoths, roam the countryside, and you'll fight ferocious bears and fearsome sabre cats. The game world breathes life; it has its own culture and traditions that are interesting to learn. Fortunately, they have removed the instant fast-travel from the previous game: in order to discover a new location, you actually have to manually venture there, enjoying the beautiful, yet often perilous journey.

The Bad
All that said, I'd like to stress that Skyrim still is, for all purposes, a typical Bethesda game and has inherited some of the series' cardinal weaknesses. Though I love both games, Fallout: New Vegas was, in my opinion, a more impressive merging of open-ended RPG with memorable characters and setting. Writing in Skyrim (with the exception of Daggefall-age books) is more or less on par with Fallout 3; characters are a bit more interesting. But overall, there is still a certain lack of liveliness in character presentation and stale, formulaic conversations that have become associated with Bethesda's RPGs. There can be no comparison between the narrative quality of Skyrim and the brilliance of the writing in BioWare's and Obsidian's games. Skyrim is certainly an evolution, but not a revolution.

There are companions in Skyrim, but they are painfully silent. My faithful follower Lydia made nearly no comments and reacted indifferently to whatever happened around her. I hope that next time Bethesda will put more thought into dialogue with companions. It is one of the last barriers that they have to jump over in order to triumph over their colleagues in RPG-making.

The graphics of Skyrim worked for me, but didn't quite evoke the same sense of wonder as Morrowind and Oblivion had done in their time. Character graphics are quite unremarkable. Towns, dungeons and outdoor locations are clearly crafted with heart, but the occasional coarse texture may spoil the enjoyment. The homogeneous world is detailed, but the bleak northern landscape can get repetitive and rather depressing.

I only have minor complaints about the gameplay. I didn't like the lockpicking system and would prefer the mini-game from Oblivion instead. I missed the acrobatics skill; pity they don't let us perform crazy leaps by practicing jumping any more. And the interface is, as you might have heard, weird and uncomfortable. Eventually I got used to it, and I must say that large graphical items are a step forwards compared to the boring icons from the previous game; but irrational key bindings nearly drove me mad until I installed a patch.

The Bottom Line
While New Vegas still holds the crown of modern RPG development in my eyes, Skyrim comes very close. Like earlier Bethesda products, it lacks the wit and the charm of BioWare's and Obsidian's works; but it steadily improves upon its predecessors and offers the most complete and convincingly crafted classic Bethesda experience so far.

Windows · by Unicorn Lynx (181780) · 2012

A Journey Worth Taking

The Good
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (commonly shortened to Skyrim) has an extremely high replay value thanks to its non-linear approach to story telling and pacing. Doing away with traditional cut scenes and required missions, Skyrim lets players keep control during most of the game.

Starting off as a detainee (who is fully customizable including name, race, and physical attributes) who was caught crossing the boarder into Skyrim, the player is carted off to a nearby city (along with several rebels) to be executed by soldiers in the imperial legion, when a Dragon appears right as the player is about to be beheaded and giving you the chance to escape. After escaping, players have free reign to do whatever they want in Skyrim, providing hours of gameplay with numerous quests to go on, tons of towns to explore, countless villagers and treasures to find, and of course loads of dungeons to raid. And thanks to the leveling system, players can upgrade their characters anyway they want.

Players can level up their character using three different ways: either by performing the action that they want to level up (example, killing enemies with a one handed sword to level up the One-Handed attribute), learning a desired skill from a townsperson (for a fee of course), or by reading any of the skill books found through out the game. Upon improving enough skills, players will be able to level up in order to apply skill upgrades. When leveling up, players can increase one base attribute (health, stamina [for carrying things and stronger attacks], and magic) and apply a skill increase (you receive one per level-up, which can be saved and used later). Using a map based star constellations, players can increase any one of their skills for better perks (casting spells for less magic points, stronger sword attacks, etc.). This gives players a chance to level up based on their own unique ways of play style, making the game feel very personalized.

The Bad
Skyrim can sometimes suffer from some very troublesome bugs. Aside from occasionally glitching through a part of a mountain or getting stuck in a narrow space (which enemies can exploit and kill you for), on many occasions the game will buffer in between movements (this is especially bothersome in the middle of a fight) and on some occasions the game will freeze, requiring players to turn off the console and start all over again from their last save.

Skyrim's other problem is that the limits of the open world exploration can be found pretty quickly, given how certain characters cannot be killed at all. While a relatively minor issue (plenty of games in the past did not allow players to kill certain types of enemies), this can help bring down the open world feel of game since players have to go along with certain boundaries the game has already set. And while the killing of minors is an ethical debate in video games (plenty of virtual children are included in Skyrim), when a game takes advantage of not letting you kill children by giving them powers to call guards on you as well as place bounties on your head, it can feel like the game is sometimes cheating.

And while Skyrim deserves credit for its innovative storytelling, sometimes the experience feels hollow. After completing the main quest and defeating the final boss, the game just goes into a purgatory like state where all you can do is finish up the other minor quests you have to complete (while this is common with quest based games, it still doesn't change the fact that it doesn't feel like you have completed the story). And even though the dragon encounters are exciting at first, after the first few fights they start to become annoyances since you never know when the will pop up and are never prepared to deal with them.

The Bottom Line
Skyrim is a finely tuned RPG with an enormous world to explore, countless enemies to defeat, and tons of dungeons to explore, treasures to find, and engaging quests and storylines to complete. Add in a solid leveling system, good combat controls, an awe-inspiring soundtrack, and a Viking inspired atmosphere, and players will find themselves in an immersive and addictive game world.

And while Skyrim does show some limitations and some game crashing bugs (which can be fixed by getting a patch), overall it is an excellent game that for many players will be worth playing for years.

Xbox 360 · by Lawnmower Man (137) · 2012

[ View all 8 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
New animations Indra was here (20756) Feb 11, 2013
Some thoughts about Skyrim The Fabulous King (1332) Jan 23, 2012
Low sound? Unicorn Lynx (181780) Dec 20, 2011

Trivia

Awards

  • 4Players
    • 2011 – Best Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
  • GameSpy
    • 2011 - Game of the Year
    • 2011 – RPG of the Year
  • GameStar/GamePro (Germany)
    • 2011 - PC Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
    • 2011 - Console Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
    • 2011 - PC RPG of the Year (Readers' Vote)
    • 2011 - Console RPG of the Year (Readers' Vote)
    • 2013 – Community Favourite of the Year (Readers' Vote)* PC Games (Germany)
    • Issue 01/2012 - Best Game in 2011 (Editors' Choice, together with Batman: Arkham City and Portal 2)
    • Issue 01/2012 - #2 Best RPG in 2011 (Readers' Choice)
    • Issue 01/2012 - #2 Best Game in 2011 (Readers' Choice)
    • Issue 01/2012 - #3 Surprise in 2011 (Readers' Choice)
    • Issue 01/2012 - #2 Best Graphics in 2011 (Readers' Choice)
    • Issue 01/2012 - #2 Best Sound in 2011 (Readers' Choice)
    • Issue 01/2012 - #2 Best Sound in 2011 (Readers' Choice)
  • Steam Awards
    • 2016 β€” The 'Test of Time' Award β€” Won
  • Xbox 360 Achievements
    • 2011 - Game of the Year
    • 2011 - Best Original Score

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Game added by ResidentHazard.

Additional contributors: Jeanne, Havoc Crow, Yearman, Patrick Bregger, Kennyannydenny.

Game added November 16, 2011. Last modified March 14, 2024.