The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

There are very few games – in my 25 years of gaming experience – hooked me so much that I can’t go to sleep and if I do I can’t wait to wake up and jump in again to continue my adventures. Games like Eye of the Beholder, Baldur’s Gate, EverQuest, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines and now Skyrim. Sometimes when I am in Skyrim I can’t hold my emotions so I end up weeping while chanting the Nordic Theme of The Elder Scrolls “La lalalal ala lallala LALALA LA!!” wearing no pants with a gigantic boner erected and I also usually end up laughing hysterically and collapse. Regardless of what my Therapist might say towards this emotional out break; I am certain he would agree that Skyrim is the main cause of this kind of behavior.

I’m not a good writer and I can’t write reviews worth a rat’s ass but if you’re considering buying this game; Just buy it now. Not because you’re going to like it; who cares about YOU? I don’t give a fuck. It’s just because Bethesda deserves all the money they can get developing such a master piece and I need to help make this title a hit regardless of my credibility. Hey, at least I’m honest.

But jokes aside Skyrim provides a non-stop breath taking non-linear (to an extent) adventure experience. I’ve tried games like Dragon Age (1 and 2), The Witcher (1 and 2) and  Two Worlds (1 and 2!!) these games were compact, boring with a lot of restrictions and linearity. Nothing comes close to the openness and epicness of Skyrim.

The Good

As I am writing this review I am almost level 42 in the game and I already finished the Main Quest. I will try not to spoil the game for you but just so you’d know I still have A LOT OF THINGS TO DO in the game. This clearly states that this game is big enough for a Single Player Game. It is too big for my own personal experience in terms of Single Player Game Scale.

I decided by level 10 that I am going to stick to Two Handed Weapons + Heavy Armor with little healing support. I realized that this was the character I wanted to play and surprisingly it worked! This is the first time in a game I am given complete freedom to choose from sets of ability that doesn’t end up gimping my character. And just so that you know while I was ENJOYING every second of my current character I am also planning to roll a new one once I finish everything in the game with this one. Maybe a Battle Mage on Expert Level (Shield + Destruction/Conjuration spells + One Handed Weapons) or maybe an elusive Khajiit Thieve. This just tells you how fun the game is.

The Graphics by far stands out in this game. It delivers the feeling of being in a harsh mountainous environment. Add the sound effects, music, high quality voiceovers and simple yet involving game play and you get one hell of a game!

The “main story” is the best of all the TES games I’ve played and it blends in beautiful in the adventure a lot more than my experience with Oblivion. I have to admit when I first heard about the dragonborn and “shouts” business I wasn’t excited at all but now that I got the game I have to say it adds a lot to the experience.

 The shouts in Skyrim enhance the game experience a lot. Even out of combat they are sometimes useful. What’s more interesting is that sometimes the NPCs you might face (even undead ones!) are also dragonborn and can shout.

The Bad

Crashes, Crashes and Crashes. This game crashes so many times on the PC it’s unbelievable. A big portion of these crashes turned out to be from Steam Community Feature; once that turned off I stopped crashing every 15 minutes.  I still get an average of 1 CTD every 2 hours though.

Besides stability I can’t really think of anything bad about Skyrim except maybe for the absence of Stats. It is a little bland for me and I do miss having stats a little. Now you end up with Magicka, Health and Stamina (which also increases the weight you can carry). I don’t understand the wisdom behind this. But luckily the Perk system balance this lack of customization out. I wish they made the perk interface more basic like WoW’s Talent Trees than a 3D FFXIII style which is inconvenient and unnecessary.

Speaking of UI… heh.. Okay, let me bash this game here for a change. I AM SICK AND TIRED OF CATERING TO THE STUPIDIST COMMON DENOMENATOR. Why do we have to suffer – PC gamers – just for the sake of these retarded console limitations????? The game UI is designed for Console which is WHY the interface is……. unintelligent? It’s such a shame that I can’t use my keyboard number keys (1, 2, 3…etc), for instance, for fast pre-set swaps of spells/weapons combos. This thing made me die a little inside. I feel violated and invaded by the console monster… a 20 year old PC game of long history… catering to Game Controllers…. BLASPHEMY!!

Note: I just found out that if you mouse over an item in your favorite list and hit a number key, it will bind that number as a hotkey. HALLELUJA!

Note 2: Now that I am level 42 the game seems to be too easy that I had to slide the difficulty bar to Master (most difficult) and still is easy. That’s one problem I hope they fix with an expansion or a DLC.

The Beautiful

Nothing is ugly in this game and the most beautiful thing about it is the PROOF that LESS means MORE in terms of combat mechanics. In Skyrim you’re limited to Right + Left mouse buttons and Z for your shouts (or abilities), as simple as that. Yet, the combat is more involving, intense and millions of times fun than your average MMORPG post-2004 combat. I can’t explain why this is true but it is.

Another beautiful thing was when I met my first random dragon (which was too late for me; at level 18). Theme music kicked in out of nowhere… the Dragon shrieking and screaming flying around. It was midnight and we were both alone (that’s romantic ). You and I.. you and I my friend.. bring it on! An exciting 5 minutes of hit and run, dodge, shooting arrows, heal spells, Melee… It was intense. The Dragon AI is weird because it flys over trying to burn you from distance with their fire breath (or ice) but they do land sometimes. The fight was epic; this alone is worth the $60.

There is a lot of “creative actions” you can do in Skyrim. That’s why I can’t wait to replay it and try to progress in an unorthodox way. For instance you can collect corpses in one spot and raise them to invade a town all on your own with your army of the undead. Another incident with my Imperial Warrior is that I was asked to pick a lock and I really had to because I wanted to finish a quest.. But the stupid NPC didn’t know I was not born to do such ilusive errands. Me with my heavy armor and clumsy, yet powerful, hands I failed and got caught by the guards. But my pride didn’t allow me to yeild so I ended up massacring the whole town. Hey…. it was NOT intended to end like this. I had NO CHOICE.

Conclusion: First, I still suck at writing reviews. Secondly, if you own a PC, Xbox or a PS3 buy this game now. Buy it NOW! And if you don’t own any of these platforms buy the game anyway.

P.S: Am I the only one who grins whenever the Black Smith lady in Whiterun say “I help my father in more ways than people realise”????