Just for Gamer

Reviewed by HelWag

I began playing The Elder Scroll series back when part II: Daggerfall was released late in the 1990s. I was impressed by the unique atmosphere and character that the game had, and by the shear magnitude of it.. Morrowind was, of course, a perfect follow up of Daggerfall keeping all of the great features and character of Daggerfall, and adding voice actors and better graphics. Oblivion was great, you could still roam freely and choose your own fate and the artwork and graphics were impressive and the characters of the game still had a kind of morbid sarcasm that made the Elder Scrolls great. Although, I was a little aggravated that they used the same actors' voices over and over for various characters throughout the game. Skyrim...it is just perfect. They have new voice actors, but they still have that same dark sarcasm that isn't too much, but leads to a good laugh at 2 in the morning. Unfortunately, many sequels of my favorite RPGs have systematically removed the features that made the games great, but not Skyrim. Apparently, many users have left feedback explaining all the great features, so I won't go into that. My point is that as a longtime fan of The Elder Scrolls and RPGs in general, other games have let me down, but not Skyrim. LONG LIVE THE BROTHERS OF SKYRIM!!!!

Reviewed by ix88

Overall, this is an excellent and well-made game that I would recommend to any fan of RPGs.

Instead of a long, drawn-out review, I will write a quick synopsis along with the PROs and Cons that I've encountered.

Skyrim's gameplay is not drastically different from its predecessor Oblivion. So if you enjoyed Oblivion I highly recommend that you get this game. Skyrim's gameplay is similar to such a point that I refer to it as Oblviion 2.0. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since I enjoyed Oblivion and it was also an excellent game.

PROs:

- Fun, engaging gameplay
- interesting story lines that do not restrict the player to a given script
- infinite questing
- new, more intuitive leveling system, a needed change from Oblivion
- free roam, expansive environment with breath-taking landscape views
- Mods. Want darker nights? Naked NPCS? Player designed quests? Skyrim is moddable.

CONs

- the menus are a bit clunky on a PC with keyboard/mouse use. It is mildly frustrating to peruse the menus with the mouse
- my mouse's left click controls my character's right hand and right click controls my character's left hand. This is irritating
- Hostile AI is "stupid" and easy to outsmart. Giant spider attacks me, I run to a doorway through which it cannot fit and then fire my spells at it - while it vainly tries to claw at me OR giant rats try to claw at me through a closed gate, so I just stand there and blast them with my spells. They don't even try to run or hide, but rather vainly try to strike me with melee through a sealed gate.
-sometimes the game crashes after looting a chest/barrel/variant. Happened to me once and other users have reported similarly

The cons however are not game-breaking and are just irritants. I give Skyrim 4 stars, because it is an awesome RPG, yet barely falls short of perfection.

Now I am off to play Skyrim, my favorite game of 2011.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Johansen

I was excited to start this game. I know people have an issue with Steam and I do as well, but I was a huge fan of Oblivion and was willing to ignore that issue for this game. The intro to this game immediately brought back memories of Oblivion, but my mind wasn't completely blown until I was able to free roam. The nature, the detail and the scenery are stunning, and the audio and music are even better. Everything that I loved about Oblivion and Morrowind is in this game, and everything that I hated about Oblivion is removed from this game (especially the way the level scaling worked).

I do have a gripe about the menus. It is very difficult to navigate with the mouse (this has been mentioned in many other reviews), however, it doesn't take away from the game-play. I also realize this is version 1.1, so I am willing to let it go in hopes that new patches will come out to perfect this, as well as some minor stability issues. This is Hands down "Game of the Year" material.