The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Review

Anybody who knows anything about the gaming world has, at some point (probably more) in the last few months, had Skyrim on their mind. Be it waiting excitedly for the next little snippet of content in a trailer, to freezing your ass off outside your local game store, to shutting yourself in your cave/room for 48 hours straight (not that I would know), you thought about Skyrim at some point. If you haven’t, you have two options:

1. Stop whatever you’re doing and acquire it. Somehow. I don’t care about details, you must get this game.
2. GTFO right now

Alright, now that that’s over with, I’m going to assume that you’ve fallen into the trap and have spent at least a week playing Skyrim, and I know you’re dying to know what I have to say about it because I’m on the internet writing this and that means some idiot somewhere thinks what I have to say is worth money.

Let’s start at the beginning of the game. Like the last two Elder Scrolls installments, the player begins the game as a prisoner of the Tamrielic Empire. I will give them credit; Bethesda did change it up a little bit. Now the player is on their way to an execution party for Ulfric Stormcloak, leader of a rebel faction in Skyrim. More on that later, though. This takes us to my first problem with Skyrim. The opening cinematic involves the player having their head placed quite literally on the chopping block, with the execution only being stopped by a dragon attack. After the player reaches a certain point, designed to teach us the movement basics and to show off the new graphics, the player gets to choose to enter the keep either with a rebel or a legionnaire.

The issue I and a number of friends ran into at this point was that while it’s supposed to be a choice based entirely on whom the player wants to start off fighting with, the Imperials just tried to have the player executed. This obviously drives the player towards the Stormcloaks.

This is forgivable only somewhat in that the faction the player fights this opener with is not the faction the player must permanently fight alongside. However, it’s safe to say that the fact that the imperials just tried to have the player executed will damage their chances.

Beyond that little hiccup in the beginning, this game is virtually flawless so far as I have seen. The graphics are beautiful; the whole world is vibrant and alive even when the player is not around a particular area. The people of Skyrim are truly alive, they all have names and they all have a daily routine. And yes, this time Bethesda hired more than five voice actors.

The combat is most definitely improved by far over Oblivion and Morrowind. The animations are smooth, the combat is very fluid, and I most definitely love the addition of the neat execution cinematics.

It appears though, that the economics of the Imperial Provinces are different than in Cyrodiil. As in Morrowind, merchants have a finite amount of gold to be spent and earned, replenished only by the player or over time. I never really liked this system in Morrowind, but I had my issues with the system in Oblivion as well. Plus, the system worked well enough in Fallout 3 and in Fallout: New Vegas, both of which I loved, so I suppose this is forgivable in light of a broader view.

Now, let’s talk about the dragons for a minute. As anyone who played Oblivion can tell you, Emperor Martin Septim sacrificed himself at the end of Oblivion in order to save the Empire. Since then, so far as I can tell from Skyrim lore, the Emperor of Tamriel is a non-Septim. This means there are no more dragonborn emperors, and as such Akatosh is no longer holding shut the gates of Oblivion. However, there is more to being a dragonborn than being blessed with Imperial blood. In Skyrim, the player is of the dragon blood, and as such can use what is called a “Thu’um” or dragon shout. There are many shouts in the game, most of which must be discovered through adventuring as opposed to the main storyline. These shouts are learned by absorbing the souls of dragons the player has killed, which appear randomly much of the time as the player is adventuring around. Now, I don’t know about all of you, but my absolute favourite part is when I get accosted by two or three dragons at once in the middle of nowhere at level six.

Now, here comes the part where I blast Bethesda for releasing a very glitch filled game, as is what seems to be their norm. I am not going to bother with listing specifics here, considering most of the time they are minor and easily rectified by a quick re-load. What I am going to talk about for a brief moment is the supposed “algorithm” that I have heard tell of. Apparently there is an exploitable algorithm in the games formula that is used to calculate armour value. This isn’t a glitch, from what I’ve been told, but instead an actual formula error. If this is true, it is almost heretical on the part of Bethesda. Definitely check either this post or our cheats section in the near future for an in depth look at this algorithmic failure.

I admit, I have not yet completed everything there is to do in the game, or even made it to the end of the main storyline. There is far too much else to do in this gorgeous game. I do wonder, however, how Bethesda will tackle the results of the provincial civil war in the future. Perhaps they will take the approach of Mass Effect and allow for a recall of data from previous games?

Personally, I hope that they just give the war to the Empire. The reasoning behind that is very simple. I am a huge Warhammer fan boy, and the scenario is extremely similar to a Warhammer style scenario. The might of the Imperium comes crashing down on rebellious heretics to restore order and the rule of the Emperor. It’s just too deliciously Warhammer like to resist.

Overall, I’m going to give The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim a 4.5/5, considering how amazingly improved it is over previous installments. The only reason it loses that half a mark is because of the glitches and bugs that seem to come almost standard with a Bethesda game.

Rating 4.5/5

What do you think about Skyrim? Tell us in the comment section, we want to hear the opinion of our readers.

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