Tamriel Just Got A Little Better
Skyrim is a big open world sand box that put plainly, is a ton of fun. It hits all the key points you would expect a game of It's type to hit, but It doesn't stop there. Skyrim will continue to surprise you even after you pour 60+ hours into the games many quests, dungeons and random things you can do. Upon your first play through you may or may not experience a group of werewolves, a little boy doing devilish things to a skeleton, or a bard that is entangled in a love triangle with a Dunmer and the pretty owner of a wood cutting camp. The choices in Skyrim are yours to make. If you wanted to go head first into the stories main quest and focus purely on that you could. If you didn't want to touch the main story after leaving Helgen you don't have to. That is the key to The Elder Scrolls series of games, Do whatever you please. On a graphical scale this game is absolutely gorgeous. You have to weigh the textures on a much grander scale. If you were to rate it on a say a MW3 scale it would get a 7. You really can't nit pick on a game that is over 16 square miles. The texture packs chose also run well on a variety of systems. I had issues earlier in the year getting a solid fps for The Witcher 2, another favorite game of mine, and thus I didn't put nearly the amount of time into that I already have with Skyrim. Todd Howard and crew deserve an award purely for artistic design. Every Scrolls game up to this point has featured a very unique graphical style and Skyrim is no different. You have so much variety in the towns and it made me smile and reminded me of exploring Morrowind for the first time 9 years ago. The games sound department also earns a medal in my book. The dynamic score is as good as ever and the in game battle sounds are also at the top of their game. I could honestly go on forever on how atmosphere makes this game so special, but I will end that by saying, It does. Earlier this year I played a title that I believed could not be bested in terms of gameplay. CD Prjeckt Reds title The Witcher 2 quietly made its way through our vast COD, GOW, WOW riddled industry and since it didn't have a fance 3 letter acronym fell on the wayside. That game was so combat perfect however that I remember looking onward to Skyrim and saying, "There is no way Skyrim can out do this one". At the end of the day it didn't lol. Well thats not exactly fair to say, they are both in fact very different. I just happen to prefer The Witcher 2. Skyrim features a very much refined version of what we have seen in the series thus far since Morrowind. This time around we see dual wielding, both on weapons and magic. The system features a very much improved magic system that allows the user to equip magic in one hand or both. Equipping is done one of two ways. There is an extensive yet very easy to navigate Item menu that you can access and set up favorites. The favorites work in a fantastic way allowing users to press either up or down on their controllers d pad or default of C on keyboards and fly through them. It makes micro managing a breeze. The overall combat feels polished and while not perfect still manages to get the job done. Some times when you swing you will feel as if you just hit a block of wood rather than flesh, but when you actually work out the proper use of your weapon this becomes non existent. The best way I could describe this is if you were to wield a sword without ever using one, you would too be sloppy and most likely look a lot like the guy your playing the screen without proper tactics. At the end of the day Skyrim shines above all other RPGs on the market. It is the true pinnacle of the series and the reward of playing it is more than enough to cover the cost of admission. Those that refuse to play this game for any reason should really take a step back and give it a shot. It isn't too much of this and too little of that, it is purely the most open ended and fun RPG I have played in a long time
