Far too many times have I passed on the RPG experience due to my own laziness of not wanting to dedicate the time. Yes, I know it’s a poor way of thinking and when I decided to pick up Skyrim about seven months ago, I wanted to see things from a different point of view. My mind was open to the idea of having this second life in the form of the greatest hero the land of Skyrim has ever known through his rise to legendary status. I missed a great deal ignoring the Elder Scrolls series as month after month passed and no interest was lost in the adventures of my reptilian hero and his fate driven quest to save his world from a great evil. My friends, this is the role playing concept at it’s finest and while the game is not without flaws, this must be acknowledged as one of the examples brought up when discussing what makes video games great.
Where to begin when summarizing the plot Skyrim? An Imperial prison carriage is currently making it’s way to the village of Helgen so that the convicted fugitives it has been charged with delivering can be put on the chopping block for their crimes. This is where you come in. For reasons unbeknownst to the player your character is among these criminals on their way to death. Upon arrival events take place including a few vicious displays from the Imperial soldiers all culminating in what were intended to be the final moments of your life thankfully interrupted by what you will come to know as the greatest threat to your way of life, Alduin. The menacing black dragon ravages the settlement giving you an opportunity to escape your imprisonment thus beginning an adventure the likes of which even the most seasoned of warriors have never experienced. You are Dragonborn. I will not spoil what that means exactly but the world rests on how you decide to use the mysterious powers that have been bestowed upon you. So the choice becomes yours. Will you unselfishly sacrifice to better the land you call home? Will you forsake all selfless thoughts and fight to better yourself alone? Or will you walk the line between the light and the shadows? In the end, it’s all up to you.
Aside from storytelling, this game also shines in the category of personalizing your experience. There are endless possibilities to what your character can end up being. Will you be a juggernaut, a sneaky thief, a devout mage, or some blending of all those ideas and then some. There is also no penalty to trying new things in the middle of one specific type of build. For example, a character who has reached level 50+ on a solid heavy build can feel comfortable trying out a more agility oriented approach at any point in the game. The ability to make skills legendary was one of the keys to my personal experiences in changing my build. This means that once a skill reaches level 100 it can be reset, thus returning all of the skill points that have been invested into it up until that point and then allowing you to reallocate them to any other skill you want. If you've grown tired of heavy armor after maxing it out, you can throw everything you put into it into something new like light armor which warrants a completely different play style.
As with other games in the Elder Scrolls series, the amount of things to do at any given time is endless with an ongoing supply of side quests and various tasks to be accomplished aside from any aspect of the main quest line. One thing I will say is that you should not start this game and like it if you aren't going to be willing to dedicate endless chunks of time to it because this game is played at its best when you are dedicating hours at a time to everything from leveling up to completing side quests. Your experience will be severely lacking if you power through the main storyline and nothing else.
Gameplay, while nothing special, does indeed satisfy me as a player with various types of weapons and projectiles that each have their own pros and cons. Two handed weapons, while powerful, are slow and eliminate the ability to use anything else. Magic is nearly useless in close combat and should be reserved for distance. One handed weapons can be dual wielded for damage but this eliminates to ability to block unless you use a shield on one of your hands rather than another weapon. This all provides some very interesting decisions for the player as they weigh all of these factors in choosing the play style that they would be happy with.
One thing that should not be overlooked is the musical aspect of Skyrim. The main title theme alone was enough to induce chills and this is also the main theme for any dragon battles providing some epic moments as it plays while you mount a dragon and slash at it from the third person perspective. Even something as simple as walking through a peaceful city is beautifully scored to be calming undertone to your actions
All of the most impressive parts of the game have been covered so all that’s left is to talk about what I don’t like. The most obvious is that since I’m playing on a PS3, the level of game threatening glitches are becoming critical. On several occasions I've had to force my system to shut down because of a crash. Not to mention all of the horror stories I've heard of where progress has been destroyed because of some bug that makes it impossible to progress. I've experienced a few myself. Entire quest lines become unfinishable so you have to learn to abuse the save button. The bugs don’t stop there either. Though none are as threatening as the ones I just described, they become extremely frustrating during your playing experience. It also doesn't help that no efforts seem to be being made to patch these issues. Every time a patch comes along, the things that are affected make me wonder what the the developers priorities are. Minor glitches have been fixed but none of these gamebreakers have. I hope some consideration is put into these fields soon.
Well it’s time to conclude this review. I've explained the good, the bad, and the ugly and everything in between. I really love this game and play it very frequently. Everything I've told you here are my personal views on a former game of the year candidate and I hope I've been able to influence someone to give a truly great game a try.
Final Score
9.0/10
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