I agree with you! The graphics in this game are somewhat of a disappointment for me too.

The men's faces tend to look pretty much the same and bland, the hands on everyone are just awful! They look like hands from 10 year old games! Talk about your "bread stick" fingers and the proportions are way off. It might seem like a small thing to some people, but it spoils the feeling of the game for me. It is such a glaring problem.

It's cartoonish in a way that looks as if they rushed through the faces and bodies - as if they were a rough draft and thrown into the game on a whim. The buildings, town, harbor and the rest of the outside are done fairly well but realism would have helped a whole lot!

I guess I'm spoiled with Skyrim and Assassins Creeds' games. Both have beautiful graphics which make it much more enjoyable for me! I'm not a person who only plays to kill, get the highest score and rush through - I like to take my time, explore and appreciate a new world. Graphics and music play a very important part of my gaming experience - not just combat. So, as I said, this is a bit of a disappointment.

Thanks for the post! Lots of good tips and info.:)

I'm having a lot of fun with Hearthfire. It's satisfying and relaxing working on getting the entire house together, having a bard, 2 kids, a dog (I bought the dog myself) , and Lydia as surrogate mother to the kids when I'm off adventuring.

I've found that the Lakeview place (think that's the name) is the best and prettiest location. I like the fact that there are many different types of rooms available, but you can't put all of them on one house. I'm going to use another location for a vacation home with a vast library, green house, trophy room and storage room. That type of home doesn't allow for the large bedrooms that my present home has.

A quick note about adopting the children: after two beds w/childs storage chests are made you can adopt - a courier should come or go to a larger town. I found my little girl in Whiterun, but couldn't adopt at Riften orphanage and couldn't find any boys who were without parents in any towns. On a whim I added a childs bedroom to my Whiterun home and, sure enough, I found a parentless boy in a mine in the north. Adding the bedroom in an existing home will do away with your alchemy lab and anything else you've stored in there, so move the stuff before you change things around or it will be lost forever!

I've yet to have a spouse, but I think one of the male Companions would be fun to add to my little "family". One thing that is nice (for me) is that the home is quite cozy and it's comforting coming home to a group of people - Skyrim can get sort of lonely when you're traveling around alot on foot or doing alot of exploring. It's also an excellent place to store and show off lots of your spoils. I do wish they had more than 2 mannequins to show off armour with, though.

I do recommend having a bard right away because he does brighten up the place with music and singing (why only 3 songs available??) but sometimes the Skyrim theme music plays the same time he does and is quit silly and discordant! I also have a garden, huge bee hive, a cow and 2 chickens. I have no idea how to get milk to make butter and the hens haven't laid any eggs!! but they add to the homey feel of the place. It's rather neat as well that at first there were 2 fireflies flitting around at night and as the game goes on, there are 6 of them and a Luna moth out at night near the animal pen. Just a small thing, but cool.

As you add furnishings to the house decorations etc. are added. You don't have a whole lot of control over this, but it is quite pleasing anyway and I don't know if I'd like that much micro-managing. Unfortunately, it is still difficult to place items on shelves or stand taller things up, but it isn't a deal-breaker. Not enough bookcases either. I just lay books on the many tables or on the beds.

In the basement and outdoors you can have an anvil, smelter (yes inside!) grinding wheel, and repair bench. Also indoors you can have a couple alchemy tables and an arcane enchanter also. Very convenient!! And did I mention there are tons of storage safes, barrels and chests! What's also fun about the basement is you can build a large shrine that will hold statues of all Nine Divines! It looks very nice. There is also a child size fencing practice dummy down there that the kids practice on with the pretty daggers I give them as gifts. Funny to watch that.

I opted for the larger kitchen and it has a hearth/baking oven which is OK, but as I said I can't find the milk or butter that I need for making new kinds of food so it's not used too much. But many times I come home and either Lydia or the Bard are in there fooling around with something. A side note: I've noticed when we are all in the living room and the Bard is singing, Lydia or my follower start to move with the music and drink toasts to it! It's very funny to watch!!

Also, right near you driveway is a wagon w/driver to take you to numerous places. I have a horse as well, but ever since I've ridden him, he won't stay in the stable and fast travels whenever I do. No matter how far I am away from him when I do the first fast travel, he's there when I pop in! After almost losing him to bandit fighting (he joins in on the fray!) I try to only fast travel to areas with a stable or a few safe people so he won't get killed :-)

One annoying thing is that sometimes a wayward dragon will swoop around the house and land in the yard killing some of the animals until I dispatch it or bandits will steal the cow and I'll have to fight them off right infront of the house!! Weird! Anyway, I drag the bodies out of sight of the 2 kids.

Oh yes, if you don't want to do the furnishing and building all youself, you can have Lydia purchase materials, animals and furnish rooms if you give her the money. I had a cow get stolen and asked her to buy another as well as finding a weird, but funny Bard!

As you see, I'm enjoying this very cheap DLC and I think that it is excellent and well worth the price. It's a calm oasis in the busy world of Skyrim. Highly recommended!

I'm a much older gamer than you - probably as old as your Gramma - but I enjoyed Oblivion a great deal. Unfortunately, there is quite a bit of gore. Not during the fight scenes as you might think. It seems that there are bloody or headless victims laying around in some of the quests where you would have to find particularly nasty bad guys and vampires. Or if you would join some of the "guilds" - sort of like bad guy clubs - you'd have to do a lot of killing. I don't know your age, but if Mom is watching what you are playing, I'd say maybe you should wait a few years to play games like Oblivion. The game Morrowind which is an earlier Elder Scroll game might be better. The game is about 10 years old and has sort of clunky graphics but very little gore. It's an RPG which is a lot of fun and takes place in the same general area as Oblivion. That might be a game Mom would agree on and you'd have fun with. I'm sorry but, Oblivion is made for more mature gamers and I don't think your Mom would go for it at all. Good Luck!!