Beautiful, immersive, lengthy and absolutely fun.
Bethseda Softworks heavily modified the menu system and made it easier to keep track of your masses of items. The game also has a good story that may not be as emotional and gripping as Fallout 3, but still provides and action packed adventure that takes you across Skyrim trying to figure out why the dragons are returning. Speaking of dragons, they are fun to fight and the battles you have with them are epic. They are extremely fun to fight and provide a great challenge. A lot of the glitches Oblivion had with its inventory system are fixed, and I am impressed how well Bethseda presented this game.
The graphics while being almost as flawlessly beautiful as Battlefield 3, falls short with several odd bugs. Textures popping up and random blocky environments turning smooth can hurt the experience. The water is a substantially beautiful asset, looking almost real with its flow and reflections. Blood also looks great too and the animations are great. Sadly, faces still need to be worked on and less important AI tend to have less detailed textures.
The soundtrack is masterful. The music fits the feel of the game and all of it is well orchestrated. The sound effects and voice acting is great too. Even the most minor characters have an individual voice and they are all well done.
The gameplay is really great and improves greatly over Oblivion. Oblivion's gameplay was a bit wishy-washy thanks to bugs and the repetitive feel of the melee system. It's almost like Bethseda heard my cries because both of those problems are fixed. When hitting an enemy, it doesn't feel like you are slicing air, now you are beating an enemy senseless until his death. It feels brutal, yet satisfying. Not to mention the many odd physics problems and AI glitches Oblivion had that are fixed (the world also doesn't feel too clunky). The AI lead even more realistic lives than in Oblivion and their animations and actions make the world feel even more real. There is also tons of content and I am surprised at how good an open-world game like this fairs so well and improves over others of its kind. Games like Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed don't change too much each year and live on the phrase "If it ain't broken fix it." While Skyrim "fixes" its problems, it also revolutionizes the game series with not just gimmicks. It added sprint, a new inventory system, new spells, tons of new weapons, quests and lots more. It shows how much this game works and how awesome it is.
This game is huge. The main quest sadly only lasts about 15-19 hours which is much shorter than in past games. Yet, the game has tons of quests and areas to explore that will keep you coming back for more. This game can easily provide you with 100+ hours of seamlessly fun game time. If anything, this game is also one of the best RPGs of all time.
- Scoots (Team Achievement)