Goodbye real world, hello Skyrim
The story begins in Helgen, where you (as a prisoner) have been taken to Helgen as a prisoner awaiting execution. When on the chopping block, a dragon appears out of nowhere and attacks the city, burning everything and everyone in its path. You barely escape the incident with either an imperial or stormcloak (depending on who you choose to go with) and arrive in Riverwood. You are then asked to travel to Whiterun to seek aid from the Jarl against the new dragon threat. After defeating another dragon that attacks Whiterun, you absorb its sole and that's when you learn that you are dragonborn, or you have the ability to speak their language and take their soles. The main quest line itself is great with new surprises around every turn. It's no Bioware story and the ending is kind of abrupt, but the stoy keeps you interested.
I can't even begin to tell you how many quests there are to compete in this game. There is the main quests of course, where you perform various missions and must stop the dragons from coming back, but the fun doesn't stop there. There are almost endless possible people to work for such as taking side in the current civil war and you must choose to side with the imperials or the stormcloaks, or go work for the Companions and perform noble deeds throughout the land (oh, and become a werewolf, that's awesome too). Or maybe go to a magic college and learn the ways of a wizard. There are quite a few fetch quests like most RPG's seem to love, but most of the quests are varied and working with different people unlocks a new story and a large variety of tasks will keep you playing. Even when you're done with the main quests, there's still hundreds of hours in the side quests alone.
One major thing to point out is the HUGE world that this game provides. With a whole country with various environments to explore, there is plenty to do in the land of Skyrim, and it looks amazing too. The best part? You are free to go anywhere and do anything you want without being held down by the main story. I also love how varied the environments are; you will be walking through a forest, a freezing cold mountain, grasslands, canyons, and more. Occasionally the nearby wildlife won't take kindly to your presence either like saber tooth tigers, bears, mammoths, trolls, wolves, and even giants. The large variety of enemies you encounter is large, especially when you add vampires, bandits, soldiers, werewolves and many more into the mix. From the environments to the creatures within it, this is one massive worl you won't want to leave.
But wait, there is one more creature that I haven't mentioned; DRAGONS. Yes, perhaps the biggest enemy you will face throughout this game are dragons. No matter where you are, a dragon can appear randomly at any time, especially when you least expect it. Nothing scarier than walking through a field, minding your own business, and then see that shadow and hear a loud roar from above. Now you can take the dragon on through melee weapons or by standing back and firing your bow (either one works find but the bow is recommended for the beginning of the game). Watch out for the dragons' attack patterns are about as random as they get; they fly by you and blast you with a devastating fire breath, fly in place and shoot fire at you, or they can land and allow you to hit him with melee weapons but risk being eaten when your health is low. Whenever you kill a dragon, you absorb his sole which can be used to unlock a shout; a powerful magic attack. These are some of the best uses of dragons I've ever seen in a game, and giving us their soles makes them worth taking down.
The game is primarily played in a first person view like the rest of the series. There is a third person view but I've noticed it's a little more difficult to play (although I heard it's better than previous games). The game gives you a wide variety of different ways to take on your foes, or rather they give you two hands and you can mix and match based on your preferred play style. For instance; you can use a weapon and shield combo, a spell and a weapon, two weapons, two spells, one heavy weapon or a longbow. In addition to this unique combat system, there are a ton of spells to learn like healing, fire, ice, lightning, and the list goes on. The nearly endless combinations of weapons and spells gives you plenty of freedom to take on the world the way you want, and it makes the combat that much more fun.
This game also has one of the best level up systems I've seen. Like most RPG's, you gain experience through combat or by performing certain actions or activities and level up when you gain enough. This time, almost everything you do runs on their own level system from combat to communicating with other characters. This also gains you a boost of experience and improves certain skills based on using them often. When you gain a level, you are taken to the skill tree section where you can improve 10 points of either health, manna or stamina as well as improving one skill. There is a large variety to choose from like various combat skills, magic, blaksmithing, communication, rogue, and many more. The skill tree was such a fantastic idea for a level up system and it was executed very well here.
Although the only problem is, like most massive games such as this, there are bound to be glitches here and there. There is nothing game breaking other than the occasional freeze, which has only happened to me about twice since I got the game at launch. Other than that, a few texture pop ins and hiccup here and there.
Even with those glitches in the game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a fantastic game in almost every area. Not many other RPG's offer you such a massive, immerse world with so much freedom in combat, skills and quests like Skyrim does. I could go on and on about how great this game is, it is simply one of the best RPG's ever made, possibly one of the best games ever made. With so much freedom and almost endless possibilities, Skyrim is one game that you will remember for a long time.