Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Rocks"

The best game of 2011.I mean lost in the best possible sense. As in, "Where did those six hours go?" As in, "I don't really need to go shopping today." As in, "Hello, Mr. Sunrise."

When it comes to offline single-player games, no recent title will draw players in for hundreds of hours as readily as Skyrim. Plenty of games promise to let you unleash your inner all-conquering hero (or antihero), endowed with the power to shape both your own epic destiny and the fate of the world. Almost none deliver on that promise as thoroughly as Skyrim.

In Skyrim, developed by Bethesda Game Studios for Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, you are set loose on a vast fantasy continent populated by thousands of software-controlled monsters and characters. There are teeming towns filled with merchants, beggars, guards, thieves, craftsmen and kings. There are tundra and forests, plains and swamps. There are steep peaks and river gorges, hidden shrines and bandit keeps. There are assassination plots to uncover (or perpetrate) and deep, dank crypts hiding ancient treasure. There are giants and ogres and goblins and demons and spirits and, not least, plenty of dragons.

Skyrim is modern fantasy role-playing of the highest order. It is akin to the "Game of Thrones" of video games: sweeping, almost daunting in scope, richly realized and fully able to absorb fans for months or even years. Like great fantasy literature, this game has a deep lore and back story (developed over the past 17 years since the series made its debut in 1994 with The Elder Scrolls: Arena) propelling current events. Things happen for a reason. But unlike a novel, a great role-playing game like Skyrim lets you shape those events and become a player on the world stage.

The key to Skyrim, indeed to the entire Elder Scrolls series, is that the game is set up like one huge fantasy playground. You are completely in charge. You can go where you want, when you want, how you want and do what you want once you get there. There is a strong central plotline, but you are free to blow it off completely from the outset. It is possible to spend dozens of hours exploring Skyrim and making your character more powerful before you even touch the main story line. You can join the Mage Guild, infiltrate the Thieves Guild, take sides in a civil war or just roam the wilderness, delving into dungeons and slaying wyrms.

When gamers and game executives talk about "open-world games" they usually are referring to the likes of Grand Theft Auto, Assassin's Creed, Red Dead Redemption and Batman: Arkham City. But none of those set you in a virtual environment as realistically intricate as Skyrim's. More confining, none of those games even let you decide who you are. Instead you are one particular character, defined by the game's creators. You can decide how that character progresses through its story, but you don't control the basic parameters of who that character is and how it makes its way in the world.

Even most fantasy role-playing games lock each character into a defined class, like wizard, warrior or priest. By contrast, a hallmark of the Elder Scrolls series is that you can mix and match various skills and races, like cat people and lizardfolk. Want to play a sneaky scoundrel who also casts huge lightning storms and wields two-handed axes? No problem. Want to summon fire and ice elementals to engage your foes while you snipe away with a longbow? Sounds good. Want to become a master thief with a silver tongue and a vast black-market network of fences? Go right ahead.

Skyrim isn't perfect. The interface, especially on Windows, is a clunky, frustrating mess, and the game's subpar technical performance on the PlayStation 3 should be an embarrassment for Bethesda. Yet over Thanksgiving I heard from a family friend who attends college in New Jersey that Skyrim is the absolute rage among gamers on her campus. That doesn't surprise me because there are very few games that deliver Skyrim's level of immersion and empowerment. And that may not be something that newer generations of gamers are familiar with.

Here's what I mean. In a single-player game you don't have to share the virtual reality with anyone else, so your character can completely shape the game world. You can raze a town or destroy a tower "forever" in a single-player game. In most online games, like World of Warcraft, you can never have that power because there are thousands of other players who need to be able to explore that town or tower as well.

Likewise, in an online game you start off as a relative peon in that fiction's hierarchy and then spend a long time trying to catch up or keep up with other players who are probably more powerful than you. In a game like World of Warcraft your character is never "the Man." Rather, you are one of many decorated adventurers.

There is now an entire generation of gamers that has grown up online (World of Warcraft is actually seven years old this week), and it has been fascinating watching those players react to Skyrim with such fascination and glee. A funny, insightful cartoon that compares those two games has been making the rounds online. As it points out, when you are a new Level 4 player in World of Warcraft, "You kill boars and collect apples." When you are a new Level 4 player in Skyrim, "You beat a dragon to death and rip its soul through its neck." Certainly, one feels more heroic than the other.

Of course the catch is that in a single-player game like Skyrim, you are, at the end of the day, alone. You are not interacting with other real people in the game. These are the trade-offs: You can play by yourself and be all-powerful in a game world or play with other people and realize you are simply one among many.

I enjoy both. I have online friends (and real friends who play online) and I love playing with them. But sometimes I just want to get lost. When I've felt that way lately, I fire up Skyrim. I was stacking books on a shelf in my house in Whiterun, one of Skyrim's major cities, when I noticed a weapon rack right beside it. I set a sacrificial dagger in one slot, an Orcish mace in the other. They were on display for nobody but me and my computer-controlled housecarl, Lydia, who sat at a table patiently waiting for me to ask her to go questing. The chest upstairs was reserved for excess weapons and armor, the bedside table for smithing ingots and ores, the one next to the Alchemy table for ingredients. I'd meticulously organized my owned virtual property not because I had to, but because tending to the minutia of domestic life is a comforting break from dealing with screaming frost trolls, dragons, a civil war, and job assignments that never seem to go as planned. It's even a sensible thing to do; a seemingly natural component of every day existence in Skyrim, one of the most fully-realized, easily enjoyable, and utterly engrossing role-playing games ever made.

Part of what makes it so enjoyable has to do with how legacy Elder Scrolls clutter has been condensed and in some cases eliminated. In Skyrim, there's no more moon-hopping between hilltops with a maxed out Acrobatics skill. That's gone, so is Athletics. The Elder Scrolls V pares down the amount of skills and cuts out attributes like Endurance and Intelligence altogether. There's no time wasted on the character creation screen agonizing over which skills to assign as major. You don't assign major and minor skills at all, but instead pick one of ten races, each with a specific bonus. High Elves can once a day regenerate magicka quickly, Orcs can enter a berserk rage for more effective close-range combat. These abilities are best paired with certain character builds – the High Elf regeneration is useful for a magic user – but don't represent a rigid class choice. Major decisions don't need to be made until you're already out in the world and can try out magic, sneaking and weapon combat, emphasizing first-hand experience over instruction manual study, letting you specialize only when you're ready. It contributes to the thrilling sense of freedom associated with life in Skyrim. Do a quest, kill a dragon, snatch torchbugs from the air, munch on butterfly wings or simply wander while listening to one of the best game soundtracks in recent memory. Despite the enormity of the world and the colossal amount of content contained within, little feels random and useless. Even chewing on a butterfly wing has purpose, as it reveals one of several alchemical parameters later useful in potion making at an alchemy table. Mined ore and scraps of metal from Dwemer ruins can be smelted into ingots and fashioned into armor sets, pelts lifted from slain wildlife can be turned into leather armor sets, and random books plucked from ancient ruins can trigger hidden quest lines that lead to valuable rewards. Skyrim's land mass is absolutely stuffed with content and curiosities, making every step you take, even if it's through what seems like total wilderness, an exciting one, as something unexpected often lies just over the next ridge.

Many times the unexpected takes the form of a dragon. Sometimes they're purposefully placed to guard relics, sometimes they swoop over cities and attack at seemingly random times. In the middle of a fight against a camp of bandits a dragon might strike, screaming through the sky and searing foe and friendly alike with frost or flame. Momentarily all on the battlefield unite, directing arrows and magic blasts upward to knock down the creature, creating impromptu moments of camaraderie -- a surprising change from what may have been yet another by-the-numbers bandit camp sweep. Dragons show up often, their presence announced by an ominous flap of broad wings or an otherworldly scream from high above. The scale and startling detail built into each creature's appearance and animations as it circles, stops to attack, circles again and slams to the ground makes encounters thrilling, though their predictable attack patterns lessen the excitement after a few battles. In the long run they're far less irritating than the Oblivion gate equivalent from The Elder Scrolls IV, can be completed in a few minutes, and always offer a useful reward. Killing a dragon yields a soul, which powers Skyrim's new Shout system. These are magical abilities any character can use, you don't have to specialize in spell casting to slow time, throw your voice, change the weather, call in allies, blast out ice and fire, or knock back enemies with a rolling wave of pure force. Even if you favor sword, shield and heavy armor and ignore magic entirely, you'll still be able to take full advantage of these abilities provided you find the proper words – each Shout has three – hidden on Skyrim's high snowy peaks and in the depths of forgotten dungeons, serving as another reason to continue exploring long after you've exhausted the main quest story, joined with the Thieves Guild, fought alongside the Dark Brotherhood, or thrown your support behind one of the factions vying for control of Skyrim.

Not only is this land under assault by dragons, long thought to be dead, it's also ripped in two by civil war. You can choose one side or the other, but so much of the allure of Skyrim is how, even outside of the confines of quest lines, the embattled state of the world is evident, and steeped in a rich fictional legacy. Lord of the Rings this is not, but with the release of every Elder Scrolls game, the fiction becomes denser, and the cross-referencing for long-time fans all the more rewarding.

Skyrim's residents are all aware of current events. They'll comment on the civil war, some sympathizing with the rebels, others thinking the establishment sold its soul. The peasants complain about the Jarls who control each settlement, the Jarls complain about the rebels or foreign policy, the overprotective College librarian complains when I drop dragon scales all over his floor; many characters feel like whole, distinct personalities instead of vacuous nothings that hand out quests like a downtown greeter hands out flyers for discount jeans. Characters stereotype based on race, they double-cross at even the slightest hint it might be profitable, and they react to your evolving stature within the world. It makes a ridiculous realm, filled with computer-controlled cat people and humanoid reptiles, demon gods and dragons, feel authentic, like a world that existed long before you showed up and will continue to exist long after you leave.I totally recommend this game for many RPG fans,FPS,TPS or just first person dragon slayer or Dragonborns this game is perfect.