Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Mixed reactions"

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim...To start off I have to say that as a whole, this is am enjoyable game. But it was a love/hate relationship while playing it.

While playing Skyrim, I did notice some of the more common bugs/glitches that everyone has grown acustom to hearing about (flying Mammoths, game freezes, etc...) but it didnt happen nearly as often as it seems to with others.

The game froze up on me once after about 12 hours of playtime...but that was straight through with only a couple pauses and restroom breaks in between so and once more at the 15 hour mark (which was after I shut the system down and came back to playing another 3 hours the next day).

As for the other aspects of the game

Story- The story itself for the mainquest,starts off as like every other game in the Elder Scrolls series is...something bad is happening and only one particular someone can stop it...yep thats right...It's you. In the case of Skyrim, the Dragons have returned after a VERY long time. You happen to be a dragonborn, someone who is able to speak like a dragon and you words of "shouts" to defeat them.
You not only have to figure out how to defeat them, but discover why they are coming back after such a long time where they have been believed to have been extinct. But more or less I found the story to be rather boring and got much more enjoyment out of the story behind random quests for the Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild etc...and great stories by reading the in game books.

Combat- Is much improved over the other games in the series but still not quite as good as it could have been. While its nice to actually be able to fight in third person without just mindlessly swinging a weapon and its great being able to run around with my sword in one hand while shooting fire out of the other, You still find yourself using first person most of the time in combat and really just running around in circles /or just swinging away when face to face with a foe. Although it is really satisfying sneaking up behind an enemy with a dagger and stabbing them in the back, or shooting them with a bow and then picking off other enemies one by one as they try and search for you

Graphically- The game is beautifully designed and some of the settings are just stunning to look at. Unfortunately many of the some designs are just copied and pasted when your in caves and caverns, and they're re-used enough to where the game got boring and sometimes tedious to playthrough just feeling like I was doing the same things over and over again, and seeing the same things constantly did'nt help my enjoyment any.

Gameplay- Once again the combat was much improved but many of the quests just got boring and felt as if either they were fetch quests where you constantly are looking for an item that was lost or stolen for someone, or go here, meet an "army" or group of roughly 6 soldiers and take over a fort containing about 20 people in it. Then there's the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves guild quest's which when it's all said and done are just having you do the same 4 or 5 things over again just to different people in different towns.

I still love the Elder Scrolls Series but for a game based on exploration they sure done a good job at making it a pain to climb mountains to get to other areas, and finding items and loot seems pointless at times. Yes, you do find new and more powerful items and gear as you go but after so long you find what you like wearing and weapons you like using, plus if you make use of enchanting and crafting, you will much prefer using weapons you make over anything you find. Then your just stuck either not looting corpsses or picking up to much stuff only to find a merchant who doesn't have enough gold to buy it all.

Overall- Skyrim is a good game that you can sink many enjoyable hours into but it does suffer from some minor issues that just don't let it live up to the standards its held too. Skyrim is still a game that should be enjoyed by everyone interested in playing it, It just doesn't quite fall into the category of perfection that ot could have.

I give it an 8.5