After almost six years, developer Bethesda has finally graced the gaming community with a new Elder Scrolls game, clocking in at approximately two to three hundred hours of gameplay.

In The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, players are free to explore a vast Nordic world where an all-powerful leader has exhumed dragons. While this seems like a good enough starting point, things only progress for the better after the plot unfolds a little more. As in other Elder Scrolls games, players begin as a captured prisoner with no knowledge of the past, and little expectation of the future. After receiving a name and race, players are sentenced to death. Not long after, a dragon appears, something the people of Skyrim have not seen for centuries, and allows the player to escape. From there, it is discovered that the main character is a dragonborn, someone who can communicate and learn the language of dragons. Thus, the plot takes you on a whirlwind adventure through skeleton infested caves, perilous mountains, and lush, if not slightly frostbitten landscapes.

The world of Skyrim is an expansive one, and varies its cities and caves well. While springs may warm one city, another city can be a harsh, snowy, and windblown place filled with equally harsh residents. This variation of environments, coupled with well-programmed non-player characters, service the games attempt at realism. These non-player characters are quite believable, and will idly gossip about town happenings, or even something the player just accomplished elsewhere. They will also offer up random side quests when spoken to, or mention their hardships with no expectation of a conversation, making for a decidedly life-like engagement.

Perhaps the best quality of Skyrim lies in its customization. Players can choose what race they want to be, how they want to progress their character, and what side quests or factions to pledge allegiance. When it comes to character development, the options are nearly endless. Players can become one of the three major archetypes in the game: the thief, the warrior, and the mage, or become a mix of each. This freedom, coupled with the naturally random environment of Skyrim, allows for practically infinite replay value. Within this character development lies a new system, a system that separates Skyrim from other traditional role-playing games.

As a player adventures, their skills become increased by what they do, rather than what they specifically choose. In previous role-playing games, players ranked up and chose a skill to increase or an ability to sharpen. This is still the case in Skyrim, however, as players can still add to their magika (mana), heath, or stamina after each level-up, and allocate a perk to any number of various skill trees. The attention to detail Bethesda has provided here makes for an exceptional leveling system, and proves to become a borderline obsession as the game progresses.




Fortunately for fans of the series, the combat mechanics and overall tone of gameplay in Skyrim is noticeably similar to previous games in the series, which in this case is a very good thing. While the games hack and slash combat only stays fresh for as long as players alter their approach, the feeling of killing a powerful mage, dragon, or even a dragur (an undead-like creature) is innately satisfying, and fails to lose value over time.

In addition to this excellent combat system, the magic system works equally as well. Spells are on target as long as they are aimed properly, and special abilities activate crisply and on time.

While all of this is very impressive, a game of this magnitude is not without its flaws. As anyone who has played Skyrim will tell you, the sheer amount of graphical glitches will ruin the immersion the game has tried so hard to provide. For example, it is not entirely uncommon to see non-player characters randomly entering through doors without actually opening or closing them with an almost spectral-like quality. Other times, characters will magically appear right in the middle of a conversation, completely disrupting a chunk of dialogue with their pre-programmed passing chatter. Additionally, and perhaps most frustratingly, music often entirely drowns out a given conversation, making players either miss important quest points, or search around for the remote.

Regardless of these flaws, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim is a superb game, offering limitless entertainment via side quests, main plot points, multiple factions and guilds to join, and endless numbers of dragons to slay. To say that Skyrim is weighed down by bugs and glitches would be missing the point, as a game of this splendor makes up for its blunders and ultimately leaves players with fond memories, and the gaming experience of a lifetime.