The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Review

The newest chapter in the Elder Scrolls franchise has come in the form of Skyrim, which comes from acclaimed game studio Bethesda Game Studios. This title, released and reviewed here on PC but also available for PS3 and Xbox 360, brings an open-ended fantasy world for you to explore. Skyrim is an extremely impressive RPG that boasts amazing graphics, a great story and impressive combat.

For those of you that played games like Morrowind and other Elder Scrolls titles, a lot of what Skyrim has will be familiar. However, don’t expect an updated clone of what you’ve played before as the game boasts some amazing updated graphics and a new means of improving your character. The game seems a lot more player friendly and a lot less “D&D heavy” meaning you don’t have to really get involved on a granular scale with specific traits (out of thousands) that greatly impact your character’s performance.

One of the very interesting aspects of Skyrim is that it’s so open ended. When creating a character, you don’t just “become an X” type of character. Depending on how you interact with the world (specifically combat) you’ll build up specific abilities and as you level, unlock the ability to add points into an easy to use and open-ended leveling skill system. The new character system is perfect for those of you that aren’t absolute die-hards but do tend to border at the enthusiast level. There’s a nice mix of customization and open-endedness that allows you to do whatever it is you want to do with your character. There are hundreds of weapons, spells and abilities that you’ll refine as you move forward in the game.

The graphics of Skyrim push even the latest PC hardware technology to the limits. Unless you’re rocking a Core i7 processor and something like a GTX 590 or a Radeon HD 6990, you won’t be able to max out the graphics at higher resolutions. That said, if you have mid-range hardware you’d still get an amazing experience at 1920×1200 resolution. In our case, our test rig ran a 24” monitor at 1920×1200 with a Core i7 920 and Radeon HD 5870 video card. While we couldn’t totally maximize the graphics out all the way, they still looked absolutely stunning. This is one of the most graphically rich and well-designed games, from an art perspective, that has ever graced the PC platform. One of the good things about this game is the various perspectives you can take with the camera, be it first person or third person – a welcome add for those of you that might deal with motion sickness. With the new game engine built into Skyrim, the entire world seems much more organic and real than ever before. There’s rolling clouds, weather systems, active towns and diverse environments to enjoy. It all adds up to a very immersive and impressive graphical experience.

Diving into the game, the story really starts off hot and heavy – literally. Certainly we aren’t spoiling anything by letting you know that the Dragons have returned and that this storyline is the main centerpiece of what makes up the story arc for Skyrim. One definite thing to note is that this game is not for the weak of heart or for the young ones. Those of you that enjoy a little edge to your violence will appreciate the game most. The story moves on from there and as always with Elder Scroll games, you have the option to go forth and rifle through the main story quests, or, take care of all the side quests and learn more about the world and level up your character to beefier stats with better gear. It’s totally open ended and the concept for the game is well executed. There are plenty of dungeons to explore with both the main and side quests, and while some of them are more of a chore, they are almost more often than not a hell of a lot of fun to get through. From mobs of thieves to undead flaming mummies, there’s a lot you’ll come across.

There’s a lot of love heading to Skyrim from the gaming community for good reason – it’s a great game. The graphics are amazing, the story is good, the gameplay is solid and the open ended-ness to the game is fantastic. It’s not to say that Skyrim is a slam-dunk hall of fame video game. There’s still glitches and bugs that come up that make for interruptions that really get annoying. Ideally, as patches come out in the coming months, these glitches and bugs go away for good. But what it means that even know, weeks out from release, we’re still experiencing some things we wish we weren’t. Despite our nitpicking to point out that the game is not perfect – it’s still immediately being discussed internally at GI as a Game of the Year candidate for 2011.

Between the amazing graphics, killer gameplay, fun dungeons, awesome combat engine and compelling story, you have an absolute sure-fire Editor’s Choice Award Winner in Skyrim. This is the game you should be playing right now and there’s not much debate about that.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Product Ratings

Graphics:	10/10
Sound:	9/10
Gameplay:	9/10
Story:	9/10

Overall Score: 92.5% – Editor’s Choice Award Winner