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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (VG) More at IMDbPro »

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24 reviews in total

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73 out of 82 people found the following review useful:
Possibly the best game ever created..., 13 November 2011

Author: harryparker42

I'm going to start off by saying; this is the best game I've ever (and I mean ever) played. And I've played lots of games.

The graphics are phenomenal - that's possibly thanks to the designers who drew every bit of detail in the game. The map is enormous - approximately twice as big as Oblivion's. An endless list of weapons, characters and missions. You can combine; magic and weapons, or combine magic and magic, or combine sword and sword etc. You can now get married. The lock picking has significantly improved since the previous game. Smash an enemy repeatedly around the head in an epic, brutal manner - and if you're lucky, you get to witness an incredibly brutal, cut-scene take-down. You can cook, create weapons, find an infinite number of locations. The story is fantastic - and is genuinely gripping. Everything about this game is excellent - and has improved a lot since Oblivion.

People say you can't have the perfect game... I honestly can't think of any improvements. I seriously recommend this game. And hopefully (just hopefully) this game will defeat "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" in the game of the year awards... because it really does deserve to.

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42 out of 46 people found the following review useful:
A Milestone in Gaming History, 21 November 2011

Author: dekkar5 from United States

I have been playing video games for almost 20 years now. I have played games in every category imaginable and have had countless favorites over the years.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim surpasses all of these with flying colors.

It is a giant play place. A beautifully crafted sandbox filled to the brim with HUNDREDS of hours of action, dialogue and epic quests. You will climb the highest mountains, crawl the deepest dungeons, wield the greatest weapons and fight the mightiest creatures.

The game is gorgeous. It's landscapes, cities and towns are lush and vibrant with detail.

Skyrim features professional voice acting talent by greats such as Michael Hogan, Joan Allen and Max von Sydow.

Skyrim's main storyline is but a mere fraction of its content and you will easily find yourself enraptured in it's fantastical world; unable to break away as you pour your time into it almost unwillingly.

It is simply marvelous. Words do not do it justice.

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33 out of 37 people found the following review useful:
Enter the World. And say goodbye to a real life., 26 November 2011

Author: 851222 from Lithuania

Greetings from Lithuania.

I'm writing this review, while meantime on the other PC i'm playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. WHAT a game! Can't remember the last time i was SO ADDICTED to a virtual game before. I'm playing for almost 80 hours already (!), and i'm not even in the middle of it yet! The graphics are gorgeous. Writing is top notch. But the game play, the open world, the hundreds of interesting quests, dungeons, dragons, bandits, magic, armors, castles, battles, wars, vampires, werewolves, mags, warriors, ... and so on and so on - it's just UNBELIEVABLE, how in the world creators have put all this stuff in one game! My favorite game before Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was "Fallout 3" but i thing it's time to say that i have a new king of games - SKYRIM. Buy it, play it, LIVE IT - because this is the game for the ages.

Hands down, this a Milestone in Gaming History!

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28 out of 33 people found the following review useful:
Greatest Open World RPG Made, 14 November 2011

Author: john_jaxs from United States

Presentation: An elegant menu system and a huge amount of story content to dig into.

Graphics: Stunning environmental detail make exploring Skyrim all the more rewarding. Some character models and animations look unnatural.

Sound: An incredible soundtrack and great sound design help make Skyrim feel like a real place.

Gameplay: Though the up-close weapon combat is still a little awkward, customizing your character and conquering all Skyrim's challenges is consistently satisfying.

Lasting Appeal: A game of staggering size and filled with content, so there's always a reason to return.

The game is amazing and you will spend hours upon hours finding every mystery of Skyrim, the guys behind the Elder Scrolls series are the true masters of open world RPGs, so you can't go wrong when you buy one of their games.

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18 out of 20 people found the following review useful:
A must try game, for any person, 5 December 2011

Author: thegreatcory from Canada

It's been the better part of a year since they first announced that 'Skyrim', the sequel to The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, was in production. I was pretty darned hyped, because I absolutely loved Oblivion and thought it was a great game, despite some problems it had.

But as the release date for Skyrim neared I grew a bit apprehensive... I've played enough games from Bethesda that I knew it was gonna be great, but I started to worry it wouldn't live up to the massive expectations I(and many others, it seems) had for the game. Everything I had seen, from trailers to game play snippets to early reviews from those lucky enough to try the early demos all fueled my expectations, and I know from experience that even if a game turns out to be pretty darned good you can end up somewhat disappointed if it's not the masterpiece you envisioned it would be.

Well my friends, three and a half weeks after launch, and some 109+ hours of time spent playing it I can safely say my fears were unfounded. Skyrim is easily one of if not THE best games I've ever played, and I've played hundreds.

I will note that it is not without fault.. like pretty much all massive sandbox games from Bethesda it does have some bugs and glitches, but so far in my experience they are few and far between, and nothing that has distracted me much from the immersiveness and incredible scope that the game has to offer. I debated whether to give it a '9' rather than a '10' because of the very minor issues that have arisen, but I finally decided that the problems with the game are so tiny compared to the positives, that I would be nitpicking if I deducted a whole point; But to be fair, if I could score it out of 100 I'd give it a very solid 98.

Todd Howard may be a genius, but he has some serious work ahead of him if he plans on eclipsing his own high water mark with this work of art. I for one wish him the best of luck. ;) In my 25 years of gaming I've found that it's easy for a well made video game to keep your interest level high enough to be more enjoyable in hour ten than it was in the first hour of playtime, but it's a very rare game indeed that is more fun and more engrossing in hour 100+ than it was in hour 50. Skyrim is that game.

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10 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
This is My favourite game ever and i LOVE the elder scrolls series, 6 January 2012

Author: tp-evans from United Kingdom

Skyrim has got to be the best game ever it has everything you could ever want in an Rpg it has OUTSTANDING! Graphics and is practically limitless and endless from fighting dragons to bar brawls this game has everything with a incredible amount of customisation you can do anything and go anywhere in its massive area comparing this to call of duty would be like Pluto to the sun with skyrim obviously being the sun skyrim is the masterpiece of the a new generation of games and will stay at the top for a very long time The great and famous game developers at Bethesda have delivered a masterpiece and I'm certain they will do it again and again I'm very pleased with this amazing game i take my hat off to you Bethesda you have done it once again.

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11 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
The best game of the 21st century?, 13 January 2012

Author: jayjaymadigan from United Kingdom

This game, really is one of the best games you'll ever play, a massive open end world, hundreds of quests, complete character customization, amazing story lines, you'll have trouble putting your pad down, I genuinely get excited every time I play this game, because of how massive the world is, every play through brings new adventures, new characters, new places, new stories and new rewards, you could play this game for months and find new things you previously never knew about, the graphics are out standing, immense game play, challenging boss fights, amusing dialogue, and a beautiful soundtrack really makes Skyrim stand out from all the rest, all I can really say is, if you're and RPG fan, and a fan of sandbox games, and want a game that's actually worth the price tag stuck to it, buy this you will not be disappointed! If i had to summarize it in a few words I would simply say, you need this game in your life!

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7 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Accessible, huge, addictive, attractive and great value for money in terms of £ per hour!, 23 January 2012
Author: bob the moo

"I'm not really into all that wizards and dwarfs nonsense" I told a friend when he talked about the new Elder Scrolls game, a series I had no interest in and even less knowledge of. The connection to the Fallout games though meant that I knew the basic gameplay would appeal to me since I like the idea of RPG but not the incredibly detailed stats packages that most come with – selecting equipment, taking notes and digging in menus I'm fine with, but too much detail I'm not. As a result I picked this game up, still not totally sure that I would like the loss of guns and dark comedy that I got with Fallout 3 and NV.

Very quickly I was into the game because I love getting caught up in the exploration, getting quests, finding stuff, building up my character and so on, all to the point where I really didn't progress the story very much until I had already played about 100 hours. The amount of quests is ridiculous and most of them do actually give you something to do other than just travel somewhere and come back. There are quests like that (the Thieves Guild "job" quests get tedious before you complete them) but they are the minority. The actual story is probably too short (ironic complaint for a game that I put down after filling the last few months and eating well over 100 hours); I left it at the end of Act 1 and when I returned to it I was surprised by how quickly I moved through the remainder of it to the end. I was also a little bit disappointed that the story did seem to stand alone and that it was easy to lose the plot if I spend ages doing lots of side-quests which rarely seemed to connection. Fallout NV got the mix better in terms of the storyline as so many side quests supported the story. It still engaged me because the vast majority of the quests were really enjoyable and provided lots to do and experience, just that they did fragment the story a little for me.

In terms of the gameplay, it is accessible to the majority, which means lots of fringe players will be upset. So, for example, I would have liked the dungeon puzzles to have been harder, but I know they were still OK so as to be fun for me but not frustratingly hateful for those that don't like puzzles! The levelling up system makes a lot of sense to be – if you keep doing something, you'll get better at it – works really well as an idea and in practice. I know it upsets "proper" RPG players who prefer limits on who you can be and lots more stats, but I felt it worked – I didn't pick who I was at the start, my character grew based on how I played – so my magic stayed weak because I never used it, unlike other games where you just assign points to a skill to make it better. The gameplay is varied but well balanced – so yes there is trading and making potions, but there is exploring, battles, talking to others, puzzle-solving etc – nobody seeking just one thing to be perfect will be happy, but again this is why the game is accessible and enjoyable to more players.

Graphically the game is beautiful. The load screens when entering a new area are fine until you're doing lots of rapid travelling, but in the open world of Skyrim you can walk for hours and hours and hours without ever seeing a loadscreen. The world ranges from snowy mountains to open green pastures and it all looks great. I did miss the humour of Fallout with this and the rather worthy talk of gods and kings didn't always win me over, but it still worked. The voice work is good and I accepted things like "all guards have the same voice" because such compromises makes room for more detail in other more important ways.

Overall Skyrim has good variation in gameplay and is engaging. The world is full of quests and experiences, with so much to do and explore that you will be playing this for days, not hours. Perhaps not for everyone and perhaps not as perfect as the hype suggests, but this is still a very good and very engaging and once you get into it, you'll be playing it for a good long time.

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10 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
A tricky one., 28 November 2011

Author: doesitreallymatter

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The Elder Scrolls franchise has been a staple for the RPG genre for quite some time now. Skyrim builds on top of what made the previous titles great while reworking some core features.

The game is good. From a strictly objective point of view, the sheer amount of production value that's gone into it makes it a Class-A title. It looks fantastic, the game world is huge, the voice acting is overall very good and it's just easy to get into.

There's a catch, though.

What Skyrim offers is not for everyone. Any TES game attempts to diffuse the line between video game and roleplaying, and it does so by creating an open world with tons of content and dropping the player into it.

Most games don't take much from a player, other than his/her presence and control input. It might be more or less challenging, surprising or rich, but the story and everything else in the game is scripted, rendering the player more of an observer than an actor in it. Skyrim tries to fight this linear approach by letting you do whatever.

The flipside is that in order for the player to achieve that much freedom in the game, there aren't any solid structures in terms of story, gameplay, decision-making, character development or consequences.

This pattern applies to every aspect of Skyrim, such as quests. With a few exceptions, there's not much in the way of awesome scripting or storytelling. Just a bunch of people asking you to kill someone or fetch an item from some ancient ruins. Even the main quest feels underwhelming and short, when it should be an epic tale of dragons and chosen-one-ism.

To sort of illustrate how the game does not hold your hand, there's the nowadays very popular moral choice bit. We're used to games presenting us with a moral dilemma that will have some tangible consequence. Choose to save Jack, get him as a companion, but Jill dies. Save Jill, Jack's Guild of Awesome Peeps will become hostile towards you. Kill both, get the gold and unlock the bad ending. Skyrim does not work this way at all. At one point, I was jogging along in some city, minding my own business, when a guy walks up to me and asks for my assistance investigating a house. We went in and I got myself mixed up with some sort of demonic lord that forced me to kill this guy. Then, he sent me to look for some kind of priest and lure him into a trap. He died too. I got a cool mace as a reward. Never heard from the demon dude again. Now, in the eyes of a traditional gamer, this made me evil. I killed at least one innocent person. But in Skyrim, there was no consequence. No negative karma points. No bad ending. No Jack becoming hostile towards me. Likewise, there was no dialogue choice to let me back out of the quest. No way to not kill the innocent guy or kill the demon instead. No way of concluding the quest differently. So how does that work? Well, if I really wanted my character to stay good and pure, I had the possibility to just not do the quest. I'd still have it in my quest log and I wouldn't have gotten any sort of reward for being "good" but at least I wouldn't have done the demon's bidding.

Again, freedom vs. structure.

The point is, what your character becomes, the reasons for his actions and how he is judged, is up to you and you alone. The game will not slap you in the wrist for being bad or reward you for being good.

Thus, Skyrim turns out to be a conflictive, confusing and boring game for some and a very enjoyable blank canvas with endless possibilities and replayability value for others.

One other anecdotal illustration. Since I'm really bad at real roleplaying, I decided to keep somewhat of a journal in a .txt as I played the game as if my character was writing it. During the time I was doing this, I enjoyed the game immensely. I made up a story for my character and it was heaps of fun. At some point, due to poor writing skills and lack of creativity, I couldn't follow through with it and just kept playing the game. After a while, the game just became absolutely tedious and repetitive. To me, this made very clear that the more creatively, intellectually and emotionally invested you are in the game, the more rewarding the experience will be. Skyrim is a clean slate. If you can make it work, it's going to be one of the most rewarding RPG experiences that you'll have, but it does take some effort and imagination getting there.

As I approach the end of this review, I realize that reviewing a game like Skyrim is pointless in itself, because there's not much to review. Every player should have a different experience when playing it, because the game bets on the player to do just that: be whoever he wants to be and do whatever he wants to do.

If you're looking for a game that gives you the freedom to do anything and actually *roleplay*, give it a go. If you want solid storytelling, structured content and to be awe-struck by what you're seeing on the screen, try something else.

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5 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Words cannot describe the awesomeness, 4 March 2012

Author: Frida Berntsen from Norway

The day this game was released, I literally ran down to the store as fast as I could all super excited, and the game has totally lived up to my expectations: This game is by far the best game I have ever played. The graphics are GREAT, the story is GREAT, the quests are GREAT!

You are free to do pretty much anything, you are to decide how your game should be played, how your story should be written, whether you kill a guy or not, whether you pick a side in the war or not.

Bethesda has taken care of every little detail, graphically and also in a communicative way. For example if you walk up to a locked door and the owner is nearby, he can yell at you telling the door is locked for a reason, or if you walk up to someone with your weapons drawn, the npc's react differently in a negative way than if you approaches with your weapons put aside.

Skyrim got a huge map, villages, holds, cities and endless of caves to explore, skills to learn, perks to increase, dragons to fight and souls to obtain. Do not miss out on this brilliant game!

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