Asit's Game Reviews - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

With a great leap from The Elder Scrolls IV, the version V has gained so much popularity that it is considered one of the most entertaining games of the decade. The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim, better known as only Skyrim is an open world RPG that promises hours of exploration, fights and adventure in the vast and often bleak stretches of a virtual land called Skyrim.

The player can choose the race, gender and appearance of his/her character at the very beginning of the game. The start itself is very dramatic when the player is being taken as a captive to the town of Helgen along with "rebels". Just when he is going to be executed a vicious dragon appears out of nowhere and starts destroying the town.

The story revolves around a number of missions that the player embarks on during the game-play. The player can take a companion that he can take on different adventures and who can fight alongside the player against the plethora of different kinds of NPC including monsters, orcs, giants, wild beasts and bandits. Unofficial mods are available for increasing the number of companions one can hire and their characteristics.

Let's see what are the good and bad points in this game:

THE GOOD THINGS

OMG The Graphics!! The RPG is different from any available at the time of this writing due to its beautiful graphics! Obviously the game requires a medium-to-good PC to run because of its heavy resource demands. The graphics are actually so realistic that (as I read somewhere) "you can take a screenshot of a valley in the game and show it to your relatives as if you went there on vacation and they won't even realize that it's not real!"

You can just wander and wander and wander... Yes it's an open world game like Far Cry so you can just embark on a journey discovering like hundreds of dungeons, temples, mysterious buildings and catacombs! There is little repetition in the models that too is on the inside at some places. The game world is so big and has so many things that if you start the game you are sure to get lost in it playing for long hours.

NPC's are really smart! The non player characters in Skyrim communicate with you (amount of communication depends on their roles in missions). Try downloading the Amazing Followers Tweak mod from here and have up to five followers who do lots of things for you! All NPC's can fight back if attacked and live their lives doing whatever is their occupation in the game.

Dragons, Werewolves and Vampires This game has all of these 3 kinds of legendary creatures plus many more. You can also become werewolves or vampires (requires Dawnguard DLC installed). Of course you have to complete special messions to reach a level to earn these powers. Also, since it is the theme of the game itself that you are a dragon-slayer, there are a number of deadly dragons to fight against.

I want to buy a house You can buy houses in Skyrim from the stewards of the towns you gain popularity in. Popularity with the rulers and people can be gained by completing the missions given by the rulers of the respective towns. Your property can also be extended by using special mods available.

So many mods!! There are like hundreds of mods and DLC's available for Skyrim on the internet (Google is your guide) that you can use to enhance your game experience. But please be careful while installing them because they might corrupt your game saves due to poor design or incompatibility with other mods. Try only some mods that are popular and used by many.

THE BAD THINGS

I have claustrophobia.. Skyrim has most of its missions in closed dungeons and underground corridors. So if you are more "open sky" person like me you might not like the dungeon crawling missions (that includes at least one-third of all activities you will have to do in this game). Bethesda cannot be blamed for it though because all Elder Scrolls games have good amount of dungeon missions and in a way it is the essence of the game. However, I would suggest more "over ground" warfare like the Imperial or Stormcloak missions rather than going underground again and again!

Bugs A single word but a big problem. Without patches in the first version of Skyrim there were like hundreds of bugs here and there. Some had workarounds, some were resolved with console commands and others with constant frustration and banging at the keyboard :D Thankfully most of them are patched by now. Still, the quality testing must have been rather lax.

This ain't Mortal Kombat No it's not. But the duels could have been more detailed and the blows could have been made more "banging and clanging" to make them more intense! There are again mods for this to make every hit satisfying and bloody! [evil grin]

Stupid Small Details Skyrim has a number of big and small glitches and stupid things that may not have existed. Examples are - some of the puzzles are too complex, some missions start without alarming you about their pre-requisites, dragons are too easy to kill, no usable boats or carriages, lack of better companion communication options and some weapons or powers have to re-applied after some acts (like I have to dress up every time after I become a werewolf!).

VERDICT 8/10 Points

No doubt Skyrim is a very extensive and addictive game and I would like to thank Bethesda for creating this masterpiece. Please buy this game if possible and do not pirate it because it will inspire its creators to make more games like this.

Till then, goodbye! :)