The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Reviewed (360, PS3, PC)

written by Emma "Dragonborn" Worssam on 7.12.11

When asked at the announcement of the next in The Elder Scrolls Series ‘Are you excited?’ my exact reply was ‘Does a bear do his, you know, business in the woods?

The 5th in the line of games from Bethesda, produced over a period of time spanning more than 20 years, has immediately convinced me that  they’ve more than done it again with a rip-roaring, dragon slaying, finger cramping, social life destroying monster.

• Likes

  • Reworked engine works like a charm
  • Ambitious, deep and immersive experience
  • Skills trees
  • Unique character development

• Dislikes

  • The amount of hours lost playing it!

It saddens me to admit that I only joined the saga at The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, however I do state as my defence that my laptop is so old and knackered that the chances of it running Elder Scrolls: Arena without it crashing are minimal and quite frankly there’s only 2 kinds of hope of me making it through this review without it crashing at least once; they’re Bob and No and Bob just left town.

So ploughing on while the going’s good let me lead you into the glorious world that is Skyrim.

Just to warn you in advance that being a girl there are going to be a few girly outbursts and here comes the 1st 1………

IT’S SOOOOOOO PURDY!!!!!!!

Graphically this game looks stunning, not just the distance backdrops but the surrounding landscape and characters all bear up to close scrutiny and pass with flying colours. The flow of water, movement of garments, the wind passing through the branches and flowers are smooth as silk. The grass is green, the snow is white and all is good in the world………but then if that were true there’d be no game.

With regards to the characters it’s the usual suspects: High Elves, Argonian, Wood Elves, Breton, Dark Elves, Imperial, Khajiit, Nord, Orc and Redguard. Although throughout the game you will encounter all of these races Skyrim itself is the home of the Nords and if you play as a Nord you will find that the NPC’s are more friendly and positive towards you.

When choosing your character there are less toggles to play with on your appearance which in a way is a big relief if you’re a bit OCD like me and have to tweak every single knob (STOP thinking that you BAD reader) just to see what effect it will have and therefore can spend a good half hour trying to get your characters chin juuuuust right.

The 1st development that you’ll notice in the game is that the class system has been removed, so instead of certain attributes being assigned to your race and more easy to level up throughout the game you can level up straight across the board allowing a more natural feeling to your characters development. It also helps to produce a much more unique feel to your character than previous incarnations have done. Quite literally what you do defines who you become. You no longer pick a birth sign, these have been evolved into guardian stones that you activate as you encounter them during the game, the first 3, The Mage, The Thief and The Warrior you are taken to during the tutorial and will increase certain attributes in your character until you activate another stone.

‘But what about the story behind the game??’ I hear you cry (Oh go on……please???? It is Panto season after all) Well, the High King’s been killed and there’s a civil war going on between the forces loyal to the old regime and those that want to split away from what remains of the Empire (sounds a bit like a cross between what’s going on in the Middle East at the moment and Star Wars but hey, on with the story). So it’s all looking a bit Even Stevens in the war when what should come along to liven up the party…… Dragons and sodding big ones at that.

This has all been foretold by the Tamriel’s equivalent of Nostradamus who has written the Elder Scrolls and it’s your mission, should you choose to accept it of course, to stop the dragons, unite the Empire and all this before tea time.

Now usually i’m quite happy to jump from the main quest to side missions and back again as I please interspersed with days of running around picking flowers, watching the sun set, the stars wheeling overhead followed by the sun rise all the while singing The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Muesli (yes that was girly moment number 2) however I have tried to be good and stick to the main quest but I have been finding this difficult. Mainly for 2 reasons; 1. There’s so much to explore and 2. Everyone wants to talk to you.

It’s not quite to the extreme of Fable 3 where you end up being surrounded by a mob if you’re popular but it does mean that your quest list fills up quickly and you will find that you some of these side missions cross over into the main quest, this happened to me and I inadvertently completed a side quest without even knowing it was a quest till it told me to return the stolen item to its owner.

The great thing about this is if you play, like I do, you won’t have a problem with this however if you do like to put your head down and get on with it then you may find these interruptions irritating and you can find the babble of voices a bit overwhelming when you’re trying to focus on someone talking to you about something relevant to the quest you’re on and there’s some scrawny kid wanting to tell you about working on mum’s fruit stall. Go to skool kid and get an edumication like what I did!

The realm of Skyrim itself is Mahoosive!!! A land of harsh, stormy mountains and lush green valleys it’s nearly as high and deep as it is wide and there’s places of interest hidden in every nook and cranny. Hazardous mountain passes take you deep into the heart of the mountains my precious or you can always go on top if you want.  There’s caves and ruins bursting with various enemies just waiting to annihilate you and of course just walking up the road holds it’s own dangers with wolves, crabs, bears, giants, trolls not to mention bandits all just waiting to rip your head off/tear out your intestines/club you to death; I just Love the warm reception you get in this place!

Of course I haven’t mentioned much yet the main thing that the game is based around……Dragons!!!! Having been nearly hunted to extinction they haven’t been seen for many ages but now they’re back and they’re miffed. You’ll encounter your first dragon quite quickly if you stick to the main quest, however, you will see them at random times throughout the game and they won’t always attack you as some need to be provoked. Now it turns out that you have a slight advantage over the majority of residents of Skyrim. When doing the quest you help assist the killing of a dragon and when it dies you absorb it’s soul. Turns out that people who have the ability to do this are called ‘Dragonborn’ and the absorption of dragons souls gives you a unique power. When combined with the words of power they allow you to perform ‘shouts’. This means you can do things from force push, to teleportation, to using fire spells with power almost on a par of that of the dragons.

Now that all sounds fine and dandy but just because you’re a special one doesn’t mean you’re going to have it easy. To unlock a shouts full potential you need 3 words of power so you’ve got to find them. However the only way you can activate each word once you’ve learnt it is with a dragons soul so 3 words + 3 souls = 1 shout and with 20 different shouts to learn you’re going to be making a serious dent in an already endangered species population.

With regards to how the game combat compares to Oblivion there have been many changes, for instance you can now dual weald weapons. This is great although you do have to take into account a couple of things; that you’re going to wear out your weapons quicker and it also means you can’t block. You can also dual weald magic so you can either use different spells to see how they work as a combo or double up the same spell for a bit more va va voom. Of course, you can always go a bit more traditional and have magic in 1 hand and a weapon in the other so you can hit ‘em with magic and then beat the crap out of them while you’re waiting for your magicka to charge up again.

The enemy levelling system of the game has been changed, the locations are either set to match your skill level at the time of entry so that places and enemies will be challenging, but not impossible or they’ll be at a set level so if you stumble across them too early in the game they’ll be nigh on impossible until you’ve levelled up more.

A huge, great change is the menu system. You press the B button (360) and a simple 4 point compass appears; Up takes you to skills, Right to inventory, Down is maps and Left is magic. There’s no more trigger button, shoulder button malarky, it’s all clear cut precise detail. All your weapons information is right there for you and everything you’re carrying can be examined in much closer detail (remember this dear reader, you’re going to need it). Instead of just having 8 favourites that you can attribute to your hot keys of the D pad you can now favourite as much as you like. Simply press up and the game pause while you select whatever spell, weapon anything that you require from the favourites list.

One thing that comes across quite clearly is that not only do Bethesda want to make everyone more unique, they also want to make you more self sufficient. You no longer have to rely on a blacksmith to repair your weapons for you, you can train to smithy and to make your own weapons and armour. You can learn how to enchant weapons so you can try out different enchantments on your favourite weapon and see what works for you, potion making has been made easier, the game remembers potions that you’ve made although you no longer carry the equipment with you to do this, you have to find a location with an alchemy table and you can even cook your own dinner! (Sadly they’re set recipes coz I make a mean macaroni cheese which is great in the Fallout series but doesn’t wash in ye olden days).

When it comes to skills and levelling up again huge changes have been made. For a start you don’t have to find a bed when it’s time for your character to level up……YAY!!!!!! When you level up you have to choose whether to level up your health, your magicka or your stamina. This then unlocks a skill perk. Now this is where Bethesda show what clever bunnies they are. Whatever you do during the game levels you up in some way, you fight you level up, you sneak you level up, alchemy, smithing and enchanting all level you up and this is reflected in the skills perks.

To select your skills you simply look to the stars, the constellations are your perks menu. Depending on what you’ve been doing you will get a choice of which perk you can pick from. There are 18 skill sets to select from equally split between The Mage, The Thief and The Warriors constellations and the perks branch out from each skill. There are a total of 251 perks to choose from but plan carefully as once you’ve selected a perk you can’t deselect it so if you choose a perk and it’s not working for you I’m afraid you’re stuck with it till you level up again and earn another perk. You don’t have to use your perks straight away, you can store them for use at a later date if you want.

But what I REALLY love is that when you select a perk the star lights up and when you’re playing the game and look up at the sky it’s your stars that are shining back at you, so your sky is as unique as you. How bloody clever is that?!?!?!?!?!?!?

There are a few bugs and glitches to be ironed out but considering the magnitude of the game that’s no great surprise. The funniest one i’ve found so far is when i’m on my horse (which has the stature of a Thelwell pony) at certain camera angles it vanishes leaving me looking like i’m sitting legs akimbo in mid air which is certainly not becoming of a Lady! Horses in the game seem to be 1 speed only so you no longer have to wait for the graphics to catch up with you like you used to get in Oblivion. You get the occasional floating body or a hovering sword; I’m all up for a funniest photo competition where you have to send in you pics of the funniest glitches but we’ll have to chat up the editor about that 1!

There’s a couple of things that I think might enhance the game just a tiny tad. There’s animals galore in this game all waiting for you to slaughter them, cook them and turn their skins into leather but considering how much of the maps snowbound nothing leaves tracks. I’ve lost many an elk in the mountains full of arrows but if he legs it and I lose him then it’s bye bye arrows, dinner and leather. And I wanna be able to make snow angels!!!! I’d also love to be able to name my horse ( go on please Bethesda…..just for ‘lil ol’ me) because if you seriously expect me to believe that you, dear readers, aren’t calling your horse STORM or THUNDER or in my case DOBBIN then you’re a liar, liar, pants on fire!!! And while there’s some good voice acting going on by some Academy Award winnning actors on the main characters there’s no serious thespian action going on ( I said THESPIAN…….you’re going straight to hell with that dirty mind of yours!) with the NPC’s.  To be honest, the male npc’s all sound like Arnie crossed with the Swedish Chef out of The Muppet show and the ladies like The Cheeky Girls (only not so Cheeky Cheeky) and with something as ambitious as Skyrim I felt that it could have been paid attention to.

Before we say goodbye, if I haven’t sold this game to you already then ponder on this. If for no other reason you should buy this game because it’s been thought up by, designed by, programmed by people who love what they do and who love this game. It’s a game for gamers that’s been made by gamers with a serious passion for RPG’s, narrative and a world that is alive and ambitious in its size.  You can see it in every face, every blade of grass, every flake of snow the care, time, love and attention that’s been put into it and feel that it may take some time to see a project that has been so cared for come to fruition anytime soon. So buy it for them as a thank you, they love it and so will you (coz if you don’t me and Dobbin’ll be after you!)