The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

So after five years of Fallout games, you've finally released your fifth Elder Scrolls game, have you, Bethesda? I understand the games production takes time, but come on! I was able to get a full college education in the time it took for this installment to be released, and when you throw shoddy games like New Vegas and Brink at me to keep me distracted, I can't help but grow a little impatient.

But anyway, we can finally pop the cork, ladies and gentlemen, because Skyrim is here! For those of you unfamiliar, Skyrim is the name of one of the nations of the continent of Tamriel, a large landmass on the fantasy planet Nirn. It is the home of the Nords, one of the many playable races in the game, though the term "race" is questionable. More on that later.

It's a standard Western RPG, full of knights and orcs and dragons and all that good stuff. And unlike a certain RPG I reviewed a while back, one whose devout fanboys came out in throngs to demonstrate to me just how thoroughly whipped the game had them, this one actually tries to be fun. And it succeeds, mostly.

Plot and Characters

Given that I've only had this game for a week and I'm easily distracted by side quests, I haven't gotten terribly far into the plot. The fact that finals week is approaching didn't help.

Here's what I was able to gather: you enter the mystery world of Skyrim as a prisoner being hauled off for execution, because what Elder Scrolls game doesn't start you off a prisoner?

I have to give Bethesda credit here, though, because it's the first time to my knowledge that they actually tell you what you did to end up in this situation.  It's a good start, but falls flat on its face almost immediately when you learn why your captors feel the need to end your life.

Turns out you've been arrested for illegal border crossing. Your character was attempting to get from Cyrodill, land of the dim-witted Imperials, to Skyrim, land of the slightly less dim-witted Nords. And for this, the Empire sentences you to death. 

Now, I'm pretty tough with the whole illegal immigration thing, but I think that these guys are getting a little extreme about it. Not that you'll have a chance to give your side of the argument, though, because this is the medieval justice system, also known as the "what are you going to do about it" method.

Anyway, the game lets you choose your "race" and appearance right before you go to the guillotine. The reason I put race in quotes is because the Imperials, Bretons, Redguards, and Nords are all just humans. The game will deny it until it's blue in the face, but it's the truth. There are some differences, though. The Nords are beefy football types, the Bretons are good with magic, the Imperials are smooth talkers, and the Redguards get a bonus to certain forms of combat. They're also black, so I guess they can be called a separate race, but I digress. 

Those aren't all the races, though. You can also choose elves, orcs, as well as a race of lizard people and a race of cat people. Don't get too excited, though.  They're all humanoids. The only difference is skin and face.

You learn a little bit about why the border patrol is so anal right now as you ride to your death. It seems that there's a revolution going on in Skyrim right now, with one side sympathizing with the idea of Skyrim remaining a province of the Empire of Tamriel and the other favoring an independent Skyrim where the Nords can be racist pig-heads and discriminate against all the football-indifferent.

So once you decide which type of head you would like to roll into the basket, you're escorted to the executioner and put on your knees. It's more or less at this point that a giant dragon (something that doesn't like the limelight, judging by everyone's reaction to his presence) swoops in to torch the party like your pyromanic uncle who's been charged with cooking the ribs. 

So yay, you don't get executed. Still, Uncle Dragon gets a bit cross when no one wants to participate in the barbecue and begins to torch everything in sight. With your hands still bound, your only choice is to run like hell.

Take note: at this point, you'll have two guys yelling at you to come hide with them. One is an Imperial and the other is a Nord rebel. I didn't realize that there were two at first, so I ended up going with the Imperial under the "you have the closest piece of cover" school of rationale. Just thought you should know so that you can make a more informed decision.

Anyway, you'll go through the in-game combat tutorial after you find a suitable hiding place. Eventually you will be spat back out into the world, and thus will your epic adventure begin. 

A little later on (one to five hours, depending in how easily distracted you are) you'll learn that you're a Dragonborn, the only known one in the world, thus making you the chosen one. I'll let you figure out what that means on your own.

Gameplay

I decided to go with a Breton and placed all of my starting points into magic because if I'm forced to choose between boring swords and shields, tedious bows and arrows, or hands that can be used as flashlights and medicine, and which will allow me to fire arcs of purple-blue lightening like a medieval Emperor Palpatine, there's not much contest for me. And beside, I can conjure swords and shields and bows, so ha!

It must be said: combat is a lot of fun. The game includes a new combat mechanic where you can arm any weapon, shield, or spell to either hand, which give you full freedom to experiment with which combinations work best for you. 

Being a 100 percent committed magic user, I choose to put the same spell on both hands. The cool thing about doing that is that you can later upgrade your wizard with the ability to combine two of the same spell for a more powerful version of that spell. This meant that I could place the heels of my palms together and fire long blasts of flames out of my hands Dragonball Z style. Honestly, screw swords and bows.

The only drawback to being a magic user is that your initial spells usually do about as much damage as belching on your enemies, so you're either forced to use a sword or back-peddle from your enemies more than a Bizzarro-World Lance Armstrong as you belch on them for several minutes until they finally fall over. 

Another interesting point to note: money is still too easy to get. Within two hours of gameplay, I had killed about twenty mages, all of whom were wearing enchanted robes, each of which were worth a sizable fortune of gold coins. Being a sorcerer who wears said enchanted robes, I had no need for any weapons or armor I stumbled across, so I was able to sell all of that as well. 

With all of the gold I had acquired from all of my dead foes' belongings, my only obstacle for obtaining new spells was my lack of skill in the various forms of magic. Much like in Oblivion, you obtain skills in magic by using spells of each school of magic. And much like the first game, it takes a while to build the sort of skill you need to use the more effective spells, so your level of awesome will be staggeringly low for a while.

This only gets to be a real problem with some of the more outlandish creatures that you'll encounter, such as the goblin-like creatures whose names I forget and the occasional Dragon. Still, it's always worth it to take down a dragon, as you'll gain special abilities from that you can use regardless of your class. 

So far I only have two of the Dragonborn abilities, one being a shout that blast enemies back from me and another which gives me a quick burst of speed (good for when I'm running from strong enemies in Benny Hill fashion). There are supposed to be several more out there, and each one can be upgraded, so they should be fun to track down. 

Worth particular mention is the sheer amount of dungeons and side quests that the developers put into the game. There's something like 150 dungeons to explore and some massive number of side quests as well, some of which are apparently as well-thought out and involved as the main quest. I wouldn't know, though. I was too busy raiding dungeons for more bandits to roast and more crap to sell.

Visuals

You know the drill. It's very pretty and you can tell they've put a lot of time and money into making it just so. 

The reason I bring it up is because Skyrim has fallen somewhat into the poor habits of its predecessor, most notably the occasional spazzing out of the graphics which rips my immersion apart in similar fashion to a cat on a new leather couch. Irritating, but not a deal-breaker.

Multiplayer

Well, what do you know? There isn't any! I knew that beforehand, but I just like to rub it in the faces of all the snots who think that everything in gaming revolves around multiplayer these days. 

Overall

What more can I say?  It's a great game. I will say that it's a little more reminiscent of Oblivion than what the developers probably intended. Still, I'm a huge fan of Oblivion, spazzing graphics, leveling problem and all. 

Investment suggestion: buy it. If you rent it you'll get nowhere significant within a reasonable amount of time. Also, the dungeons and exploring make up a lot of the game, so that will take up even more time. 

At the risk of bringing out the angry fanboy brigade again, I'll go ahead and say it: it's infinitely better than Dark Souls, which I maintain is a load of garbage, and no amount of verbal flogging is about to change that. 

Anyway, pick it up. Happy Trails, and don't forget to save the world in between shaking down corpses for valuable trinkets.

The above is only my opinion. It just happens to be right.

Where to Purchase

Here's some great local places to pick up this game: , , , and .