The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was my first encounter with open world roleplaying games, and I fell in love. Not only does the game encompass all that is magical and intriguing about a rich, fantasy world, the gameplay is so vastly different for every play-through that you will never get the same experience twice. This is a game worth owning solely for the purpose of essentially having a thousand games in one.

Skyrim takes place in a somewhat medieval world flooded with magic and fantastic creatures. Your first introduction to the world throws you head first into a dragon attack, and the whirlwind never ends from there. Your character design at the start of the game can have some influence on your play style, but your path is mostly affected by the character perk tree. You can choose to create a character adept in magic, melee, or blending into the shadows. Choices throughout the story may become available based on different aspects of your character that you have developed.

You discover relatively quickly in the storyline that your character is the Dragonborn, one who is called to keep the dragons from returning to conquer the kingdom. Naturally, there are those who would stop you. While this main quest drives the story and allows you to “shout” like a dragon, giving you far more superior power than your adversaries, there are a plethora of side quests. The open world allows you to travel wherever you may need, and interact with everyone, whether it be having a conversation, or picking their pockets.

One neat feature of this game is the ability to have a companion. You are first given Lydia as a companion, and while she is a good fighter in close quarters, her abilities are rather average. As you travel through the game and meet new characters, you are able to gain the trust of others with more ability, and can ask them to be your companion instead. While you have a limit on how much inventory you can carry, they can carry as much as you would like. The companions also serve as a nice distraction in an ambush so you can plan your strategy a little better.

While the art itself is rudimentary at best, for designing such a vast world the developers did a great job. The landscape can be truly beautiful, and there is great variety in all the creatures. Play itself is very self-explanatory. There is really only one thing I dislike about this game. Each city in the world acts autonomously, which means that if you get caught committing a crime in one city, while that city may hold a bounty on your head, another city will welcome you. This is a nice feature. However, in some cities your crime is heinous enough to warrant death on first sight. All the guards of the city will flock to kill you. And while this is easily escaped once, often I will fast travel back to the city much later in the game forgetting how they will react, and I get absolutely massacred on sight. If you do happen to get arrested, you lose any skill points you had recently acquired, and all your gear is put in a chest that you may be able to find, but is heavily guarded. The law enforcement system is just generally frustrating.

All in all, I will never get tired of Skyrim. While some of the finer points may be tedious or frustrating, the main storyline is intriguing and the world has so much variety that I will play this game many more times. This is definitely a game for adventure lovers who want to take the time to explore. There are so many choices that the game can take months to finish, so it requires some patience.

Final score: 8/10