What can I say about this game that hasn't been said already? A mountain of amazing games released this year and, for many gamers, Skyrim stands firmly at the peak. Does it truly deserve to stand there with giants like Uncharted 3, Dark Souls, and others also scaling that mountain? Well, that'd be a matter of opinion. And since you came here for mine, I'll gladly give it.
Presentation: 9
Greatly improving on its predecessor Oblivion's already nice graphics in many areas, the look of Skyrim is pretty darned good. You'll still find the occasional jagged-edged shadow, and a close look at the plants will let you see them as flat. But the character and creature models, the flowing water (complete with currents that push you along this time), spell effects, and every single item you can pick up being lovingly rendered in your inventory goes a long way to make up for it. The only true flaw in the character models is that they have some difficulty showing expression. The best example is probably the guy in the opening scenes who's voice shows he is clearly freaking out, but his expression remains quite wooden.
The musical score from the trailer captures this game's sound perfectly, going from heart pumping to breathtaking and back again. Which is what the game does too, incidentally. The wind howling at your back as you look out from the edge of a tall cliff, or the heavy breathing of your character as they stagger on, one wound away from death. Every bit of the sound in this game is flawless. There is a single annoying line that quickly skyrocketed to meme status. And it's only really annoying because of the way people won't stop talking about their knee arrows everywhere on the internet.
Story: 9
In another improvement on Oblivion, the main campaign's story is very nice. The Thieves Guild's story is good enough to rival it too. Every questline has its moments, to be sure, but those two stand out as the best. In a way it's the opposite of Oblivion's weak main story and much stronger side stories. Most side stories here could use some improvement. None are bad by any stretch, but they do suffer somewhat from having their pacing just a bit off. Or from a somewhat silly thing in the story like being made Archmage of Winterhold Mage's College by virtue of smacking someone around with a sword as opposed to, you know, using magic really well. Then again, that's almost an Elder Scrolls staple nowadays. Still, there are a thousand little stories waiting to be discovered aside from any of the major questlines. From an aged Orc wandering the wilderness in search of an honorable death in battle, to an ambushed merchant's wagon telling you of a nearby dungeon, to a friendly ghost who pops up to applaud your diving skill should you leap off a certain high place. There's always something to find.
Characters: 9
Aside from the aforementioned woodenness in their models, the characters are mostly well done. You will find some odd mismatches of text from time to time. Such as children who claim not to have 'seen such a thing in all their years' when you fell a dragon. I'm pretty sure this was purposefully done for a giggle as it is voice acted for the children and not simply them getting an adult's lines. There are a number of likable characters and an equal number of detestable ones. And all are great to see.
Gameplay: 8
The classic Elder Scrolls combat style of 'backpedal furiously while attacking' makes its return. But it's now complimented by an improved stealth system as well as more effective use of blocking and the ability to dual wield any one-handed weapons or spells, and combine two casts of the same spell for increased effect. Not to mention the inclusion of various Shouts, abilities with a cooldown in between uses that can let you do things like push enemies away to gain a moment's respite in combat, breathing dragon's fire on your foes, or sensing the lifeforce of enemies through walls, and many, many others.
That's a lot of improvement on your options over past games. But it's not without its downsides.
There's a smaller number of spells to be used per school than in past games, and the ability to make spells yourself has been removed completely. This kinda sucks because it would be really helpful to be able to make weaker versions of stronger spells. For example, when the Destruction school's basic Flames or Firebolt spells aren't strong enough, but you don't have enough magika to cast Fireball effectively. Things like that make playing a pure Mage character a lot tougher than it should be compared with the other character archetypes of Warrior and Thief.
Also suffering from a limiting factor is the Enchanting skill. Not only are you now limited as to what item can be enchanted with which effect, there are also fewer pieces of armor and equipment available to enchant. You can only wear one ring, and the torso and grieves armor are no longer separate. While this is pointless from a gamer's perspective, it does make sense in order to maintain balance. Without this limitation you would have no reason not to cover your equipment in enchantments that increase your primary attack skill (One-handed weapons, Destruction magic, etc) to crazy heights and just dominate everything you come across.
Not that you can't do that anyway, mind you. People were quick to find a way to exploit the system, as always, to make weapons and armor that can completely remove a school of magic's mana cost allowing for infinite free spells, or to craft weapons that can do over a thousand damage per strike while their original form could do only 50. Of course, doing so takes any and all challenge out of the game.
The leveling system too has it's improvements and problems. Unlike in previous games, your level no longer requires you to use only specific skills to level up your character, which greatly removes some of the tedium and so is quite a welcome change. In addition, the new perk system lets you feel like you've really been rewarded when you level since any given perk's effects are a lot more tangible than the previous games' minor increases to stats. Oblivion had perks too, true, but they suffered from the same problem of being too subtle most often. It's definitely an improvement...but it's not perfect. Why?
Level scaling, while more in line with Fallout's version, still causes gamers grief. One of the bigger problems is that improving social or crafting skills still contributes to increasing your level. This is a problem because enemies' stats are still based solely on your level. It's best summed up in this comic. You can quickly find yourself outclassed by even the basic enemies if you focus too much on increasing skills like Smithing or Speech. After all, no matter how charismatic you are, you generally can't talk well enough to convince a bear not to eat your face. (Though you can Shout at him and send him flying.)
I can't help but think that the whole thing would go over better if your combat and social skills were split into different levels. Or if they would just stop insisting on using this badly flawed level scaling system.
One of the game's premier features is fighting dragons. Which turns out to be kind of a mixed bag. In the game's initial state dragons were afflicted with a bit of ADD. They might be poised to kill you, only to suddenly notice a mudcrab 50 yards away and be overcome with the urge to attack it instead. The patch released not long after the game mostly fixed that, but afflicted them instead with a random decision to just sort of fly away backwards on rare occasion.
The difficulty of fighting dragons sort of takes on a bell curve as the game progresses (*on the standard difficulty setting). Early on you won't be well equipped, but can still take them down with a little careful dodging for cover and timely healing. They're no bigger threat than any other boss enemy. Towards the middle of the game as your level has gone up you'll start encountering Elder or Ancient dragons. These guys are the heavy hitters. One breath attack you aren't prepared for can be the end of you. But by the time your character starts to reach their end game build (roughly level 50-60, though you can twink it up to 81) you'll be able to take even these two at a time.
Even with that though, there's still a good bit of enjoyment to be had from dropping one out of the sky through spell or arrow and having it plow up the ground as it crashes. Despite what's seen in the trailer, the dragons aren't usually dumb enough to fly within melee range. Which makes sense. Why would they when they can just strafe you with fire and ice?
Lastly, I must mention that there's currently a bug due to the patch that was released. While it fixed many issues, letting the game play more smoothly, it also broke one of the key combat mechanics: your character's Elemental Resistance stats. As it stands now, they don't work. No matter your armor or resistance enchantments, any mage or dragon can put a serious damper on your day. This won't really effect the assassin or thief type characters who tend to focus on not being seen in the first place, but it can give others serious trouble. There's supposed to be another patch to fix it on the way soon though.
Patching lately in games is kind of a hydra. Slay one head and two more arise in its place. Let's hope Bethesda can put this particular beast down for good.
Replay Value: High
There's just so much to do that it's highly unlikely that you'll find even half of the content in a single playthrough. In fact, you're best served by at least making a character for the Warrior and Thief archetypes and playing out the questlines built for their kind of character in their own playthroughs.
Overall: 9
There's something for everyone here. It's got its flaws, but overall its positives far outweigh the negatives. This is a must buy for sure.
If you're still looking for my opinion as to which game stands atop that mountain, I can say this: "I don't wanna choose, 'n you can't make me! Neener neener!"
I haven't played all the games I'd like to, but I can say of Dark Souls and Skyrim that I'm glad I played them back to back. It feels like each has what the other lacks. Go get them both.
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