The Elder Scrolls franchise has always been known for massive open-world environments and innumerable side quests. The latest iteration of the series, Skyrim, lives up to these expectations and so much more. Within the first few minutes of playing, it becomes evident that Bethesda has created a masterpiece.
Gameplay
Pros:
The game starts out like all of the other games of the franchise. You are immediately thrown right into the middle of the story. This time around the main character is a prisoner, who escapes when dragons attack the city in which he/she is about to be executed. This progresses into later finding out that you are a Dragonborn, being able to absorb the souls of dragons and learn new abilities, which are “shouts” in this case. That’s all the spoilers that I can give away though. The rest will need to be discovered in due time. With such a massive world to explore, it will take literally hundreds of hours to discover everything that the game has to offer.
Cons:
The only major issue that I can find with the game play is horrific lag issues at times. Playing on the PS3 can be downright tedious after your save file gets to be over 6-7mb. While exploring, I have noticed that the frame rate drops very drastically and at times makes the game itself virtually unplayable. The latest patch, 2.10, seems to help a little but the issue still remains as of the time of writing this. Some fixes that I have noticed are to turn off auto-save and to save and restart the console after 2-3 hours of game play By doing this the problem is not as bad.
Graphics
Graphically, Skyrim is a beauty to behold. Whether viewing the massive landscapes or even the smallest items that you pick up along the way, the level of detail and quality is evident immediately. Granted, ithe graphics are not as polished and refined as games such as Uncharted 3, but they still outshine other games such as Fallout 3 and The Elder Scroll IV: Oblivion by a mile.
Replayabliity
With the massive amount of quests and goals to undertake throughout the game, being able to replay the game is a given. It has been rumored that this game will never officially end, with there always being a quest to do, no matter if a player has already completed all of the predetermined quests. This is itself is amazing. The thought of being able to play a game for years to come and always being able to do something different is groundbreaking, and unlike anything that has ever been attempted in a game before. This feature alone shows the amount of dedication that went into making this game something that the fans will truly love.
Conclusion
Skyrim i s a game that should be played by all mature RPG lovers. The value greatly exceeds the price point and I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up being hailed as the Game of the Year by many venues and critics alike. Due to the graphic nature of some of the content, though, be sure to keep it away from children. If you’re an adult gamer though, be sure to puck up this superb game. It does not disappoint!