The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Played it on: Xbox 360
Available on: Xbox 360, PS3, and PC
Played it for: 60 hours and counting

Rating: 10/10
BEST RPG OF THE YEAR

Summary:
Tamriel is in turmoil.
It has been 200 years since Emperor Uriel Septim VII was assassinated in the name of Oblivion. With Oblivion Gates opening all over the continent, he passed on his faith and his amulet to the last hero of Tamriel, the lucky prisoner who occupied the cell of the Emperor's escape route. This sparked the beginning of the Fourth Era. Since then, Morrowind was destroyed by a natural cataclysm, forcing most of the Elves to migrate to neighboring Skyrim, and now civil war has plunged Skyrim into chaos. The armies of Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak have declared war on the Empire, and killed Skyrim's High King. The rest of the Jarls had to make a choice to back Ulfric or the Empire, and the country split. As the game begins, you and your partner have been caught in a stealing heist against the Empire, and have been apprehended. When you regain consciousness, however, you find that the Empire has captured Jarl Ulfric, he is in your same cart, and you are all heading towards execution. But with the return of the Dragons at hand, what will fate have in store for Skyrim's last Dragonborn?

Review:
This game is amazing.
Bethesda knew after Oblivion that they wanted to make another Elder Scrolls title. But how do you make a new game with the same graphics and physics, and somehow make it better? The answer: re-write the entire engine. Skyrim is based off of completely new graphics, physics, rendering, and AI, and it makes full use of all of it. I am continually blown away by the amount of time Bethesda put into this game, because it is truly remarkable how much of a change there is between this and Oblivion, and even between this and Fallout: New Vegas. Every dungeon is different, every city is unique, every part of the province of Skyrim is one of a kind, and it just never gets old. On top of that, you have a myriad of different skills, from armor to smithing to magic and to archery, totaling 18 skills, each of which have 100 levels, which contribute to your overall experience until you reach the level cap of 50.

50 levels also means 50 perks, which are chosen to shape your character into what you want. These perks aren't like the Fallout perks, and instead contribute to overall gameplay in a less drastic way. Basically, when your level is high enough in a certain skill, say smithing, when you level up overall, you can choose a perk such as Dwarven Smithing, which allows you to make your own Dwarven armor if you have the right materials on hand. Some of the higher perks are quite enticing, such as being able to smith Dragon Bone armor from the scales and bones of dragons you have felled, or being able to put two enchantments on a single piece of armor or weaponry, perhaps making it do both fire and lightning damage. One of the most useful perks is for Heavy Armor, called Conditioning. It removes all weight of the armor from your inventory, and makes it so that Heavy Armor doesn't slow you down when worn. When all is said and done, you'll have to play through quite a few times to aquire every perk, because you can only max out three or four of the skill tiers before you can't level up anymore.

The gameplay itself is incredible, and really draws you into the Elder Scrolls world like never before. The world of Skyrim is very vast, and has hundreds of locations to discover, with miles and miles of underground dungeons below the world of mountains and plains. I think what impressed me most though was the sheer amount of possibility. Sure, if you really wanted to, you could go explore every dungeon on your first go, join all four guilds, gather all the spells, become a supernatural being (Werewolf or Vampire), gain all 20 shouts (all 60 words), and make all the best weapons and armor and enchant it all, but unlike Fallout, you don't need to go through every single freaking subway tunnel to get anywhere, and you don't need the most amazing stuff to get to level 30 (the level cap, for those who never played Fallout 3). Plus, there's no more moral system, which means you don't have to watch your morality meter every time you finish a quest to see if you're still good, bad, or neutral for the achievements, and instead if you are apprehended for stealing or killing, people remember what you did, and get more cautious around you, perhaps remarking that they don't like you every once in a while. It makes the game more realistic, and adds to the overall immersion and fun. I think the final thing I would add to that is that you no longer get experience from doing quests, and instead only get it from leveling up your skills, which means that if you don't want to do hours and hours of fetch quests, you don't need to, and it has no bearing on anything for the future.

My one critique is something that has plagued Bethesda's RPG's since Fallout 3: the save system, or lack thereof. Skyrim has almost no autosaves, which means that you have to pause and manually save every 15 feet, lest you get mauled by a bear in the 15 feet following, and have to re-start your journey 4,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles away from your last autosave when you last opened a door, losing all progress of experience. This can get very aggravating, and I admit, I ragequit once because of it. However, if you set the character menu to autosave you when you open it every 5 minutes instead of the default of 15, this shouldn't be much of a problem.

Overall, Skyrim is a fantastic game. Everything about it is insanely impressive, and I would say that it is the best game Bethesda has ever made. I'm really looking forward to the next Fallout if they make one, because these graphics and AI would be perfect for another Fallout title. Congrats on another win, Bethesda.