Elder Scrolls V Skyrim Review (PC)

When it comes to offline single-player games, no recent title will draw players in for hundreds of hours as readily as Skyrim. Plenty of games promise to let you unleash your inner all-conquering hero (or antihero), endowed with the power to shape both your own epic destiny and the fate of the world. Almost none deliver on that promise as thoroughly as Skyrim.

In Skyrim, developed by Bethesda Game Studios for Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, you are set loose on a vast fantasy continent populated by thousands of monsters and characters. There are teeming towns filled with merchants, beggars, guards, thieves, craftsmen and kings. There are tundra and forests, plains and swamps. There are steep peaks and river gorges, hidden shrines and bandit keeps. There are assassination plots to uncover (or perpetrate) and deep, dank crypts hiding ancient treasure. There are giants and ogres and goblins and demons and spirits and, not least, plenty of dragons.

A civil war and the return of those massive fire-breathing creatures spearhead the actual story. Only a fool, however, will rush to the game’s conclusion — after all, there’s an open-ended universe infused with the richness of Middle Earth and the bravado of “Braveheart” staring him in the horned helmet.I’ll admit that the patience required for this genre of game often eludes me, and my reticence usually starts in the decision-making process required just to get my avatar off into the gorgeously designed realms.Here, roughly five minutes after watching a fellow prisoner beheaded in the game, an Imperial Captain sternly grumbles, “Who are you?” That loaded query leads to an avatar customization process that, in other games, can last hours, depending on the indecisiveness of the player.

Besides talking to a wide variety of nonplayable characters (the voice acting never annoys) and mixing weapons- and magic-based combat, a player buys, builds, scavenges and steals a limited amount of items (around 300 pounds worth before losing the ability to run) that includes weapons, apparel, potions, food, ingredients, keys and miscellaneous junk. While exploring more than 300 spaces featuring terrain often requiring me to scale enormous mountain landscapes, delve into intricate dungeon catacombs, and fight occasional snowstorms, the depth of actions never disappointed. The player might entertain getting married (don’t forget to talk to Maramal the priest in Riften), unlock a chamber (via a golden claw and matching icons in a circular chamber seal) to retrieve the Dragonstone of Bleak Falls Barrow or become a member of the Companions guild and kill vampires in the Broken Fang Cave.

Much as we appreciate the simple innovation of Skyrim’s not being painful to look at, the complex interlocking nature of the game’s numerous quests is easily its finest feature. Developer Bethesda refers to it as the “Radiant Story” system, promising a dynamic story packed with quests that adapt to player’s actions and customize the world to their experience. That’s probably reaching a bit into the realm of hyperbole, but Skyrim actually does manage to modify quest goals and dialogue on the fly in reaction to your accomplishments.This is, after all, a game where players are given full freedom to do as they like, and that means sometimes you’ll go somewhere and complete a task before the game tells you to. Rather than locking players out with invisible walls or other arbitrary barriers, it simply lets you do as you wish and then rolls with it. Clear out a dungeon before someone tells you to, or collect an ancient relic before it comes into play in the story? No problem; you simply get a new dialogue option that says, “Yeah, I already did that,” and your quest giver praises you for being so on-the-ball. Many missions can be initiated in multiple ways, too; I managed to initiate one particular long-term quest by sweet-talking the first relevant person I met. Thierry, on the other hand, managed to offend that guy enough to earn a brushoff, but eventually he figured out an alternate means to get things rolling as well. Any gamer that’s ever dreamt of traversing a magical land armed with spell and steel to an unforgettable role-playing experience. A must buy.