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Availability:
Only 1 left in stock, order soon!
Arrives
Wednesday, Sep 9
Platform For Display: PC
Edition: Standard
Features
- Skyrim reimagines the open-world fantasy epic, pushing the game play and technology of a virtual world to new heights
- Play any type of character you can imagine, and do whatever you want; the legendary freedom of choice, storytelling
- Skyrim's new game engine brings to life a complete virtual world with rolling clouds, rugged mountains, bustling cities, lush fields
- Choose from hundreds of weapons, spells, and abilities; the new character system allows you to play any way you want
- Requires internet connection and free steam account to activate
Description
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is the next installment in the award-winning Elder Scrolls series. Skyrim is the follow up to the 2006 Game of the Year, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and the next game from Bethesda Game Studios, creators of the 2008 Game of the Year, Fallout 3.
Number of Players: 1
Publication Date: November 11, 2011
Computer Platform: PC
Global Trade Identification Number: 76
UPC: 172302805901 151902996134 132017945668 031112633732 931551176176 087108568380 707003233427 031112808703 044111172713 115971255004 611102264384 132018169308 093155117617
Release date: November 11, 2011
Package Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches; 1.6 ounces
Type of item: DVD-ROM
Language: English
Rated: Rating Pending
Item model number: 11761
Item Weight: 1.6 ounces
Manufacturer: Bethesda Softworks
Date First Available: January 3, 2011
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If you place your order now, the estimated arrival date for this product is:
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Top Amazon Reviews
Platform For Display: PC
Edition: Standard
I don't normally review products but some of the negative reviews written about this product are outdated and have been rendered moot by bug fixes and/or the availability of free Skyrim game mods. Even without any mods, the current version of the game plays very well on a PC. It plays even better with a PC-UI mod that makes the user interface even more PC-friendly. The game isn't perfect but it's still the most immersive, most fun game I have ever played. And I have been playing games on a PC since the days of IBM machines with MS Dos 2.11, CGA graphics and 4.77 KHz 8088 processors. The key word for this game is immersion. While this game is not an MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game), it feels like one - or at least, it feels like what an MMORPG should feel like. The characters in the game live their lives on schedules just like the rest of us. Most of them go to work in the mornings, go home or to a tavern in the evenings, eat dinner, have conversions and some may have secret lives they live when they sneak out at night. Your follower (or followers) may make comments and/or give you advice while you delve deep into some crypt or dungeon. One of my followers even hums and mumbles. The world gives you the illusion that it is real, that the people, animals and monsters are real, and you feel like you are not alone (especially when you have a follower with you). Animals frequently behave like you would expect - rabbits, deer, elk and moose will flee if you approach (provided they detect you). Some creatures are aggressive - and others will give a warning growl if you invade their space but only attack if you fail to back off. Character development is another huge plus. Your character is not restricted or limited by a specific class. Instead, the game better models a real world. If you fight with a one handed weapon, then your character will learn how to fight well with one handed weapons. If you sneak a lot (recommended!), then your character will eventually be able to sneak up on (or past) many adversaries even when wearing heavy armor. The extra damage you can inflict on opponents from using sneak attacks is too good to ignore. Many a sentry can be taken out with a single arrow if you are hidden, have the skill and a decent bow. To make certain, poison that arrow with a poison that causes damage, paralyzes the victim or does both. If you want to brew potions and/or poisons, then start collecting (or buying) ingredients, experiment and eventually you will be able to make multi-effect potions and/or poisons. If you play with different types of magic, then you will be better with those types of magic. While you can become a jack of all traits, it's generally better to focus on a set of specific skills that support a specific play style - at least when starting out. You don't need to cross-train that 2 handed weapon skill if you have a good 1 handed weapon skill until you feel like you're good enough with 1 handed weapons. Crafting is a third area where this game shines - especially if the game is enhanced with one or more of the many available crafting mods (PC version only). In this game you can hunt animals that provide pelts or hides, turn the hides into leather and make armor or other items from leather. You can mine metal ores, smelt the ores into metal ingots and smith weapons, armor and other items. You can chop wood and when combined with the metal ingots, you can fletch arrows,make bows, etc. And with some available free mods, you can even smelt something like an old rusty iron pot and use the resulting iron ingot to make an iron sword - turn useless items you come across into something useable. You can even craft jewelry and/or enchant just about any useable item that is not already enchanted. And once you've mastered the enchanting skill, you can add a 2nd enchantment to a magic item. But the real beauty of the PC version is its support for the available Skyrim mods. Those mods can greatly expand and customize the game, add new quests, augment crafting, enhance weather, the sky, make your horses un-killable, etc. Some folks don't mind replacing their horses when monsters kill them. But I would rather just have my horse just beaten senseless instead of dying, so they could recover later should I also survive. Just take care to not over-do it with the mods. You can ruin the game if you make things too easy or if you load so many mods so that the memory requirements for the game become too great. And sometimes mods can conflict with one another when more than one mod changes the same parts of the game. Conflicting mods can result in unexpected and undesired behavior or even game crashes. For example, don't install and load multiple mods that affect horses unless the documentation with mods state that they are compatible. I used Nexus Mod Manager and mods from their website. The manager is free and safe. Just search for it on Google. Most mods on their site can be downloaded and sent directly to your mod manager with a single click. Overall, this game is not for the PC illiterate and you need plenty of RAM if you want to run the game at the higher resolutions. The cursor movement in the game is a bit slow. In fact, this game does several things that annoy me because I am a software developer and a power user who has no patients for software that isn't always waiting on me. So my initial reaction to this game was lukewarm. The more I played it, the more I fell in love with it. And unlike a real MMORPG, you can pretty much save and shutdown the game whenever real world calls because those other characters are not real people, they won't get mad, and they will still be there waiting on you next time when you reload your saved game. I awarded 5 stars despite some imperfections with the software because the positive features outweigh the negatives to the point that anything less than 5 stars would be dishonest.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2012 by BCG
Platform For Display: PC
Edition: Standard
Well I wont bore you by telling you the same thing as everyone else has but this game is freaking awsome I have been playing it for about 3 days now and I love it, it is so nice to be casting spells and then swap over to a big 2 handed hammer and smash your enemys face in. Lets start with the story line I will be honest I haven't really gotten to far in the story I prefer to exsplore around the world raid dungons kill monsters do the side quests but I recomend that you do make it up to where you fight the first dragon at least on the story line after you have done that then buy a house you will always want to have somewhere safe to drop off the loot you like in rather then trying to find a safe spot somewhere to leave it. For fighting I have to say that Magic ROCKS I love it finally we have a game where we can use magic the way it was supposed to be used nothing is more fun then overpowering a spell and letting it fly into your enemy to see them fly away from you becuase of the power behind it the down side to magic is that once you have used your mana up it takes a few seconds before you will be able to cast anything turely powerfull so I recomend have a backup weppon that you can swap to when you are out of mana I like a big old 2-handed hammer but thats me I like seeing my high elf smashing in heads when in a mage gear but if you want to play it safe just use 2 sheilds you can still attack them with them but it will help keep you alive untell you magic is restored. The game looks great in my opinion its not going to be something that looks perfect to some, nor is it going to require you to have a supper fast computer in order to run the game if you want to play it on ultra high graphics you might need a mid to high range PC but you can make a computer that will be able to run this game maxed out for yourself with 700 bucks. There some strange things about playing the game with a mouse and keyboard for instance the mouse buttons are backwards for casting spells dont ask i dont know its just really strange so I recomend just grabing a xbox 360 controller with a usb cable and using that to play instead. Do not alt tab out of the game without saving it takes a lot of time for your computer to bring the game back if it can I have heard of a lot of crashes when playing but I have yet to have that happen other then when I first hit alt + tab but I dont know if that was really a crash or if i just didnt want to wait. The leveling system is great you level up as you increse your skill it doesnt matter what the skill is that you level just that you leveled it up once you have leveled enough skills you will get your character leveled and its a nice and simple thing you just activate the level up screen which on the keyboard is the / button and pick between magic health or stamina to incresse and then you move on to pick a skill I went down the destruction tree myself which I love nothing says I love camping better then roasting a enemy with a fire spell or showing them how to chill out with frost and you can combine 2 different spells at once or just make one really powerfull spell I personally like the fireball and lightning bolt spells together nothing says over powered like these two together flinging a enemy away from you like you shot them with a cannon. Now for some people they hate Steam which is part of this game I dont really have a problem with it personally when I was younger I used to barrow games from my friends and install them on my computer without buying them which now would be considered Piracy which is why I now always buy my own games the way I figure it they were cool enough to not to arrest me when I got free games and music back in the day the least I can do is but the game instead of trying to get it for free and getting a virus in my machine sorry about that I hate people bad mouthing companys that just want to make sure they aren't being screwed over so back to Steam when you first install the game it will take some time for you to get it up and running but hey we buy PC games because we love are PC's anyways steam will need to download a few updates for the game trust me you want these updates they are for game stability otherwise you might get a lot of crashes god I love updates but just so you know they are about 400mbs worth of updates so if you have a slower internet conection go watch the tv for a bit. As for if I think people should buy this game if you love to run around killing animals, people, dragons, trolls and, all other things, and love to do dungons then this game is one you should get, its huge, combat is good granted the AI can be fairly dumb, yes run to me enemys as I roast you with fire until you die at my feet but hey thats fun for me too :) but if you are looking for something like Zelda this isnt really that kind of game but you are in luck a new zelda is coming out soon so get that :) but if you liked the other Elder Scrolls games then this is a must have they have fixed a great many things that where wrong with the older games in this one which makes it that much better and its open world remember must kill all humans.... no wait wrong game.
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Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2011 by Brad A. Dittmar
Platform For Display: PC
Edition: Standard
We just got disgusted with playing Witcher 2 and decided to move on to Skyrim. We remembered Oblivion with fondness and hoped that Bethesda learned a bit and addressed some of the issues that folks had with Oblivion in this latest effort. This review will, I hope, grow as we play the game. We are not in any particular rush to finish and if Skyrim holds true to it's promise, I may be checking in here for a few months. FYI We are playing this game on a 58" Plasma screen and it looks beautiful, even close up. Installation: Steam sucks. Sorry for the statement of the obvious. This is a silly and unnecessary speedbump that gave me a bitter taste before the game even commenced. I don't like DRM and I don't like this implementation and I don't like being tethered to the net in order to play. I really don't like spending $$ and not owning what I buy. All of this doubly so since copies are now easily available via various torrent sites. So, Bethesda, I ask what the point was? You annoyed me who would have bought the thing at full retail anyway and have probably engendered an even greater level of piracy (great idea: tell a geek that your software is crack proof <rolleyes>). Someones head should roll over there. This horrid decision has resulted in my 1 Star rating. Actually the rating is for the idiot management at Bethesda that made the decision to use Steam. Ahem ... Having wrestled with the hateful and swinish Steam thing and gotten the game loaded it was a joy. Some earlier reviewer made a comment about the graphics being what one would expect from a direct port from a console implementation. Balderdash! The game is beautiful and the res hold up on my screen as close as you want to go. The character creation is interesting but sorta unnecessary. A favorite game of mine has been and is Gothic in it's first three manifestations. In many ways that defines, for me, what the characteristics of a great game are. One of those characteristics is a parsimony on window dressing. To that end Gothic gives you your character and lets you get on with playing the game. Again, this is sorta a small thing but it is still a thing. The control layout is sorta annoying. We reprogrammed some of the keys but having one mouse button to fight, open/use would have been nice. Moving around is effortless and it does not have that most annoying of game characteristics: Playing in a Tube!!! That is what ultimately provided the final fail for Witcher 2. In Skyrim, you wanna go somewhere? Go. You wanna jump off something? Just go, no stupid button presses to "climb" or "jump". Talk about nanny programming. Why would anyone implement that sort of control? Suffice it to say that Skyrim lends itself to wandering around. And boy does the landscape invite that. You can really loose yourself in the land, really. You almost feel that you are in a movie. The depth and richness of the land and the houses and the stuff laying around simply divert one. The fact is that of the 4 hours or so we have played, I would guess 3 of which were spent looking around. That being the case, I cannot comment on the storyline nor the quests yet. Too early. But I will say that it seems that the story is second to the world and maybe that is the future of RPG gaming. More to come. Buy the game but hate the stupid corporate management. Write them nasty emails. Gothic Gothic 2 Gold
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Reviewed in the United States on November 22, 2011 by Incitatus
Platform For Display: PC
Edition: Standard
Bethsoft are great engine makers, and artists. Despite the many bugs, who else gives us such fully realized sandboxy styled worlds with so many features? The problem is that they are not good game designers. They don't know how to handle progression, so in all their games you reach cap way to quickly and run out of meaningful things to do to keep progressing your character. It's kinda like warcraft, in how it keeps getting faster and easier to max out in skills, level, and gear. What do you do then? Roll an alt for a shallow game that is too easy and predictably boring? Don't get me wrong I love bethsoft games even so! The first 50+ hours are always amazing... but after that I was asking "why do I care to keep running dungeons? What do I need loot for? All the best gear is crafted, and I already have enough money. Not to mention all the dungeons, despite having 8 dungeon designers this time, still all share the same few monsters and modular environment pieces so you feel like you are running the same dungeon over and over again." That is where and when my adventuring spirit dies for their games. They should hire obsidian to do the game design, Fallout New Vegas wasn't as deep as I wanted either, but a huge improvement over what bethsoft tries to do with their games. I can somehow always play Vegas again and have a great time. It was much deeper, more challenging, took far longer to max, and is more interesting to play as different character builds. Rougelike aspects would do more to save bethsoft games' re-playability then anything else they could do. In a sandbox world I don't want to be limited just because the designers were more interested in storytelling then gameplay experience. I have a saying..... GET YOUR HOLLYWOOD OUT OF MY GAME! A good example of this is playing a thief. Like Oblivion, Skyrim requires you to run a bunch of scripted quests before you can unlock fences who will buy your stolen goods, greatly damaging the sandbox play of a thief. You'll already have thousands of gold by then and ask yourself... why bother? I just feel like I am doing any old chore quest... the reason I want to steal is so I don't HAVE to do things like this!!!! How can merchants magically know I stole that sword I wish to sell them? Common! No doubt some people loved this.... but many of us miss the freedom we had in Morrowind. But even so, skyrim offered up a wonderfully realized vision and a good story. The soundtrack is one of the best in gaming, and graphics are certainly pretty good for consoles 2011, though us PC gamers would like more PC optimization next time around. I had a wonderful time and it was worth the purchase. I just hope that in their future games, they learn they have to find good ways to keep the player playing and get some dang variety into the art and design. I don't care about playing house, or having virtual relationships, nor flying a dragon around, for these reasons I haven't bothered with the expansions. Oh, and they need to make sure mages are actually fun to play next time. All this and I still give it 5 out of 5. What else is there for 1 thing... And it was incredible the first playthrough. And I will note that most people will love this game far more then jaded old me.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2012 by Mike
Platform For Display: PC
Edition: Standard
Steam is required to play this game even though it is not online. The account is free but has many problems with loading and locking up while trying to launch. Also it puts your gaming info online and when the internet is down so is your game. I would suggest buying the console version which is not easy for me to say but in this case it would be a better option. Just checked back on this review and realized I should never post a review when I am still fuming. I didn't say anything about the game itself and that's almost criminal when it comes to game reviews. So I am editing my review to recitify this. Skyrim provides fully immersive game play with good graphics. I say good, but if you max out your options you can almost imagine you're there. It's a drag on your graphics card, but if you've got a good one you can get away with it. I don't bother, since I don't like having my game drop on me, I won't take the chance that my old dog might quite running. Character creation is par for the Elder Scrolls franchise, which means you can pretty much look almost like yourself in the game, or not depending on your preference. Storyline was interesting. I did feel like the game was missing something but I couldn't put my finger on it. Everything was there that makes a good game and I certainly didn't hesitate to sink eighty some-odd hours into it. I think that after a while, I got tired of some of the repetitive aspects of the game. I won't go into detail because I don't want to add spoilers but certain things crop up alot and make parts of the game start to feel like work. Still, this is overall a good game as I'm sure most other reviewers have noted. I still hate Steam and having to sign up for an account. I won't apologize for my opinion on that. I do apologize for not writing a complete review when I initially posted this.
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Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2011 by Eileen W
Platform For Display: PC
Edition: Standard
You are captured trying to cross the border of Skyrim and are now going to have your head axed off. Wonderful. Then a dragon appears, starts killing everybody, and you have to escape while deciding who to run off with - a soldier who was one of the people trying to kill you or a rebel who was one of the people who was also captured. And so begins the story which will become Skyrim! The escape is both a tutorial, character creation, and a kind of data dump. It goes a tad faster than, say, the character creation in Fallout 3, which could be a bad thing or a good thing depending on how fast you wish to move. A open-world fantasy, to the point where you can get lost for hours or involved in side quests so much that you could totally ignore the main quest for weeks. No, really, players can spend hundreds of hours just exploring and not even touching the main quest if they don't wish to. First, Skyrim is lovely to look at. Even a low end computer such as mine, which was not so low end a few years ago, is able to handle it well enough to make beautiful landscapes that seem to demand being made into screenshots. The characters are detailed, with lots of interaction, even when you have already finished their side quest. Not all the time, some characters will end up just saying the same four sentences over and over, but most still seem to interact with you. Dragons, and many of the enemies in the game, are designed to level up with you as you play. Not, you can kind of break this by exploring areas which are meant for higher level characters - in other words you can go off and get killed by more powerful enemies if you want. There are few invisible walls. Now, food acts like health potions and some people complain that even with such a well detailed world the game system did not allow for much in the way of immersion. You don't have to eat or drink and you can get away without sleeping for a while if you wanted. Still, I am not sure what that had to do with role playing and immersion. Being forced to go to the bathroom a few times a day does not increase one's immersion, does it? A big part of the game is looting, like in many games, and it does get a tad silly when you loot an apple from a bandit or are carrying five sets of armor or four swords. The character creation is also a lot more flexible, if I understand it, from earlier Elder Scrolls. It seems that in earlier games if you created your own character, ignoring the templates, there was a chance you would not be able to advance in the right skills to finish the game. In Skyrim your character can pretty much adapt and change and use any weapons, skills, or perks you want it to. Want to be a pure magic user, you can still win the game using nothing but magic. Want to be an archer? That can work too. Pure warrior? Yeah. Want to change your mind or explore new perks or ways of doing things? Sure, no problem. Now, there may be a few complaints - I have heard from Elder Scrolls fans that Bethesda just does not understand the setting (fans said the say of their Fallout 3 game) and failed to make it true to the universe. I don't know anything about that, being this is my first entry into this setting. All I know is that I enjoy playing it again and again. A ton of replay value.
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Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2014 by Michael Valdivielso
Platform For Display: PC
Edition: Standard
Uf Da folks! Are you bored with googling? Would you like to experience some fun times? Then, check out your computer specifications and see if your machine will play...Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - PC. If it's a capable machine...install it and let's get moving. First you need to create your character. I generated a great looking, female elf who is absolutely sooo bad that you would NOT want to run into her as you stumble out the back door of the hollywood bar, looking for trouble. Then there be...the dragons. Wha? Dragons? Oh, I don't know if I want to have anything to do with those critters, but the choice is not mine to make, cuz there be dragons and that's that! Actually, fighting those pesky dragons, isn't really that hard...later in the game when you get to acquire some decent weapons. I don't mean a dull sword is not a decent weapon, but I coulda done better with a sharp spoon! Just for the heck of it, let's say you are in a nasty, pitched battle with one of those flying flamethrowers and things aren't going real well for you and the general consensus is that you are about to go belly up. What do you do? Well, you run away. Fast. Go hide behind a big rock...there are plenty to choose from. Then, try again OR just vacate the area completely and come back some other time when you are armed with nasty weapons and grievously debilitating magic potions and you know for a fact that this time the dragon is GOING DOWN and that's all there is to that! Yes! And for all you people who truly believe that challenging puzzles suck, you will not be disappointed, cuz there are a bunch. And you HAVE to solve them or spend the rest of your days as a dishwasher in the Imperial city and that's not fun. Here's a hint though. If you are at one of those puzzles where you have to get those things on the ceiling to line up in the proper order AND in order to do that you have to press button number one, a certain number of times then there's button two, more times and maybe button three and...and, OR the one where you have to jump into some water and swim over there to press a button and then go back and then go over there...Aww C'mon?? Well about this time you may have the need to scream EEEEK!! to keep yourself from tumbling into the abyss of ultimate angst and thankfully...there is a way out. You can cheat! I know. I know. Cheaters never win...Ya Right! I'll bet the cretin who said that never had to try to get past one of those sucky puzzles to get on with the game. So I go on You Tube and find a nice someone who has solved the puzzle and I write down all the pertinent info, go back to the game and solve the riddle....just like I knew what I was doing, all along! Then there's the...WHEW!! Got It! Thank goodness. The funny thing though...you can REALLY cheat if you have a PC. It's called *the console.* Remember that. Now, I don't mean the Playstation console or that Xbox 36something console. This is for PC people who want to enjoy the game and not get there innards tied up in knots, trying to beat seemingly impossible situations. Go ahead and cheat! It's good for the soul and the creators of the game don't seem to mind. Go googling and type into the box...PC Console cheats or something like that and you should find a bunch of pages that will show you how it's done. Tis easy. I'm not saying that I would do that cheating stuff, but IF I wanted to...I could! I could be invincible against any foe. I might still have to go to You Tube and cheat like crazy, to solve some of those puzzles but i'm not going to blab about it...especially, to my kids. They think i'm some kind of computer whiz and I sure don't want to ruin it for them. :) The point of this blurb is that Skyrim is a great game. I love it and it keeps me occupied for many hours. I played through it a few times and I am sure I missed some things that might be important, so i'm going to start over and play it again. One more cool thing. There is a main quest that has to do with Vampires and part way through it, I got to hook up with a cute, but formidable vampire who stayed with me for the rest of the game and helped me fight all evil doers. Hence, I had no reason to cheat. I just let her do most of the work, while I stood around trying to figure out how to get through the door with the Golden Claw! GAG! This is mostly a fantasy trip where I can use an alter ego to fight vampires, even though I know that there are no such things. I'm not real sure about the woman who lives next door to me though, so time will tell. But, that's a whole nother story.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2013 by duff
Platform For Display: PC
Edition: Standard
I love sandboxes (like Morrowind and Oblivion). I've spent hours chasing butterflies through a variety of foliage (that differs depending on my location) and watching a clear, sunny morning change into a snowy afternoon as I ride from the wide open plains near Whiterun to the darker, enclosed Solitude. Skyrim is a very good, very enjoyable sandbox. But, for me, that's almost all Skyrim is. As others have mentioned, it's clearly a port from the 360. (The PS3 version reportedly has more problems than the PC version.) The graphics are mediocre. Far off scenery looks beautiful but anything that's supposed to be close or at a medium distance looks bad IMO. IMO modded Oblivion had better graphics than Skyrim (using mods that were released soon after Oblivion was). The menus and controls are clunky and cumbersome. Overall, Skyrim seems repetitive and relatively bland to me. Skyrim dumped the old character creation/leveling system for a new perk-based system similar to Fallout 3 or Fallout New Vegas. It is more user-friendly for newbies but, unfortunately, many of the perks are useless, regardless of what type of character you play. The various character types also seem to have fewer differences IMO which, for me, makes role playing less rewarding, especially when replaying Skyrim as a different type of character. The dialogue is skimpy and generally uninteresting and uninformative. There are few dialogue options. The quests seem less interesting than in many RPGs. Most are "go kill X" or "bring back Y". In most cases, completing them doesn't seem to change the story at all except that you get a reward (when you'll soon have more items and money than you'll know what to do with and when you can enchant much better items than you'll receive as a reward); in a few cases, it seems to change the story in some minor, insignificant way. The quests and quest lines are all very linear: although you don't have to do any of the quest lines, if you decide to do them, you can only do them in one way (with VERY minor variations in a few instances). Speechcraft is only useful for buying or selling things; there are almost no quests that can be solved by using speech and, as far as I know, none that require or reward speech skills (i.e., you won't get a different reward or change in the story if you complete the quest using speech than if you complete it by killing someone). There are a few different types of dungeons but the dungeons of a given type (e.g., bandit) seem very similar to other dungeons of that type. Follower AI is bad; I often leave my follower outside the dungeon/fort because it's difficult to sneak or used ranged attacks with a follower and impossible to get through the dungeon without her/him attacking or killing someone (when that's what I'm trying to do). I generally play as a mage (or, e.g, a nightblade or spellsword). Magic in Skyrim is a shadow of the magic in previous TES games. Compared to prior TES games, magic has been nerfed - often in ways that seem ad hoc instead of well designed - and choices greatly restricted. The quest line for the Mage's College is a bad joke (but a good analog of Skyrim magic in general). You arrive, do a few quests, and somehow become the archmage (even if you aren't a mage yourself and only know a few spells) even though any of the teachers there would seem to be a much better candidate in almost every way than you are. (The quest line for fighters is not much better IMO, although the Thieves Guild quest line is good.) ====== SPOILERS for a bit of Thalmor info and a Forsworn quest ===== For me, the main problem with Skyrim is that it's difficult to role play. E.g., the character I've played most is an Altmer mage. You would think that would have major consequences in Skyrim, given the Nords' dislike of magic, their deep-seated and longstanding hostility to all things elven, the recent war between the Aldmeri Dominion and the Empire, and the Thalmor presence in Skyrim. But it doesn't. I'm not treated differently, except in very minor ways by a FEW NPCs, than I am when I play as a Nord warrior. I'm the same height or shorter than the NPCs (almost all of whom are other races) even though the Altmer are supposed to be taller than everyone else. I still don't know much about the Thalmor even though I've played Skyrim for over 100 hours (my Altmer is level 52 at the moment) and looked for information about them in game and on the internet. (Supposedly they've ruled my country, Alinor, for the past 150+ years. You'd think I'd know a lot more than a bit of sketchy information about the Great War or that they're trying to stamp out Talos worship but I don't. That's completely implausible and makes it difficult to pretend that I'm actually an Altmer. Bethesda should make it much easier to OPTIONALLY learn more about the Thalmor, the Stormcloaks, the Forsworn, and other factions that one would know about - often in great detail - if one actually lived or had friends/family in the various parts of Tamriel.) Most of the factions react in the same way regardless of previous actions by the player character. E.g., even after you break the Forsworn leader out of prison (which is one of the quests), almost all the Forsworn in the area remain hostile. So when I try to help the Forsworn, giants, or the Falmer (bc as an Altmer, I want them all to continue to fight against Nord oppression), I have to constantly spam pacify and paralysis spells in order to leave them weapons, food, and armor. I can't talk to them or even openly walk by them - even the ones in the same cave/camp that I've helped several times. Conversely, most Nords continue to like me despite my openly giving a great deal of aid and comfort to their enemies and doing nothing for most of them. (The gifts are partly the result of a broken in-game economy. The overabundance of items and the ease of making money make it difficult to feel like this is a real, believable, consistent world. EVERYONE here could easily have more money, houses, armor, etc. than they need yet there is no inflation, people willingly live in caves and risk their lives as bandits when they could be rich in a few days of adventuring or crafting, etc.) And as I've noted above, it's far easier to wear heavy armor as a mage than robes because the "skin" spells don't last long enough to be useful in most fights and there is no armor penalty. I don't do that bc it would further break immersion for me (and it's already badly broken) but it's pretty boring to use the same tactics in almost every dungeon/camp in order to deal with the lack of faction reputation (as there is in Fallout New Vegas) or poorly thought out/gimped magic. ===== END SPOILERS ===== It's likely that many of Skyrim's problems will be fixed and many new toys will be added after the Creation Kit/Construction Set comes out. TES games traditionally have many excellent mods that enhance the games in a variety of ways and allow a great deal of customization. I commend Bethesda for providing modders with the tools to make a great game, even if I wish that Bethesda itself would not rely so heavily on modders to fix the numerous shortcomings of its games. But the bottom line is that, after more mods are available, Skyrim will probably be one of my favorite games. =========== NB: The next five paragraphs discuss Skyrim magic. If you don't care about magic, skip this. =========== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ====== ====== ===== ===== ===== ===== Magic is still powerful but it's less varied or useful than in prior TES games. First, I seem to have a much smaller pool of magicka/mana than in previous TES games and it seems to regenerate more slowly. A spell uses a lot of magicka so, unless you use a full set of enchanted clothing/jewelry (that you enchant yourself) to cut down on magicka cost per spell, you can't cast many spells. You'll have to either be VERY judicious in your use of spells (which generally means that you tend to use only one or two spells in almost every situation) or use various non-magical means (which is not good if you're roleplaying a pure mage or even a nightblade or spellsword since you'll probably need to use both thief-type and warrior-type skills), probably both. So you either need to learn enchanting (when it may not fit how you want to play your character) or learn to use non-mage skills. Using enchanted items also requires you to use trapped souls against their will so you can't play a good character or even an evil character who's opposed to trapping souls. I don't always play such characters but it's frustrating that Skyrim once again limits options and essentially forces a given playstyle on players. There are only a handful of spells (most of which must be bought at the Mage's College) and most of them are useless after you've advanced (yet they are still in your spell list, making quick navigation even more difficult). E.g., the flames spell you learn near the beginning is useless after you've learned firebolt which is in turn useless after you've learned fireball. Many of the spells that I used in Morrowind and Oblivion (and in other RPGs) are gone: buffs for followers, debuffs for enemies, absorb <health, magicka, stamina, skills>, fortify, unlock, feather, burden, chameleon, dispel, mark/recall, etc. Some of the shouts augment your spells but others are similar to various spells, making either the spell or shout redundant and, therefore, unused. Even including the shouts, the type and number of spells is greatly limited in Skyrim. If you want to play as a pure mage (esp a good one), your choices are very limited. You will probably end up using the same handful of spells/shouts for almost every quest and in almost every dungeon. There is no spellmaking so you cannot customize your spells like you could in previous TES games and tailor them to your playstyle or your current character (for those of us who used different spells for different characters) or, e.g., creatively combine spell elements to get around your smaller mana pool or other problems with Skyrim's magicka system. You can't level them up to fit your character's current power, skills, and preferences. There's no longer the joy of figuring out a particular combination of effects that is deadly (or very effective) and cheap to use on a particular type of opponent. It's one size fits all, no creativity for you, why would you want choices or customization in an RPG anyway? Alchemy is easier but less useful than in previous TES games. Instead of several upgradable pieces that one can carry anywhere, there is one apparatus that is stationary. I'm glad that the whole set up isn't portable (although I'm not sure why you can't carry a mortar and pestle) but I mind that I can't, e.g., use an alembic but not a calcinator on my potion (and then make a potion with the same ingredients using both an alembic and a calcinator for use in a different situation). Again, it eliminates player options in favor of a cookie cutter approach. I mind that I can no longer name my potions; now all are named solely by their first effect and thus are even more difficult to find (especially when I want the potion/poison for its second or third effect or for its combination of two or more effects) in a bad user interface. Damage <attribute> seems to work exactly like ravage <attribute> so having both only makes a bad UI and naming system even more difficult to use. I mind that there are relatively few concoction effects and that even those often fail without an explanation as to why. (E.g., since some of my characters don't like killing bandits, I often try to paralyze the ones that resist my calm spells, esp before my character is at a high enough level to cast invisibility. But my paralyze poisons often don't work even when my alchemy skill is 100 and I'm using perks and buffs to create stronger poisons. I still don't know why.) You can no longer craft these potions/poisons: waterwalking, telekinesis, swift swim, silence, resist disease, reflect <damage, spell>, shield, nighteye, light, levitate, feather, dispel, detect key/enchantment, chameleon, burden, blind, or absorb <attribute, skill>. On the positive side, you can now craft some new types of potions: fear, frenzy, and a larger variety of weakness poisons. The reduced/dumbed down magic makes it difficult to play as a pure mage, especially a good one. There is no bound armor and the various flesh spells (e.g., stoneflesh) only last 60 seconds so you have to keep recasting them during battle. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be a magic penalty for wearing armor (light or heavy) so you can easily ignore the problems with mage clothing/"armor" spells if you don't mind wearing ebony armor and looking like a warrior. Similarly, if you want to sneak as a mage, you need to use non-mage skills. It's very easy to play a mage who uses enchantments, kills most of her/his opponents, and doesn't mind wearing armor or sneaking but it's not as easy or fun to play other styles of mage. But that leads to another problem: there doesn't seem to be much difference between various types of characters (e.g., pure mage vs nightblade) so it's difficult for me to feel like I'm a particular character, not someone sitting at a desk playing a poorly sketched out video game.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2012 by N. Harris