Well, I would like to have a full review ready, but alas, I do not. I do however have some impressions from roughly fourteen hours of game time. While only fourteen hours in, there is a LOT that I have done and can report on. I can safely say that in the time I have spent in Skyrim, I have not even begun to touch what is possible in the world. While not everything is gold plated chocolate funfetti cake, I can say that a majority of it is.
First, the graphics are impressive. I am playing on a PS3 for this one and it is gorgeous. The water shines and reflects much like I would expect it to. Trees move fairly realistically with the breeze and shadows move position throughout the day and even the night I noticed while I was waiting. There are some funny graphical glitches such as random Wooly Mammoth rains and the occasional getting stuck on grass, but these only distract a little bit. NPC's tend to move fairly naturally throughout the world but faces during conversation still look stiff and slightly inhuman. Your character model when in third person is much more fluid and natural to look at than seen in past Elder Scrolls games. The new engine Bethesda has created handles the world very well. You can literally look across a plain, see a mountaintop and say to yourself "I'm going there" and away you walk/run. Draw distances are fantastic though texture loading is problematic at times; for instance, I was running through a swamp and my land was flat and textureless for nearly a full two minutes. I have also ran into several points where I have some severe framerate issues. Generally they are extremely detailed areas (such as the circular area in Whiterun where you can go to the three areas of town) that are well lit. While not unplayable at these times, it is frustrating in such a beautiful world that generally runs very smoothly to be almost stopped while you are walking.
The game's sound design is possibly where I am most impressed. The voice work is great. The soundtrack is one of, if not the best, I've heard in a game in a very long time. I'm not the kind of person who pays much attention to the soundtrack but the one for Skyrim just fits perfectly with the world that has been built. It stays quiet and out of the way when it should and brings in a dramatic piece for when the action starts. The NPC voices from around the towns sound like normal day to day chatter of townsfolk. Several of the Jarls sound like they came straight from an action movie and there is even a couple characters with Batman voices. The characters are reasonably well written for as many as there are and the amount of dialogue they have.
The gameplay is standard Elder Scrolls with a few nice additions and tweaks. Quite possibly the biggest addition is the dragons. They are fun to fight and appear both in story and randomly throughout the world. I didn't spend much time with Oblivion but I knew you could make potions and enchant items. You can still do that, but there is an added bonus of cooking meals with your food you've acquired. You can also craft armor and weapons pretty much at will providing you are near a blacksmith post. You can harvest lumber for firewood and to sell, you can mine ores to smelt into metal ingots for crafting your weapons and armor. Side note - Random dragon encounters = awesome, adrenaline filled battles.
The combat section of the game has been adjusted a bit. You can now wield two one handed weapons at once, you can go sword and shield, or one handed weapon and magic, you could even go two handed magic if you want to. My personal favorite is to have a destruction spell on my left hand and a war axe in my right. I sacrifice blocking to have a ranged and melee attack. There are also new coup de grace moves you can do while fighting an enemy to go into a slow motion kill that always looks awesome. They have also added another magic that doesn't actually use any of your magica. It is called a shout and you earn them by finding dragon nests and unlocking the word of power. Each shout has three levels and they get progressively stronger as you unlock the different tiers.
Finally, the leveling and character creation have been overhauled. No more picking major and minor skills, deciding what sign you want, and what type of player you want to be before you've had a chance to play the game. Skyrim lets you play how you want to just like the games preceding it, but you specialize over time and use, not because you are forced to. Personally, I never used to use magic, now that I have a setup that I like, I am specialized in destruction and one handed weapons because I use them at the same time. You pick your sign by finding the corresponding stone in the wild and activating it. So far, I have found six of them. You can only have one active at a time, but you can change them at will which is nice. Also, Acrobatics and Athletics are gone. No more leveling up by jumping across the landscape. When you do level up you get to choose what you want to increase (magica, health, and stamina) and then you get a perk point. Perk points are used with the skills you use to unlock bonuses within the skill. For example, if you are smithing a lot of items and you level up you can put in a perk point to unlock the ability to make Elven things. These add some depth to your character and put the nail in the coffin to make sure every playthrough can, and usually will be different than your last.
The story is still there but as usual in the Elder Scrolls I have forsaken the story to run around and kill cities. I have completed the first act and it is a decent story so far. I am far more engrossed by the secondary story of the civil war happening in Skyrim. That has taken more of my time because I have to choose a side and watch and participate in the war that I am helping to end (I think). The backstory for the dragons and history of the world is rich and engaging. I did not find myself bored while listening to the characters talk about the various gods and how the dragons came to come to Skyrim.
In closing, though these are my impressions now, when I am only a bit into the game, I do believe that This may actually end up being my review. I have enjoyed the time I have spent in Skyrim and know without fail I will be spending many more hours hunting down a dragon to slay or the last ingredient for what I suspect will be a potion. I give Skyrim a solid 9.5/10. Fun though it is, the graphical issues will keep me from giving the ten. See you online.
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