So I'm sitting here waiting for Skyrim to unlock and reading reviews like a madman and I ended up thinking about TES Arena and my 13 year old self playing it.

I first got into computer games in a big way in the early 90's. My family was living in Argentina at the time. Now don't get me wrong, Argentina was a great experience but when you're 12 years old and the only English TV channel is CNN, your grasp of the language is fair at best, all your friends are dispersed all over a city of 14 million people (or on a different continent entirely), and the internet is in its absolute infancy, things can get lonely fast.

One of my dad's co-workers who traveled back and forth between Canada and Argentina regularly must have picked up on this and started bringing me computer games after he was finished playing them... 6 very specific computer games actually. Might and Magic III, Ultima 6, X-Com UFO Defense, Warcraft II, Arena and Daggerfall. I sunk countless hours into all of them and although Might and Magic III and X-Com were my favorites I loved the absolute freedom in Arena and Daggerfall. Those games were among my best friends for years and I still look back at them fondly.

I still remember a quote from the beginning of the Arena manual where one of the designers was talking about his inspiration for the game and he said something along the lines of "I wanted to create a game like the table top games I've always played, a game where you could go anywhere, do anything, and become anyone." The Elder Scrolls games have always reached for that goal, and I think that with Skyrim you have come pretty damn close to achieving it. I tip my hat to everyone involved throughout the history of the elder scrolls series and I would like to offer a genuinely appreciative thank you for having created such a rich and immersive world that has grown with me over the years.