I haven't purchased the game yet, only because we are moving overseas, and I will have to wait until we purchase new systems (PCs - not consoles) in order to play. As a result, I have been spending some time reading reviews of the game, both by professional reviewers and users.

I have played TES games since the Arena days, and I distinctly remember how BUGGY Daggerfall was on the release date and a good time afterwards. WAY more buggy than this game sounds. Bethesda is not like Blizzard, who tend to be perfectionists when it comes to the quality of game on initial release. Anyway, Daggerfall was almost unplayable at launch, but we were much more patient back then it is was quite common for software to be buggy when first released to the public. Not that it was right, but it just was the way it was. And Daggerfall became one of the great RPG games. In fact, many TES PC gamers consider that game to be the gold standard of the TES universe.

I am a bit concerned about the port /menu issue, and it does make me hesitate to run out and buy the game when the time comes, but overall, I haven't heard anything negative in terms of the experience within the game, mostly because it is too soon for people to judge at this point. In addition, human beings tend to like what they are accustomed to, not necessarily what is right or good or beautiful. The menu controls may be a little difficult to get used to, but lets here what people say after a week or two of playing the game.

Don't buy the game for PC. Buy it for console, that's what its meant for.

UI takes a few minutes to get used to. I had a hardware issue that affected my FPS, but that's solved now and wasn't Bethesda's fault. Game works pretty much perfectly for me.

It doesn't destroy playability. It's still very playable with it. It's just an annoyance for some of us who prefer a more in-depth UI designed specifically for keyboards and not controllers.

Get the game, it's still plenty of fun.

I'm playing on the PC. Initially I came to this forum just to say how much I was loving the game, and then I find all these snobbish and elitist threads about how the textures are a bit muddy and they're finding the menus a bit awkward.

Don't listen to them. It's brilliant. If you play the game for more than 20 minutes you'll stop caring about how it doesn't look like Battlefield 3 and you'll be able to get around the menus fine.

You know what I can deal with the bugs... I can deal with the mediocre graphics... I can't deal with the interface.

This game is a "console port" there's no denying it... But I've seen "console ports" that at least made some semblance of effort for the UI of the PC counterpart version.

With Skyrim it feels like Bethesda was at 11:59pm Thursday night and just said "[censored] it"... We'll let the "modders" do it again.

Personally I would have gladly waited til Christmas for an actual PC game, that utilized my mouse and keyboard correctly.

They should have taken something out of Blizzard's book, "we'll release it when it's finished".

Even PCGamer said...

"We got a review copy of Skyrim the day the game was officially finished, but it’s curiously buggy. Among a lot of minor problems such as issues reassigning controls, there’s glitchy character behaviour that can break quests, and AI flipouts that can turn a whole town against you. And the interface isn’t well adapted to PC: it sometimes ignores the position of your cursor in menus. There’s an update due as soon as the game’s out, but there’s a hell of a lot to patch here. Next time, maybe don’t commit to a specific release day just because it has a lot of elevens in ?"



There's a reason why the PC User Reviews on Metacritic have continually dropped form 9.8 after the early "fan boy" reviews to 8.8 and continually dropping by the hour... Like I said I bet it will even out around 77-82.

Game was either rushed for the PC, or they went in with the mindset of not giving a [censored] about the PC version.

This x 1000 I learned how to use the UI and the only issue I still have with it is some yes/no answers need to be mouse clicked. That or you need to press "Y" or "N" which I forget to try.

The menu system bothered me for what about half an hour. After that I find WASD E R F Tab to work almost as well as mouse and keyboard.
I don't like the perk system layout at all. trying to jump to the next one in line to skip a few, or jump to a completely different perk tree is annoying.
But minor annoyances.
By far one of the least buggy ES releases ever. Yet to find anything game breaking. Heck yet to find anything I'd say was upsetting. No crashes, running on a 2 year old machine at ultra settings.
Only thing I hate so far is Giants (or the general physics engine) either throwing you 2 miles into the air, or just other random items (be it rare) flying across the screen because it got bumped weird.

The game looks amazing. YES you can feel the "console" in it. But I don't care so much if the stone ground looks dated by say 2 years, especially because Bethesda's usage of concept view distance makes the game almost svck you in. Sure field of view needs changed in first person on PC, yes there are little issues like this.
BUT most of the complaints by many of the people your reading about either have glitchs, I've seen quite a few posts claiming Ultra settings, and the textures look worse than low. So there are issues. But I've not had a problem both on my ATI 5850 and my friends Nvidia 460. So to sum it up, take the rantings of people that don't understand how to properly run a game or manage their computer with a grain of salt.
Yes its a ES game, understand what that is, and what your getting into and I'm sure you'll enjoy this game as much as I am.
JUST don't defend the devs with the line "well the modders will fix it soon" I have to take quality points away from the dev team for some of the shobby work. BUT every game has its soft spots. And at least we as a community can say "well the modders will fix it soon" because I'm sure there are many games out there with issues, where they can't rely on a wonderful modding community to improve this polished yet still not perfect game.

+1 Godwhacker

People are far too picky. Makes me glad I'm not a developer. Sure it has it's flaws, but it does so many things better than Oblivion that I feel sorry for the people who can't appreciate the genius of the game through their profound desire to find fault in everything.

Then again, I've only been playing it for a few hours. Ask me how I feel in a month.

I'm a PC player, and I'm totally fine with it as-is. It sure got a bit of getting used to, but hasn't every new Elder Scrolls game been that way?

@MrDingleBerry: The interface was designed for consoles, of course it was. It's their biggest market share. The game however is not a "port", it was developed on the PC for all three platforms. If it was a port, we'd have shoddy graphic settings, the inability to have better visuals than the console versions, and no modding capabilites. That's not the case.

Was the interface designed for consoles? Yes.
Was the interface ported to the PC? No. It wasn't changed much granted, and could be better. But it's not awful. Jesus.

It's true, I guess what makes us rage more isn't the presence of bugs... I've played enough TES games to know bugs happen.

But rather the NATURE of this bug - the devs clearly spent no time testing or designing a PC compatible interface in their focus on the console version, that kinda gets under your skin considering the history of TES and it's loyal PC fanbase. Still, we should be grateful they didn't do a Mechwarrior and just take the franchise and make it console ONLY (Where it died a swift death, since the Xbox market preferred armoured core)

OP, I'm in the same boat. A couple things have me doubting a purchase right now. 1) With Bethesda's track record regarding DLC, I might as well wait for a GOTY edition in order to not get ripped off (Shivering Isles is an exception) 2) The game appears to have a UI and Technical (not artistic, mind you) graphics which are very outdated and consolized 3) The "streamlining" of the gameplay (less factions, smaller world, no birthsigns, no classes, no attributes, less cities, etc.) all have me worried that Bethesda may have made the same mistakes they made with Oblivion here.

Can anyone tell me if my fears are justified? I suppose with regard to the gameplay, it's much too early to tell.

Irritated PC users? I've been playing skyrim for a good 4 hours and I'm totally satisfied!

Oh it's awful... It rivals Borderlands PC interface in crappiness.

And it's really, really dumbed down as well, but that's also attributed to the "console port".

You can't tell buffs/debuffs unless you navigate through 3 shoddy menus, because apparently they love that clean console gameplay screen. You have no actual character sheet, because that's not "simplistic" enough for the console crowd. You have to change half the games graphical options(which are already consolized) in a separate outside the game launcher.

It's a "port"... There's no denying it.

I really think what happened, is the DEV team played console for their testing, and much like me got so used to the setup that they decided it adds "style" to the game. I like the UI, I'd like something different as well. BUT I'm just as effective, if not more effective with the WASD Q E R F TAB that is in place now.
The only work that really needs to take place is on the Perks layout, Doesn't work well with keyboard mouse.
Now we can either say one of two things, either the DEV team liked the current UI and decided to go with it. Or as I'd like to think (because its funny) Hey guys, keep working on adding more to the game, sure we're 3 days from release, but more content the better. OH SH*T we forgot to give PC a non-console like UI AARRRGGGG!

I totally agree the PC interface could be better. But it's not a port. They just didn't change the interface enough and adapt it well enough for the PC. The game isn't a port, mods, higher graphics, the console all show that the game was developed for the PC, but with the interface more for the console side. They should have made it more PC friendly, of course, not denying that. But to say the game is a port is simply unfounded and absurd.

I played about 8 hrs with no crashes!

1) I can't argue this. I do believe that Shivering Isles will be the idea behind DLC for them though, kind of like the latest work on DLC from Bethesda.

2) UI is messy, but not. I want a character sheet, but I move around it quite quickly, its simple effective and streamline I would like more detail but that is my preference, and will be fixed come modding Though it couldn't hurt Bethesda to release one late on. As to graphics. Have you seen the game running on ULTRA settings CORRECTLY? They downplay the lack of overly high res textures very well with their work of the concept of drawing you into the game with vistas and general view distance. And weapons / armor / characters look years ahead of Oblivion.

3) There are birthsigns, but they're rather weird. Classless is a boon and a hinder, the idea that I have no boundaries where I go, which has always been in ES games, (create your own class) all be it different doesn't make it horrible. The world is smaller, cities are less there, but the detail in them its like rolling two cities into one.

And finally I didn't like oblivion nearly as much as morrowind, heres why, the game doesn't make you want to play it. Skyrim, if you let it, will draw you in, and keep you under its thumb. Sure the game could use more depth with stats, classes, birth signs, but those actually can pull you out of the game as well. When in Morrowind did you ever go, MAN I'm born under the sign of the tower, HELLZ yah this makes the game so much more deep.
I don't like min and maxing when its not with the style of the game. BG and BG2 are great games that use character dev depth great. Skyrim is somewhat using the lack of it to keep you under its mystical thumb.

The DLC for Skyrim is supposed to be much bigger than their previous content you saw for Oblivion. That's all I remember hearing.


Graphics wise, it's not the jump we saw from Morrowind to Oblivion, but again, that's because there is no next generation consoles out yet. However, in my opinion the graphics look far superior than that of Oblivion. Yes, some games that take advantage of $400+ cards will look better. This one looks great for a PC gamer on a budget. The issues with the UI are mostly user preference. Unfortunately, it's bugged right now and it's very much designed for console/controller usage. However, when compared with other popular game UI, it doesn't offer as much in-depth or fluid access. Some people say that after some time of playing with it, they get used to it. But for me, it's not that I can't figure out how to play with it, it's that I just don't like the design. For me, at least, it's not about getting used to it. It's still very playable, though.


I haven't the measurements of the game worlds off hand, but Skyrim feels much larger than Oblivion and Morrowind combined. As for quests, two words... random quests. I haven't done any yet, but they're in the game, and apparently they're pretty intuitive.

Porting ES to consoles ruined this game.

Its gone straight downhill since Morrowind.

Game like this is great cause its so open and free in what you do, with so many different things to do.

Consoles go completely against that, which in the end does nothing but make this franchise worse with every game they release.

This game looks worse than my modded Oblivion does and i can tell already it has so many things removed that Oblivion had.

And of course Oblivion had so much taken out from Morrowind, this just adds to it more.

Consoles dumb everything they touch down, a game like this dumbed down ruins it.

Totally agree... Oh and for the umpteenth time the [censored] UI is garbage.

And there's no mudcrabs! When will Bethesda learn?!?!

The menu takes getting use to but its not game breaking. I followed everything in this http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/11/11/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-tweaks-improve-graphics-disable-vsync-change-fov-and-more/ any my performance is smooth as butter.

Yes there are.