I was sitting in my room shortly past midnight waiting for the 1 AM release in Europe, reading all the dreadful things people were saying about it on the forums.
I decided to keep an open mind, which may not have been the best idea as it was blown away during the first 10 minutes of the game.
Needless to say I stayed up late enough to watch the sun rise (outside my window, how many days passed in skyrim are lost in my memory)
A common theme with forums is that people go there when they have problems they need help with, the people who are impressed by the game are too busy slouched in their chairs cross-eyed and drooling while their character runs against a wall seeking some unattainable goal only the player can know in his deep and stormy dreams.
The myriad screenshots posting blurry textures and grainy shadows were not the case with me, of course you can always angle the camera just right and take a screenshot that looks absolutely awful, the laws of photography apply to screenshots just like anywhere else in the world. It does not mean the subject matter looks bad, maybe it is just a reflection of the skill of the photographer
I am very impressed and relieved at how well the game runs on my little Radeon HD 4650, a card that despite it's notorious weakness and DDR2 video memory, has pulled through for me time after time.
With a dual core 3.0ghz Athlon II x2 250, 8gb DDR2 memory @ 400mhz, and my HD4650, slightly overclocked, I get between 20-40 fps on high settings and 720p, the game looks breathtaking.

It is not just the graphics alone that pull the weight of this game, but all the little touches that bring it to life and svck you in, the music, the fluid and relaxed animations and camera movement.
Gone are the days of pressing jump and watching your character curl into the fetal position and levitate 4 feet into the air. Now you actually jump as a real person would, lifting your arms in the air with gusto. Never before have I felt so heroic after slaying a wild wolf, the musical score is more impressive than any TES game so far.

I might add that the first time the game started up it was in 1080p and I was getting about 5-6fps. I knew something was not right and checked the settings in the launcher only to discover that Antialiasing was maxed out by default. Turning this off did nothing to mire the visual quality, however it boosted my frames per second 5 fold. Might wanna reconsider that.

The biggest bug I have discovered so far is in remapping the controls, which causes some functions to not, well, function correctly, such as setting R to inventory, F to draw weapon, and Tab to switch views, as it was in Morrowind and as I have carried over into Oblivion over the years. This config caused me to be unable to drop or store items as it would only end up closing my inventory, or having to push Tab when closing a chest, which would cause me to switch views.
Otherwise I have encountered nothing terrible other than a couple amusing visual glitches like holding a red hot piece of iron by the wrong end when using a forge

Overall, as a TES fan who's been with the series since Morrowind, I am more than pleased and impressed by how Skyrim has turned out, in my opinion it goes above and beyond both predecessors in a combination of both games that has made it, if not something perfect, then at least one of the best RPG's I have ever played in my life.

Thank you Bethesda,

I'm off to go stare at the stars and listen to the masterwork of Jeremy Soule with the cold nordic wild swirling in the background



(I was just recently asked by a guard to stop shouting at the mudcrabs by the river, it was scaring people. I don't blame them. )

What a great post man. You just made my day. I have a very similar setup to you and seeing so many with high end setups complaining I was starting to worry. I'll be playing 720p or 1600x900 on an oc'd 4670 so this is great news.

What catalyst drivers are you using? I have 11.10 loaded but have heard 11.9 actually perform better. I did find benchmarks on 11.9 were slightly higher and might downgrade.

Anyway thanks for the words of encouragement. I'll be picking up my copy at my local shop in a few hours.

Cheers!

Wow way to spend 30 minutes writing a post only to have it buried within seconds by people wailing about how let down they are....

Seriously, to the people who are shouting about how awful the textures are, instead of pinning it on bethesda, try finding out what's wrong with your system first.

I am running the game on high settings, not even maxed out, and there is no doubt at all it looks much sharper and more vivid than oblivion ever did.

Try going back and playing vanilla Oblivion without any texture packs and then come back and look at Skyrim again.


EDIT: Sorry didn't see your reply, I'm using 11.9

Yeah I'm blown away every turn with this game. It had a little learning curve from Oblivion but once I got the whole left/right attacks figured out and favorites (I'm on pc) and got the groove of hotkeys it rocked. I just love the outdoors. I did about 3 dungeons and as great as they are I couldn't wait to get back outside to discover more and more epic views. The game just plays so fluid, the world is gorgeous and every story is engaging so far. Combat was pretty easy for me, but I would usually get a sneak bow shot in to start, then sword lightning the crap out of them followed by sword/shield and it worked nice. Once the magic recharged I'd blast them some more. I loved the combat dynamics, I don't think it will ever get old.

Probably the most memorable moment was after hitting level 5 and feeling pretty strong, I was going up the mountain on my new horse and these bandits rushed me and started attacking my horse. I took the first one out and my horse ran up to fight the other guy up higher on the mountain. I was really mad they might kill my new steed, and the very first blow I do on this guy is this badass finishing move where I pick him up with my sword rammed all the way through him. He was this skinny dude and my stacked nord just impaled him so hard, and as he reached the top I could see miles of stuff behind the whole thing and I was just like WOW. All I can say is thanks for blowing me away Bethesda.

Best TES ever.

There were some things I had expected but didn't turn out how I thought. It wasn't bad or anything, just different.

I had wanted to be a hunter type but my bow isn't strong enough to slay larger prey yet, and I could not catch the deer. I also wanted to be a guy making my own armor and stuff, but I was too drawn to explore the wonderful scenery and the ingredients to make stuff seemed to escape me, at least for now.

I had really dreamed of Solitude being the place for me, but I get there and people are kind of rude and it just didn't quite feel like the home I had wanted. Maybe that will change. They also seem to be empire loving scum so I pretty much just hit a couple shops and took off back to whiterun where I feel welcome at least.

I'm really leaning towards the stormcloaks. The more I learn about the empire the more I think they need to go down.

Wise words!