I guess people got to complain... and I was seeing a lot of that on the board... so when I put off going to pick up me pre-order at Gamestop at midnight so I could wake up to go to work on time.. I was beginning to worry...
You see.. I upgrade my system... as I do every few years when a game I know is going to require a lot processing power. I usually upgrade my mother board or my video card... add some memory... but this time, I went all out. I didn't want to play with all of the lags and crashes I had in the past games I played. (morrowind... oblivion... fallout)
I bought the whole shebang... I went for the recommend requirements and then some:

Intel Quad core 3.4 (I think)
8 Gig ram
NVIDIA 560 ti video card 1 Gig
I have it hooked to my 54" plasma and home theater system with and HDMI cable.


So when I arrive at my office and found out that my boss was home "sick" I thought, " yeah right, he's playing Skyrim". I decided to do the same, since I have some Paid Time Off stacked up.
I left early.. got to Gamestop by 10am and was home by 10:30
Installed the game... took 11 minutes to install and another 3 to patch (??)

So I have played for about an hour and a half by now and I think it is freeking AAAWWWSOME!!!

I admit, the menu system takes a little adjusting.... I can't for the life of me play with video game controller, so the w,s,a,d keys are like home to me. I usually use space to activate and e to jump but... I can get used to it...

The graphics and the game play so far are more than what I expected. The water flowing look the best I have seen in any game.

The tutorial was good and made you feel immersed into the world quickly, but I didn't like the guy nagging me to hurry up and stick together when I wanted to explore and look at the beautiful detail more.
With every Bethesda game I have played, I always think of how real it looks and I often wonder how they can improve on things. The fact that I can see the veins and hairs or dirt on the NPCs arms are really impressive. This looks more realistic and allows you to move freely and interact with practically every thing you see.
One think I noticed right off the bat after the tutorial, is you have the option of going your own way or being guided, like most of the RPG's out there. I let myself be guided for a while.. now I want to explore.
I
am now going back to Skyrim and will probably be planted on my couch for the rest of the weekend, with the exception of bathroom and food breaks.( I am actually eating lunch now)

I just wanted to say how much I like this game so far and to all you haters out there... I am really sorry it wasn't up to your expectations and I guess there is no pleasing you.

You summed it up perfectly sir. I don't know why they do that in games to be honest. nobody like being nagged in a game and they must have n- ok I'm moaning now. My only two concerns on this FANTASTIC game are the radiant AI seems to be asleep and no breath metre underwater. I can live with both of them it would be nice to see a fixer though.