Ok,

Only put about 5 hours in (so I'd be finished with a fps), but just had to add some impressions. Minor spoilers possibly about the spells. This is my 7th Elder Scrolls game, and so far, I am enjoying it quite a bit. I absolutely love the magic system. First time I've played a spellcaster since Daggerfall. I love the summon zombie spell, and that it can be used on wild life. The noises that zombie humanoids make are perfect, too.

Love the leveling system. I was afraid that, without skills and stats, character development would be restricted. But now, I think it actually captures the intent of character development the Elder Scrolls series has been seeking. All the perks really allow you to define the type of character you want to be, and specialize in the things that matter to you.

The graphics are stellar, as far as I'm concerned. Playing on the 360. Love the beautiful landscapes and the detailed items. Characters look great. Spell effects are awesome.

The music is fantastic, as should be expected. Absolutely loved hearing one of the Daggerfall in tunes being played by a bard.

Combat is fun, more visceral than Oblivion's it seems. I've died a few times, and noticed the auto save frequency is pretty low. The kill animations are enjoyable, I don't think I'll get tired of them. The weapon and armor variety is already impressive.

Can't comment too much on the story or the quests, as I haven't done much past Riverwood and Bleak Falls. The atmosphere is there, though. It feels like a real place so far. Already, I feel more connected than I ever did in Oblivion. More like Morrowind.

The things I am not enjoying as much: it is buggy, unfortunately. First time I played, the game froze hard in the intro level, which is one more hard crash than I ever experienced with Oblivion. Also almost got stuck in the geometry in one spot. Would have been nice if the game were a bit more stable. I haven't downloaded the patch yet, because I have to move my 360 to a different floor to get it hooked up to the router, so maybe that will help. the other thing I am not digging is the world map. Sure it's pretty, but I can't actually use it to navigate very easily. It is very confusing and busy. Luckily, the interior and local maps are better. I'm sure I
ll get used to the new map, but a map similar to Oblivion's wouldn't have seemed out of place, and would have been more practical.

That's about all I have right now. Need to play some more. But, I am oh so happy so far. I am looking forward to many, many hours of play in this world. Thanks Bethesda, you've done it again. Possibly better than ever before.

I agree on some of your points, but my first impression is that this has the worst tutorial of any game in the series. Also, I'm playing on my old pc and the UI was and is very off-putting. I liked the Morrowind interface much more.

Cannot agree more, the Morrowind feeling is there, i m like you actually in bleak falls guts... But definitly morrowind feeling is there a thing i NEVER felt in Oblivion.
For PC the UI is horrible. Its nothing but the colunm of an excell spreadsheet, what was wrong with a morrowind interface kind for PC.
Another very strong point the world feel plausible, thing that fadded to me after 2 hours of play, the world seemed retardly gamish totally unplausible.

Some stuff could have dimmed that like a buttons to swap between 2 setting of weaponry, having to go UI each time you want to pas from bow to melee is an awesome pay immersion and fluidity killer.
There are some other small considerations, like you character is ALWAYS right handed, if you are 2 weapon combat only 1 weapon appear , if you have a quiver a bow and a weapon , if your character is set to weapon your bow disapear you don t (wanna) know where.
Walking is too awesomely slow a slug would walk faster, RUN button for the PC doesn t work..
Fpr PC some quick buttons (let say 5) would be aesome for spells, weapons and potions for example, and that was present in Morrowind.

I hope bethesda patch those but it ain t big deal, there s lor of other improvements that compensate...about leveling i don t know yet my character refuse to level up....

Introduction is nice but a pain in the ass in the time consuming department.