ummm the combat was good.... oh and it was pretty. that makes a great game right?

Despite its bugs, I love the game. There's some cleanup that needs to be done but those are small details. Everyone would like to see a couple of things added or a couple of things deleted but those things aren't gamebreakers: only the bugs are. When you can't do the MQ, it's a gamebreaker. But the features are great, the atmosphere is great, and it's fun to play. I thought I'd be completely sick of it by now; I've played more hours than I care to think about. But I keep finding ways to make it interesting. That's probably because I take the game for what it is, not what it isn't.

Dumbed down. Streamlined. Casual focused.

Very Well Said : )

Ha thats funny . Skyrim's environment is close to what I imagined the Mutant town in the mountains would look like before I went there.

It's not on my top 5 or top 10, but I enjoy it somewhat. It gets boring rather quick and for an rpg it's really really weak. 7/10 and that's being generous.

Very good game, top 3 fav. ever. This is the first ES game where I don't like to FT or even use a carriage all that often. I love walking under the aurora while the leaves fall from the pines as I leave riverwood. OB had some cool vistas, but Skyrim is so DAMN pretty!

With that being said, the dialogue is SO vague and the Guild Quests, while very intriguing, end so quickly they leave a lot to be desired. The RPG elements are lacking. I really miss not being able to level up speed and pick a birth sign; although this isn't that big of a deal as some of the attributes were. Taking out spellcrafting, while I know they say it wasn't possible, really hurts us mages because we don't have access to many powerful spells toward end game! That flamethrower that Todd talked about? It's AWESOME, too bad I can only use it till level 12...

Taking out classes was a very good design choice since I usually favor around 9 skills and wasn't able to take 2 of them in OB.

Overall, very pretty game, but isn't as great as I expected (damn you hype!) it to be in the end.

my thought is why did you stop play dark souls and gears 3 to come over here and tell us your lame view of Skyrim? Granted, if i had money to burn i'd be playing gears 3 and dark souls but Skyrim is the only new game i could get in over a year. Thus, your insulting my baby son.

Ok i'm not going to be a [censored] and smash pound you into the ground but let me tell you that SKyrim is like a women. The more attention, time and care you give it the more it gives back. You seem to be like the gamer i once was when i would go from one game to the next never satisfied and always wanting more. Ironcally, the fact that i'm poor now and had to only pick one game to last for a very long time i'm so grateful it was skyrim.

However, the prerequistes to make skyrim epic is that you have to be creative, self-discipline and place self-imposed regualtions on how to play and what not to exploit. If i'd judge skyrim on my forst 120 hours of gameplay i'd have sharded your very same veiw. Now i'm 400 hours in and my new charactoer that i've played for 100 plus hours is having some of the most epic battles, character creation and challenges that trump the first 120 hours beyond all belief. The problem with skyrim is that it made for all ages and mentalities. Anyone can pick it up, play it, and have some fun. However, if you want to find the full potential in the game you'll need to have several qualities in your character and a lot of time on your hand.

Thus, i can see you having a shallow view of the game because your more than likly a "commerical gamer" also getting "the next best thing" and i'd be right there with you if i had a bunch of money lol so i aint mad at ya. However, what i cant understand is why you have a negative view of the game, almost braging about coming back from playing gears 3 and dark souls, is it because yuo think others will feel the same way? If so, you might be in good company cause there are still some superfisal players who post on these forums. However, for those of us like myself that has dug deep into the game, 400 hours of deep, and realize i have only skimmed the surface of what type of gaming i can get out of this game then you my friend will find that you are wrong about skyrim and it would be best to either really get into skyrim or just be on your marry way with dark souls and gears 3 and all the new games your going to get.

Really? I found Oblivion to be an obsolete bore. Just... ugh. I loved Morrowind, but Oblivion?



Skyrim is fairly shallow as an RPG, but I still found it better then both Morrowind and Oblivion.

That mutant town was such a let down.

And again, is there anything wrong with this?

I don't really see how it was dumbed down.

Do you want my first impression? I was rolling on the floor, drooling and totally amazed. But no joke, I was really impressed. It kind of wore off but I still really love it.

Why am I running into so many bugs. No ingredient or enemy respawns and this even happened with a new charcter.

Magic is shallow and one dimensional.

There is no consequence and there is no reputation system in place.

Why are the faction quest so short?

The combat is better.

The world is an improvement over Oblivion.

Of course it is buddy.

"wheres the rest of it?"

combat - great!
landscape/characters - great!
housing/cooking/crafting etc - great!
main quests - not so great
far too short, really. its like six, needs a lot of buildup for the finale.. civil war storyline was especially disappointing.
it doesnt really feel like i earn anything, just have a series of misadventures and hey presto! archmage/saviour/harbringer etc.
its way too fast paced. there needs to be more player character growth, less "epic adventures." this may seem counter intuitive, but its like... when super epic is the norm, it gets old fast. there ought to be downtime and story development.

leveling - too fast, doesnt feel like much of an accomplishment


well basically it feels somehow.. unfinished. i think once more expansions have come out it'll "mature" more, but right now its not quite there.

Gameplay has few flaws except perhaps the lack of balance between certain skills. With that fixed, the gameplay aspect will be great, far superior than that of the Fallout 3 era games. I love what they did with the perk system and loved that they got rid of absolutely brain dead idiotic skills like Athletics. You level up by running and you run faster to the point where not even a leopard can catch you. That's kind of sad. Especially since you can't choose not to level it unless you want to walk everywhere.

Story...ah story. Choice is still present but not so much in the Main Quest. Yeah, you can pick a faction about 3/4 of the way through the quest line but there comes a point where you just say, "No...I don't want to do this. I already paid what I owed them so why am I still taking crap from them?"

In the Civil War quests, after about 1/4th of the way through, the whole thing becomes the same with maybe one or two variants. It's literally, take the Fort. It would've been nice to lay siege on the city or infiltrate it and murder the guards for ease of entry or something with IMAGINATION. I expected way more and there are literally only two epic battles in the entire story and everything in between is monotonous.

As for the Guilds, it's alright. Nothing too bad about them except maybe the College of Winterhold. That itself isn't even that bad except for the obvious story guessing and you can literally guess the entire plot of the story after a certain point if you were paying any attention to the story up to that point in time. I can let that go though as there's always that ONE guild that has to have that for some reason. In any game.

General side quests are fine. They're not supposed to be this epic saga of betrayal, romance, and warfare. It's just there for fun or for the wow factor. Many side quests accomplish that and others are just there for the sake of being there. It's fine. Side Quests aren't really of high expectation to begin with but they deliver some entertainment.

Daedric Prince quests are awesome. It isn't just, find the statue --> offer something --> do the quest --> get stuff, formula. There's actually variety. Some quests that you would think are just funny, creepy, or regular side quests suddenly diverge into this awesome Daedric Prince quest. In fact, there's only a few quests that involve that formula that Oblivion used. Only a couple!

In general, Skyrim's story falls short where it counts but it's still a great experience and I'm looking forward for some story rich mod quests. If you want a story rich quest, go play the Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, or one of the better Daedra quests. Really, all three aren't even that story rich compared to games like...Mario Galaxy or Dragon Age, but they're still cool for the first two or three times you play through them.

Gameplay wise, there are only a few kinks to work out and after that, it's fantastic.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To make the story better Bethesda...JUST FREAKING USE NEW VEGAS AS A TEMPLATE. That game had the choice throughout the entire main quest and side quests actually tied into the Main Quest in more places than one. Also, if you're planning on making something like the Civil War, actually make it seem like we're contributing in more ways than just clearing out forts.

New Vegas had us do a bunch of infiltration, attacks, alliance forging, and even a protection/assassination mission once. While it is very similar for all four factions, there are differences where it counts. There is literally no difference in the Civil War quests except for the First Battle and the Last Battle.

In the end, Skyrim was good, but not great. Entertaining, but not compelling. Vast, but not epic. Ambitious, but not driven. Full of ideas, but lacking in execution.
It was fun... for 18 days...

Anything else I have to say will be rather harshly critical, and I don't have the will to argue my point of view this week, so I'll just go back to playing something that isn't Skyrim.

Thankfully not as dumbed down as Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning but all you do is just follow the rings rather than the arrows.

Well, personally I think it was intentionally streamlined/dumbed down as a personal slight against the elite cadre of true roleplayers found on this forum. That's my theory and I'm stickin' to it.

No, it was dumbed down to make more money, like a lot of games now that practially play the game for you and show you what to do and where to go rather than just play.

well i'm about 75% of the way through the game clocking up around the 300hr mark. i love the game the best game i've ever played to be really honest about it. although it is my first elder scrolls game and i've been playing games since the days of the atari.

if i could change something that i think would make it better for my own personal gaming experience then it would be to have a better feeling of living in a world that is real. the roads are deserted even though cities always seem to have stables and a carrage service to ferry people about.

i'd also like things to do just to pass the time and unwind in skyrim. you only ever see people drinking and listening to music in a tavern. why can't i take part in some sort of bar game or go to a secret gambling den. or take part in some races or sports outside.

these are things that you could do in red dead redemption and i think that red dead redemption has a better feeling of a living world where there is more interaction with other npc's or more npc's out on there travels on the road.

Not too bad for a tech demo......

So when do we get the real game?

all in all skyrim is a great game but indeed it does suffer on the depth of some quests (i like the MQ actualy and college Q the best) but it does seem blurry if that is the word, in the general sense.

the combat and smaller detials like wood cutting and cooking are amazing..however and crafting skills are cool although need lots of balancing.

at the end after playing the game for like 3 months with 14 characters I would say Skyrim is a very fun game with some flaws, its a superb adition to the TES line of games.

in my opinion what it needed was:

1-bigger cities with tons of side quests
2-better skill/spell/enemy balance
3-more cloths
4-more weapon types
5-longer MQs (faction quests that is)
6-better NPC AI (all games need this anyways)

It's probably the second game I've played the most in my life after Hearts of Iron II so it must be enjoyable in some way I guess. I kind of agree with those who say it could be deeper and more meaningful as far as choices go, but really, when I want that I play real life. There are endless possibilities in that game, and all have consequences.

I've played Skyrim for over 300 hours, so yes, I will suggest improvements and things I would like to see, but I won't say that the game is flawed, svcks, is dumbed down, etc. I think for $60, 300 hours of entertainment is quite good.

At the end of the day it's just a game.

So you dont want it work?!