well, from history, beth knows that people will pretty much mod the game to the point that it will be completeyl revamped so they figuire why waste the manpower and the time it would take in delaying its release to do things that the modders will eventually do better and for free.......

as far as tes titles go, beth releases a 60% completed game and lets the modders complete the game especially since the modders take alot of player feedback into account in their mods.......

if beth tried to release a game that was 100% done, the delay would have people screaming and the game would still be modded to the point where it would turn out that beth wasted alot of time trying to make it a perfect release......

with their fallout games, i could play them start to finish without a single mod and stil lbe satified with the game....

with tes, i dont really play it until there have been mods done that in my mind have completed the game........

i think it is unfair to even rate an unmodded skyrim.. or other tes titles.... since in my mind they are unfinished games........


whether fair or not, it is actually a pretty good business strategy... beth doesnt spend extra money "finishing" the game and the mods provide enjoyment for the game for months, if not years, beyond a normal shelf life.......

I praise Bethesda for addressing 80% of the Skyrim population before PC players.

The graphics and visual style are nice, but if you are looking for unsurpassed look at The Witcher 2, the level of detail in that game is insane.

Did you play any TES game before Oblivion? I didn't play all of them, but Daggerfall and Morrowind were both absolute masterpieces lore and story-wise.

As for the article. I agree and don't agree. I wouldn't know what my GOTY game would be as I didn't play many games from this year, but this article is kinda full of crap in some aspects. Sure, some pieces of story weren't that great, and I played many games with better story and such. But gameplay wise I was always wondering how are people seeing things. 1st off, this guy more or less depicted pure warrior/mage/thief classes. This game can combine, you can be a little bit of all. You are never forced to use the same sword/block combo troughout the whole game. It only shows how horribly uncreative the author of the article is. I never ever suffered from repetitiveness of using the same style of play all the time. That's why this game has so many different skills and option to make different characters. If you get bored by bows, switch to swords, or hammers, or magic, or any combination of those. If it doesn't fit in your character's lore, make a new character.
Also, claiming that it is boring to take out everything with one hit only means that the author was probably playing on the easiest mode of the game? Seriously, on hardest game setting with a character with level 50+, it takes quite a strategy to take on a Giant and his mammoth flock, and it still has a huge chance to fail, not to mention that you can't mindlessly fus do rah a mammoth so you are not the god here.

That being said, I do not defent Skyrim, it is a great game, and I have palyed better games, but mentioning these kinds of flaws in a game that definitely doesn't have them only shows your own flaws.
Really, TES games were always as creative or repetitive as much as the player is, after all. Playing the game the easiest possible way and then calling it repetitive is, at least, rude and ignorant.

You say it's the best RPG this year and the first thing you mention is graphics?

Sorry I do not see the point in listening to a magazine that is based on greed and knows nothing of video games. How is it they can make a review when they have no real gaming knowledge.

You mean like you're doing?

While I can certainly say that for me, Skyrim's place as game of the year is contested (I've played so many awesome games this year it's absurd), I would say it's just edged out Arkham City on my list. Then again, The only opinion for game of the year I care about is mine.

Buhhh? Comparing Skyrim to Portal 2?? Nyo.

but, Skyrim have gotten the GOTY edition. have you ever tried to walk across skyrim, it would at least take an hour!!!!! and so many details that there are in Skyrim - I don't think any of you really notices all the little details.

yes, the textures are pretty low quality, from what we expected - but you can just download another texture from the nexus.

The elder scrolls always deserves GOTY because of the standard they keep up!

Wow you are so insightful, basically anyone who agrees with you is right and anyone who disagrees is wrong. Instead of GTFO how about you S.T.F.U, some like this game some don't. Is the game perfect, nope, is any game perfect, nope.

This adolescent need for those who are but hurt over Skyrim not being the perfection of gaming nirvana is getting old. Go validate your opinions elsewhere, you tire those of us who enjoy the game and understand nothing is perfect and it is more a journey than a destination.

What they have done with this game resulted in more sales than any other PC platform on Steam, money talks and B.S walks. Forbes has one perspective, several other magazines have different perspectives. Truth is this game has won GOTY for XBOX on at least one commercial grade review organization. What would be different from me posting that and telling the world to GTFO because they disagreed with me over what you did, oh NOTHING would be different.

Grow Up.

That is all.

Well written article, and I can't disagree with anything the guy says, really.

However - combat IS kind of a repetitive thing . . . .swing sword, raise shield, swing sword, raise shield, etc. - that IS kind of how such combat works.

And personally, I despise puzzles in games like this, so the fact Skyrim's are simplistic is fine with me.

The biggest difference between Portal 2 and Deus Ex, I think, is the world/weapons. Skyrim is swords, bows, magic. The other two are guns. Tactically, you can do different things, and perhaps some people prefer the variety that can come from that. That's a fair and valid opinion, and is an opinion (and yes, I got the impression the writer enjoyed that a bit more - perhaps wrong impression, but I got it).

As for storyline . . . . ehh, that's not a huge factor for me. I don't need deep character interactions, I don't need grand ceremonies acknowledging my awesomeness. Give me things to do, give me plausible reasons to do them, give me some option of whether to do them or not, and how to do them, and I'm fine.

Maybe I have low standards, who knows? But none of these are reasons, IMO, to downgrade Skyrim.

All that said, voting on GOTY is basically an opinion. This guy liked other games better - okay, fine, good for him. Me, I prefer Skyriim, and I'm okay with that.

I will have to say the article did bring up some really good points........that dont deal with me. Im ok with how the story and melee combat is TES is all about a loosely world is in danger story and exploration which it did. Now even though i LOVE portal 2 to death and it is fun, i dunno im addicted to this game and the CK and the DLCs havent came out yet.

I once read this quote in a Game Informer article when they did a grill of GTA 3:


Bethesda is the epitome of this statement. This is the kind of game you cannot look at too closely. Because when you do, you start to notice the game is a lot uglier than you first thought.

Wow, if you think Tolkien's writing leaves a lot to be desired you don't understand Tolkien. Seriously his writing is detailed and incredibly deep on all points plot and subplot and yes his backstory set the standard for fictional writing. Few writers surpass Tolkien on this and only one comes to mind quickly and that would be Faulkner as far as detail goes.

Tolkien literally wrote an entire history and language that was nearly a complete trilogy in itself just to support writing his Magnum Opus

The article was pretty much spot on. I'm still playing Deus Ex, so I can't say if it's better overall, but the points he makes why Skyrim shouldn't be GOTY are valid in my opinion.

I never read the article but everyone is entitled to there opinion and if they don't like something as much as other people then that's fine with me. But I personally do think skyrim deserves the goty award. But then that's just my opinion.

If you bought skyrim expecting a tight, compelling story then more fool you. Bethesda has given us the tools to make our own adventures and use our own creativity...GOTY.

Like it or not, gamesas -did- step on it with golf cleats vis a vis storyline. Faction quest lines were truncated to the point of silliness; the Forbes article pointed out the most egregious one. Apprentice to archmage in 4-ish dungeons? Even if you never used magic in your life? None of the questlines leave any effect on the world; at the very least, they should have set up a main quest timer where if you play it, and pass a certain point, you have two options: save the world or watch it burn, one city at a time. This is supposed to be a world ending threat........yet there is no threat. You kick Alduin's ass once, he retreats to Sovvengarde to chomp souls......and stays there, as far as I can tell, until you deign to go kick it the last time. There should have been a timer there, and if you doink around long enough, then he =should= come back.....stronger. In the archmage questline, it should have been possible to blow it, and have Ancano blow the College off the face of reality.

That is one of the fundamental points of storytelling. Action-reaction. Choice-consequence. Having those does not make it a linear world; but it makes your actions significant in the world. That is what Skyrim lacks. Todd & Co succeeded in their quest. This is a casual gamers game. You hop in, kill things, and leave. No muss, no fuss, no consequences. No reason to give a damn.

Hopefully they will pay attention to the reasoned criticism, and put the really devoted fan drooling in the proper container......but I fear the drool will muck up any reasoned anolysis.......

You sir, made me literally facepalm...

That was the point. Despite all that excellent backstory, it barely had anything to do with the plot...

Just to note, vgchartz confirms that PC is about 23% of the market so far: http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales-data/49111/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/

PC Global Sales: 1,258,947
Xbox 360 Global Sales: 3,550,533
PS3 Global Sales: 2,019,196

Furthermore, USA sales for PC are only 454,958 while Europe was almost double this, and USA sales for console are 917,717 (PS3) and 2,205,062 (Xbox360). The USA sales are important because ZeniMax is an American company and thus probably gets the most profit from domestic sales here in the US. If you actually compare domestic console sales to domestic PC sales, you get ~3.1227m vs 0.454958m or around 14%, so it's easier to see where they got "10% of the market".

Do people that read Forbes even play video games? No, they are too busy worrying about which car they'll be driving to which dock to pilot which boat with which girl.

So therefore, Forbes reason why it's not GOTY is insignificant. Because rich people complain about the stupidest stuff.

My point? Who cares.

There was no game of the year this year.

And yet, to my utter fascination, they cite Deus Ex (a game which literally invalidates your choices with the push of a button at the end of the game) as the standard for storytelling? There were no consequences in Deus Ex. I could have supported Sarif the entire game but with the push of a button, boom I'm anti-augmentation. That's consequence?

^{I find it interesting, the amount of praise he had for the game and in the same breath trying to derate the game. Skyrim is not for everyone. I find that most people don't have the patience. The want action all the time, which is why he probably loves Deus Ex so much. This guy is still wet behind the ears. What the hell does he know about video games anyway? Skyrims not perfect, but Dues Ex really, I could see Portal... but Deus.....no. For the most part its all a matter of opinion. Batman Arkam City wasn't mentioned on his list so I gotta wonder about this guy....I found alot of the stories in Skyrim sufficient for my taste. If I want exstremely fleshed out stories I'll read a book or pick up an interesting movie. I think people who don't have time or patience to get the most out of Skyrim would love to agree w/ this guy so they can have some that sounds smart to say. What kind of timeline and payroll would it have taken to come up w/ all these stories for all the quest in Skyrim? It would have been 4 more years before we got to play this game. This guy gets paid to write artles on games? Get serious.}

I really don't think the OP is sorry, just more Nerrr Nerrrr haha someone didn't rate your game that you have spent years making GOTY! Suffer in your boots!!

Opinions are exactly that, I agree with many of his points about the guild questlines, they could have been ore fleshed out like Oblivion or even Morrowind, the Companions line felt like I only did a few missions then Whalla I am their leader, although there are benefits like being able to ask any of them to join you etc.

I guess it depends on how you play Skyrim and what you expect out of it, I have spent 110 hours mainly exploring, only just started the whole Imperial vs Stormcloak quest line and have only completed the Companion quest line! I think already I have got my moneys worth by far, when I think about all the FPS's I have bought and completed and returned 2 days later to the store to trade-in, it really is an amazing accomplishment!