http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/12/best-games-2011/?utm_source=UniBul+Blog&pid=2338

In this article, Wired names Skyrim the best videogame of 2011. I don't want to tell people how to do their job or say that they're wrong. I just want an answer to a simple question based on a quote from the article: "...you'd be hard pressed to find another game with this many meaningful choices."

Now, my question is: what meaningful choices? The choice to kill dragons? The choice to kill any one (except kids)? The choice to join one or more of the four factions? None of these choices has any sort of meaningful outcome. You can choose how to play the game, yes, but the quests are always the same. You can always do all, or at least most, of them. So what "meaningful choices" do they mean? Have I missed some basic part of this game?

I'm sorry for the rant, and as you can see, I do not agree with the statement in the quote. Still, it is their right to name the game whatever they choose, that is not the issue.

There's the civil war, but I can't think of anything else offhand.

Aha! Maybe that's the choice they were referring to! That's... Let's see... One meaningful choice?

Depends on how you interpret meaningful choices. Character skill and perk choices are completely open-ended. You choose guilds and the residents react accordingly. You take sides in a civil war.

It isn't F:NV but name another game that was in contention that does more?

Deus Ex: Human Revolutions?

Actually can't comment on that one, haven't played it yet, but if it has even half the choices DX the original had, it's still more than Skyrim's.

Witcher 2 had far more meaningful choices.

I agree. Skyrim has many choises for the player. But most are hardly meaningfull. It requires a lot of imagination and the usual blind eye to give the choises any meaning.

I would have really liked it if choises in Skyrim had at least a little bit of impact on the game. Like in Mass Effect or The Witcher for example. But in Skyrim there's hardly anything that has an actual effect.
Though I'm sure we'll get many mods to fix that (sorry, console players).

Yes, you're right. But I hope that you agree that the statement is weird. Although I haven't played the game, I understand that The Witcher 2 let's you make choices that actually affect your gaming experience in a much more detailed way. The character options are quite nice, yes, but it's no more open ended than in their previous games. Oh, and Deus Ex: HR!

They made this the prettiest TES game. And the weakest vis a vis storyline execution and gameplay mechanics interaction with same (which is kind of scary). There was no urgency, no sense of threat, no consequences to any of the secondary questlines. Whoever wins the civil war changes the guard uniforms. Whoopee. You get to be archmage in 4-ish quests and not having to know any more than the couple of spells you start the game with. Impressive breaker of immersion, that. There is minimal effect in the DB or TG questlines; you certainly don't get a reputation that follows you, or any fear from those in the know or respect from the shady side of the tracks. Once you kick Alduin in the gonads at the Throat of the World, he no longer shows his scales; you could play 500 game years and he would still be in Sovvengarde, chowing down. Real threat situation, that. Aside from the rubble of Helgen, no other town suffers from draconic temper tantrums that I've seen so far. The Companions are a pack or werewolves in the middle of a bleeding city, and no one suspects anything....? Nords are supposed to be viking-ish, but not stupid.

Being open world does not mean that there is no story; what it means is that you have room to play. In Daggerfall, so long as you didn't do one particular quest, the mainquest timer never started, and you could ride and rampage and pillage and loot and whatever until you wanted to stop (or you maxed out a major skill and stopped leveling up. One of those little rule things that kept you from becoming a level 500 godlet). Do that quest, and you had a game year (if memory serves) to do all the main quests and choose the ending you wanted to work for. Exceed that time and Things Happened.

Okay, they can brag they squeezed the last drop of blood out of the X-box turnip; maybe now that they have the shiny new digs and the triple digit team structure, they should stop worrying about bling and work on story and execution. Otherwise we are looking at Sonic 3D goes to Summerset......

The more awards and nominations Skyrim get, the more haters gonna hate. Keep on hatin', haters, you are quite funny!

I don't understand these sort of comments. Why do you take such an issue with people criticizing it? It's not like it's your child, you had no part in making it, and obviously you don't actually find people who dislike the game funny. The devs I'm sure can take some criticism and don't need posters on their forums to come to their defense. Are you just trying to incite people? Do you take some sort of pleasure out of other people not enjoying the game as much as you? I mean if you just want to express your disagreements with someone, explain why, the forum is for discussion.

I completely agree with the article. After 200 hours of gameplay, I have found zero glitches, and nothing but 200 hours of pure entertainment and RP. Plenty of meaningful choice.

All of this, and I still haven't even done the Mages guild or Thieves guild yet.

Great! I have also enjoyed about 150 game hours. But I still haven't gotten to make one single decision or choice that affects anything in any major way. I can go around and punch people in the face in a town and just pay the fine or tell the guards I'm in the thieves guild and they leave me alone and let me punch more people in the face. Even guards. If I was a guard, or any authority in the world of Skyrim, I'd see to it that a guy acting that way would get outlawed or hung after his third or so offence. I can even KILL guards, and they let me off with a fine!

I can choose what to do, but I have no choice in how to do it. Okay, I can kill everyone in the dungeon that I'm supposed to fetch something from, or I can sneak past them. I also get to choose how to kill them. Can I sell the item I'm supposed to anyone else? No, it's a quest item... Can I just kill the guy promising me gold for getting the item and take the gold instead? No, he doesn't carry it. It just magically appears in my inventory when he says so.

Now please tell the meaningful choices you've made.

The more awards and nominations Skyrim gets, the more time and money will be put in making the next game prettier and more dumbed down. That's the problem. I like the game, it's not that. I just think it would be better if they changed some stuff. If you can't look at something you love and see that it's not perfect, then you're never going to get something better. If people just accepted flaws as they were and never dared to ask "why not do this" or "why not try this", then we'd be stuck with... Well, we wouldn't even have video games, so I don't know what we'd be stuck with. There are no haters in this thread.

What I hate is when people that give this Game of the Year and say "they got it right this time" just makes me sick.

Did they even play the game? What meaningful choices?
Nothing you do in Skyrim affects anything or anyone, with a very few exceptions.
This is the worst Beth game to date when it comes to choices and consequences.

The only "meaningful" choices I've had are the ones I've been RPing myself.

Other people liking the game makes you sick?

Calm down, not everything is about meaningful choices. I can see Skyrim lacked these kind of choices, but every game has a problem. There is no such thing as "perfect" in the gaming industry. Though, I agree with you completely. I was expecting that if I killed someone in Skyrim, it will affect the game, but half the people I try to kill just kneel. I want to have an impact on the game, not just go to jail or pay my fines.

Well, I do get excited and a bit annoyed, but I don't think I'm stepping on any toes. The whole point of this thread was to make the argument that while the game is great in many, many ways, it's weird when magazines give praise to an element of a game that's not even in it. And I agree with you too, that every game has problems. I can also see why Bethesda made the choices they did with the story line and the quest. They're a company, they want money, people want a certain kind of game, they make it. I just wish they could keep their integrity and deliver games that they can be proud of in more ways than getting the GoTY title. I still think Skyrim kicks Oblivion's bum, but it's not as good as Morrowind. It's my opinion, I'm entitled to it, and people may disagree.

I agree with you completely. Games shouldn't receive GoTY for an element which was hardly supported or even in the game. Many magazines and give out these useless awards, which I think the game deserves, but not the way the magazine or website states it out to be. As for Skyrim kicking Oblivion's "bum", I don't think so. Skyrim was really impressive on delivering new graphics and such, but the storyline and the quests were horrible. Bethesda should next time make quests more longer in length, and actually meaningful.

I also like quests that are more longer in length.

Their reasoning is theirs, I'm not trying to answer for them. I just want to say that in my book Skyrim (or any other game for that matter) doesn't have to be brilliant in all the departments to be the best game of the year. Skyrim, the overall experience (ups and downs) is the best game I've played this year, and by all means, I do wish it had serious consequences for my choices, branched storyline, more dialogue options, etc... I do support the idea that TES would be much better with less hand holding and tunneled storyline, but that's hardly a heavy element in my GOTY balance. GOTY awards are more like popularity contests than mathematical surgery, and people usually appreciate the ones who attempt more at the risk of failing than the ones who attempt little and accomplish polished pieces of perfect little.

Just another excuse to moan.

No, people giving it more recognition then the other TES games. I mean this clearly a "Dumbed Down" game.

I agree. The saddest thing about it is that the next TES game will be even worse due to the success of Skyrim, for not to mention Fallout 4.
Say goodbye to good Beth games and welcome the casual dumbed down console experience.