The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Perfect games do not exist and Skyrim is no exception. Bethesda's new game is faithful to the tradition of the series - it's an extremely well built and inviting sandbox that still has some minor flaws that you cannot overlook. On the other hand it has an unparalleled freedom, great atmosphere, a ton of different quests, many beautiful places that you simply have to visit and a total freedom with creating and customizing your character... Freedom and grandeur are the keywords here.

Bethesda's finest hour and one of the greatest RPGs of all time. [Christmas 2011, p.47]

They've created a world as much as they've created a game, and it's utterly brilliant. If you've got a computer that can run it, and the ability to manipulate a keyboard and mouse in any way, you owe it to yourself to play Skyrim.

In its worst moments Skyrim stumbles over its confused artificial intelligence, shutting itself down and its half-done inventory system. In its best ones Skyrim is the king of the new age of the genre.

After a trajectory of excellency with Oblivion and Fallout 3, Bethesda reaches a new level this generation, showing they have reached maturity in their unique way of making worlds. Thanks to their generosity, will and ambition, single players fans looking for huge worlds of high adventure can still keep dreaming. Skyrim is an absolute triumph.

No other game I know of operates with this many moving parts to create such an immense world filled with this much choice in how you engage its excellent, endless fiction. It's one thing when a game offers dozens of hours of gameplay; it's quite another when that gameplay is good enough you'll want to live in its world for that long.

The world of Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a vast expanse of sheer beauty, danger, and adventure -- you can also terrorize townsfolk, get punched in the face by a giant, and fight a ton of dragons. Those are just a few of the reasons why we love this game so much.

Let me clear things up by assuring you that none of the quest bugs, graphical issues, gameplay glitches, or unexplained crashes I've encountered can change the fact that I played this amazing RPG for well over 100 hours in the past couple weeks and absolutely loved it.

Skyrim is one of the most captivating role-playing games this generation. Each setting looks amazingly special and the artistic side of the game is just brilliant. This game is deeper and bigger than anything we have seen this year.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is by far the best RPG experience of the year and even better on PC. The huge and wonderful province of Skyrim serves as a great setting for an even greater story evolving around a mystical hero.

The fifth installment in the legendary Elder Scrolls saga is an exceptional game. Incredibly vast and detailed, the awkwardnesses of Oblivion is long gone and Bethesda brings the region of Skyrim to life in all its nordic strength. The -almost- infinite possibilities of modding are an incredible plus for the PC version.

It's just an incredibly deep and rich experience, an entire world in which you can literally loose yourself. Bethesda did it again.

For the explorer in all of the us, for the curious in all of us, for the adventurer in all of us, Skyrim is our game.

Skyrim has some minor issues but as a whole is a brilliant RPG. It offers you a wonderful world full of legends and mysteries, tens of guilds and factions that you can join, freedom and myriad of side quests, a great character development and an extensive crafting system. It was very close to receiving 10/10. [December 2011, p.56]

I may have hated Oblivion, but I utterly love Skyrim. It's fixed every problem I had with the previous game and don't think I'll be uninstalling it for a good long while.

Skyrim is like a music album that has a few tracks that you aren't particularly fond of, but rest of the music is pure aural blliss that you can't help but think of the album as close to perfection as possible.

Skyrim is a huge and engaging world to explore and it treats you with great moments, from your first dragon encounter to finally being able to craft dwarven armour.

Featuring the same kind of thrilling freedom of choice The Elder Scrolls series is known for along with beautiful visuals and a stirring soundtrack, playing Skyrim is a rare kind of intensely personal, deeply rewarding experience, and one of the best role-playing games yet produced.

The games we normally call open worlds – the locked off cities and level-restricted grinding grounds – don't compare to this. While everyone else is faffing around with how to control and restrict the player, Bethesda just put a fucking country in a box. It's the best open world game I've ever played, the most liberating RPG I've ever played, and one of my favourite places in this or any other world.

As expected: an open-world epic with a huge scope and a great atmosphere.

Skyrim is probably the best open world roleplaying game out there.

Quotation forthcoming.

Unfortunately, Skyrim trips and falls on its own (most probably, to make the cool-sounding deadline of 11-11-11) and just before it reaches perfection as the ultimate specimen of its genre, it self-destructs in a crucial aspect of game design: the interface and the peripheral components (inventory, journal, map, etc)... but that is not to say that Skyrim is anything but a truly majestic, epic RPG that will suck you right in its cosmos.

Skyrim is the best open world RPG you can get. A true evolution of genre is not flawless but still it is the game you love to live in. [Christmas 2011]

"Like Oblivion but far better", but after Dead Island, Skyrim blade swinging feels like shadow fighting. [Dec 2011]

Incredibly rich story and game world with tons of content and a few bugs. This RPG will have you playing for hundreds of hours.

Whether you're slashing a dragon's wings, raising the dead back to life, or experimenting at the alchemy table, Skyrim performs the most spectacular of enchantments: the one that causes huge chunks of time to vanish before you know it.

Ultimately, Skyrim is a spectacular game. Huge, full of rewards and things to see, read and do. Still, the "console friendly" approach did leave its mark and the technical problems, coupled with some excessive simplification don't bode well for Bethesda's reputation.

When taken in total, it must be admitted that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim does not deviate much from the established Elder Scrolls formula. However, the painstakingly-designed world in combination with the retooled leveling system represents the most polished version of that formula to date. There's something to be said for sticking with what one knows and refining it, and in Skyrim's case, there's a lot to be said for it.

Quests are better structured, the dramatic moments abound, and the atmosphere of the northern title is incredibly immersive. There are also, inevitably, small bugs, pathfinding problems, inconsistencies, repeated load times and other annoying issues which punctuate the experience bit by bit.