The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

 PC
User Score
8.4

Generally favorable reviews- based on 12985 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10,547 out of 12985
  2. Mixed: 1,375 out of 12985
  3. Negative: 1,063 out of 12985
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  1. screamshield
    Apr 26, 2015
    0
    A horrible day.Paid modding is added now and is killing the modding community.Once an ok game with mods is now utter trash.

    Thank you Valve and Bethesda for ruining the modding community.
  2. Shermans
    Apr 23, 2015
    1
    Now with 1,000,000% more paid DLC, first horse armor now this. Greedy company is, greedy. I wouldn't buy another game from them if they paid me to take it.
  3. Sh4d3
    Apr 26, 2015
    0
    You know to me skyrim was a real deal I would pay 50 bucks plus the expansion and get tons of beatuful free mods to enjoy and hours of new gameplay.
    Now what you get is chance to make Valve even more rich by stealing money to the modders and asking players to pay for stuff which was born free!
  4. vistachiri
    Apr 26, 2015
    0
    This game has it's problems, and it's strong points.

    Bethesda tends to release expansive, games, brimming with potential, but their eyes also tend to be too big for their stomach so to speak. They end up releasing games brimming with bugs (Also in many of their games they seem incapable of actually making a normal humanoid head. Skyrim was the best so far at this). They've relied    This game has it's problems, and it's strong points.

    Bethesda tends to release expansive, games, brimming with potential, but their eyes also tend to be too big for their stomach so to speak. They end up releasing games brimming with bugs (Also in many of their games they seem incapable of actually making a normal humanoid head. Skyrim was the best so far at this). They've relied heavily on the mod community to fix these things after the beginnings of it in Daggerfall (where modding wasn't supported), with Morrowind, it was full on support for mods, and someone at Bethsoft should have rightfully gotten a huge pay raise. It helped make tons of loyal fans for the entire series, and if you think it didn't affect the success of the games? You are likely delusional.

    Here are my problems with it.

    Dumbed down. The removal of several systems that were present in previous iterations of the series were not an improvement. Skyrim often feels like it lacks customization.

    Magic kind of sucks. It's been kind of going downhill for the entire series though, but there are several seemingly confusing oversights. Such as the lack of mark and recall spells.

    Where are my vambraces? Sentence says it all.

    The biggest downside now though: Paid mods. Yes the thing that skyrim relied on heavily since it's launch, and the thing Bethesda has been relying on for, idk a decade or so, is now open to purchase. Just like DLC, aren't you excited consumer? Oh and the creator of the content gets 25%, 45% going to bethsoft, and 30% going to Valve. So the person doing the work, gets a quarter on every dollar. Clearly a framework based on the outright exploitation of the work of others for financial gain. The legal issues alone are staggering, unlicensed student versions of 3dsmax, appropriation of the assets of others under a non-commercial license suddenly appearing in commercial mods, outright theft of mods, the fracturing of the modding community. It's a bad thing. They did this game in, but hopefully we can all stop it here. Paid mods? No more.    … Expand
  5. Auslander66
    Apr 26, 2015
    0
    Like most Bethesda games, Skyrim is only mediocre when played without mods. With mods, the cool factor rises a million times over. Mods let you change almost every element of the game, adding immeasurable fun, and replay value. With that said, this is going to be a negative review because Bethesda, and Valve, have enabled a system where modders can now sell their mods on Steam.

    This act    Like most Bethesda games, Skyrim is only mediocre when played without mods. With mods, the cool factor rises a million times over. Mods let you change almost every element of the game, adding immeasurable fun, and replay value. With that said, this is going to be a negative review because Bethesda, and Valve, have enabled a system where modders can now sell their mods on Steam.

    This act has already led to some modders pulling their mods from free sites like Nexus. Why is it a bad thing for modders to be paid for their work? Because that's not what modding is all about. I also mod, but I would never charge someone for something that is essentially done for fun, and with the notion of sharing with others. Modding has always been something done by the fans of a game, for other fans of the game.

    For companies like Steam, and Bethesda, to try to monetize that, is nothing more than greed. And get this, the modders only recieve 25% of what they charge for their mods. Guess who gets the other 75%. This move sets a really bad precedent for things to come. You may not play Skyrim, but what if Valve started doing this to all their games? Modders for all games could potentially start charging people, and then the whole modding community would just turn into a huge market that nets big money for greedy corporations.

    So, though I had fun with it in the past, I do not recommend Skyrim to anyone. It's your call to get it, but when the only thing that makes the game any good, is about to become paid DLC, that's when the game turns foul in my mind.
    Posted April 23.    … Expand
  6. gabekillskids
    Apr 25, 2015
    0
    game has gone far above advertised price with the monetization of everything with little or none going to the content creators and there is no quality control on portions of the game being charged for.
  7. Wicked069
    Apr 26, 2015
    0
    As a paying customer I am enittled to my opinion on and will cry fowl when something is wrong

    from my point of view.Paying for 3rd party mods / dlc / micro-transaction is a bad idea and should never have been allowed to be add to the steam work shop. This will only make game devs more lazy and release even more broken games, so the free labor of modders can fix it and then    As a paying customer I am enittled to my opinion on and will cry fowl when something is wrong

    from my point of view.Paying for 3rd party mods / dlc / micro-transaction is a bad idea and

    should never have been allowed to be add to the steam work shop. This will only make game

    devs more lazy and release even more broken games, so the free labor of modders can fix it

    and then charge the customer for it, and the devs get to keep most of the profits. The only

    thing that made this game great ( for the most part ) was the free support from the people

    making mods, and working with other modders to make the game even better. Now the devs want

    it to be an extra fee for people to pay so they can make even more money off its customers

    for work they had nothing to do with other then release "free" software ( that by buying the

    game we really paided for ) that helps make it possible.    … Expand
  8. zIRaX
    Apr 26, 2015
    0
    Paid modding, and the fact that Bethesda supports it.
    Just no...
    I played this game for so many years, ever since release date and up to now I still play it. I am so disappointed in Bethesda to agree to this arrangement made by Valve. I never thought I would say this, but don't buy skyrim it is not worth it. The game itself is fairly mediocre, I can only recommend to play this game    Paid modding, and the fact that Bethesda supports it.
    Just no...
    I played this game for so many years, ever since release date and up to now I still play it. I am so disappointed in Bethesda to agree to this arrangement made by Valve.

    I never thought I would say this, but don't buy skyrim it is not worth it.

    The game itself is fairly mediocre, I can only recommend to play this game with mods. So after you paid some money to play a game, you gotta pay more money to play the game. That's sound like a win/win for you as a customer right?

    Before this whole incident, I would say buy skyrim, because there is SO MUCH MORE to the game, than the game itself. You can spend YEARS trying out all the mods made for this game, but guess what. You can't do that anymore unless you pay some more money.

    The Mods was the thing that kept skyrim alive, the thing that made skyrim so successful to this date almost 4 years after its initial release. The mods were the reason why skyrim did so well in the top selling games on steam, but how do you feel about paying money for things that "may" work?

    A lot of mods conflicts with one another, so if you for instance buy a mod that changes weather effects, and another mod that changes water effects. Your game just straight up crash, no error message, just crash to desktop. Oh and by the way you paid money for that.
    It's even said by modders that the game itself is fairly unstable and quite hard to make stable mods for, you can easily run into scripting problems that just crashed your game, or suddenly npcs stops interacting with you because of some scripting errors. Yup you paid for that as well.

    So I strongly recommend that you don't buy this game, and that should hopefully send a clear message.
    If you are thinking about buying the game now, I'm afraid you are too late to the party.
    The game has been out for several of years, and a lot of people had their fun with it. This game may now rapidly start dying out due to this pay wall, and the free enjoyment most people had is no longer free for you.
    Unlike you I am in a lucky position because I already own the game, and already have most mods from when they were free. You on the other hand, since you are reading this you probably don't own the game, and don't have the mods as a result.

    TLDR: Paid mods, do not buy.    … Expand
  9. Deustodo
    Apr 26, 2015
    0
    This once was a great game, but now it is just a lab for the most **** experiment ever, to now pay for mods. There is a reason why mod stand for both "moderator" and "modification", because both of them do their job for free.
  10. Beeras
    Apr 27, 2015
    0
    Skyrim is not worth it without mods.
    Allowing Bethesda to earn money from mods just encourages them to do more buggy releases.
    Yes they deserve money for making the base game, and that's the money we PAID when we purchase the game. Yet Bethesda has to go greedy and ruin the modding community. Imagine a future beth meeting: A: hey wanna fix the dragon? its flying backwards B: nah    Skyrim is not worth it without mods.
    Allowing Bethesda to earn money from mods just encourages them to do more buggy releases.
    Yes they deserve money for making the base game, and that's the money we PAID when we purchase the game. Yet Bethesda has to go greedy and ruin the modding community.

    Imagine a future beth meeting:
    A: hey wanna fix the dragon? its flying backwards
    B: nah mods will fix it. and we'll get paid too.    … Expand
  11. Xarxan
    Apr 26, 2015
    0
    Thank Valve for destroying PC gaming's very soul. R.I.P. you mediocre waste of hdd space. The mods that once brought on the top are being strip from your skin as we speak. And I can't bear to look at such suffering.

    Especially when it is your very own family that do it.
  12. Grumpy_Kraken
    Apr 26, 2015
    0
    After what Bethesda did to the modding community (allowed paid modding) on a game that was already stripped down and unfinished, I have to give a poor review in hopes that they remove this.
  13. Ukrutor
    Feb 26, 2012
    0
    **** I don't want to review a game after 2 hours of playing it, but i don't have stomach to play this any longer. I can't understand how can any company make a game with 100+ hours of content, but totally fail at UI. Most of those 100 hours you spend searching for items in totally **** up inventory. Shortcuts and using spells is another tragedy. Never seen a worse console port. Some can**** I don't want to review a game after 2 hours of playing it, but i don't have stomach to play this any longer. I can't understand how can any company make a game with 100+ hours of content, but totally fail at UI. Most of those 100 hours you spend searching for items in totally **** up inventory. Shortcuts and using spells is another tragedy. Never seen a worse console port. Some can say there are mods now that fix this, but i don't want mods, i want complete game from the company, not modders. World is open, but there are hardly any interesting places at all. Dialogues feel like being made by a 12y child. No epicness, no intelligence, nothing at all. Your character is boring, you can't give a **** about him. The choice of race hardly matters to you or the environment. As long as ppl worship crappy games like these, there is no future for gaming.… Expand
  14. JEgroeg
    Dec 29, 2011
    1
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Where do you begin with a game like Skyrim? At first I was thrilled, but by the point I had beat all the guilds, mainquest, civil war, Deadric quests, and most the miscellaneous, I realized this was the pinnacle of the complete devolution of the Elder Scrolls as a series. The guilds lack depth and have no purpose. A hack and slash barbarian can lead the College of Winterhold by fighting through a few linear dungeons. The Dark Brotherhood is shorter than Oblivion and lacks the dark humor and unique kills. Most assassinations are simply, go here and kill this guy with a marker over his head. The Companions are equally short and devoid of challenge. Every guild treats you like an outsider then after three quests blindly trust you to be the next leader. Once you become guild leader the random filler quests generated are so repetitious you will be burned out quickly. The Thieves Guild is extremely guilty of this. The random thievery quests are so unoriginal and for a game the prides itself in its AI the people basically let you rob them blind. If they detect you don't worry, they won't call the guards and you can walk back in an hour latter and rob them again. Then there is the fact that there are no actual consequences to your actions as almost all the characters even slightly related to a quest are made unkillable. For a game that prides itself in character choice, why do I have no choice in this matter? The perks are poorly implemented and completely unbalance the game. They will leave you one shotting any enemy with a bow, enchanting armor to cast entire magic schools with no cost, and other outrageous feats that remove all challenge from the game. In just three hours you can craft a god-tier suit of armor and kill everything (except half the NPCs with immortality) in the game. The crafting system has no depth and isn't even related to you respective skills. Why can a character with 15 in smithing craft an item at every attempt? Let me see anyone inexperienced in smithing create a dagger at every attempt. And did I mention weapons don't decay after use, hardly the pinnacle of realism or even providing adequate challenge. I mean if weapons don't decay why even have magicka deplete with spells cast? The civil war quest line is a joke, both sides are mirrors of each other and don't even use different tactics in battle. The main quest is predictable with a typical enemy that has no real motives other than destroy everything. At least Dagoth Ur had motives. He wanted to unify Morrowind against the Empire's invasion at any cost. Skyrim's main enemy is a dragon that wants to destroy the world, how original. Then there is the matter of the new AI system which the developers clearly banked on generating worthwhile and memorable quests. Quite simply it completely fails to generate quests with any degree of complexity. Furthermore, the Norse culture and lore seems like a secondhand rehash of established fantasy clichés. Overall this game hardly even qualifies as an RPG. So much has been streamlined since Morrowind and Oblivion. Even custom spell creation is gone. Nearly every quests has only one way to complete it and it usually involves killing/finding an item that has a magic arrow over its head leading you directly to it. Sure the graphics and environments are nice, but they're nothing amazing compared to the current crop of PC games. Justify this games greatness with the rave reviews, record sales, or mountains of cash it has generated but time will be its ultimate judge. This is just another example of a studio catering to the masses to maximize profit and everyone is eating it up. So this concludes my review of The Elder Scrolls: Call of Duty… Expand
  15. HD3
    Dec 16, 2011
    2
    Skyrim has two major strengths ; you can wander anywhere at almost any time and kill almost anything you find there and you have a huge number of sidequests available to you. Outside of that the game has a lot of flaws which everyone seems to be a little too willing to overlook. Character development is almost universally absent and plot never delves much deeper than prophecised hero slaysSkyrim has two major strengths ; you can wander anywhere at almost any time and kill almost anything you find there and you have a huge number of sidequests available to you. Outside of that the game has a lot of flaws which everyone seems to be a little too willing to overlook. Character development is almost universally absent and plot never delves much deeper than prophecised hero slays ancient evil. Even the civil war arc which is intitally established as a major feature of the game's world remains largely stagnant, save for Imperial or Stormcloak troops replacing the local militia after certain quests.
    The copy and paste enviroments aren't quite as bad as Oblivion but still enough that you can see some of the days where the developers weren't at their best. The biggest problem is the combat however. If you're going to play Skyrim, go with a mage, because melee combat, particularly if you use a two hand weapon, rarely amounts to more than mashing w/e key you've assigned your sword/mace/dagger etc to until the thing you were aiming at is dead. If you are looking for a game that satisfies wanderlust and affords great flexibility, you'll enjoy Skyrim. If you're looking a tight engaging story and well developed combat systems, look elsewhere.    … Expand
  16. NoSugarTonight
    Jun 18, 2012
    4
    To be generous, the first 4-5 hours as the game started I enjoyed immensely. I would have given a 9 if the rest of the game remained consistently fun. But it isn't so. I've never really like the floaty combat system in other TES games, but on this entry it's more obnoxious than ever because enemies hardly ever react to you attacks. They added "kill animations" to spice up the fightingTo be generous, the first 4-5 hours as the game started I enjoyed immensely. I would have given a 9 if the rest of the game remained consistently fun. But it isn't so. I've never really like the floaty combat system in other TES games, but on this entry it's more obnoxious than ever because enemies hardly ever react to you attacks. They added "kill animations" to spice up the fighting aspect, but they are just cutscenes of your character pulling off some cool move. You're not fighting the enemy anymore, you're just watching your character fight essentially. The first town you arrive at is a welcome beginning. You believe every character has a personality, unique voice & their own special problems that you can help fix. Until you go on to the next village or city and realize that almost all of the same voice actors were recycled for everybody else. Every smith has the same voice, every bard is a blonde womanizer with the annoying voice actor from Tak and the Power of Juju, almost every shopkeeper has the same male/female voice & they all think that "they have the finest goods in Skyrim" and "some people may call this junk, but me I call them treasure." Also every single guard in the entire game has the same male/femal voice, and my god do they sound mental. From the very beginning, the graphics made me very wary. The far scenery is sometimes beautiful, but when taking a closer look, textures & character animations can be worse than Morrowind ( which was made almost a decade ago!). There certainly is massive amounts of content, which I tried to explore over the time of about 80 hours of gameplay. But over half of the content is recycled "fetch this/kill that" quests with no depth or sense of urgency or accomplishment. The smithing & enchanting system is ridiculously broken, allowing you to become wholly overpowered within 5 hours of spamming iron daggers and enchanting them. This also makes exploring & adventuring obselete, because you will never find anything better than what you've already smithed and enchanted at level 10. Some cities/holds are massive & beautiful, but only inhabit about 20-25 NPC's. So it feels like a glorious ghost town, and you can't even engage with some of them; so it just feels like their taking up space. And nobody besides those involved in the main quest seem to be concerned that fearsome, deathly dragons are terrorizing Skyrim. And even when you finish the main questline or a certain guild, no one remembers you for it. Guards & NPC's will still harrass & criticize you even after saving skyrim from total destruction. So you also feel like your character is taking up space, because you make no visible impact upon the world. The only quest line I somewhat enjoyed was the Theives Guild, but it was still short and required a lot of tedious extra jobs to do in between. All of the dungeons, caves, and castles are only slightly varied from the next and really give no incentive to explore because you will encounter the same enemies and the same worthless loot. There certainly is no character development, because for some reason, you're only given 1-3 dialouge choices. It doesn't matter what you choose to say, the conversation will always end the same. They also made the quest system too easy, essentially holding your hand throughout the entire game because there is an arrow that tells you exactly what to do & where to go. There is no mystery or real challenge. The game really just degenerated to a virtual walk in a park (literally & metaphorically). The only thing I enjoyed in the end was the scenery.… Expand
  17. zerosum
    Dec 30, 2011
    3
    The game gets boring really fast. Most quests are very linear and many side quests are simple fetch quests. The dungeons are repetitive and the broken crafting system and lack of equipment variety makes exploration pointless. Leveling is also pointless because everything levels with you. Dragon fights are quite underwhelming and often you'll meet common bandits which are stronger thanThe game gets boring really fast. Most quests are very linear and many side quests are simple fetch quests. The dungeons are repetitive and the broken crafting system and lack of equipment variety makes exploration pointless. Leveling is also pointless because everything levels with you. Dragon fights are quite underwhelming and often you'll meet common bandits which are stronger than Dragons (Because of the poorly implemented level scaling). AI is as good as in Oblivion, and by that I mean its terrible. Animations are still bad by modern days standards. Combat is a complete mess, probably because of the ridiculous physics in the game or maybe are the weird animations, but often when you hit people with heavy weapons they just moan and keep swinging their weapons like nothing is happening. Also, the finishing moves are weird and there is a lot of clipping issues. Like most modern games Skyrim also suffers with developers trying to appeal to a "wider audence" by removing features from the game (like attributes, skills, armor pieces, etc), that makes the game quite shallow and makes difficult for you to make "builds" that actually plays differently (most characters will just be a mage-warrior-thief hybrid).

    The soundtrack is somewhat good, but not very original because several musics are taken from Morrowind. Most sound effects sounds like they were taken from a bad movie from the 80s.    … Expand
  18. Tercerobootleg
    Dec 15, 2011
    0
    This game is a terrible console port, and each successive patch just breaks the game further. It handles PC hardware as poorly as possible. My PC, which can run Crysis and Crysis 2 both at consistently over 60fps, sometimes struggles with Skyrim at it's most basic settings. It is poorly engineered and the PC port of this game is a joke.
  19. Slothhead
    Dec 6, 2011
    4
    I scored Skyrim based on what it delivered. While skyrim could have been great, I fear that many of the high scores here are from die hard fans looking at the ooh ahh factor. Because Skyrim deals in the open world we are pleased to see sprawling vistas. But when broken down into its parts, Skyrim is nothing special. I am not rating skyrim on what could have been or what may be in monthsI scored Skyrim based on what it delivered. While skyrim could have been great, I fear that many of the high scores here are from die hard fans looking at the ooh ahh factor. Because Skyrim deals in the open world we are pleased to see sprawling vistas. But when broken down into its parts, Skyrim is nothing special. I am not rating skyrim on what could have been or what may be in months after patching, i am rating it on what i was delivered. Graphics The graphics are better than that of oblivion, but in current gaming, they are certainly nothing special. They are nice when they work. There are numerous issues regarding graphical problems, and this really brings the score down. Where it could have been an 8/10, what i received are overall graphics of a 4/10. Story line The quests, including the main quest are really quite shallow in terms of their story. There is nothing remarkable about them at all. In fact i found the speed at which i was able to join and become the head of each guild rather pathetically short; everyone seems to trust you very quickly, no need to really prove yourself, just collect this or that and within 4 specific quests you are the head of the guild. Secondly, many of the side quests or miscellaneous quests are completely vacant of thought, Ã¢â… Expand
  20. Highwind_Hiatus
    Nov 14, 2011
    4
    This game doesn't deserve all the credit it gets. It's got some real issues that hold it back. Granted, It's leaps and bounds better then its failure of a predecessor, the game is held back by horrendously poor AI, graphic issues, interface issues with the mouse, bad unit collision detail and melee combat that is lacking. The saving grace for this game? The graphics are above average ifThis game doesn't deserve all the credit it gets. It's got some real issues that hold it back. Granted, It's leaps and bounds better then its failure of a predecessor, the game is held back by horrendously poor AI, graphic issues, interface issues with the mouse, bad unit collision detail and melee combat that is lacking. The saving grace for this game? The graphics are above average if run on max settings, its demands aren't very high, so that's an easy reach for most PC's. But even still, the game's graphics are too dark to really shine anywhere. I guess the only fun I had in this game was cheating with console commands; decimating the cities, running my horse up a 90 degree mountain cliff and beating the AI out of fair fights with abusing the smallest of obstacles. It's definitely not worth full price. Wait until it drops to the 20 mark.… Expand
  21. Morhange
    Nov 18, 2011
    3
    You can't make a good story focused on dragons, simple as that. Talking dragons is an absurd twist on the generic ones, which surely is original but it kind of made the game awkward. The main quest was boring, since there was no character progression. We already knew from the start that we were the Dragonborn, designated to end the dragons... etc... most of us probably figured out whatYou can't make a good story focused on dragons, simple as that. Talking dragons is an absurd twist on the generic ones, which surely is original but it kind of made the game awkward. The main quest was boring, since there was no character progression. We already knew from the start that we were the Dragonborn, designated to end the dragons... etc... most of us probably figured out what finale would be like as well. When there's no mystery in a game like this, it's not fun. You're not dragged into the story because it lacks immersion and the originality of daggerfall and morrowind. The quests in this game, be it main quest or not, are incredibly easy. It's like they were designed for you to not be able to fail. A prime example would be when you doing a College of Winterhold quest, you have to explore a ruin in order to find a staff. You stumble across a door that freezes when you walk by it, and thus it cant be opened... only to find that a few steps to the left there's a fire tome waiting for you. Dont present any obstacles to a player if theyre not there to actually hinder your progress...

    The game IS pretty fun though, but its nowhere as good as Daggerfall or Morrowind. It might be better than Oblivion, though. I would say its a good action/adventure game but an awful roleplaying game. If you don't have a brain and like killing things, well this is the game for you.    … Expand
  22. Blackcompany
    Dec 17, 2011
    4
    Skyrim is a terrible role playing game. By now we all know about the horrid user interface, the relatively poor combat and magic systems, the disastrous implementation of dual wielding (that makes it, essentially, useless.) We know about buckets on heads and backward-flying Dragons. So I won't even take them into consideration, except to say Bethesda could have doneSkyrim is a terrible role playing game. By now we all know about the horrid user interface, the relatively poor combat and magic systems, the disastrous implementation of dual wielding (that makes it, essentially, useless.) We know about buckets on heads and backward-flying Dragons. So I won't even take them into consideration, except to say Bethesda could have done better....................And that is the overarching theme of Skyrim: Could have been better.................................................................................I came into this game not expecting much. It is, after all, a Bethesda game. And I am happy for that, because I didn't get much. No moral choices. No consequences for my character's actions. Speech skill isn't even something you can use. It just lowers prices at merchants. Loot is thrown at you constantly, level-ups are handed out like candy at a parade. There is no challenge, no feeling of accomplishment to completing tasks......................................Questing is, if anything, worse than in Oblivion. Literally everyone in the world has something they lost or need found, but no initiative to go and find it. This game is essentially one big fetch quest after another. Its sickening and disheartening..............................Still, as an action game based loosely on a narrative, with some role playing aspects, Skyrim sort of works. It has its moments. But as a true role playing game Skyrim is beyond terrible, and that is why, despite the things I like about the game, I am giving it only a 5. I am reviewing the game as the RPG it claimed to be and was not, as opposed to overlooking this significant bit of false advertising.........................Bugged launch, zero replay value, linear quest line, poor combat and terrible dialogue and writing (all in the Bethesda tradition) guarantee this will be the last Bethesda-developed game I ever purchase. Terrible developer with terrible writers.… Expand
  23. Isisius
    Nov 13, 2011
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. As a huge fan of the series I hate to do this, i really do, and if i was just playing an ordinary game by an ordinary developer this would be getting a 8 or a 9. If i was just taking the first 5 hours, this would be getting an 8 or a 9. This weekend i have put a solid 35 hours into this game, so i feel like my review comes after some experience.
    Firstly, the positives.
    The game is interesting, the lore is good, the dungeons are varied and have interesting puzzles.
    Combat is improved, if not brilliant and the perks are quite neat.
    These positives are definitely enough to make the game interesting and playable.
    Now the negatives.
    The menus, OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL. How difficult is it to make a frigging spreadsheet, listing the weight, value and name of the item, and let me sort it by those things. Not to mention its all designed for a console, so i waste so much time clicking the wrong thing because the cursor doesn't map properly to the options.
    Secondly, the bugs, man this is difficult to play when it crashes to the desktop ever hour or so with no warning or error message, its just gone. AI does some silly stuff sometimes but i can get over that, its just the crashing to desktop for no apparent reason that's killing me.
    Thirdly, and this is my biggest and most important one, and more general too.
    I don't know if anyone else senses this, but the whole game feels less heroic and epic than Morrowind or Oblivion. Sure you fight dragons, but the game feels kind of scripted.
    ----Minor Companion Guild Spoiler alert---- (I don't say what happens just it doesn't take long)
    So the companion guild is supposed to replace the fighters guild, and it was my first stop. I expected hours of missions and working my way through the ranks to finally become the leader, which would come with benefits such as getting my cut from the other members of the guild i now lead, or special missions, or special perks or SOMETHING. I would have expected extra reputation but that is no longer in this game for some reason. But what happens? I finish the couple of quests in little over an hour and am suddenly head of the guild and my benefits amount to a big fat nothing. Oh i get some stupid axe that i already had weapons as good as. And what is the special quests i get after being the mighty leader? "Hey man, this guy has a wolf (a single wolf) in his house on the other side of the map, can you go kill it?" Yeah send the freaking head of the guild to do that for like 100 gold.
    Same deal with the mages, no benefit at all.
    ----End Companion Spoiler----
    That's ok, ill go work for a Jarl, and get a house and become a thane, surely that will come with benefits and affect the story somehow.
    Wrong, after all the work and money it takes to get there, its just another thing you do that has no real benefit except you can get away with small crimes.
    This game is suffering from what i call Fable-itis, you can even get married ( to random NPCs or no noteworthiness for no benefit). There's so much to do, but why bother. All of my Armour and weapons were crafted by myself and are drastically better than anything i find, the only thing i use that i found was an amulet.
    Even taking part in the Civil War seems to have little affect that i can see so far other than a change in NPC's that run the cities and no benefit to yourself.
    The other Elder scroll games made your character so important, in Morrowind you could join a great house and rise through it eventually building your own castle. How awesome and epic.
    In Oblivion when you were the master of the guild you were the MASTER. You got a cut of everyone's earning and could direct the attention of the guild, and you were famous because of it.
    Where is that in this game? Where is the epic story where you grow in power and fame? Sure there are some epic battles, but the Elder scrolls were never about that, they were about the heroes story from rags to riches, from a dirty prisoner to lord of all you see.
    The problem with Elder scrolls is the expectations that go with it, this game looks great, and plays pretty well, as my 35 hours playtime will show, but it just doesn't feel like a good Elder Scrolls game, and most fans of the series will realize this as the game progresses and they seem to be having less and less effect on the world.    … Expand
  24. Dolar
    Nov 18, 2011
    2
    I really want to like this game I really do. But the UI on the PC is just horrendous. No modern PC game should ship with a 100% console UI and awful support for keyboard and mouse. All kinds of performance issues, I had a game stopping issue that took 4 days and a user fix to make the game playable.

    Once I was able to play the game, with an xbox controller mind you, It was a lot of fun.    I really want to like this game I really do. But the UI on the PC is just horrendous. No modern PC game should ship with a 100% console UI and awful support for keyboard and mouse. All kinds of performance issues, I had a game stopping issue that took 4 days and a user fix to make the game playable.

    Once I was able to play the game, with an xbox controller mind you, It was a lot of fun. It is a very atmospheric game and is a whole lot of fun when you can play it. Getting to play it is the obstacle on the PC however.

    Here is to hoping the patch will fix these issues, if so I would have no issues giving this game a 8. But the UI has to be fixed.    … Expand
  25. ge2dachopa
    Nov 14, 2011
    2
    I cannot believe the average critic rating for this is 96. It's just sad that such a flawed game can receive a score 4 points away from absolutely perfect. In some places, the graphics even look inferior to Oblivion (such as lack of properly rendered textures, so reflections of light on walls don't happen, animation is just as awful, objects don't reflect or shine anymore) I've beenI cannot believe the average critic rating for this is 96. It's just sad that such a flawed game can receive a score 4 points away from absolutely perfect. In some places, the graphics even look inferior to Oblivion (such as lack of properly rendered textures, so reflections of light on walls don't happen, animation is just as awful, objects don't reflect or shine anymore) I've been playing for almost 20 hours now and am amazed that supposedly reputable review sites would be so generous to a game that is ridden with bugs, glitches and design problems. Movement is SLOW. Very slow - get a horse and it's barely any faster - sure you can sprint but the horse runs out of stamina, and if it gets hit it runs away and sometimes disappears entirely (one of the many weird glitches). You can get companions to follow you around, but they walk at a snails pace and get in the way when you're in dungeons. Combat is exactly the same as Oblivion, just point at the enemy and spam the button. You'll have read about the awful UI. Yes, on the PC it really is that bad. Good luck scanning through a massive inventory - it was better on Oblivion, at least you could view your character. Yes, in this game you cannot even see your character when setting up equipment and there's no way of sorting items. The graphics really do look like something from 4 years ago (and I have a decent rig, it's even rubbish on ultra). Textures are so poor they look like PS2 at points. The music is okay but nothing memorable. The quests are nothing more complex than standard WoW stuff (go here, talk to this guy, bring me that object). Recent RPGs have been pretty bad, so this is going to do well because it's something to play, but much I wanted to like this, it's a poor effort. I'm stunned that the reviewers have rated this so highly.… Expand
  26. Crimson_Air
    Nov 12, 2011
    0
    My friends and I(7 of us altogether) went out yesterday to pick up our CE pre orders for Skyrim. 3 hours only 1 of us was able to get the game running past load up simply because they were running on an older version of windows. Blatant console port with terrible mouse acceleration in menues, derpy animations for EVERYTHING, physics is retarded because they haven't made any improvementsMy friends and I(7 of us altogether) went out yesterday to pick up our CE pre orders for Skyrim. 3 hours only 1 of us was able to get the game running past load up simply because they were running on an older version of windows. Blatant console port with terrible mouse acceleration in menues, derpy animations for EVERYTHING, physics is retarded because they haven't made any improvements since Oblivion, buggy and boring combat and an ok story but even that's generic. Skyrim on PC gets a zero because the game doesn't like loading up and I've already exchanged it for the PS3 version. And I doubt Bethesda will do anything for the numerous bugs in the game, instead they'll once again, let the community do their work… Expand
  27. loisho
    Nov 16, 2011
    0
    The reviewers must of gotten a different game to us. This game feels like it was made for console, it is so sluggish even with 60fps, You cant browse the menus with your mouse, only the keyboard works, that in itself is a 0. The graphics are some of the worst i've seen compared to the era they were released in. The game itself? who knows, there's too many hindrances to get to the gameplayThe reviewers must of gotten a different game to us. This game feels like it was made for console, it is so sluggish even with 60fps, You cant browse the menus with your mouse, only the keyboard works, that in itself is a 0. The graphics are some of the worst i've seen compared to the era they were released in. The game itself? who knows, there's too many hindrances to get to the gameplay itself. I'm sure if i tried the console version it'd be near flawless as the consoles have very strict releasing protocols.
    I guess with the pc version they threw their hands in the air and said let the mod community fix it for us.    … Expand
  28. Katabug
    Nov 12, 2011
    0
    Abysmal! I can't believe the high scores this game is receiving. This is one of the worst console to PC ports I've ever had the misfortune to play. This game might be acceptable on the console, but on the PC it's just atrocious! I'm sorry, but I cannot recommend this game to any PC gamer.
  29. Renegade
    Nov 13, 2011
    4
    Absolutely horrible performance, bugs everywhere, awful menu system and UI, and it isn't even that fun. Oblivion was interesting and felt like something I wanted to explore. This game, at least what I've experienced of it, is nothing but "go here and talk to this person" and "go here and find this thing". You get to traverse large, empty plains and mountains that remind me of Fallout moreAbsolutely horrible performance, bugs everywhere, awful menu system and UI, and it isn't even that fun. Oblivion was interesting and felt like something I wanted to explore. This game, at least what I've experienced of it, is nothing but "go here and talk to this person" and "go here and find this thing". You get to traverse large, empty plains and mountains that remind me of Fallout more than anything. The animation is nice, graphics are okay at best, but sound and music is mediocre and mono-sounding. It also isn't really fun to play at a constant 30fps when you're using the lowest possible settings.… Expand
  30. NeronDarkiuss
    Nov 12, 2011
    1
    No STATS. No character doll. Stupid consolish interface. Outdated DirectX9 engine. Lot of low-res textures. Sometimes funny psychics. Combat is dull and simple. etc. etc.
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Awards & Rankings

2
#2 Best PC Game of 2011
1
#1 Most Discussed PC Game of 2011
2
#2 Most Shared PC Game of 2011

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
94

Universal acclaim - based on 32 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 32 out of 32
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 32
  3. Negative: 0 out of 32
  1. PC Master (Greece)
    Feb 29, 2012
    90
    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.
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  2. Armchair Empire
    Feb 14, 2012
    100
    Skyrim is definitely one of the best games of 2011, but if the DLC holds out, it might just be one of the best games of 2012 as well.
    Read full review
  3. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Jan 19, 2012
    90
    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]
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