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. 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
  2. manabog
    Nov 15, 2011
    4
    I just made a account to review this game , played 5 hours of this game but no more !!!Will never play this game in my life i thrown the copy away ,never will i but a bethesta game first day !!
    Enterd the game for the first time i got blown away and not by the average graphics but by the thought of playing another Elder Scrolls ,loved oblivion ,fallout 3 all dlc's and new vegas. but this    I just made a account to review this game , played 5 hours of this game but no more !!!Will never play this game in my life i thrown the copy away ,never will i but a bethesta game first day !!
    Enterd the game for the first time i got blown away and not by the average graphics but by the thought of playing another Elder Scrolls ,loved oblivion ,fallout 3 all dlc's and new vegas. but this game is full of bugs .
    the game recomanded settings were medium , the game ran at 40 fps i really liked it ,then it droped down to 20 ,turned everything on low it runs at 80 fps but after a while it gets down to 24-30 WTF?!!?
    sometimes game crashes without any error whatsoever,searched the web and found out i was not the only one experiencing this .Technical issues made this game simply unplayable for me .Save yourself the headache and buy the 360 version please,on pc this is the lazyest port i've seen in 3 years. Leaving all the pc unplayable version, this game is pretty good,open world ,intense fights,lots of weapon models,lots of exploring,lots of quests , great nordic setting. The core gameplay is utter garbage for a AAA game the sequel to tes oblivion and morrowind,a multi million budget game, the gameplay is nothing more of garbage every swing feels floaty you dont know if u missed to hit ,i always look at enemy hp to see if i hit him ,when u hit someone it feels like u hit air ,collision detection is off and very bad,Please bethesta elarn from that INDIE developer that developed ZENO CLASH or the one who developed Dead Islands . I feel bad that people rate this game so high only because it's a TES this only encourages lazy console porting. bad bad game it deserves a 4 maybe a 6 or 7 without the tehnical problems.    … Expand
  3. thimolor
    Nov 20, 2011
    4
    This was a shock! Graphics are bad, controls are bad, bugs are bad and the overall atmosphere is bad. Bethesda has lost it. Morrowind was their swan song and everything they have spilled out since then, is more or less crap.

    Buy Dark Souls for one the consoles or wait 3 years for some decent mods. I don't have the time to wait so I play Dark Souls and I' am so loving it.
  4. welshlayer
    Oct 3, 2012
    4
    It's... meh. That's the word I used when I put 20 hours in. Just... meh. This game is hilariously overrated. But is it a bad game? No. Is it a glitchy mess? Yes. Oh yes.

    If you're going to buy this game, No doubt you'll make a beeline to steam workshop, where you get mods. That's one good thing about this game. The mods. Some mods, which are quests, are better than the main quest in    It's... meh. That's the word I used when I put 20 hours in. Just... meh. This game is hilariously overrated. But is it a bad game? No. Is it a glitchy mess? Yes. Oh yes.

    If you're going to buy this game, No doubt you'll make a beeline to steam workshop, where you get mods. That's one good thing about this game. The mods.
    Some mods, which are quests, are better than the main quest in skyrim. I'm not joking here either. The game does NOT deserve the amount of praise it gets.    … Expand
  5. Shionsan
    Nov 26, 2011
    4
    An awesome game for the first few hours. World of Skyrim is big and nicely detailed. And pretty much everything is highly improved compared to previous series of Elder Scrolls. But after those few hours of gameplay you'll start to realise that all this awesomeness, all this freedom Skyrim gives you, is nothing but illusion. While game allows player to do what he want and when he want, anyAn awesome game for the first few hours. World of Skyrim is big and nicely detailed. And pretty much everything is highly improved compared to previous series of Elder Scrolls. But after those few hours of gameplay you'll start to realise that all this awesomeness, all this freedom Skyrim gives you, is nothing but illusion. While game allows player to do what he want and when he want, any "not-by-script" actions will break the game at some point, making it impossible to proceed with storyline without console shamanism. Quests have a lot of obviously stupid algorithmic errors, and do not take player's possible misbehaviour in account. It's like they were written by random people, who never seen each other, not to say talked about each others quests conflicting with each other. Bethesda absolutely should spend some of that money on hiring a beta-tester team.

    There's a lot of "generic" quests, that tells you to kill/steal/buttkick something and go back for crappy sum of 100-300 coins. Those "Infinite quests" is nothing more but a lame "MMORPG-style grinding". The story itself is straightforward, onesided and utterly stupid. For example, if there is a war between two groups, and you happen to join one of them, the other side will hate you, and try to kill you should opportunity arise. But they do not! You can easily come to enemy's headquarters, put buckets on everyone's heads, steal everything, shout on everyone, ask "How's the war, dude? Does my actions screw your life much, eh?", and easily waltz outside like nothing happened. The multiple choices player makes does affect almost nothing. And sometimes those illusional choices are not even given (I don't want to kill anyone for that stupid Boethiah, but there is no option to buttkick her back to oblivion).

    But the worst of them all is one strong feeling that gets stronger with each quest done: the land of Skyrim consists only of dumb and lazy people. Nothing, I mean absolutely nothing happens without players involvement. Everything that is done in Skyrim - is done by player. From the moment you are given controls at Helgen, till the moment quit the game - nothing is happening here. Well wolfs do run after deers in woods, kill them and leave all that meat to rot. Necromancers sometimes kick bandit's butts if they meet them around you. And number of thieves die by the hands of local guards every night at Riften. Dragons sometimes attack guards, while completely ignoring anyone else. But that's all. There's WAR going on, but noone does sh*t! Why? This game have a time. Why not use it?

    It's not a surprise the AI's dumb. They do fight all right (looks ugly still). But when in peace-mode... I wonder if all Skyrim NPC's are actually lonely, despite living in cities full of same stupid NPCs. I mean everyone do talk to you as you pass by. And even if you just stand there, not looking at them, they talk to your back. There is a quest turn-point and some smart explanations are done by "immortal" VIP-NPC, but some old beggar-dude cuts in and asks for a coin, while completly muffing out the quest-NPCs speech. Sometimes there are even like 5 NPC's talking together. So ronery... And I won't talk about the aspects of path-finding, "follow-me" states, quest-scenes and other script-based AI stuff that always have at least a 20% chance of failing, what almost always leads to a game-breaking end.

    There is also a lot of other minor bugs, like shifted object spawn locations, mannequin's infinitely spawning armor pieces, lot's of places where player can completly stuck without "tcl", screwed animations, out-of-place effects, like paralysis that happens on enemy's death, or sneak-perk's brief-invisibility that can screw the nightingale powers, NPC's that spawn being half underground and a pack of other dumb stuff I can't remember right now. Come on, guys! Just play your own game once. It's not so hard to spot at least a half of those bugs in just a few hours of gameplay.

    I hear Elder's Scrolls series always had a habit of being released half-cooked, so the real score should be given only after the grand-patch will come out. But this time the amount of bugs is so big, I'm afraid not even this patch will deal with them all. So here's 10 for making big beautiful and detailed world, -3 for a 20% chance of any quest failing and making the game unplayable anymore, -1 for the gameplay balance which is simply absent after you max out few skills, and -2 for somewhat lame storyline and a bunch of lonely, lazy and utterly dumb NPCs, that swarm the land of Skyrim. That makes 4, which is bad, 'cause making a nice console-textured world with good weather effects is not enough for a good game. Let's hope the incoming patch will actually make this game worth it's price.    … Expand
  6. utking
    Nov 26, 2011
    4
    Bad ui, bad bugs, not good enough graphics. Not showing any skills, too easy to play. Oblivion was 10x times better!!...........................................
  7. Motoob
    Nov 26, 2011
    4
    The game plays well until it doesn't. Quite simply the game crashes constantly. On average with my computer set up the game crashes between 30-45 minutes of gameplay.
  8. Therealjonah
    Nov 27, 2011
    4
    Hey everyone. Time for my review of the most anticipated game of this year. I picked the game up as soon as it came out. and i have been playing it since. 70 hours into the game, here are my experienced thoughts, I have to say i am not all that impressed. We are redlining here. The first thing i noticed is that this game is "exactly" like the last oblivon. Just amped up a bit. Let me takeHey everyone. Time for my review of the most anticipated game of this year. I picked the game up as soon as it came out. and i have been playing it since. 70 hours into the game, here are my experienced thoughts, I have to say i am not all that impressed. We are redlining here. The first thing i noticed is that this game is "exactly" like the last oblivon. Just amped up a bit. Let me take this moment to say that the first morrowind was and still is the best one. why dont you bethseda scammers remake that one for us with skyrims graphics? The ability to leviatate was the best part of morrowind. . Being able tocraft your spells as weak or powerful as you chose, to make your belt of leviatate and fly through the air raining destruction spells down on the world. There was also very unique and powerful items available. to the user. Such as the incredible boots of blinding speed. How come there is no items as cool as those boots in the two recent editions of morrowind.(and i played the sh**t out of oblivion and morrowind) I was disappointed to find that skyrim is the same as oblivion. The dungeons are nice, the puzzles and amount of underground crevices to explore is greater than oblivion was but still the game seems to lack that thuum of power. The shouts are well pretty useless really. i have only found one of those special skill statues(the lady) I miss how morrwind allowed you to pick your birth star and get a special ability in it. i dont like how skyrim wont let you craft very powerful items. in morrowind i could make a fireball spell that required 1000 mana and did equivelent damage. in skyrim i cant make any spells at all. just theones they give me. Even the enchanting of items is very limited in skyrim. Its way to quick and easy to become the head of a guild. and it offers no bonus or perks to the user. The only really useful thing guilds do is provide neat missions. other than the thieves guild wich allows you to pay off the guards instead of going to jailand or paying a fine. i quickly realized there is little to no point in crafting my own gear since the stuff i find will always be better. The only two self enchanted items i use are twin ebony swords i enchanted with fire and frost. nothing epic, i set them to 10 damage each(max is about 31 so far.i dont expect it to go up much.) and if i set them to max damage they would only be useable once. as is i set them to be usuable 350 ish times each.(saves on recharging them after every swing or battle) There is a lot ofd walking around and more fast traveling. The horse is useless, basically it lets you run without using your stamina and you cant fight from horseback. There is a lot of glitches i have found. example theres this one dungeon with a pit 20 ft deep filled with water. at the bottom in one corner is a... air bubble. There are lots of quest glitches, some i have completed 3 or 4 times. they keep coming back up though.There are problems with displaying items in my house. And the options to furnish your houses are lame. You should be able to choose how many chests book shelves and/or sword racks you put in and where they go. Also i put say a sword on a shelf and leave and come back and its been thrown off the shelf onto the floor. i have had things fall through the table and floor on me as well.
    The oriniginal morrowind with these graphics would be awesome. And all those things you have to give to delvin..wtf i want stuff like that in my house. so far the coolest ornaments i have found are those dynamo cores(nice animations on em) and a bee in a jar.(very cool) Overall the game is ok. but in all honesty wtf did you guys waste your time on oblivion for? didnt you fu**ers make enough on the first one? what happened to the making of this game ? do you guys think we are all stupid or something?
    i hope you get your acts together and bring back the things that made this game so epic in the first place. even in oblvion i could at least become a god of sorts. not the same as morrwind mind but still. Nothing quite makes yoiu feel as powerful as flying over a city and wiping it out with a giant fireball. !!!    … Expand
  9. Galf506
    Nov 30, 2011
    4
    Skyrim doesn't deliver. It's the fifth game in the elder scrolls series, and it still carries almost all the flaws Morrowind and Oblivion had, adding some others on top of them, getting a bit closer to Morrowind in overall quality, but still way far from what we used to experience and what was expected from this game.
    On the technical side, the game is a massive disappointment, with a    Skyrim doesn't deliver. It's the fifth game in the elder scrolls series, and it still carries almost all the flaws Morrowind and Oblivion had, adding some others on top of them, getting a bit closer to Morrowind in overall quality, but still way far from what we used to experience and what was expected from this game.
    On the technical side, the game is a massive disappointment, with a trainwreck of low res textures and only minor overall improvements on the effects. No one wanted Battlefield 3 quaity, but there's no excuse for the messy squashed low res textures Bethesda put in this game. Everything is blurry and under a green tint. And landscape still looks bad from a distance, like Oblivion. They still haven't managed a good low detail LOD for distant objects - which is ridiculous, after what the modders did with Oblivion. Face models and some animations are better, but not very good.
    The user interface is the worst I've EVER experienced, even the worst console ports are better than this, it cannot be described. Huge areas of wasted space, the inventory has pretty much no filters and everything is vertical with zero horizontal space used.
    Stat system has been streamlined to hell and back, you get to choose between health magicka and stamina, there's a reduced numer of skills and each one has perks, that would have been a good feature if introduced in some other way, but as they are now, they're just the only way to make skills useful since they botched up the skill system: for example, shield blocking is completely useless until you farm the perks for it.
    Equipment, streamlined too. You can only wear one ring, the enchantment system is awful (you learn enchantments by destroying items, then you're restricted to only certain enchantments depending on the item - for example torso pieces of heavy armor can't be enchanted for elemental resists) there are no more upper body and lower body armor (one piece now) no pauldrons, no polearms, no crossbows and all the melee weapons feel the same, you can't even decide to cut,pierce or smash - the attack animation is random and automatic, dealing always the same kind of damage.
    Melee combat is horrible. Two handed users pretty much cannot defend, Sword and shield users move incredibly slow and block no magic damage until you are of high level and managed to farm through the perks. Armor rating under 300 is basically useless. Awkward "finisher" animations pop up at every fight AND YOU CANNOT DODGE HITS! And no mounted combat, again.
    Sneaking is the same as it was in oblivion. Meh.
    Ranged combat is actually useful now, but it still needs mods to make it good.
    But where Skyrim really falls short is in the true RPG component, something that mods cannot fix: it's not a true RPG. There's some VERY RARE good writing, but most of it is pretty subpar and boring. Almost all quests have no choices or neutral paths, you are forced to do things that you do not want to do or to witness events that could be easily avoided and the game pretty much invites you to be a "master of all trades" character, killing the immersion.
    The only area where Skyrim can be considered a good game, is the exploration. There's a lot of content to experience by just exploring - provided you're ready to accept the lack of choices and the mostly average writing.
    Not worth buying.    … Expand
  10. 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
  11. xDaNx
    Feb 1, 2012
    4
    This game is highly over-rated. Most suitable comparison would be saying that this game industry's Avatar (film). Impressive graphically at first, but once you see it clearly, it has a boring story, full of clichés and overall, not interesting enough. It has a great amount of items and weapons, but you won't need 80% of them because most of them are just useless. Quest becomeThis game is highly over-rated. Most suitable comparison would be saying that this game industry's Avatar (film). Impressive graphically at first, but once you see it clearly, it has a boring story, full of clichés and overall, not interesting enough. It has a great amount of items and weapons, but you won't need 80% of them because most of them are just useless. Quest become way too repetitive quickly, specially because most of them are just a copy & paste with different names and places, and besides, some skills make them too easy to complete. Main story itself isn't very interesting or original, and the fact that some side-quests may delay your progress in the main-quest makes it quite annoying. Enemies are poorly designed and there isn't enough variety of them for such a huge world. It may give you a few hours of entertainment, but unless for some strange reason you are like addicted to it, it will be hard for you to go further than 50% of the game, because by then you have noticed how repetitive it is. If you manage to complete 100% of the main quest, you won't really get a real reason to complete side-quests left, and that if you didn't accidentally ruined them by killing someone or doing something you shouldn't. The good: It has quite nice graphics, a huge world to explore and, if for some reason you actually like this game, you have a huge amount of things to do. The bad: Way too bugged (PC version got some of them solved by FANS even before they were officially solved), repetitive as hell, after main-quest is completed you have no real reason to keep playing, too many useless quests and items.… Expand
  12. Coffeesipper24
    Feb 19, 2012
    4
    I fully understand that Im going to cop a lot of flak for this one, but I fully intend to review this game as I experienced. The game starts off rather well, but soon loses momentum as the game leaves the player to choose their own adventure. Perhaps, what I thought was the most enjoyable aspect of the game, was exploring the huge world the Bethesda has created, yet this would likelyI fully understand that Im going to cop a lot of flak for this one, but I fully intend to review this game as I experienced. The game starts off rather well, but soon loses momentum as the game leaves the player to choose their own adventure. Perhaps, what I thought was the most enjoyable aspect of the game, was exploring the huge world the Bethesda has created, yet this would likely appeal to very few people. Combat is simple, yet at times a bit clumsy, and graphics, on the whole, I found to be rather underwhelming. By no means has Bethesda mishandled a good concept though perhaps I wish that they had done a little bit more with it. If youâ… Expand
  13. Stylus
    Mar 10, 2012
    4
    Bethesda continues to re-release Daggerfall with fewer features and better graphics. I could talk at length about the boring combat, the poor levelling system, the stupid quest lines, the horrendous UI, the gruelling first two hours of play and other flaws but I could forgive all of that if Bethesda learned to write a single interesting character. Everything about the characters from theirBethesda continues to re-release Daggerfall with fewer features and better graphics. I could talk at length about the boring combat, the poor levelling system, the stupid quest lines, the horrendous UI, the gruelling first two hours of play and other flaws but I could forgive all of that if Bethesda learned to write a single interesting character. Everything about the characters from their voice acting and dialogue trees to the way we see them interacting is just plain boring. It's really hard to give a damn about the world when it's populated by soulless robots and the combat/grinding experience just isn't good enough to redeem the terrible world building.

    Skyrim is nothing but a fad and whilst there aren't many things I can point to as being physically painful there really is no reason to play this game. Props to Bethesda's marketing department.    … Expand
  14. SoManyGames
    Mar 11, 2012
    4
    Average Gameplay. Expect to "click to swing" alot. This is no Witcher. Below average graphics due to a poor console port. Below average controls due to a poor console port. Lack of multiplayer (even coop), which is cute for a sandbox rpg in 2011...wait, that's not cute, that's sad. Overall an average yet dated game held back ever further by the fact it's a poor port. I don'tAverage Gameplay. Expect to "click to swing" alot. This is no Witcher. Below average graphics due to a poor console port. Below average controls due to a poor console port. Lack of multiplayer (even coop), which is cute for a sandbox rpg in 2011...wait, that's not cute, that's sad. Overall an average yet dated game held back ever further by the fact it's a poor port. I don't recommend purchasing unless you are an oblivian fan boy, very lonely, or just don't play alot of games like this, in which case, you will probably foam at the mouth with misdirected bethesda love.… Expand
  15. anholt
    Mar 19, 2012
    4
    The good parts: The sandbox world works remarkably well, and the "leveling problem" of the previous elder scrolls is no more. Now you can happily play without worrying that picking too many locks will leave you with a weak character getting slaughtered by the upleveled monsters. The quests have had a number of cases where it's not clear-cut who to side with, a rarity in RPGs. And theThe good parts: The sandbox world works remarkably well, and the "leveling problem" of the previous elder scrolls is no more. Now you can happily play without worrying that picking too many locks will leave you with a weak character getting slaughtered by the upleveled monsters. The quests have had a number of cases where it's not clear-cut who to side with, a rarity in RPGs. And the level design in the dungeons is excellent, with some interesting variations, few glitches, and always a short way out from the end of the dungeon back to the main world.

    The bad part: The UI is an absolute embarrassment. On your 1920 screen, your inventory is a single column of giant text and a big useless image of the object you're hovering over, so you spend half your game time scrolling through lists to find your Potions of Minor Healing that are screens away from your Potions of Major Healing. And the keybinds are awful and unchangeable. "e" in inventory uses, and "r" puts an item in a container, but in a container it's "e" to take a single item out and "r" to take everything. So you slip and hit "r" in your home base chest and now you're overloaded with 1000 pounds of what you had carefully stocked up over days of play. But the worst: The UI sometimes doesn't catch mouse enter/leave events, so you click to do one thing, but the click is registered somewhere else and now you've sold your sword or called an NPC's mother a pig.

    Then there are the strange bugs, like when a dragon shows up and doesn't land while you're on a quest stage that caused you to be completely unarmed. There was a frustrating half an hour. But occasional gameplay bugs are to be expected in something this size, while inventory and dialogue functionality is something every player or tester has to spend an inordinate amount of time in. That's what is unforgivable in this game.

    Some mods have been released that improve on some of these UI problems. But this rating is for the game as released, not for the game third parties have managed create from the wreckage.    … Expand
  16. iaai0110
    Mar 21, 2012
    4
    How to rate a game like this? I have thousands of hours on Bethesda games since Morrowind. I'm about 2/3 - 3/4 through Skyrim; didn't buy it until patch 1.4 was out and the CK was supposed to be released. It is so difficult interacting with Steam for updates, patches, etc. I have over 3000 saves because of my experiences with FO3 and FNV, but no CTDs, which is absolutely amazing. Bad: 1.How to rate a game like this? I have thousands of hours on Bethesda games since Morrowind. I'm about 2/3 - 3/4 through Skyrim; didn't buy it until patch 1.4 was out and the CK was supposed to be released. It is so difficult interacting with Steam for updates, patches, etc. I have over 3000 saves because of my experiences with FO3 and FNV, but no CTDs, which is absolutely amazing. Bad: 1. Steam adds a lot of overhead.Wants to get in the game of mod provider but really buggy and poorly organized (impossible really). Can only subscribe to games - can't track them, downloads a title with an empty file (for weeks still empty). Uses different titles than the the actual file name. Nexus the other site (British ex post facto rules). If you get kicked, no place to go, no warnings (3 strikes BS) and no defense from some kid moderator. Every single reviewer here could be kicked without warning for being honest or true to his beliefs. Without the mods, the game is a 1 or less, because this is where it is fixed and made playable. This is where good ideas come from and many ideas get incorporated into future Bethesda games. 2. Some really interesting quests (mostly) but many are still broken. And some boring quests. But, I guess it would be amazing if not for your interests just being quashed by a broken quest.
    3. I can't believe that Bethesda is still working on MSoft ActiveX 9. The UI is pretty bad for the PC. 4. It's also amazing that the recommended hardware or PC setup was not supported. 5. Game play is not uniform. At L20 the game play was pretty fair. You had to play smart and then you run into a Boss who hits you with spells every couple of seconds that take 62 health/second and 62 stamina/second and 62 magicka/second AND they all stack. The only way to defeat this Boss is by an AI trick or bug. By L40, if you have a smart build, No NPC can damage you more than a few per cent. By level 50, you have basically become invincible -- gOD mode. Ex. One-handed sword: base damage 677 + 93 enchants x 6 or 7 (sneak). The UI is so bad that you have to dump all your gear into a chest (unsorted, not even alphabetical) to use the enchant or smith potion. You have 30 seconds (real time) to use the enchant, I can get one weapon without renaming it (so you can differentiate it from unenchanted ones) before time is up. So doing 3-4 thousand damage per hit is pretty cool, but what does that say for the game. Bethesda/Zenimax announced there MMO. Maybe this will keep them home and they can drop Steam (Tricks (Steam) are for kids). In the next room my son is having an absolutely wonderful time with ME3 on Origin with no frustrations because of patches, broken quests, UI or AI.
    I don't think a Steam-only game should get game of the year.    … Expand
  17. NerV-0-sol
    May 5, 2012
    4
    Advantages: 1. Fresh storyline. 2. Nice landscapes and one breathtaking, huuuuge cave. 3. Nice animations. Disadvantages: 1. Becomes boring after a few hours. 2. Morrowind was more interesting, attractive and mysterious. 3. Fewer and fewer skills etc. makes it too simple. 4. Too easy (every character, also wrong-trained can easily finish almost every quest). 5. Bad skill balance (stealthAdvantages: 1. Fresh storyline. 2. Nice landscapes and one breathtaking, huuuuge cave. 3. Nice animations. Disadvantages: 1. Becomes boring after a few hours. 2. Morrowind was more interesting, attractive and mysterious. 3. Fewer and fewer skills etc. makes it too simple. 4. Too easy (every character, also wrong-trained can easily finish almost every quest). 5. Bad skill balance (stealth and short blade is much stronger that the most powerful magic). 6. I had an impression that 80% of games music was Morrowind remakes and remixes. 7. Too little variety of... everything? 8. Console-like interface (irritating as hell!). 9. Bugs, bugs, buuuuugs! 10. ... and chips with cola to crown it all.… Expand
  18. Philip0544
    May 8, 2012
    4
    Skyrim, for me at least, is not worthy of the praise it gets showered. Yes, you get a huge overworld with a character that you customize your way, and do whatever you want, whenever you want. yes, there is a ton of sidequests. However, there are a few glaring problems that i have with this game that i just could not ignore, and that prevented me from getting any real enjoyment out of it.Skyrim, for me at least, is not worthy of the praise it gets showered. Yes, you get a huge overworld with a character that you customize your way, and do whatever you want, whenever you want. yes, there is a ton of sidequests. However, there are a few glaring problems that i have with this game that i just could not ignore, and that prevented me from getting any real enjoyment out of it. First and foremost, the game's central story and characters are severely lacking. this means that no matter how hard i tried, i just could not care about any of the characters, because they're not developed in the story, and most characters only serve to be either a quest giver or a punching bag. This made the whole game just kind of bland and uninteresting for me. Next, the combat is not all that great. lets be honest here. the combat system alone is not gonna win any awards here. Lastly, yes the world is huge and there is a lot to do, but it gets very repetitive, very quickly. quests essentially consist of going into a dungeon, finding a certain thing, killing a certain monster, or other such things. In other words, the game creates the illusion of being expansive, when in actuality is very shallow.So, what does this all amount to? it amounts to the game being boring. very, very boring. and i dont play games to be bored. Probably the best analogy I've ever heard for skyrim, and indeed, most of the elder scrolls series, is that when you first start playing, its like coming out into a huge, shimmering, beautiful lake. Enticed, you wade out into the lake. You think, gee, this is great! i cant wait until i get to the deeper part of the lake! This is going to be great! however, to your surprise, the depth goes up very little, if at all. confused, you wade on, hoping for it to get deeper, so you can immerse yourself in it. however, it never comes. Disappointed, you leave. You may go back a few times because of how pretty it is, but always end up disappointed you can not immerse yourself in the waters of the game.… Expand
  19. BigScreen
    May 30, 2012
    4
    The most overrated game in RPG history. The world is grey, the combat boils down to hit the right trigger over and over , an the story is just dull. Sure the graphics are amazing but the game just lacked anything engaging . The dragons lacked the doing feel of the oblivion gates in Oblivion, and overall the characters where forgettable . Worst of all they dumbed down the skill system againThe most overrated game in RPG history. The world is grey, the combat boils down to hit the right trigger over and over , an the story is just dull. Sure the graphics are amazing but the game just lacked anything engaging . The dragons lacked the doing feel of the oblivion gates in Oblivion, and overall the characters where forgettable . Worst of all they dumbed down the skill system again making character creation only effect your appearance in the long run. For me skyrim was a backwards step for the elder scrolls series in every department.… Expand
  20. 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
  21. Suspect1001
    Jul 9, 2012
    4
    This game was great for a bit then it just becomes boring and tedious. I tried to push myself to keep playing it, but I can't. I thought it was going to be a good game and kill 40+ hours, but I was wrong. It is buggy as all hell and it seems like it is just put together and released way to fast. Compare it to Oblivion and you will be disappointed. This game is not worth your time or moneyThis game was great for a bit then it just becomes boring and tedious. I tried to push myself to keep playing it, but I can't. I thought it was going to be a good game and kill 40+ hours, but I was wrong. It is buggy as all hell and it seems like it is just put together and released way to fast. Compare it to Oblivion and you will be disappointed. This game is not worth your time or money in my opinion.… Expand
  22. Ewoko
    Jul 14, 2012
    4
    I was severely disappointed with this game, as much as I hate to say it. I bought this game hoping for an entirely new experience, a great story and game-play, but it was stunted by quite a few things. Firstly, the story was very linear and boring in terms of quests. Things like, "Go to cave X to find a clue about the whereabouts of Y." When you then go to the cave, there are a fewI was severely disappointed with this game, as much as I hate to say it. I bought this game hoping for an entirely new experience, a great story and game-play, but it was stunted by quite a few things. Firstly, the story was very linear and boring in terms of quests. Things like, "Go to cave X to find a clue about the whereabouts of Y." When you then go to the cave, there are a few monsters and a straight path to the end, as well as some recurring puzzles that you see in almost every major cave. The side quests are even worse, and are often just fetch quests and, "Go kill X," quests. You can join groups like the dark brotherhood, but the result is the same, boring, linear quest pattern. As for combat, most of the time is spent in the inventory switching spells, drinking potions, switching weapons, while there is little focus on the actual combat. It's no kind of fighting we haven't seen before, just make your character face the enemy, select from your wide variety of weapons, and hit the attack button. Done. Have I mentioned that the game is very slow paced? Outside of dungeons, you barely fight anything other than a bandit here and there, and on rare occasions, you will encounter a dragon. The game-play is mostly looking at your inventory and traversing large spans of land. I've never really cared much about graphics in game, but if you do, these are sub par for how much hype they received pre-release. Overall, I was very disappointed. I'll stick with BIT.TRIP and The Binding. Much more satisfying on every level.… Expand
  23. lode07
    Jul 16, 2012
    4
    I would have rated this game 10/10 had it not been released with so many bugs!

    story so far, I played for many hours getting my character to level 29, only to find that a patch that was supposed to fix the game, instead corrupted my saved games. Finally, I managed to get back into my save game after trying numerous suggested fixes on forums. I continued playing for a couple of days    I would have rated this game 10/10 had it not been released with so many bugs!

    story so far, I played for many hours getting my character to level 29, only to find that a patch that was supposed to fix the game, instead corrupted my saved games. Finally, I managed to get back into my save game after trying numerous suggested fixes on forums. I continued playing for a couple of days until all of a sudden I could no longer talk to NPCs, mine or use switches. Refusing to start a new game, I left the game for a couple of months and logged back in recently. After logging in, I received an error message that appeared on starting a new game or logging into a saved game. I went off in search of a fix and after reading numerous forum articles each with a different solution I decided to give up. After a brief period of time spent swearing at my PC, I did find a solution and finally managed to get into my save game. However, the fleeting moment of joy was replaced with yet more misery. The graphics were glitched, the game world looked like the brightness had been turned up to full and the color palette had been replaced with monochrome. After checking all my drivers were up to date and verifying the game cache, I tried logging into the game the next evening only to find it kept bombing out before reaching the main menu....

    I have never had so many issues trying to play a game before and I really do want to rate it higher! However, due to the fact that I have not been able to play it for a good few months plus I have spent countless hours trying to troubleshoot issues, wasting away my life..... i can't give it more than 4/10.    … Expand
  24. Vendaron
    Sep 28, 2012
    4
    I was initially very impressed by the game. However I became frustrated at a main quest with 'esbern' that was broken and unpatched almost a year after launch. As well the UI is abysmal for a PC game. It looks like the UI was designed for console and ported to PC which is just brutal. A separate UI for PC should have been done. A UI more like World of Warcraft would make this gameI was initially very impressed by the game. However I became frustrated at a main quest with 'esbern' that was broken and unpatched almost a year after launch. As well the UI is abysmal for a PC game. It looks like the UI was designed for console and ported to PC which is just brutal. A separate UI for PC should have been done. A UI more like World of Warcraft would make this game infinitely better. I'm not sure how reviewers can give this game a 10.… Expand
  25. Ferrante
    Nov 29, 2012
    4
    I really tried to like this game. I played it for 20 hours or more. I set the graphics to ULTRA and they are good. The character creation seems good too. So, why a low rating? good question. Lets see....... 1. Bugs Everywhere. If you think the world in Skyrim is Big, you must see its bug list. Even trying to make it run is painful. Dragon fly backward, NPCs unable to left a room, problemsI really tried to like this game. I played it for 20 hours or more. I set the graphics to ULTRA and they are good. The character creation seems good too. So, why a low rating? good question. Lets see....... 1. Bugs Everywhere. If you think the world in Skyrim is Big, you must see its bug list. Even trying to make it run is painful. Dragon fly backward, NPCs unable to left a room, problems with sound, etc... 2. Sandbox. I know, thats good sometimes but nor for a RPG, I really want a motivation for my character!. 3. Inventory. Do you want a game to spend 30% of your time looking for your stuff? I don't. 4. Weight. This game has a lot of items to build. Armors, Weapons, potions. But your character cant carry the "ingredients" because everything is too heavy. Even the flowers. 5. Menus. Everything is designed for Xbox. You don't want that on your PC. 6. Too easy. Troll regeneration: check, invincible NPCs to help you: check, dull A.I.: check. Oh, talking about NPCs... 7. Empty "party" NPCs . They dont chat with you, they dont have a life, they just fight everything you fight. So far from Minsc, Jan Jansen , even that mute guy from Out of this World. 8. Price. Why is so expensive when I can find good games cheaper? In the end, this game seems so good but is not fun. It has not soul. Was designed just to earn a few (or a lot of) bucks, not for the greatness.… Expand
  26. Foam
    Aug 13, 2013
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I had a 3000 character review written but metacritic gave me the message "Your review must be at least 150 characters long.". Okay... So I'll condense what I said into very easy bullet points.

    Keep in mind I've played about 60 hours total now which is more than broken in but admittedly not as good as it could be for a full review. Nevertheless, let me begin:

    1. Dwemer ruins, caves & crypts are literally the only dungeon tilesets in the game.
    2. Game boasts hundreds of hours worth of side quests. Once you've done 60 hours worth of them like me you realize the "quantity over quality" feel and that the experience & reward before, during and after all quests are the same and quite pointless. Quite literally "Kill X for X Reason" or "I lost X Item in X Dungeon".
    3. Almost all quests are fast-travel fests. Expect the map to be open often as you travel across the world in seconds. No fast travel would be worst with Skyrims setup but it is nonetheless immersion breaking.
    4. Guilds are a shadow of their former selves, with you being able to join guilds like the Dark Brotherhood literally after 1 short quest. After 1 short quest you are simply allowed access to this super secret society and their secret lair.
    5. No real impact on the world beyond guards saying things. I killed the EMPEROR OF TAMRIEL and the greatest impact I've seen so far is a town guard saying the "emperor of skyrim" was dead.
    6. At level 31 and 60 hours played, my 60k gold is pointless and selling items are pointless.
    7. Storyline is cliched to hell with the standardized "ancient evil villain (dragon) trying to take over the world, and only a last of his kind super badass (dragonborn) can save it". Within a few minutes of starting the game you manage to take down a DRAGON with iron weapons & 4 or 5 regular town guards, and are then told you are an amazing total badass warrior. This personally irks me because I hate the modern casualized babygamer trend of stories starting off with the protagonist already being an established god of warfare. This is why I liked games like Fallout 1 & 2 where you started off relatively as a nothing, but through your own efforts became a powerful badass.

    Skyrim is worth buying to enjoy for around 60 hours but only if you manage to get a steam sale. Beyond that you shouldn't waste $60 or more. If you want a real RPG I suggest trying out Baulder's gate, fallout 1 or 2, planescape torment among many others. Not to mention you'll get far more & longer enjoyment out of them for $5 on gog.    … Expand
  27. itwasthatguy
    Dec 23, 2012
    4
    Skyrim is a very ambitious game, just like the other Elder Scrolls games. Once again, I'm amazed by the main concepts of the game. The combat system is a very nice concept. The ability to wander the world and do whatever you feel like is another amazing concept. The item creation and enchanting are great concepts.

    Unfortunately, that's about where Skyrim stops being amazing. When    Skyrim is a very ambitious game, just like the other Elder Scrolls games. Once again, I'm amazed by the main concepts of the game. The combat system is a very nice concept. The ability to wander the world and do whatever you feel like is another amazing concept. The item creation and enchanting are great concepts.

    Unfortunately, that's about where Skyrim stops being amazing. When the concepts become reality, everything falls apart. Overall, the game is incredibly buggy. Between the constant crashes, several broken/incompletable quests, some minor glitches, and game balance, the game is a complete wreck. I'm really impressed with the concepts of this game. The raw ideas for Skyrim are truly brilliant. The actual execution is so bad, I'm often physically sickened.

    Let's start with the glitches. First of all, the game won't stop crashing. Enough said. The menus are very unresponsive and overall poorly designed. Often, my character will say something despite the fact that I chose a different dialogue option. I've had several quests become impossible to finish due to bugs. Again, enough said. Enemies are often able to attack again while in mid-attack. They can also attack backwards now and then. This is just a very very small fraction of the bugs in Skyrim.

    Now let's get to game balance. The dungeons are a complete cakewalk until you get to the boss. Once you find the boss, you MUST exploit the game in some way to win. Otherwise, you simply lack the health and damage output to even have a chance of winning. An example of this would be a draugr boss which I was fighting. I would injure him to about 9/10ths of his health, and he would immediately heal himself back up to full health. An impossible fight. (I never ended up beating him, by the way). Basically, the enemies are either too easy or too hard. Most fights aren't even very fun. Even the dragon fights turn into cover based shooters, as dragons are often capable of 1-hit kills.

    Once again, I applaud whoever was smart enough to come up with the concepts of this game. That said, Skyrim didn't even touch its potential. It's such a shame how it turned out.    … Expand
  28. wlyyy
    Jan 2, 2013
    4
    I really tried this game, a lot. But i simple can't play it, it's boring as hell. But the worst problem is the graphic engine, when u play at 3rd person you will see your character "floating" on the ground instead of walking. You really don't feel the movements, they are very awkward and this problem is reflected on the combat, which is bad, very bad. I think it's the worst combat system iI really tried this game, a lot. But i simple can't play it, it's boring as hell. But the worst problem is the graphic engine, when u play at 3rd person you will see your character "floating" on the ground instead of walking. You really don't feel the movements, they are very awkward and this problem is reflected on the combat, which is bad, very bad. I think it's the worst combat system i ever seen, i prefer the 16-bits turn based system s rather than this.… Expand
  29. breezy808
    Jan 4, 2013
    4
    This is based on roughly 40 hours of experience, the price, and I am no long addicted to this game, I lost all interest in it. I will probably never play this game again. I bought this game because of all the hype, the story is cool the type of enemies are really cool, the story is fascinating, exploring is amazing!!! Why did I rate this game so low? Because of the weaponry, armor sets,This is based on roughly 40 hours of experience, the price, and I am no long addicted to this game, I lost all interest in it. I will probably never play this game again. I bought this game because of all the hype, the story is cool the type of enemies are really cool, the story is fascinating, exploring is amazing!!! Why did I rate this game so low? Because of the weaponry, armor sets, (melee) combat, bugs, and it's butchering of loot. I don't even know why people praised this game, the new RPG standard in games is A LOT OF LOOT!!! This game will NOT give you that, it's system is terrible, predictable and unlike other Bethesda games(fallout for example) You aren't rewarded for exploring much, if you do find an upgrade it's not an "AWESOME" Moment it's "DUH, I knew I'd get something like that". I play A LOT of RPG's, dead island, kingdoms or amalur, Fallout, the list goes on. They give you satisfaction when you loot, it's like you stare at it for a good 20+ seconds, it's fun! This game, nah. Basically :
    I Payed 30 dollars for skyrim(50% sale) Thank god I didn't pay the 60! This game is great, if you enjoy graphics(Character graphics/animations are kind of terrible) Reading books, not much more benefits I can say other than that. Comparing to other RPG's of the same company, or just in general. This game has more quantity, than quality when it comes to submersing you into it. I'd recommend fallout:new vegas over skyrim. 10,20$? For New vegas, New vegas has much more bugs, however telling you from 250 hours of experience(and still haven't beaten the game) Exploring is so much more enjoyable! I Spent most of the time and story line exploring instead of questing. Skyrim all you really buy this game for is to reading books, not really much more. This is my first taste of elder scrolls and I will never go back to it.    … Expand
  30. DivinityItself
    Jul 29, 2013
    4
    Played 2x8 hrs Legendary edition friends place. I want no more of this. Although I don't like controller games, I adapted fairly quick. Still: whilst playing Morrowind and Oblivion I felt like a lethargic lepper strapped in a straight-jacket. Fallout 3 overcame this feeling due to it's targeting system. Now in Skyrim all the bad is coming back. Less RPG, less character physics, more hackPlayed 2x8 hrs Legendary edition friends place. I want no more of this. Although I don't like controller games, I adapted fairly quick. Still: whilst playing Morrowind and Oblivion I felt like a lethargic lepper strapped in a straight-jacket. Fallout 3 overcame this feeling due to it's targeting system. Now in Skyrim all the bad is coming back. Less RPG, less character physics, more hack and slash in a non-responsive and non-rewarding way. Agreed, there is a big explorable world, but if one experiences it as in a repetative nightmarish dream, how can that not be frustrating? We all should not be wanting this.… Expand
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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.
    Read full review
  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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