Skyrim review: Sets you free, ties you down

Skyrim will blow your mind, and if you’ve never played any Elder Scrolls game then you’ll love the experience, which we can tell you first hand after being a first timer with this franchise.

The pure size of the Skyrim world is just amazing and in our review we found out how immersive the game is, which makes GTA look like your backyard. The developers have really got to grips with the little things, and if you play the game like we did, exploring every item in each area of the game looking for hidden items to pick up, then you’re going to take many months and maybe years playing Skyrim, also unlimited quests will make this even more possible.

Every player will do it their way, and while it would’ve been good to connect with others in an online world, the offline experience just grows with you hour-by-hour and you totally forget about connecting with others as you’re drawn into Skyrim. It’s pretty scary that you can lose hours playing Skyrim, we just blew 5 hours, which seemed like 5 minutes. One gamer we heard from had played for 24 hours in the last 48 hours, which just shows you how the game will tie you down and pull you in.

In terms of the virtual world you’ll be set free with the pure freedom in Skyrim, which reminds us a little of Second Life, and we’re sure that many gamers will spend more time in Skyrim than the real world. How many hours have you committed already in Skyrim?

Bethesda created a world that has to be one of the immersive RPGs to date, and the way the world unfolds and changes with your every action has shocked us so far. Going off the rails in Skyrim and becoming nasty will change the way everything and everyone reacts to you, and has its benefits and downsides. We decided to kill everyone we met for one hour, and while we managed to get some really nice steel armor, gold coins and an Elf sword in this time, the amount of hostility we met after being a rebel for an hour made the game really hard after this time, although it was a lot of fun.

The graphics have improved since Oblivion, although they could be better on this current generation of games consoles, but this is no big deal as after a couple of hours nothing matters but the gameplay. The slow motion kills are really cool, and add a nice touch to each hostile encounter.

When we watched the making of video, Bethesda said it’s about the little things, and they are spot on here. When you play Skyrim you need to take a moment when you are walking through woods, exploring a new cave or Keep, and take in the little things that Bethesda add. We’re not only talking about animals and people going about different jobs, it’s the little items you can explore everywhere and the scenery. What little things have you noticed in Skyrim, which really make a difference to the gameplay?

Seasoned Elder Scrolls players will love the new inventory system, which breaks down the items you’re holding in more categories than Oblivion. We love adding our favorite weapons to the easy access menu, and while there has been a lot of new features added that might make some players think it could get confusing, it’s not. The menu system and almost everything about Skyrim has been thought out to make it easy to use, but at the same time offer a lot more complexity.

This is only our first impression of the game, and we’ve already posted a few details on cheats and glitches in Skyrim. We have found certain issues in the game like characters moving through walls and other bugs, but this is expected and we’re sure fixes are already being worked on by the developers.

If you decide to buy Skyrim then be ready to lose a lot of your real life, and let this become your second life, or maybe first if we’re talking about time spent playing. At one point in the game we spent a few hours playing with two giants, and letting them chase us to a group of imperial soldiers, as we couldn’t kill the giants or the soldiers alone, which in the end they all died by playing them off against each other. We finished them off from a distance with arrows and then close up with a Warhammer when they were almost dead….great fun.

Let us know your first impressions of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in the comments. It’s hard to give Skyrim an overall score, but if we had to it would get 9/10: It’s not perfect, but almost there.