The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

 

    The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is an immensely popular single-player action RPG from Bethesda Game Studios. As the name implies, it is the fifth in a series of games called The Elder Scrolls. Like its predecessors, it is set in the mythical world of Tamriel. The latest installment, much like its immediate predecessor, features a vast, beautiful, open world with lots of rich, interesting, immersive quest lines to pursue and lots of wilderness, towns, cities, caves, and dungeons to explore.

     The player is free to follow or ignore any of these long quest lines as she pleases and the game can  accommodate a broad variety of play styles. You can be a berserk warrior with a weapon in each hand, you can play sword-and-board, or you can be a mage, an archer, or a sneaky assassin. In fact, you can be any combination of these (or even all of them) if you choose.

A fight with a dragon early in the game.

     I will not spoil any of the stories for you. Suffice it to say that there is quite a lot going on in the eponymous corner of Tamriel in which the game is set, including the re-emergence of dragons into the world long after they were thought defeated.

The Game:
     One thing about the gameplay that makes Skyrim a lot of fun is the fact that, unlike in many other RPGs, it is not easy to ruin your character through casual or unorthodox allocation of skill points (called "perks" in Skyrim.)

     Some of you may remember, for example, the way things were in the early years of Diablo II. You could not re-spec, and you had no way of knowing whether you would be able to beat the game on Hell difficulty with your build until you had dumped scores or hundreds of hours into the character. If your build was bad, then no amount of skill, effort, wailing, or gnashing of teeth was going to get you through the game solo on Hell. Period. You had to start a new character from scratch and try something else. It was not until about 10 years after the game was launched that Blizzard released an update that allowed you to re-spec (Patch 1.13, released on 3/23/2010) and by then the internet had spread and gaming forums had developed sufficiently so that you could look up tried-and-tested viable builds online anyway.

     Games like that are frustrating, particularly for filthy casuals. Skyrim don't do you like that. Unless you randomly piss away skill points ("perks") with reckless abandon, then with skill, effort, and a little bit of luck, you will be fine. You can have fun exploring the skill trees and developing your play style without too much trepidation about the character's endgame viability.

The final chamber in of a dungeon involved in the early part of the main quest line.

     Of course there are also some things about Skyrim that are not so great. Foremost among these, in my opinion, is the voice acting. In fact, the voice acting is worse than not-so-great. It is horrible. The fake Nordic accents are awful. Worse still, you have to hear the same awful accents over and over: although there are thousands of humanoid NPCs in the game who can talk to you, there are perhaps 12 or 15 voice actors. Yes, the same actors each provide voices for hundreds of unique NPCs.

Mods & DLC:
     Although back in 2011 Skyrim was a beautiful game, it is beginning to show its age a bit. I highly recommend Bethesda's official HD Texture Pack DLC, which is available for free on Steam. I have not tried any of the other official DLC because I am a filthy casual and I (probably) will not spend another $45 for a couple of extra storylines and some extra features I could get for free with mods.

     Speaking of mods: Skyrim's modding community is particularly rich. One can find mods that do everything from making birds' nests look better to making all the NPCs naked to complete graphics, gameplay, and interface overhauls. Some of the available mods, like this little gem involving the Macho Man Randy Savage, are just plain ridiculous. The Nexus Mods Skyrim section is a great source of mods, and their Mod Manager is a handy tool.

     I am generally not a big fan of modding, mostly because mods tend to be poorly-written, seldom-updated hacks. However, I am currently using a few for Skyrim. Because Skyrim's stock graphical user interface is very clunky (it was clearly designed with console gamers in mind) I particularly like SkyUI. Because I have already beaten the game on Legendary difficulty, I have also installed Ultimate Combat to increase the difficulty further for my latest play-through. Like many complex Skyrim mods, Ultimate Combat requires a mod called Skyrim Script Extender to work.