I bought The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim for the Xbox 360 way back
in 2013. It’s been released on just about every major platform going since then,
but I’ve never felt the need to upgrade; I’ve owned the game for roughly eight
years and I’ve only just gotten around to beating it so I don’t know what I was
going to do with extra content and multiple copies of the game!
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| Hagravens are vile creatures... |
Skyrim is a game that needs little introduction. After
waking up as a prisoner on a cart and narrowly escaping execution, your
character discovers an almost unique ability to absorb the souls of dragons.
They find out they are the so-called Dragonborn, and that they alone can harness
the power of the shout to stop the evil dragon Alduin from raising the dragons
from the dead and conquering Tamriel. Along the way, they must learn to control
their powers, contend with warring factions, and explore caves, dungeons, and
constructs to build up their power, all building up to the final confrontation…
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| Ugh. Spiders. |
I chose an Argonian for my playthrough and was going to go for
a lightly armoured double-handed weapon fighter build, but as is very often the
case when people play Skyrim, you end up as a sneaky archer. I managed to get
somewhere between the two and was very glad of my ability to breathe underwater
and heal quickly! I’ve played Skyrim several times already but as all my previous
save files were on a different hard drive, I started a fresh character to see
where a new adventure would take me.
The thing with Skyrim is that you really need to pace
yourself. There’s no point going straight for the main quest; I’m sure a
skilled enough player could speed run the game in about five hours but there’s
a whole world out there to explore, and there’s little reason to miss out on
the content on offer here. I levelled my character up to 50 and there were
still outstanding quests to resolve by the time I’d finished the game – I’d
refrained, for example, for taking a side between the Imperials and the Stormcloaks.
This was a choice I’d made in the game, as I couldn’t honestly say I supported
either side. The Imperials were the invaders of the land, but such strongholds
they had were being maintained reasonably well. The Stormcloaks had the home advantage
but had a ruthless streak in them that made them very difficult to support.
That I managed to beat the game without resolving this conflict goes to show how
huge this game is! Do a quest here, clear a dungeon there, take a bounty
somewhere else, sell your gear wherever you can. Set yourself some goals and
play for however long you want to play.
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Clavicus Vile is the exception
to the otherwise static voice acting... |
The graphics work well enough for a ten-year-old game, and
some of the scenery is beautiful; Skyrim feels like a living breathing world to
get lost in. The music is great, and the sound effects are good, the voice acting
is alright for the most part, if not particularly inspired. The game does suffer
from a few bugs that can get in the way of beating certain quests, and I had to
weather a few hard crashes, but nothing that stopped me from beating the game –
not that I’d have realised I had, if I hadn’t known that this was the end of
the main quest. It was only once I’d got to this point that I realised – there are
very few cut-scenes in the game, and the ones that are there are interactive to
a certain extent. All the exposition is done within the game. There’s no ending
sequence, no credit roll, you just… win. I couldn’t help but feel a bit let
down by that, but after sinking nearly 120 hours into the game, the journey
made it more than worthwhile.
Skyrim is better than average and there’s nothing else quite
like it. I’m not sure it’s the pinnacle of RPG experiences, but it does what it
does well. I found a way of pacing myself so that it worked well for me – but don’t
forget it took me eight years to get there!
Final Score: 4/5: Great game
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