Skyrim Review uxa360.com Exclusive

**Cannibal_sponge** Sat Aug 11, 2012 1:13 am

Elder Scroll V: Skyrim Exclusive Review by Cannibal_sponge

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is the newest installation of the very popular Elder Scrolls series of games. Like many of Bethesda's FPS RPG's it has grown and become immensely popular, and addictive.

Before Skyrim was Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion which was also had a lot of hype coming up to the release, although Oblivion in my opinion didn't come even close to living up to it. This put massive amounts of weight on Skyrim to be magnificent.

Although it didn't meet my very high expectations for it, it came very, VERY close, but it did lack in many ways. I am not saying it is bad because I think the opposite, as i love this game, but there are parts in the game that should and will be fixed.

Like most of Bethesda's games, at first release Skyrim was riddled with bugs, whether it is world loading or combat(such as the iconic overpowered giant attack that will sent you flying through sky) Skyrim had a lot. But with a game of this velocity, that is so large and contains so much detail, it is understandable.

Skyrim uses a very unique style of combat, and there is such a wide range of different classes of weapons. This really brings the game alive especially the long ranged combat, as it is stunningly smooth, both bows and magic. The close combat however is not as smooth, i would even say it is slightly clunky and slow.

When swinging a mace, axe or any 2 handed weapons, the movement in the weapon itself is slow and jerky .When using a dragon shout effect, that makes you move faster in attacks, it makes it look unnatural. Though the close combat will as many of the faults will be patched.

Dragon shouts bring the combat to a close, in a great way, it is very much original and very useful, when battling the enormous range of enemies. Which also brings me to admire the AI used for the dragons, which stands out the most of everything in the game. The dragons in Skyrim actually learn from you and their movements are not as scripted as you would think. Fighting dragons across the enormous map, just gives you a good feeling.

The wide range of items and their specific placing in the map, just goes to show how much effort was put into the actual map itself.

Skyrim uses a engine that was built from the ground up, which makes it totally unique and gives it a fresh new look as not to stay repetitive, as they did with Oblivion and Fallout 3. But this new engine does have its faults as some of the hair on the npc's look rather strange and flat.

The Character Customization just blew me away with the amount of detail you can put into your player, such as Laugh lines and the amount of dirt on your face.

The magic is a big step from Oblivion, which was very constricted as you could not use it alongside a weapon, like in Skyrim, and it was really under powered and most of it was unbalanced and statistic based. Elder Scrolls 5 introduced many new spell options like, Dual Wielding and Combining spells.

The Special effects and new graphics system Skyrim uses is extremly impressive, this is clearly shown by the new Map, Inventory and the "look" of the Skill tree.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim all things considered is a great games, although it isn't without its faults, but all the bugs, will be eventually patched out, like all the big Bethesda games, like Fallout 3 and Oblivion. I give Skyrim a 9.0 out of 10.

~Cannibal_sponge (Jacob Johnston)

Email: jakejohnston@live.com.au

**Onecoolcat00** Sat Aug 25, 2012 9:36 am

Well written, great review.

Cat x

Skyrim Review uxa360.com Exclusive

Skyrim Review uxa360.com Exclusive

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