The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Preview

I suspect that we’re going to start catching some early reviews later this week, but for now we’ll have to be satisfied with another hands-on preview of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim from the folks at CVG. A few paragraphs to start you off:

The actual fighting’s been improved a lot since Oblivion’s occasional mess of unconnected blade swinging. It’s now a much more solid and physical affair to heft your weapon into people’s faces. There are also some great finishing moves that gut and slice enemies for a messy finish. You can equip different things in each hand and you can save the most useful combinations as instantly selectable favourites – a sword in your right, fire magic in the left, axe and an ice spell, a bow, whatever. You can then switch depending on what you’re fighting.

The undead for example, are really flammable. Dragon’s not so much. It’s a flexible system and one of our post-fight set-ups is a healing spell to fix up our character and a clairvoyance spell that lights a sparkling path to the next objective to help get our bearings. Those undead we mentioned we find in a massive tomb called Bleak Falls (which was seen at E3). It’s a mix of Indian Jones-style traps and angry undead Vikings. Oh, and a massive spider the size of a car. Like the mountain road it’s very atmospheric, full of dark, whistling tunnels and crackling torches. Its ultimate secret, though, is a wall written in dragon tongue where we find our first shout, “Fus”.

At the moment it’s just a word as these magical extras need to be powered up by a dragon’s soul. So it’s handy when we soon get word of a dragon attack. Joining a group of soldiers we charge like madmen into the night where we find huge swathes of burning grass and bushes lighting up the area. At first it’s not clear where the dragon is until we see a dragon-shaped shadow against the stars circling overhead.