The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Review

You know a game has a huge amount of content when a reviewer claims that he didn’t feel ready to write on it until more than two months after its release, and that seems to be what happened with this review of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, penned by GamersDailyNews’ Jeff Lindsey, who awards the game a just-as-enthusiastic-as-release-date-reviews 9.0/10. Here’s a sampling:

Remember when Grand Theft Auto 3 released and you thought that you could do anything your heart desired? Looking back now, you will see that GTA was just child’s play. In Elder Scrolls V, you are truly only limited by your imagination. If you can dream it, you can do it. Even something so mundane as staring at the night sky.

I have spent many hours just sneaking around town stealing items for no reason other than to quench the thirst of kleptomania. On more than one occasion this caused me to be pursued by a shop keep or homeowner. One such instance had an invincible shop keep chasing me for about 45 minutes. Sure, I could have let him kill me or went to jail, but as I said, you can do anything and I wanted to enjoy the chase.

Skyrim, though immersive and full of choices, does not carry consequences for your actions. Rather it resembles a (Choose-your-own-Adventure) book. In the books, you would be given a decision like, (Terrorists have hijacked your school bus. To wait for an opportunity to escape turn to page 42, to jump off the bus now turn to page 68.) When you turn to page 68 and the book says (The bus is going too fast and your body is splattered on the asphalt,) you immediately claim that you didn’t choose that and turn to the other option. Likewise in Skyrim, I found myself saving the game before every major decision and restoring that savegame if things didn’t go my way. In doing so, you never really face any consequences for your actions.

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I was not just a little pissed off that Skyrim snagged so many GOTY awards away from Arkham City; I was livid. However, in the end it probably deserves it. With Batman you get a fun world to explore for a couple dozen hours, and with Skyrim you get a game that could take over your life. If you only had money to buy one game this year, then Elder Scrolls V would be the wisest choice. Our hats go off to Bethesda for a job well done and maybe, just maybe, we can get bored with Skyrim before the next title in the series.