Let me start off by saying a couple things:
1.) I’m not going to say a word about the plotlines in Skyrim other than to say that the ones I’ve played through so far are really quite good and I don’t want to spoil anything for you.
2.) If you’re a fan of the Elder Scrolls series – and in particular Morrowind and Oblivion – then I’d say that you should stop reading now and just go buy the game. It’s easily the best in the series so far.
Now that that’s out of the way, here’s a smattering of my initial impressions after about twenty hours into the game:
- In typical Elder Scrolls fashion the graphics are at their best when there are wide vistas in view but they occasionally trip over themselves when you’re close up to objects. That said, the graphics are quite excellent and head-and-shoulders over those in Oblivion – in particular the NPC graphics are much improved and they’ve lost the waxy sheen they had in past games.
- The voice acting is somewhat hit-or-miss in terms of quality, but if I had a complaint it’s that – at least on my PC – the dialog volume always seems to be way too low and hard to hear. In a future patch Bethesda should turn off background conversations when you’re in a conversation. More often than not they’ll be louder than the person you’re speaking to.
- The user interface of the game clearly shows the concessions made for console portability. I tried playing it with a mouse and keyboard for the first hour or so, but ended up playing the game with an XBox 360 controller and it worked much better. The Elder Scrolls has never been known for elegant interfaces and Skyrim doesn’t really buck the trend in that regard.
- The depth, breadth, and sheer volume of the quests in the game is nearly staggering. You’ll be hard-pressed to run out of things to do.
- The size of the game world is nearly ridiculously big. Morrowind was big, Oblivion was big, but Skyrim really takes the cake. Fast travel will become your friend after you’ve explored an area to death. Pro tip: fast travel is available in the world map once you’ve discovered a location. Choose the place you want to go, set it as a location, and you’ll be prompted for fast travel.
Skyrim made a great initial first impression on me and it’s only gotten better as I’ve gotten farther into the game. After twenty hours I’m enjoying every second, have only explored a fraction of Skyrim, and have only done about three or four of the main storyline quests. Skyrim’s been worth every penny.
