.... Nah, it's probably the former.
This is what everyone thinks the main guy looks like, but he goes through plastic surgery every other day.
Now, I've played a few open-world games before, like Assassin's Creed 1 and World of Warcraft. However, they didn't feel all that 'open world' so much as 'do this, get this', as in basically just a sequence of linear things made to look like it's open world. I've heard of the Elder Scrolls series before, but never managed to play them. But lo and behold, while I was in China, I got a copy of Skyrim and decided to give it a whirl. Why not? I had nothing better to do with my time, being an introvert shut-in and all, and I heard so many things about it, it was insane. So, I decided to play it on my laptop (a big mistake, but it won't influence this review) and give it a whirl.
Yeah... suffice to see, I didn't see the outside world for a few months.
How many goodies do you think are lying in that world...?
The premise of Skyrim is this - you're an unknown captured person who was captured in the first place for simply being at the wrong place at the wrong time. A misunderstanding and a jackass captain later, you're literally up on the chopping block, a dragon shows up and - I didn't get whether it was trying to save you or kill you at the time - and you run the hell away as fast as possible. After getting out and having a few more misadventures which involve some bandits, giant rats, and creepy-speaking undead, you find out you're the Dragonborn - a mortal with the powers of a dragon. Armed with your powers, you go out to save the world! ... if you're not distracted along the way for the next week or five.
The thing about the Elder Scrolls series is this: There IS a main quest plot, but they're made in such a way, you're most likely going to get sidetracked by the sheer number of sidequests thanks to this gigantic world you have the luxury of exploring. After a few beginning missions, I found myself running from one end of the world and back, doing sidequests, fighting, smithing, mining, etc etc etc. I became VIPs and confidantes of generals and kings, single-handedly ended wars and conspiracies, going into tombs like a beggar and coming out as rich as Bill Gates. About a week had passed by with me doing nothing but sidequests and dungeon crawling before I noticed that I didn't make a hint of progress on my main quest. I considered doing it... then threw it on the 'quests to do if I'm ever passing the area' list before continuing.
"Morning, Ralph." "Morning, Sam."
The diversity meant that the enemies you fight against are diverse too, from your classic undead to your run-of-the-mill wolves and bears to more fantastic enemies like automatons to floating undead priests who fire bolts of unholy destruction on your unfortunate rear to, of course, dragons. Now, the thing about dragons is that in most games, dragons would be treated with respect and fear - plenty of gold to be had, sure, but a tough fight to come. In this game, after a few first encounters to them, dragons literally become nothing more than oversized mosquitoes - they're THAT annoying. They show up, burn stuff, you kill them and get back to what you're doing. Occasionally, they might roast that villager you've been meaning to talk to, but that can't be helped. Maybe that was the point - make yourself so badass, dragons are literally nothing more than pests.
Drunken targets ftw!
The plotlines themselves are intriguing, and the characters interesting too. Skyrim does a good show that not everything is black and white, and most of the characters have good and bad aspects to them well-mixed. Most of my more favorite characters belonged to the more 'evil' guilds - the Dark Brotherhood (think organization of religious hitmen) and the Thieves' Guild. The characters were murderers and thieves, yes, but they they weren't immoral and honestly, they seemed like people I could get along with just fine. They had a great sense of humor, personality, and seemed to be like real people. The other organizations... eh. Heck, my favorite character of all time was an atoning dragon who was THE wisest and nicest guy in the game - and dragons are the bad guys!
That being said, the game does have a lot of issues. For one thing, the game suffers from fake difficulty, i.e., only increasing the damage done by the enemies while buffing their health to stupidly high levels. Not that fun. Also, the game is absurdly unbalanced in your favor. You'll most likely be robbing anything not nailed down to boost your personal wealth, and even if you're not, the tombs and dungeons you'll be raiding have enough treasure to make you fabulously rich with one dive. And once you figure out certain exploits, well, suffice to say, you're invincible. Also, the game suffers from an outrageous amount of bugs and glitches. Some are amusing, but some break the game and make it unplayable. But with a huge game like this, it's hard to patch every single thing.
Rockets are for sissies! REAL men use a Giant's smash to get to space!
One last thing to talk about: Mods. If you're running the PC version of Skyrim, then kiss your life goodbye. Although the game is already huge (and the expansions make it even worse), there are literally thousands of mods to install to your game. These mods can do anything from make people look better, to adding gorgeous homes, to even adding dungeons and entire quests/campaigns for you to do. Some mods are serious, others are silly, and a good deal should not be shown to the good little boys and girls out there. Mods are easy to install and so addicting, I do NOT recommend it for anyone without a lot of time to kill.
And that's it for Skyrim. A game I highly recommend if you can look past its many but very small flaws. Pop it in, then prepare yourself - you're gonna be there a loooong while.
Oh, and here's a funny picture as a last note.
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