The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Critic Reviews

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is every single reason to love a Western role-playing game, condensed into a single comprehensive experience with nothing lost in the conversion process.

No other game I know of operates with this many moving parts to create such an immense world filled with this much choice in how you engage its excellent, endless fiction. It's one thing when a game offers dozens of hours of gameplay; it's quite another when that gameplay is good enough you'll want to live in its world for that long.

In weaving together the extraordinary craftsmanship evident in the music, storytelling, adventure and world design of Skyrim, Bethesda has created a very special game indeed - one that's likely to remain in the affections of gamers for many years to come.

This is the deepest, lovliest world ever created for a single player to explore, and one that no one should deny themselves. This is a game about following Emerson's advice, leaving the trail and finding that the most powerful force on Earth or Tamriel isn't fire or sword, but the ever-insistent desire to know what lies beyond.

Skyrim may frustrate you at times, but it will work its way inside your skin and replace the marrow of your bones. It never gives you an opportunity to neatly stop playing. Even if you manage to tear yourself away, the locations and the people will rattle around in your head. It'll give you stories to tell your friends, (although you should remember that many people simply won't be interested), and it'll give you an entire region to bend, beautifully slowly, to your will.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is breathtaking, engrossing and deep. With gameplay and visual improvements, Bethesda set a new standard in The Elder Scrolls series with Skyrim, and with the action/RPG genre. This most certainly should be the game of the year.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim may not deliver on every hope, wish or fervent demand you've been formulating ever since you realized how many flaws Oblivion was carefully hiding with its immense charm, but it most certainly lives up to the name Elder Scrolls and will easily qualify for millions of gamers' best-of-the-year lists.

Skyrim is bigger, better, deeper than it's already excellent predecessor and a true masterpiece. This is not only a contender to be the game of the year, but maybe even the best role-playing game ever.

Skyrim is the kind of game you can completely lose yourself in for at least a hundred hours, even if you somehow manage to complete the main quest in fewer than twenty. If you aren't normally drawn to role-playing games, get over it - to miss out on this extraordinary gaming experience would be positively criminal.

It is not often I get lost in a game like I did with Skyrim. Everything about this game screams quality and adventure. While Bethesda hasn't exactly got a track record for delivering bug-free games at launch, this has been a pleasant, polished and amazing experience so far. A much improved third-person view, amazing music, a living breathing world, a menu-system that's amazing and a game filled with interesting stuff to do. Truly a masterpiece.

Skyrim is one of the most gargantuan undertakings gamers will experience all year. The sheer size of the adventure, both in terms of its environment and in the amount of activities available to the player, is mind-blowing.

Take what you loved in Morrowind, cut out what you hated in Oblivion, multiply by 10, mix well, and there you go: you get Elder Scrolls V Skyrim. With its deep background, enticing prophecy, new gameplay mechanisms, Skyrim mesmerizes us into diving in its world completely and forgetting about the usual shortcomings of the series (except the poor animations - they really are too bad to be overlooked). If you like the series, but don't love it, get this game. If you love the series, you better get yourself a pair of fresh undies, and fast.

If you can only buy one game this holiday season and want your absolute money's worth, there's no looking past what is arguable the industry benchmark for sandbox and emergent gameplay with player-choice at its helm, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. A work of sheer genius.

Skyrim is sprawling, generous, gorgeous and ambitious. It does what few games can: thoroughly follow through on its ambitions. It could be possible to play only this game for the next year and still not discover all of its mysteries.

Like every other game in the series, Skyrim is going to eat hundreds of hours of my gaming time over the next few years. It has that sense of wonder that makes he Elder Scrolls games so great, and with the changes to skills, the Shouts, and dual-wielding, I think any gamer is going to have a lot of fun with Skyrim (and its eventual expansions) as well.

A testament to the strength and importance of games that create living, breathing worlds, while affirming the value of long-term commitment over instant gratification. The absence of companion control, though a glaring flaw, ultimately does not spoil its purposeful, refined, and genre-defining design. Endlessly replayable and a phenomenal landmark in gaming, Skyrim deserves a place in every true gamer's collection.

An absolutely first-rate roleplaying game that combines an abundance of content with an abundance of quality. The outdated design elements are unfortunate but not so distracting that it ruins the depth of the story, the openness of the setting, or the visceral joys of combat.

The game's greatest accomplishment is that it is a paradise of escapism, a lavish love letter to immersion. Diving into Skyrim's world feels both thrilling and comforting, like riding a rollercoaster or swimming in the ocean. There is very little padding. There are very few scripted quests that aren't worth experiencing.

If a deep combat system, an engaging plot, a wonderful cast of characters and a stunning, open-ended game world sounds like something you might be interested in, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim should be at the top of your list.

After a trajectory of excellency with Oblivion and Fallout 3, Bethesda reaches a new level this generation, showing they have reached maturity in their unique way of making worlds. Thanks to their generosity, will and ambition, single players fans looking for huge worlds of high adventure can still keep dreaming. Skyrim is an absolute triumph.