Recent reviews by Po

Introduction:
You are the Dovahkiin. Part dragon, part human it is your job to stop the dragons from returning. You live in Skyrim, the northernmost and snowiest province on the contenant of Tamrial. Guided by those much wiser than you, you set out on a journey to banish the leader of dragons, Alduin back to Oblivion, along with all of his kind. Using any combination of magic, melee, archery, and stealth to do so. Helping the occasional damsal along the way. Clearing many dungeons to find anything to give you an advantage over Alduin, the Eater of Worlds.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one of the best games I have ever played. It's brilliantly blends fantasy and RPG together in a way most other games fail to accomplish. It's use of several main questlines, including joining the ranks of shadowy assasains and fighting a civil war, along with many side quests and tons miscellaneous objectives allow for hours of interesting gameplay.

Pros:
While there are many things this game does great (and poorly), I will only go over some in the interest of not sounding repetative.

Character Selection:
At the beginning of the game you are given the choice of character. You can chose from ten different races, each with unique powers who specialize in different things (magic, melee, defense etc.), that can either be passive or "greater powers", and can only be used once a day. From there you can chose the features of your character from many pre existing options. For example, you can change your character's skin tone, hair length, and gender. You can also name your, which can result in some hilarious dialogue depending on what you name it. While your race won't entirely affect your game play (some race powers aren't as powerful as others) it is a fun thing to have. This is a one time option unless you have the Dawnguard DLC installed, in which case you can change what you look like, but not your race.

Quests:
There are six faction questlines outside the main one, each with side quests to go along with their main questlines, with many being radiant. Each involves a different faction (Dark Brotherhood, College of Winterhold, The Companions, The Thieves Guild).There are also two other smaller questlines belonging the Blades and the Bards College, although the Blades questline can only be started in the dragon, Paarthurnax, is killed. All these questlines are very different and allow for cool and interesting gameplay and even cooler items. There is also a Civil War questline where the dragon born can chose between joining the Imperial Legion (the government) or the Stormcloaks (the rebellion) and take over forts and cities controlled by the opposing side until your side controls all of Skyrim. There is also a series of quests (all triggered speratly) to aquire 15 out of the 16 Daedric artifacrts in Skyrim. Along with these questlines there are more than 100 side quests and miscellaneous objectives that add many hours to gameplay, without getting boring.

Skills:
In Skyrim, there 18 differnt skills which can be divided into three main groups; The Thief, The Mage, and The Warrior. Each skill has a skill tree that goes along with it, making parts of the skill better. For example, you can make destruction spells cost less by investing a skill point in the corressponding perk. Skill points are earned by leveling up. You level up by increasing the level of any of your skills. Each universal level gained grants one skill point. In order to invest in perks, you need to meet the level requirement in that skill catagory. When a skill level reaches 100 (the maxium), you can make it legendary. The skill resets to 15 and skill points invested in that tree are given back to player. This allows for infinite leveling up. Some skill trees are more useful than other. For example, investing pickpocketing isn't very useful while investing in sneak makes completing quests much easier. The highest pickpocketing perk only allows for equipped items to be stolen while the best for sneak makes enemies look for a new target if you crouch in the middle of combat. Skills add an intersting and unique system to the game and are defintly worth investing time into in order to figure them out.

Detail of Dungeons and World:
Just a quikie, the amount of detail invested in the developement of the dungeons as a whole is amazing. There are countless nooks and crannies where lots of lot can be found, and items are present to simulate the environment they used to be. This theme carries over into the main world. The landforms show how much detail was put in. The Throat of the World is a great example of this. Also all of the buildings have a commen theme, depending on where they are located, really tieing everything together. Even the vegetation is very detailed.

Cons:
Lack of Variety:
While the amount of graphical detail is amazing, it becomes a little aesthetically repetitive. Most dungeons have the same mossy stone look with iron bars and even the traps stay fairly consistant. I get that they are in the same region, but I would have liked to see more variety. I attributed the lack of variety to the sheer amount of dungeoins and the detail. I'm not saying the dungeons are bad, just that they need more variety visually.

To Much Gameplay?
While this goes against what I said earlier, the amount of side quests leave some seeming underdeveloped and dare I say, an after thought. A lot of them seem pointless in the way that their rewards don't match the quest. For example, a long quest might yield an item that increases your health by ten points when your health is already 400. I don't know, it might just be me.

Finale Score: 82/100

Thanks for reading. Pardon my grammer and spelling, I know I'm using a lot of run on sentances. This is my first try at a lengthy review, so let me know what you think. I understand my opinions aren't the same as some and some people might see my pros and cons and vise versa.I hope this was helpful! ~Po

Amazing and addictive!

Hilarious game and also very addicting!