The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[MartyG]

30 hours invested now - some of the best gaming time since Oblivion.

If adventuring is something you want in a game, then look no further than Skyrim - rarely are there moments in a game where you stop and say wow - but Skyrim is full of them.

Colour me impressed.

[rmoxon]

Started this again after my initial 10 hours of play earlier.

Turns out it was the right thing to do, the game was brilliant anyway but its even more enjoyable when you know how you want to play it and are properly focused on how you want to develop your character (which can really only be figured out by having a trial run at the game first i guess).

I know all the games in the series do the open world thing, but the developers have really perfected it with this game, once you start exploring the world you really forget about the main story almost entierly (which is a MASSIVE statment coming from someone like me who is all about structured and story focused gameplay usualy). You really do feel part of the world while playing and yes, its slightly odd that you'd put your quest to save the world from dragons to one side and instead go to mage school (in a big yet entierly optional part of the game that makes you feel like harry potter more than any movie tie in ever could) but yet it also feels so right.

Is it better than Dark Souls? Im unsure there, but so far its certainly a contender for game of the year.

[Fader209]

I'm only Level 5 at the moment and ran into a giant for the first time earlier on. It beat the crap out of me! I'm not so hot at the combat side of the game

Had the exact same situation last night, wandering along and found some giants only I heard they were meant to be non-hostile unless provoked...I walked past one and he went crazy and chased me! I put up a small fight by keeping my distance and flinging arrows at him whilst circling and dropping down a sheer drop that he wouldn't follow but eventually he got close enough to me for the one-hit-kill

[Robster]

360 Version - the horses have anti gravity hoofs !

Slowly walk over a cliff edge on your horse and you will be able to walk down the cliff edge, very handy when travelling in a straight line to an undiscovered area.

Time just disappears when playing this game, its so immense !.

[SUMIRE]

The world in this is simply amazing, just exploring the land is such a joy. I went to one area last night, sort of like Yellow Stone national park. I happened upon a camp by one of the geyser pools and there was some treasure hunters there bathing in the water.

The weather looks mint as well, climbing the snowy mountain, seeing the wind blow the snow looks superb.

[Neon Ignition]

Started this up last night (PS3) and it's a positive vibe overall though one that isn't without its niggles. Broadly the game runs very well with only the sporadic framerate grating when outdoors with a lot going on. Not had much in the way of glitches yet so that side is holding up too.

Combat is as usual pretty crap, however there isn't a first person game yet that's nailed this so I can't really hold it against Bethesda and it is a minor improvement on Oblivion so it's fine. Swapping the Oblivion gates for Dragons has proven to be a big improvement too. Visually, though the game has the usual poor animation for humans the dragons have had a lot of attention put into them and the game is a massive leap on the old engine. The biggest area of improvement is art direction which comes across as one of the things to carry across from Fallout 3. The art direction is an immense improvement and makes such a huge difference in the appeal I'm finding to this entry over Oblivion. The game doesn't restore the more in depth feel that Morrowind has but is finally making up for it in other ways.

So yeah, I'm getting into this more than I expected to. Engine differences aside it's mechanically Bethesda's laziest game but more of the same isn't too bad a thing given how spaced the Elder Scroll games are. Dark Souls comparisons are somewhat misplaced as it's not really like that game and overall it doesn't do enough for me to ever consider it game of the year or anything that lofty as it's more a remake than a sequel. But digressing aside, it is very good.

[Flabio]

Tried switching my install from HDD to a USB stick. The textures improved a bit, but it became VERY unstable, crashing every other region load. Gone back to playing off the DVD instead. The loading times are still reasonable (compared to Oblivion and Fallout3) and as I play with headphones on it doesn't matter so much that my 360 is so loud when playing off disc.

I've not been having too much trouble with the dragons until I met one with fire breath instead of ice breath. See, I'd forgotten that playing as a Nord gives me 50% reduction in frost damage... hehe.

There's not been anything else I've played for some time that has so many little moments that make me smile. For example:

Using the flame breath shout on a wolf and watching it sail over the treetops.

Arriving at the outside of a misc quest location only for a dragon to turn up, so I'm fighting it alongside the bunch of guys I was sent to kill.

Getting a simple quest to find out whats haunting a crypt only for the quest to take a HUGE turn for the bizarre.

The 7000 steps. Loved that whole idea of making you feel like you're on a proper pilgrimage.

[Garny]

Ive been using a ?15 USB from WHSmith, and fingers crossed not one issue so far. Been playing for what must be 30 hours or more now as well. No idea why it seems to behave different on every 360 out there.

Id best do some more of the main quest at some point i guess

[Kaido]

I'm not going to read or post in this thread after this as I'm worried about spoiling some of those jaw dropping moments that this game is full of. Just have to say this is incredible and I really love what they've done with the game. I'm really glad they turned the difficulty up and took away some of the random generation of oblivion, it makes for a more adventurous experience. See you in 300 hours

[Flabio]

They say there isn't any scaling of the enemies in this, but I'm not so sure. I think it's taking the Fallout New Vegas approach, and enemies *within a catgeory* are scaling a little. eg, if you're fighting the 'bandits' then it will drop in the tougher ones later on (bandit highwayman instead of bandit thug etc...), but they'll never scale to the point where they're still a challenge to you past level 15 for example. It won't replace 'bandits' with one of the other categories in any given dungeon though. If it's meant to be bandits it'll always be bandits so eventually there'll be areas you waltz through.

I think it's a decent compromise. Keeps the challenge consistent in any given area, but makes it much clearer when you move to a new area that the enemies are tougher there.

[rmoxon]

They say there isn't any scaling of the enemies in this, but I'm not so sure. I think it's taking the Fallout New Vegas approach, and enemies *within a catgeory* are scaling a little. eg, if you're fighting the 'bandits' then it will drop in the tougher ones later on (bandit highwayman instead of bandit thug etc...), but they'll never scale to the point where they're still a challenge to you past level 15 for example. It won't replace 'bandits' with one of the other categories in any given dungeon though. If it's meant to be bandits it'll always be bandits so eventually there'll be areas you waltz through.

I think it's a decent compromise. Keeps the challenge consistent in any given area, but makes it much clearer when you move to a new area that the enemies are tougher there.

To me it seems like there isnt any scaling at all, it just seems like different areas have a certain difficulty of enemy.

Im not really sure how a lack of scaling works for the random quests though, becuase you could be given one that is either ridiculously easy or painfully hard.

Speaking of the random quests, is some of the loot in this either random or respawing? The developer reckons you can play this forever but I find that hard to belive if thees nothing left laying around to collect.

[crocky-chocky]

Can anyone tell me how I get rid of diseases and such? I've got status ailments coming out the wazoo. Imminent Vampirification being one of them!

EDIT: Cheers Flabio!

[SuperBeatBoy]

I'm currently Level 17 and I haven't even hunted my first dragon yet!

Loving this, haven't stuck to the main story at all. I just went off on my own little adventure discovering sidequests.

[Flabio]

Can anyone tell me how I get rid of diseases and such? I've got status ailments coming out the wazoo. Imminent Vampirification being one of them!

Activate one of the icons of the divines in one of the temples. Three to choose from in Whiterun, and plenty in the other cities. They clear all diseases and give you a 'blessing' depending on which one you activate.

Or learn how to mix a potion of cure disease. Hint:

->Open Spoiler<-

one of the ingredients that works is vampire dust, you'll need to figure out another one with that attribute to make the potion though...

[Plough Boy]

You know a game is good when it's all you can think about at work.
I could have daydreamed the full working day away.