The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Game Review
What is Skyrim? This is freedom. Long forgotten emotions. A living reminder that once we could devote several hundred hours to one game and not regret it a bit. If you are a long-time fan of The Elder Scrolls series, then acquaintance with the fifth part will also be a pleasant surprise for you, the destruction of all unnecessary fears.
Yes, you feel different here than it was in the controversial Oblivion. On the contrary – everything is played out and delivered to infinity correctly, atmospheric, and exciting. Like in the magnificent Morrowind. Emotions and bias are very difficult for us to hide. But we will try to be objective, because in this case it will affect the obviously super-positive final rating a little.
The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim World
When you walk through the Bethesda-made woods, fields, dungeons and cities, you might even forget about the storyline of the game. And after you expose many hours of admiring the local beauties as a mandatory attribute of the gameplay, you may start you adventures and quests!
And after all, there is the gathering of all sorts of useful things, participation in guilds (thieves, magicians, warriors – the main ones on the spot). Well, the hero is a chosen wanderer. Peaceful passers-by, who in a sudden dialogue will surely squeeze out something in the spirit: “Come on faster, I have no time for fools.” And then they will hang around in a small area, imitating violent activity. All this has already become an obligatory cultural program of role-playing projects-phenomena of the level of The Elder Scrolls. It is strange to realize such a fact, but for such nominal conventions I want to love this series.
We forgave something and Skyrim. For example, secondary quests about “go down to the dungeon, kill everything that moves, bring me a very, very necessary item, and get sugar as a reward.” Or … no, these are all flaws. Yes, we again anathematize shameful objectivity and we hasten to declare that the new role epic from Bethesda has no drawbacks.
Who would want to talk about them if the whole playing world has gone crazy, giving out kilometers of messages in the status lines of their favorite social networks, the general content of which boils down to something like this: “Skyrim is the choice of the year. I scored three hundred hours, got married, bought a house, didn’t advance along the storyline at all. ”
Skyrim is beautiful. There was no trace of the sickening purity and motley palette of Oblivion. The province is filled with photogenic people, girls and women with the right faces and lovely smiles.
If we have a forest in front of us, it means that it looks like a forest: with detailed simulated Christmas trees, bears, wolves, hares and deer. Physically correct behavior of water is a special chic. The developers themselves perfectly understood this and built indecently many waterfalls, river rapids, hardly noticeable streams in the territory of the province of Skyrim, in which beautiful water boils and foams.
Throughout the world in continuous layers of snow. In the southern regions, it is not so ubiquitous. But closer to the top of the map everything is covered with a dense white veil. And blizzards! How beautiful the snow is spinning here!
Games of the Elder Scrolls series have always taken for a soul precisely unique beauty, but in Skyrim everything is elevated to a new level. It is even more pleasant to realize that behind the external beauty lies the true depth and sophistication of the world, which was so lacking in the long-suffering Oblivion.
At first, it may seem that the engine in the new part of The Elder Scrolls is the same as last time. It gives the animation of the main character and texture. But in reality the technology is already new. Creation Engine – developed by Bethesda. Designed specifically for Skyrim.
We suspect that the word “new” developers meant “well-developed old.” The lighting was very much tweaked, and the palette now does not hurt the eyes with its unnatural colors. During the passage you will never have the feeling that the artists were faked somewhere.
Gameplay and Combat System
If you want to use Skyrim not only as a universal remedy for long meditation with soothing music, then disappointments are not expected for you either. Although, as we mentioned a little above, special revelations in terms of the overall formulation of the gameplay should not be expected.
But there are pleasant moments, and there are many of them. Only one combat system, which allows you to land on enemies with both hands, adds interest for long, long hours. As we wrote back in our preview, the possibilities for building the combat combination you need are unlimited. You can take a sword in each hero’s hand and turn it into a meat grinder full of determination and ruthlessness.
If someone is more impressed with the “pumping” of magic skills, then here again no one forbids “hanging” a healing spell on his right hand, and teach the second to learn to bullet with ball lightning. The option “magic plus a metal mace with a knob” is also acceptable. At short distances, more power attacks are welcome. This is if you are armed with knives, of course. Hold the motion button and the strike button – your dragonborn will sand the enemy with a special force equivalent to the speed with which a seasoned paratrooper breaks a stack of bricks on his head.
In Skyrim, you can master peaceful professions. For example, the craft of a blacksmith. First you need to get ore with a pickaxe. After the resulting raw material is remelted in the smelter into ingots. And then small manipulations with the skin and the direct manufacture of the necessary junk in the forge. Any skills in Skyrim can be pumped to the legendary level.
The role system is somewhat abolished for the sake of greater versatility. Division into classes has become quite arbitrary. Now, in order to be a brilliant magician with evil thoughts and a thin physique, you need to put on an ridiculous mantle with a long hood (for intimidation and general solidity, of course) and methodically improve the necessary skills. No hidden bonuses from the chosen specialization, fire.
But with acrobatics and athletics they acted quite judiciously. They were simply removed so that the player does not encounter a funny situation that could happen in the same Morrowind. A hero with the above-mentioned skills developed to the maximum immediately jumped onto the flat roofs of houses in Balmor and brought the furious guards to hysteria, running away from them along thick concrete fences with a hoot.
The main three parameters are health, magic and stamina. With each new level they can be increased to choose from. The list of schools of magic disbanded one school – Mysticism. Not the most noticeable loss, to be honest. But to manage with one spell (that is, without blades and bows) has become much more fun. The visual effects that accompany all your witchcraft tricks are top notch. And if you still (more precisely, not “if”, but “strongly recommend”) “tie” a powerful “spell” under each arm, then an average battle with a bear can turn into a celebration of light.
But personally, we liked to fight with swords. Contributed to the choice of a spectacular finishing system and a set of delicious perspectives-blanks of a virtual operator. In Oblivion (not to mention Morrowind), the importance of the battle could not be comprehended at all, because the whole skirmish was like poking anxious men in armor with metal sticks at each other. Blood even spattered, but there was no deserved feeling of bestowal from all this mutilation.
In Skyrim, the animation was corrected, and the torture hearing was appeased with a scattering of delicious sounds. And before the decisive blow, our hero of the northern latitudes manages to crank up such a meaningful hand in the air that sometimes the potential carrion, standing in front of him, becomes sorry.
The Plot of The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim
It just so happened this time that we reserved the discussion of plot cases for later. That is already for now. Let it turn out again that the main character is an elected lucky one who is being saved from an unenviable fate. Head off your shoulders – it’s not just for you to sit in a jail, but in five minutes to earn the king’s trust. The Skyrim prologue is the best in the series, absolutely. In just a couple of moments you will witness a brutal execution, dragon attacks and take part in a protracted escape with special effects.
Well, what happens next … Dragons, dragon-born, dragon screams, dragon bones for armor, random dragons over any settlement, absorbed dragon souls and the language of dragons. In general, if someone is still going to blame Todd Howard, the ideologist of the Elder Scrolls series, that, you see, the “dragon” topic is not disclosed, then let it drop from the fifth floor in a hastily made from papier-mâché costume of Dovakiyin.
It is very pleasant that the current level of technology and the general achievements of game design art help us easily believe in the main story. Previously, after all, in TES, as it was – throughout the game you were told about the Great Evil, about the true purpose of the protagonist, about the great showdowns and a sea of blood. But it seemed as if the whole “movement” had passed somewhere far, behind our shoulders, behind the doors, across the road, but not here and now. We were only confronted with the fact: “Well, there was just a caput and a big drum here, and you are so important! You are so needed! Let’s go, we will all show you what to do! ”
And in Skyrim they will meet with winged “flamethrowers” and give them plenty to hunt. Scary voices from the sky scare, interesting stories will attract attention. Even a werewolf will be allowed to play. Not to mention such trifles as slaughter with pirates (showdowns and missions for an adapted version of the East India Company are attached). As well as betrayals, forgeries and participation in the civil war. The last thing we want to do is to divide the quests into story and additional. All the tasks that the game provides us (well, almost all) are unique in their own way. For the integrity of the picture, which was outlined after the rebellion from the dead of the same dragons, this is only good.
Verdict
It is beautiful, smart, attractive. A universe that beckons with its majestic spirit of a real adventure. A whole world where, imagine, you can not only fight, carry out orders and bears for meat to gut, but also get married, learn a peaceful profession, buy a house. And then sharpen the blade, dress warmer, order a wagon and go on a long journey.
If among your friends there are already such overgrowths who are completely disappointed in computer games and automatically criticize every new product with the boring phrase “everything is no longer the same as it was before,” then show him Skyrim. And he will definitely return to us.
Pros: an amazing world, filled to the brim with beautiful landscapes, evil dead, interesting stories and compelling dragons; spectacular fights; universality of “pumping”; atmospheric music in the best traditions of the series; excellent optimization; the opportunity to become a werewolf.
Cons: do you think that I would dare to look for flaws in this legendary game?
The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim FAQ
1. How Long is Skyrim
2. How to Become a Werewolf
Most of the members of Companions of Whiterun (Companions of Whiterun) are Werewolves. If you complete their quest chain to become a Companion, the Silver Hand Quest will appear at some point.
During this quest, you take part in a secret ritual where you must drink the blood of another Werewolf and thus become a werewolf. However, you will have a choice, you may not agree to drink blood, but in this case the quest will not be completed.
3. How to Become a Vampire Lord
First of all, you need to download the official DLC called Dawnguard. After installing the mod, we go into the game and gain the 10th level. After that, you need to find one of the members of the guardians of the dawn and join this organization.
Further, everything is quite simple – in one of the main quests of the guardians of the dawn, you will wake from a deep sleep Serana, the daughter of the main vampire lord of the Volkihar clan named Harkon. Having led Serana to the castle of Volkihar, Lord Harkon will thank you and offer to join his family. If you agree, you will be rewarded with the ability to become a vampire lord, but then the guardians of the dawn will become your sworn enemies.
4. How to Fill Soul Gems
In order to enclose a soul in a stone, you need to know the “Capture of the Soul” spell, which can be purchased from a magician in Whiterun, or to enchant a weapon so that, after killing the enemy, it absorbs his soul in a free stone.
There are simpler ways: if you play as a magician, then you will have special skills for capturing souls. As your own abilities develop, the main character will be able to use more powerful and longer spells. Moreover, the time of the spell plays an important role, since your victim at the time of death must be under the spell, otherwise his soul will not be captured.
5. Skyrim how to Recharge Weapons
6. How Many Kids Can You Adopt
In the original Skyrim, you can adopt no more than 2 orphans. But you can also install a mod with which this number will increase to 6. Children will be able to take advantage of all the features provided by the Hearthfire DLC. This mod is also compatible with mods that add Orphans.
But after installing the mod, I advise you to start a new game in order to avoid possible bugs in the game.
7. How to Call Horse in Skyrim
You can’t call a horse to Skyrim at any time and anywhere – you need to quickly move the character to the city to call it, then your “vehicle” will be in the stable.
However, there are fan-made mods that expand the capabilities of the original Skyrim game – the most popular of those adds a whistle to the game, with which you can summon a horse to any place at any time.
8. How to Skip Skyrim Intro
An introductory video cannot be missed, unfortunately. However, you can download the game save, which will take you immediately to the editor of your character. There are also various mods that skip the introductory video.
