Put your money where your mouth is

Elder Scrolls 5 Skyrim or should we say The Hoarding! 

Though not a player in previous Elder Scrolls games I did pick up Skyrim about week two after it launched and to be honest I am still playing Skyrim today, having put more than four hundred hours into this game. I still feel that there are major areas or missions I still haven’t seen to date, and coming from someone who used to want 100% all  role playing games I started Skyrim and many other western role playing games did manage to put a stop to that! Not because I didn’t want to but the standard major western role playing game release is normally just two big to hundred percent in the first play through and with so many extras on the horizon for these games just months after release it’s never clear when you are going to be able to do and try everything these games have to offer. Skyrim was what I feel today the first of its kind taking major fantasy elements from the elder scroll games and bringing them to life for a mainstream audience. The game was huge and not looking at the map but the interactions that came with it. There are much larger games out there in terms of map scale but very few with the details Skyrim had at its launch and one can only imagine what to expect with the next Elder Scrolls game which many have said is not too far away! 

The game itself, riddled with the standard Bethesda glitchy trademark behaviors was still great, yes items disappear through the floor, half show through walls and get stuck horizontally on a staircase still felt well designed and thought. The reason being is the game is simply so big with so many elements from the way items behave, sounds and interact it was only natural some of those elements especially the physics were going to go wrong at some point but all in all the game is still a masterpiece! 

The game itself is well thought for many reasons from the characters to the way the actual game plays. For one it was one of the most unique levelling systems to date and yes this was similar in oblivion but lets prone to abuse as it was there, I recall having gone back to try oblivion after trying elder scrolls five, Skyrim as I thought even a game a fraction as good as Skyrim was should be at least worth a try, and that’s what I did, put about three hours into the game when I stopped and thought nah not for me, the only games that allow me to go back into time with are the final fantasy series and simply because older final fantasies are better than the new ones whilst Elder scrolls games are getting better as we go along. 

So elder scrolls five Skyrim itself is a great game with so much to see, one of my favorite features about the game is the physics of it all, you can launch an arrow into oblivion and it will eventually come back down killing whatever it lands on, this real concept though sometimes exaggerated gave the game a great look and feel, items fell over all the time and made loud annoying noises as they did, wild animals charged you and if missed and went off a cliff then so be it, they died, you could use the land to your advantage and hide on a rock or cliff to attack below unsuspecting enemies which game the game a great sneak, stealth and thief play through which in all fairness is what most Skyrim players eventually went with as once you level sneak bow and built a decent archer build the character became quite over powered for much of the story. That I would say was one of the few negatives the game contended with, not that you could level incredibly well but by that time event legendary dragons were not much of a challenge, what I think the game lacked was the ability to produced extremely hard dungeons or areas in the game that reminded the players that there is always a tougher opponent out there. It didn’t need to be the whole game as the sense of one hit kills that come with a super build and the god like feel are part of what makes role playing games so addictive to gamers who focus on their character builds. Skyrim is a great example of creating a god like build and then simply traverse the map and kill anything in your path, this is what western role playing games are about, well in my opinion.

The game itself though had super mechanics and simply relied on a build what you use system if you wanted to stick to melee you will rank melee, generally whatever skill you decide to use scales and based on the point allocation you then choose the extras like double damage or carry more weight. The game had great mechanics and one can only hope Elder Scrolls 6 will follow in its predecessors footsteps as Skyrim did for Oblivion. 

As for the story again this very much revolves around the standard Fantasy end of world scenario with demon/demi god like characters out to destroy the world and though was a great additional and entwined nicely with the additional dragon shout abilities characters learnt whilst traversing the storyline was the main attraction for the game, it was the world Bethesda built to host that storyline and the incredible side missions, random events and DLC that went along with it which really gave Skyrim its thump!

Looking at the game not sure how a Bethesda game will make it into the world of betting on Esports however i’m sure the ever creative internet community will find a way, who knows there might be a world championship of speed runs in the mix and with so many bugs to exploit Skyrim could lead the “Bugged Speed run” division in no time!