There Be Dragons Here!

Just what has been occupying my time since Halloween, you may be asking? The severe lack of posts are not due to the usual lack of inspiration this time around.

Truth be told, I've been spending an ungodly amount of my time within a fantasy world where Dragons have returned, knights in shinning amour have given way to viking warriors and where ancient undead soldiers spend time lurking about in forgotten tombs and are just waiting for an ass-whoopin'.

If you've had your video game playing head in the sand for the last month you'd know I'm talking about the most ambitious, open world, role playing game to possibly ever grace counsel gaming systems.

On 11/11/11 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released to the masses. And you can bet you're sword wielding, potion poppin', amour wearing, sweet behinds that yours truly was in his local Gamestop at midnight to get his little paws all over this masterpiece.

Granted, I was probably the oldest geek in the place. No matter! I got my copy in a short period of time and tore back home to my apartment and popped that wonderful little disc into my '360 and sat in a state of mad anticipation!

The intro was very short and sweet and the next thing I knew I was being led into the story head first. Soon after I was working on the intricate character creation system. Then as soon as the introductory part of the story was over and the game let me decided what I wanted to do next, I found myself wandering the huge and beautiful landscapes.......

Once I actually looked at the clock and realized it was 5 AM I decided to take a short nap . I had wisely taken that Friday off from work and found myself up by 10 AM and back at the game. Since then I have taken advantage of the cold, gloomy and dark atmosphere that has seemed to curse the subsequent winter weekends and found a plethora of time to clock in at least 48 hours of the game. It being and open world, sandbox game, I found it very easy to do.

So what do I think of it?

One of the BEST GAMES I'VE EVER PLAYED!

Keep in mind, I'm an oldster. My first game system was a big red plastic box that you connected to your UHF atenea to play Pong. So I've been playing for a while and I can honestly say that this game has blown a few of my all times faves out of their places in the pantheon that is Zangz's All Time Favorite Video Games.

I have yet to reach the end of the main quest and story for the game, but have logged in more than enough hours to be able to give a decent review.

The main story revolves around you arriving in this Norse mythology influenced fantasy realm as a prisoner who was captured trying to illegally cross the border into the Northern most realm of the Elder Scrolls fantasy world know as Skyrim. You're cuffed and in a wagon with other prisoners being taken to your execution that is take part in a small town. As your head is being laid on the chopping block, all hell breaks loose as a dragon attacks and destroys the town. Once you escape the destruction the world is your oyster.

You can pursue the main story quest and find out why long extinct dragons have returned to the world and what major part you play in it. Or you can do whateverhellyouwantto! It's all your choice.

I found myself spending hours traveling the roads and reveling in the majesty and beauty of the Skyrim world before I took on any of either the main or side quests. There's almost too much to do and explore in this world.

There are hundreds of places to check out. Whether it be burial tombs, caves, ancient dwarven ruins, keeps, bandit forts, small townships and extravagant cities, there's hundreds of places to search, loads of people to interact with, take on dangers, loot treasure chests and look for cool-as-heck magical items. Almost each and every place you come upon, your jaw will drop at its beauty. The whole world is definitely seeped in fantastical artistry.

The game keeps you busy. I've been biding my time with the main quest, taking it in a little at a time so I don't blow through it too quickly. Luckily I've been keeping busy with the multitude of side quests that are provided for you in the game. Holy crap, there are a lot!! There are the main quest missions, then each city and township has its own set of quests for you, then there are the factions and political parties you can join who have a bunch of quests for you. AND THEN there are bunch of side and miscellaneous quest you can randomly come upon. It's mind blowing!!!!

You can take a gander at the gameplay right HERE!

They've also made the combat and magic systems much easier than any of the previous Elder Scrolls games. You don't have to be a hard core RPG geek to get the hang of how to manipulate and use your inventory.

In past Elder Scrolls games, I've played as a brute warrior with a penchant for hack'n'slash gameplay. This time around I've found it easy enough to play as a combo warrior / thief-esque / assassin type character without having to dick around too much with a complicated interface. You build up the stats from what you actually do in the game. You don't have to worry about wondering where to allocate a ton of skill points into. The game pretty much does it for you per how you like to play. Every time you level up you only have to worry about putting points into three (count 'em THREE) attributes and then only one point into a skill.

Do you want to be a bad-ass warrior? You can do that! Do you and to be sneaky thief? You can do that! Do you want to play as a powerful mage? You can do that! Do you want to play as all of the above? You can do that! Do you want to play as a little bit more of the above and a little bit less of the above? You can do that! They've really taken the whole sandbox gameplay ideal and applied it to RPG mechanics with little confusion for the player.

Here's a quick video on the gameplay mechanics of the game.

The world itself is an organic (over used annoying word alert!) living world where characters live their lives day to day despite your existence in it. Time moves on no mater what you do or don't do. Here's a time laps look at one of the cites in the game.

I could go on and on and on with what makes this game so frackin' awesome I'd be typing this post all night. Suffice it to say, this is one of the best gaming experiences I've had since Grand Theft Auto III came out or the time I first discovered Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. You may be asking yourself, "Does he think that there is anything is wrong with it?"

I've only run across a couple of things that slightly irk me.

First, I notice that once you discover and clear out a dungeon, cave, fort, whatever, that the enemies within don't regenerate if you revisit that same place later in the game. In Elder scrolls IV: Oblivion, a short time after you cleared a place you could go back in and still go after baddies while looting treasures. This doesn't seem to be the case in Skyrim. That could kill a little of the replay value that the Elder Scrolls games pride themselves for. I have to play through a lot more of the game to see if these dungeons are revisit-able, but right now it's looking like once you complete a dungeon, it's just an empty dungeon.

The net has been afire with a lot of criticisms of a lot of the major glitches that can plague the game. We all know that these Elder Scrolls games are so incredibly huge it is hard for developers, Bethesda, to catch all of the glitches before release time. In fact, in the past, some of these glitches are kind of amusing and endearing to a lot of us. This game, however, has a little too much of them and in some cases can make a quest incomplete. I came across such a quest where I was to collect three separate necklaces in three separate dungeons. I made the mistake of forgetting to grab the necklace off of the first dungeon boss in the first dungeon. When I returned much later on in the game to collect the necklace off the the carcass of the undead viking warrior, he was gone and the quest arrow telling me where the location of the necklace was pointing at the empty ground where the necklace should have been. So I couldn't complete the quest. Bummer!

Do these faults ruin the game? Hell no!!! The game is still a wonder to behold!

Lift up your cups or grog to the people at Bethesda Games who have created one of the top video gaming experiences that I have ever had the pleasure!!!!

For Xmas this year get you loved ones this game! They won't be disappointed..... unless they wer born without a soul.

Zangz.