Skyrim early review

So i'm going to be writing a complete review of the game in a few days... maybe weeks. I'm really thoroughly impressed. The game has kept my attention for over 12+ hours today and I literally had to tear myself away to check some web stuff, and get to bed for work in the morning, and that is the first time that has happened in 5 years or more!

I'm playing as a High Elf Mage with Conjuration and Destruction being my focuses.

I'm using conjuration to summon familiars/atronarchs with Raise Dead being my true focus, having the point in Necromancy. I'm using a familiar and magic to kill 1 enemy, followed by raising that enemy to fight for me, then while they tank, summoning a bound battle axe or sword to capture their soul, or cast boosted damage lightening bolts to kill tough enemies. I'm only using the basic tank while I DPS method, but it seems a bit more complex in this game, and honestly, much more fulfilling. I get the feel from this that I have from WoW, but much more involved. It's a far more in-depth RPG than people give it credit for, even being as highly praised as it is.

The crafting is exquisite also. I've spent quite a bit of time using Alchemy to create poisons, and potions, which i've been using to keep myself way above the enemy. I've augmented my magic to having over 400-500% magic regen at all times. The crafting is a blast, with recipes adding themselves once you stumble across them, and items listing their inherent effects as you discover them, combining them with another herb or ingredient of like effect.

I've also found hunting animals for their skins to be hugely profitable. I'm gaining 50 gold per light leather armor, and being able to make 8-12 every time I stop in town after a normal quest.

Thus far i've spent roughly 12 hours on one character, and 8 on another, and i've reached level 12 on my main mage, and 8 on the other. It's looking like roughly an hour per level, being consistent throughout. I'm doing the main quest, while stopping to delve into every dungeon I run across, and spending plenty of time exploring as well.

I can't recommend this game enough. If you have any interest in Norse culture, RPG games, Sword and Sorcery combat, or even crafting, buy it and don't look back. My wife is going to be playing tomorrow, I'll let you all know how that goes.

Look for my full review, and feel free to request specific things to be answered!
 
The only complaint I got about this game, well two complaints actually, is that it's buggy as hell. It's a Bethesda game, yeah, I know. I'm used to the bugs. But dealing with them pulls me out of fully enjoyable gaming experience. Sucks to spend about 30 mins straight clearing a dungeon, and you try to enter the next, final room for the boss, and the game crashes on you, and you're back at the beginning. Getting around that by now using quicksave every 5 minutes out of habit to prevent it from happening (plus autosave for every zone loads). Other examples of bugs is that the graphics don't load correctly fully. Freaky to fight a blue latex looking giant, with a mammoth with his trunk being the same blue latex look. Final example bug that I've seen noted, apparently red bull does give mammoths wings as I saw an entire herd 100 feet up in the air just hanging out.

Besides that ONE major complain, the second complaint is, despite that HUGE bug problem, I'm still sucked into this game, enjoying it so much. I can't remember any game in recent memory where I've given in to the bugs and keep rebooting the game every time it crashes and pick up where it had me last saved. You'd expect to rage quit by that point, but nope. Just gotta deal with it and keep playing.

BTW, I saw the most rarest of things. A dragon flew three circles around me and my partner, and then flew off after I hit it with a fear arrow. I'm going to chalk that up as a bug as my arrow was NOT powerful enough to strike fear into it, much less a giant or mammoth. But that was definitely an event I didn't expect to experience.
"Dragon!"
*Everyone pulls out their bows.* Ready! Aim!...
*Dragon flies away* What the....?

P.S. Medviah has no life. Skyrim sucked it up. Lost track of how many hours he's played now...
 
@ Snipeye:
The random crashes are a bug with the AA. Turn that off and you're golden. Had the same problem for a bit.
 
BTW, I saw the most rarest of things. A dragon flew three circles around me and my partner, and then flew off after I hit it with a fear arrow. I'm going to chalk that up as a bug as my arrow was NOT powerful enough to strike fear into it, much less a giant or mammoth. But that was definitely an event I didn't expect to experience.
"Dragon!"
*Everyone pulls out their bows.* Ready! Aim!...
*Dragon flies away* What the....?

P.S. Medviah has no life. Skyrim sucked it up. Lost track of how many hours he's played now...

Well i've only encountered a few bugs to be totally honest. I haven't come across anything too terribly glaring in about 4 hours though either. And as far as the fear arrow on the dragon.... yeah probably worked. I'm actually curious if you can use command beast spell on one if your master level.... I know you can't raise a zombie dragon, as amazing as that would be though. They become unrasiable one you kill them after sucking out their power. I'm looking into what is effected and what we can't... I'm really hoping I can eventually get a powerful enough spell later to raise a giant, or a troll... that would be fun. Especially when i'm able to control two at once!
 
Yeah I can't stop playing this game. Totally sucked in. I work nights and I've made myself a rule that I won't play it in the morning when I get home from work, because I won't go to bed otherwise!

Seriously just tons of fun, easily on track to be one of the best games I've ever played. The main story is amazing so far but I can't keep with it because I am lost in a myriad of side quests plus my own whims and wanderings.

In short the game is everything I hoped it would be and so much more.

Playing a Dark Elf, really spreading out my skills and perks but at the same time I am wondering if I should focus in on a few. There's just too much to do and I want to do it all lol.
 
The ragdoll physics are crazy... I tried to take on a giant early on in the game and I got launched like 200 ft in the air lol...

kinda like this...


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndO5zMK9m6w&feature=related[/ame]
 
So I had to impersonate this Chef. However they wouldn't let me in because "I didn't look like one".
Fortunately, All I needed was the hat :)
UYfqMd6M_original.jpg
 
AMD has not released the new CAP(Catalyst Application Profile) or updated performance drivers for Skyrim yet, so it's highly advised you disable crossfire for now. HardOCP did a test using exactly those cards and it was ugly business in Crossfire, but my 6850 does decently at high settings.

I always keep an eye on this guy for the latest updates about AMD drivers.

Thanks for the info! Yeah I can play on ultra and get 60 fps indoors and 30-50 fps outdoors if i mess with the AA and the antistropic filtering settings in CCC. This website said to disable those in the skyrim options and use amd's in the CCC because they work better. Once i did that my game play is amazing, minus the fact i can't crossfire yet :glare: I'll post the link if anyone wants to check it out.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/332396-33-6950-issues-skyrim-possible-solution-inside
 
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Well I agree with almost everything.Having played TES IV:Oblivion I was really looking forward for Skyrim to be released. I've installed it yesterday and I've played 4 hours so far with a Nord warrior. I think the depth of the storyline and the extra things you can do apart of the main story really make the series unique. Oh and the graphics are really good.I got amazed when the game started just by the scenery. And the sound is way better than Oblivion.I really liked the Bards singing in the Inns. It's something different and really nice.
So it's a definite purchase and I will rate it as 9/10 (at least for now)
 
Skyrim Nexus has a bunch of mods already, mostly graphics/texture mods. So after that and progressing in the game even further, I bump my score to a 9/10.
 
For those famaliar with FXAA Injector, I decided to share my settings.

It basically adds a crap load of sharpening and makes the game look incredible at almost no FPS hit.

Mod files.
(extract all to Skyrim main folder)
My config.

I tried to make it as close to the normal brightness, unlike the default mod settings. Theirs is just too dark and cartoony. The textures really stand out a lot more, without all the fog and blur. You notice it a lot indoors where the characters were really hard to see before.

Screens:

http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/1892/tesv2011111722063782.jpg
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/102/tesv2011111722063851.jpg
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/1663/tesv2011111722120332.jpg
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/1451/tesv2011111722120423.jpg
http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/3484/tesv2011111722332120.jpg
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/3756/tesv2011111722332052.jpg

I resized from 1920x1080 because it might be too big for some.
 
I already have put 28 hours into Skyrim and I've only done 4 main story line quests lol. I have so many quests at the moment that I don't even remember which one is from the main quest haha.
 
75 hours in...and absolutely no shortage of content. I've finished both main quest-lines (that are both explained within the first 15 minutes of gameplay) - they took about 10-12 hours to do. I've done missions for most of the Jarls, purchased houses, finished the College of Winterhold missions (10 hours), run amok causing trouble...there is just a ton of stuff to do. And looking at the map, I've only explored about 7/10 of the map.
 
Was there a patch for the game already? I'm asking because all of a sudden, I'm playing 3-4 hrs straight without a single game crash, when it's usually every 10 mins.
 

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