Review: Skyrim (PC)

Skyrim was one of the hottest games released in November. This is obvious, considering it sold over 3.4 million copies in its first two days of sale alone. This number also excludes digital sales (ie steam, desura, d2drive etc). I wouldn't be surprised if the number rose to 4 million if you included digital sales.

Anyway, what is the game like?
If I had one world to describe skyrim, it would be "Amazing".
If you gave me a few more words, I would say "Amazing, but frustrating as it was clearly aimed at the console crowd."
By this I mean a sometimes frustrating UI that doesn't make good use of screen space, and detracts from an the amazing game hidden under this nonsense.

Lets put the ui aside for now, and go into detail on different aspects of the game.


Graphics - 8/10.
Update: 9/10 - See below

This game looks amazing. You have to buy it for yourself to see it, the youtube videos of it cannot convey the breathtaking experience. There have been several moments during the game where I have walked out to the edge of a mountain, and just looked at the landscape, for a couple minutes.
Here are some screenshots of the game, but the graphics are set between low and medium, as my computer isn't currently powerful enough to run the game on full, but you can see videos of Skyrim being played on pc on full on youtube.

Dual casting "spark" fried this spider in less than a second.

The nice graphical effects here are because I just used the "slow time" shout. I stupidly went in for a slow power attack, forgetting that while the spider was slowed down, its fangs hurt just as much as in real time.

Hint: Sabre cats are not to be messed with, especially if you try to annoy them with a measly iron arrow. I have taken them down in the past, but I forget how.

Trying to take screenshots and fight at the same time doesn't work well, in this case the sly fox(literally) scampered over the hill just as I hit the button.

Mammoths will leave you alone if you stay away. Of course just after this shot I stepped up to it and was immediately skewered.

So why only 8/10?
This game is beautiful, but buggy. There are so many graphical glitches that make me wince as I wander throughout skyrim. Some examples, snow that can't decide whether it is ontop of a rock (as it should be), or inside the rock. This leads to a weird effect where as you walk, the snow phases in and out of the rock. I have seen this in other bethesda games as well. If it weren't for those pesky bugs, Skyrim would easily scoop a 10/10 in graphics.
These issues might also be explained by the fact that this game was tested on a slightly older graphics card, a 9600gt. I have no doubt that Bethesda will develop patches and release them soon to fix these issues.
If you have never experienced these issues, and have the PC edition of the game, please post in the comments below.
Update: I have a faster graphics card now, a 6950gt 2gb. It can run Skyrim at 1080p on ultra settings and never dip below 60 frames per second, and they game looks beautiful now, especially with some mods. However there are still those graphical glitches, with the snow "in" rocks instead of "on" it.
Therefore I have changed my rating of the graphics to a 9/10.


User Interface - 4/10
(With SkyUI mod, 9/10)
Update: With Bethesdas open nature towards modding of their games, including skyrim, a mod called SkyUI has come out, and makes the UI very easy to get around and use.

I don't usually talk about a games UI to warrant its own rating, but Skyrim's is so frustrating that I couldn't help it. While the UI looks good, it doesn't feel good.
It is a disorganized mess, you cannot use your mouse for ANYTHING, bar the map, and the tabs only shown in one screen.

 

Those tabs at the top are pretty much the only thing the mouse can click on.

Elsewhere in the menus, you must use wasd to navigate, e to "accept", tab to go "back" and as far as I can tell, you can't change this, short of plugging an xbox controller in and using that. I plugged my controller in, and started enjoying the game a lot more, at least in the menus. I couldn't play with the controller though, as I can't go without the precision that a mouse offers for things like archery.

Gameplay - 10/10

Skyrim's gameplay is nothing short of amazing. It is one of the most involving (read, addictive) games I have played in a long time. The sheer amount of different things you can do, or be astounds me each time I play the game. I play as an awkward rogue mage type, I sneak around, the first enemy I see, I shoot in the head with my ancient nordic bow, and use hit and run magic on the others, conjuring familiars (a wolf) to attack them for me, healing myself via magic, and using destruction spells such as fire, sparks, and frost.
While I die frequently (often from petty thieves/highway robberies), Bethesda has managed to make this entertaining.
You can just follow the main quest, and ignore everything else, which I am told takes around 300 hours of gameplay to do, or you can explore every nook and cranny of Skyrim looking for extra things to do.

Sound - 8/10

While Skyrim's sounds are good, and the music usually fits the mood perfectly, I never sit back and think "wow, that sounded good". However I consider myself an audiophile, and the game still sounds great.

Overall - 9.5/10
Update: I have changed my overall rating from a 9 to 9.5, as with my new graphics card and some mods, the game is close to perfect. I highly recommend this game.

This game is the best role-playing-game I have played in 4 years(the last being FFVII), and I can see my self playing it often at least until mid 2012.
A horrible ui and annoying graphical bugs detract from an otherwise amazing experience, akin to when I first played Crysis.
Go do your self a favour and buy this game. (Or maybe not buying it would be doing yourself a favour, judging from the hours my steam friends have racked up on Skyrim alone.)