Race: Khajit, Level: 50, Main Combat style: archery/sneak, Game time: ~150 hours.
It’s no doubt Game of The Year for 2011. Many many awards. And the “arrow in the knee” meme was a quite unique phenomenon for a video game. I guess most ppl who used this joke never played Skyrim, lol.
This was actually my first time to finish a “sandbox” style game. This game style tries to give player as much freedom as possible. Skyrim did give you FREEDOM. There are 9 cities in the world map, except the first one (Whiterun), you can visit the other 8 cities in any order, any time! And the huge huge world map is full of villages, caves, ruins and tasks. There is an achievement for “discover 100 places” but it was done in a pretty early stage. I guess the total number of places may be around 300! And sometimes I got over 20 open tasks and 4 to 5 story lines going on simultaneously. I’ve never played a game with so many free choices. If you play it in a mood of “finishing tasks quickly”, it would make you anxious and a little bit uncomfortable. But once you stop rushing and begin to wander on this huge land, you will immediately feel the pleasure. Every character has his/her background and small story; numerous and various animals running around; new tasks come in and open tasks are closed like a flow; you’re the hero and resolve every difficulty on this cold continent. It’s a ridiculously addictive experience.
Don’t be too critical to its fighting style. It’s shooting(archery) can’t compare with real shooting game, and its action combat is far from a real action game too. The spirit here is possibilities. Many skills can be combined in any way. Lots of interesting combat style can be created.
The last achievement I got was “Reach level 50”. All other achievements were done at level 43. Then I tried to level fast, by pickpocketing every person I met, enchanting lots of junk weapons, spending money to train skills, etc. The only missable achievement is “Get 15 daedric artifacts”, because you need to choose the right option in every daedric quest. Just remember to follow those evil god’s instructions then you will get all those artifacts.
Btw, I’m going to trade in the game (XBox version) this week. Let me know if anyone wants to buy it…