One thing I have always liked about combat in the TES games, despite the overwhelmingly underwhelming feel it's had in most of the games, is how there is actually some benefit to being mindful about the way you handle your weapon. Whilst the reworked, "tactical" combat system in Skyrim certainly suggests players will have to be more conscientious of their playstyle depending on their weapon type, I'm curious as to whether we'll see an evolution of the directional attacks in previous games.

In previous Elder Scrolls games, the direction in which you attacked wasn't only visual: there were statistics behind them as well. In Arena and Daggerfall, your different modes of attacking (stab, horizontal slash, diagonal slash) effectively boiled down to stabs being more accurate (but less damaging), and horizontal slashes being more capable of "parrying" opposing blows than the other attacks. Morrowind's weapons could each be handled in one of three ways and had separate damage values for each: but depending on the type you really mostly would just stick with one (or otherwise resort to the "use best attack" option). For example, spears were good for stabbing but little else: and axes were better at chopping than stabbing in this regard. In Oblivion, the system returned to a singular damage value for each weapon, but directional attacks still had some purpose through both power attacks and later skill perks.

I was wondering what you guys think of martial combat in Skyrim. We already know that there will be effects associated with some weapons (bleeding, armor penetration) but do you think there will be any context-specific moves we can pull off as well? Things like being able to use an undercut to bypass an enemy's shield, or maybe different speeds/damage values for the way in which you swing your weapon (I'd like to think that it should take you longer to "lunge" with a polearm and complete your attack than if you were to just chop with it).

Speculate!

In Morrowind I would always aim for the area of a person's body that wasn't wearing armor unitl I realised the collision boxes were based on the person's whole body.

Maybe, like Fallout 3, the collision boxes will be limb and area specific so that 'Slow Time' Perk might be useful.

Definitely. My sabre should do more damage with a slashing attack than with a stabbing attack compared to a sword that was more designed for stabbing. Better example: axe should not stab for as much damage as a swing would do.

Ideally, I'd like things like this to be as pronounced as possible: if my character is backed up into a narrow hallway, I should have an incentive to switch to a more direct, stabby weapon, if only because it means I can continue to have a higher damage potential without having to zigzag between the walls with a chopping weapon as the gap between my enemy and I grows smaller.

You mean being able to hotkey weapons?