Im completely understanding of fans posting angry on the forums. Posting is effort, means they are affected and therefore care thus meaning the poster is a fan. Fanbois ( a fan but loves the game so much they will not accept it is flawed ) will defend a game against all criticism on any form of media.

C+

Played Skyrim more than any other single player game Ive purchased in the last few years but still so many underlying bugs and gameplay imbalances leaves a sour taste after the initial sweet bite. Without multiplayer TES will always be destined as a sub par game, great lore and graphics but gameplay fails to deliver. Until Bethesda choose to join the real gaming world and provide a form of multiplayer I can't see the standard being raised. It seems like they focus too much on the story line/lore and cheesey death animations in comparison to gameplay and balance. This is an unfortunate bane with modern games as they need to cater for "mainstream".

A

-Pros-
Tons of things to do
Great Graphics
Great interface
Crafting System
Awesome looking Armor
Big world
Many quests
Beautiful world

-Cons-
Quest quality seems a bit lacking (including Story line)
Far to many Important NPCs (seems like most the population that aren't guards)
A tad buggy
No horse combat
PS3 Text is SUPER small, many things are unreadable (I can hardly read without squinting)
Edit : Leveling a skill only matters if you use Perks. Perks are nice, but the way they work literally means they are not Perks, but they are necessary to become stronger.

My PC most likely beats yours Beth games are not great in optimization department.

I've had plenty of vaild complaints yet I don't attack others or RAEG on the forums about them.


But just look at the reasons these people are giving C's and such. Because they can't marry a Khajiit or Population doesn't show enough variety (?).
Also, interesting perspective on the future of ES (Multiplayer?). Most would say focusing on the story isn't mainstreaming....

C

Pros:

-Love the art direction, reminds me of Morrowind.
-Beautiful world
-Good variety of companions
-Melee combat is mostly fun, probably the best so far in TES
-Dwemer Ruins

Cons:

-Very disappointing Factions. (The Skyrim Dark Brotherhood pales in comparison to Oblivion's. Mage's Guild is short and not that engaging. But especially the Imperial Legion was VERY disappointing, I loved them in Morrowind, but here it was 8 quests to kill stormcloaks inside of forts and you're done, wow.)

-Quality beats quantity. Even excluding Misc quests, the quests in Skyrim seem dull, often consisting of nothing more than killing a few bandits and picking up a sword or rescuing some random npc.

-The dungeons, while very atmospheric, tend to bore me, especially the nord crypts. A good number seem like a slog through narrow corridors filled with identical undead waiting in alcoves.

-Lack of variety in Skyrim's population. They are all Nords, like 95% of the population. I understand this is the home of the nords here but seriously, there are maybe 18 Khajiit in the entire game? And that's being generous. If there weren't caravans you wouldn't even know they existed.

-Magic system was butchered, it needs some serious modding effort to get it close to Oblivion's standards, let alone Morrowind's.

-Money is basically worthless once you get enough to buy a house.

-Marriage is very shallow, with two races (Khajiit and Wood elves) not even being available to marry.

- And of course, Bad UI for the PC. Takes twenty seconds to navigate around the stupid Skill constellations.

I'd say its biggest problem is that TES is getting more and more dumbed down, (See Magic System) and if they keep simplifying it, it's going to get to the point where there's a "Melee" skill and two schools of magic, "Destruction" and "Other".

There is no point providing a good story without a competent gameplay to match. If I wanted an EPIC story I could go read a book. This is supposed to be a video game ( games are fun yeh? ) and with each release Bethesda somehow manage to kill the fun with just a few small but very important gameplay mechanics being imbalanced. Rather than focusing so much resources on making bricks look different they could get the basics right.

I don't really understand the letter grading, it's about as useful as degrees fahrenheit.

But I'll give it a B.
It's a good game, but it lacks quite some good features from previous TES games that would make it A LOT better. Why Bethesda decided to skip on certain things I do not know, it makes no sense to me.

1. Attributes are gone. I hated them. Why? Because attributes had no purpose other than to increase your stamina, magicka, and health. Character building is there. It's called allocating points into perks and your three stats. You can be a warrior yes and you can switch to Mage. But you've most likely allocated most, if not all of your points into Stamina and Health that it's incredibly impractical. Skills are also there to make your character building feel more streamlined. Stealth players won't feel like run and swing warriors. I hated attributes with every fiber of my being in Oblivion. Glad it's gone.

2. No...actually it helps character customization. If you're a stealthy archer, you'd most likely put perk points into Stealth perk tree and archery perk tree while putting some in the one handed category. There you go, your character is SET. You can switch any time just like in real life but you will be at a disadvantage as the enemies are already leveled and you aren't.

3. Really? I really can't find a merchant except like one or two that sells Ebony. And Daedric? I can't find a single Daedric sword except for ONE Daedric Sword that I found while dungeon crawling.

4. Yeah, kind of frustrated me. But still, remember that all of the factions really are free for anybody except the College of Winterhold. And the College does have an entry exam...which really svcks. Basically anybody can join the College if they have the gold to buy the correct Spell Tome. So no complaints there.

A (pre-patch), B- (post-patch)

Pros:
Beautiful game
Solid gameplay
Lots to do and lots to explore
Every dungeon feels different
Easy to understand character progression
High replayability due to character progression
Guild quest lines are well done and fun (exception of Companions, I have to wait 30 days to continue this quest)

Cons:
1st patch forces me to rely on a 3rd party utility for stability (more crashes per day now than I had total pre-patch, 4GB utility fixes this for me)
A few quest bugs
Guild quest lines are a bit too short
No Fletching or Repairing, even though you have Blacksmithing
Some of the skill trees aren't as useful as they appear
Reduced spell count simplifies mage choices
Complete lack of character management is beyond pathetic