For what it is worth, here is my Metacritic review of Skyrim:

This is a good game and in some ways, a great game: sweeping vistas, epic music and sound-scape, coherent storyline and the scope of the game, the sheer immersion and *size* of it all, is truly staggering. Items that are eye candy clutter in other games... cooking pots, whetstones, mills, smelters, furnaces, are actually functional in Skyrim! This represents a significant advance over other Bethesda games like the earlier Eldar Scrolls series or ever the sprawling Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. Kudos for that.

The gameplay is very good. Not great, but I can live with very good. Combat in The Witcher 2, for example, is far more sophisticated and visceral whereas Skyrim's combat mechanics are a bit ordinary. Not bad, just ordinary.

However there is one aspect which is a major step back: companions in Skyrim are characterless cyphers, little more that cannon fodder for carrying your stuff around, whose names you will have difficulty remembering. Unlike Fallout 3 or New Vegas, there are no real character quests, nothing more than generic personality and, most inexplicable, more clunky controls than the character wheel used by Bethesda in Fallout New Vegas.

Oh and the Companion AI is *horrible*... they run in front of you when you take a bow shot, they are hard to push out of the way when they trap you in a corner or block a doorway and the accursed dog 'companion' pushes against you constantly and nudged me off a cliff once. I am sure mod makes will make *vastly* better companions than the vanilla ones (such as the staggeringly awesome 'Willow' mod for Fallout: New Vegas) but in such a detailed, immersion intensive game, this trivialisation of NPC companions is a strange design decision.

So I like this game and, yes, it *is* buggy, but with anything this big that is inevitable. Bethesda will fix it eventually and compared to Fallout 3/NV, it seems a bit less bug riddled. That said, I suddenly CTD with no error message at least once an hour. Oh well.

7/10... would be 8/10 is companions were not so completely uninteresting

Having played the Witcher 2(and enjoyed it!), I don't think I'd enjoy the same type of combat in Skyrim. Ill agree the combat is simple, but that's something i like about TES games.

Agreed.

I have also played witcher 2, and Dark Souls for the Xbox.
Witcher 2 is miles away from the frenzy of combat in Dark souls.

I think Skyrim combat is good though, considering the amount of encounters you have.

My only personal wish would be that the the minimum difficulty would be harder.
its appealing to play through on Adept but its not as challenging as it could be, yet it is challenging still.
Expert I think is what I would say "Normal mode", where Adept is easy and Master is hard.

Ya Meta has Skyrim hovering at 8.5 for User Reviews...

And that's only because of the 300 "rabid fan boy" reviewers who posted 10's within 30minutes of it's release... Had it at a 9.8 30 minutes after release, ROFL,

Has been steadily declining as people actually played the game. Averaging sub 7.5 since.

It's ok, not great, horribly ported and bug riddled... Typical "console game".

Bethesda "DA2'd" us...

PC version is a joke by the way...

What's the opposite of a fan boy? Cause that is what you are. You can't seriously mean half of what your post says.

Just because a game is on consoles, that doesn't instantly make it bad.

It's a typical "Bethesda game".

Uh I mean every freakin' word...

I'm not delusional... I don't [censored] put [censored] on a pedestal before I play it.

Game for the PC is decent, horridly ported and extremely dumbed down.

It's dumbed down, simplified because the "console" ADD(or ADHD, w/e floats your boat, you still take Ritalin) crowd can't handle "stats", "paper dolls", "min/maxing", "math", yadda yadda...

It's "horridly ported" because of the [censored] "worst UI ever", that quote was taken from multiple sources... It has horridly implemented console controls, it basically urinates all over your mouse outside of the gameplay screen and sometimes on it. They "simplified the gameplay screen to basically nothing, because the "console FPS crowd" can't handle anything getting in front of their "sniper reticule".

DA2? You must be joking. DA2 was a more 'accessible' game than DA:O (a polite way of saying speeded up and dumbed down). To suggest that is true of Skyrim compared to Oblivion is preposterous. Bethesda's Skyrim is clearly an improvement... Bioware's DA2 was clearly a wrong turn.

And why is the PC version a joke? I am using the PC version and it does not make me laugh all that much.

Dude, this is like the secret of Polichinelle really, you are aware that a lot of people had been playing the pirate version for days, right?

Did you ever stop the noise in your head so you could realize that besides the "rabid fan boys" who rate the game 10/10, there is also a "hate blinded army" of voters that rate 0/10 or 1/10? Rating a game like this 0/10, with this amount of content and production quality is way more [censored] than giving it a 10 instead of a 9 just because you're a fan That's why the rating is always going down, and Skyrim is not the first game where this happens.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-elder-scrolls-iii-morrowind
Skyrim 95%, Morrownid 89%

http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/dragon-age-ii
Dragon Age 2 : 79%



Yeah...sure..

Spot on about the companions, they really are a step back from fallout 3 and Nv.
I dont care about them not having quests as much as I care about them not being able to be told to stick to ranged or melee instead of switching at the worst times.

I'm just irritated that the game's storylines are so short and basic. The MQ, College and Companions were ridiculously short and instantly gratifying, as well as simple.

Well then perhaps this isn't the game for you and you shoul.....ohhh! Look at that bouncy ball!! What were we talking about again?

To be fair I think DA2 *was* a steaming pile... I gave it a 3/10 on Metacritic if I recall. And BTW, I think the professional reviews Metacritic links to are often worthless as many are just bought for by the various companies...and Bioware was caught "gaming the system" for DA2 after they realised how badly the fan base was reacting to the demo, by having employees leave glowing reviews in the user section.

I usually prefer to look at the user reviews on Metacritic a couple weeks after a game comes out as the preposterous haters and crazed fan boyz usually cancel each other out in the long run

Do you seriously believe the [censored] you type? You hold yourself in higher regard than people who own consoles? Here's the issue, son. "PC gamers" have been pirating games for too long, now the ultimate price has been paid. Console gamers get priority, because pretty much every one of them buys the game.

Next time you acquire something illegally, and don't [censored] me when you say you don't, we both know you're lying, stop and think for a moment about the consequences and whether you can live with them.

Uhm, do you read the [censored] you type? I'm not picking sides here. Neither console gamers or PC gamers are superior. But, protip: Most games that are leaked and pirated early, are leaked and pirated for the xbox. Skyrim, for instance, was first leaked on the xbox.

Also, I've been a PC gamer for years, and I've never once downloaded a pirated game. Don't overgeneralize.

Protip, it was leaked for Xbox because it was developed for Xbox, hence, the early preview copies were for the Xbox. Or did you not see any of the early footage? No. Didn't think so.

Uhm. Hello? It was still pirated by xbox users. A lot of games are. You're saying console gamers don't pirate, and PC gamers do. Stop changing your argument. Gamers are gamers, no matter what platform they use. Also, all gamers are human beings who have lives outside of video games. At least, hopefully.

So on one hand the argument is that "Console gamers" are "ADD scum" who don't have the patience for "stats and math" etc. Yet on the other everyone is equal. Pick your side and stick to it. I'm not saying console gamers don't pirate, and I'mnot saying all PC gamers do. As a PC gamer who HAS pirated, I'm well aware of the circumstances.

Point is, at the end of the day a AAA console title sells for more than a PC title, and there's a lot lot lot less people stealing it over paying for it. You'd be a fool to argue otherwise.

Also, good job on ninja editing all the stupid things you say. I'm presuming you read up about the early copies in between your first post and your edit. At least you're learning.

I think you have me confused with MrDingleBerry. I'm not the one who insulted console gamers. And I ninja edited "they aren't early copies." I didn't think about the circumstances involving the leak. However, the games were still illegally obtained, so it's still pirating. I'd appreciate it if you didn't call me an idiot.

And my SIDE is that everyone is equal. I stated that in my first post.

I'm also not saying anything bad about console gamers. You said they didn't pirate (whether you meant it or not), but they do. Just like PC Gamers.

Notice that everyone who says these things either joined ON release day or a day beforehand.

I didn't call you an idiot, if you choose to believe that PC titles make more money than console titles, I'll stand by my fool comment.

There's a lot of truth in what I said, but you were quick to jump down my throat. I was wound up by a post from someone I've no qualms calling an idiot, when you rode to his rescue on your white horse, I assumed you were one and the same. Easy mistake.

End of the day the console market is more profitable and easier to release for. Everyone has the same Xbox. PC specs change dramatically.

Perhaps people should stop blaming people for owning consoles (which I don't understand anyway, how is it their fault if Bethesda chose to develop a game for their chosen platform?) and perhaps look at the developer.

Also, I never mentioned console gamers never pirating, but a far greater percentage of the market pay for games. There's a reason PC games have such ferocious DRM and online activation requirements...

No no no no, you lost all credit when you compared Skyrim to DA2. Typical entitlement complex where nothing's good enough for you, has to complain about everything. No company will ever make the PERFECT game and even if one did, you'd find something to [censored] about. But don't start comparing Skyrim to that rushed out tripe Bioware produced. It makes you look silly.

Games like this are designed with consoles in mind. That's something we all just have to accept. If they released Skyrim for PC only the profit margin is so low, the game would be stripped down utter crap. Since Beth wouldn't be able to afford proper designers, or the development time to make a game this complex.

Take your common sense and get out of these forums.

Seriously guys, the "bugs" issue has little to do with consoles anyway. You act like none of you have played a Bethsda game over the last few years. Or played Oblivion. Or un-modded, un-patched Morrowind...

I don't believe that PC titles make more money. And I wasn't riding to MrDingleBerry's rescue. Heck, I've argued with him numerous times in the last few days. I just don't like generalizing. At all. Just a whole lot of misunderstandings here.