After clocking in over seventy hours, clearing eighty-six dungeons, completing forty-one quests and mastering two Guilds, my to-do list right now is still a mile long. I’d tell you about all the incredible things I’ve done in the newest addition of the Elder Scrolls, but we would be here for awhile, and Skyrim is really calling my name.

For the first few minutes, Skyrim really didn’t take my breath away like I thought it would. While this is an evolution of the Oblivion formula in a lot of ways, voice acting and animations are still less than top notch. Characters completely butcher the normal flow of communication, and rob any sense of tension from the setting. The action is generally well-scripted, especially in the main quest, but it still feels like the game is barely holding it all together at times. It doesn’t detract from the game experience in a huge way, but the next evolution of storytelling this is not.

The character models, especially for non-humans, are much improved.

Almost every other area has been overhauled from Oblivion, with at least as much influence being drawn from Fallout 3. Pickpocketing, lockpicking and conversation work just like Bethesda’s reworking of the apocalyptic masterpiece. You are no longer bound to major and minor skills; each of the 18 skills contributes to your overall level, as well as discovering new locations. Although the different races each get small boosts in certain skills, no inherent skill modifiers exist, allowing much more flexibility in character customization. At every level, you get to choose a perk to apply to one of the skills. With over 250 perks to choose from, these game changing abilities must be weighed appropriately, and are an absolute blast to experiment with. Weapons are split into One and Two Handed varieties as opposed to weapon type, and Acrobatics and Athletics have been completely removed.

With the implementation of dual-wieldin, battlemages are now more viable, and fun, in combat.

Combat is miles ahead of its predecessor, featuring several distinct and viable fighting options. Stealthy archers, dual-wielding powerhouses, two-handed berserkers, classic sword-and-shield fighters and battlemages all provide a unique flavor to combat. The spell system is particularly fun, allowing you to combine or dual-wield spells to suit your needs. Mages can dual wield a Ward and a Shock spell for example, or you can wield a mace in one hand and a cure spell in the other. Most encounters are tense and exciting, but there are still plenty of ways to “cheese” the system, especially with magic and archery. Thord person perspective play is now viable, and can come in handy while sneaking, but I still prefered the first person viewpoint. An ingenius new Favorite system keeps all your best magic, items and equipment just a couple button presses away.

While the quests are generally well-written and epic enough, dragon fights, a big selling point, left me unfulfilled. They are introduced very early on, but your typical cave bear will put up more a fight that some dragons, making them little less than mobile loot boxes. The best stories, however, come from the myriad miscellaneous quests and dungeons strewn throughout Skyrim. In one random cave I found a mad sorcerer trying to raise a Skeever army, while in another I found a Troll eating a man carrying a sword he had named Trollsbane. It seems as though every one of the over 100 dungeons have some interesting quest or item to discover, with little to no repetition. Every cave, tower and ruin has a built in escape route at the end for your convenience, and the game smartly lets you know which dungeons you’ve cleared. I literally spent my first thirty hours with the game doing nothing but finding and clearing random dungeons, and was continually blowed away by the new stuff I was finding. Let me be clear: This is the best dungeon crawler every created.

Dragon fights are generally unexicitng affairs,, but totally worth the benefits.

Along with the main quest and side quests, four Guilds are included. The Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood return, along with new options for fighters and mages. Melee fans can llok forward to the Companions, a group of fighters that guard a terribly lupine secret. Even better though is the mages option, the College of Winterhold. Obtaining spells can be somewhat of a pain, so I would recommend traveling there early on for easy access to a variety of spells. All four Guild questlines are well done and, thanks to a new Radiant Quest system, provide endless randomly generated quests. If that wasn’t enough content, you’ll likely be unable to walk fourteen steps in a major city without some random passerby mentioning something that adds a new objective to your log, as well as the occasional courier delivering some new news.

The best thing about Skyrim is that it gives back at least as much as you put into it. For every hour I spend playing it, I uncover about two hours worth of gameplay I’ll need to do next time. Miscellaneous activities like Smithing and Enchanting are a blast to dig into, and the wealth of options make every game experience drastically different. A few odd glitches and bugs permeate the experience, but rarely derailed it. Once, as I was strolling through the courtyard at the mages College, a dragon attacked me and my fellow apprentices. Instead of helping me, one of them grumbled that I shouldn’t be wasting his time with inane conversation. Hey buddy, there’s a friggin dragon attacking! Too many systems are also easu to exploit, I was able to easily rob stores blind while th owner was there, and I killed most bosses by hiding behind a rock and launching arrows at them. As often as I saved (roughly every 1.6 seconds), I wish the save system did a better job differentiating between saves of multiple character, although it’s nice that it automatically holds your last three auto-saves.

Standing Stones replace birthsigns, and can be swapped by activating one. I worship the Steed Stone…you’ve probably never heard of it.

Skyrim may not push any graphical or narrative limits, but it is an absurd amount of fun, and one of the biggest time sinks in recent memory, or otherwise. My mind is still buzzing over finding new powers and exploring new dungeons. I can’t recommend Skyrim enough, and every gamer should experience this masterpiece.