Xbox 360 Critic Reviews

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is every single reason to love a Western role-playing game, condensed into a single comprehensive experience with nothing lost in the conversion process.

In weaving together the extraordinary craftsmanship evident in the music, storytelling, adventure and world design of Skyrim, Bethesda has created a very special game indeed - one that's likely to remain in the affections of gamers for many years to come.

This is the deepest, lovliest world ever created for a single player to explore, and one that no one should deny themselves. This is a game about following Emerson's advice, leaving the trail and finding that the most powerful force on Earth or Tamriel isn't fire or sword, but the ever-insistent desire to know what lies beyond.

No other game I know of operates with this many moving parts to create such an immense world filled with this much choice in how you engage its excellent, endless fiction. It's one thing when a game offers dozens of hours of gameplay; it's quite another when that gameplay is good enough you'll want to live in its world for that long.

Skyrim may frustrate you at times, but it will work its way inside your skin and replace the marrow of your bones. It never gives you an opportunity to neatly stop playing. Even if you manage to tear yourself away, the locations and the people will rattle around in your head. It'll give you stories to tell your friends, (although you should remember that many people simply won't be interested), and it'll give you an entire region to bend, beautifully slowly, to your will.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim may not deliver on every hope, wish or fervent demand you've been formulating ever since you realized how many flaws Oblivion was carefully hiding with its immense charm, but it most certainly lives up to the name Elder Scrolls and will easily qualify for millions of gamers' best-of-the-year lists.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is breathtaking, engrossing and deep. With gameplay and visual improvements, Bethesda set a new standard in The Elder Scrolls series with Skyrim, and with the action/RPG genre. This most certainly should be the game of the year.

Skyrim is the kind of game you can completely lose yourself in for at least a hundred hours, even if you somehow manage to complete the main quest in fewer than twenty. If you aren't normally drawn to role-playing games, get over it - to miss out on this extraordinary gaming experience would be positively criminal.

Skyrim is bigger, better, deeper than it's already excellent predecessor and a true masterpiece. This is not only a contender to be the game of the year, but maybe even the best role-playing game ever.

It is not often I get lost in a game like I did with Skyrim. Everything about this game screams quality and adventure. While Bethesda hasn't exactly got a track record for delivering bug-free games at launch, this has been a pleasant, polished and amazing experience so far. A much improved third-person view, amazing music, a living breathing world, a menu-system that's amazing and a game filled with interesting stuff to do. Truly a masterpiece.