Skyrim - Time played: 140 hours, most questlines completed.
If you've played an Elder Scrolls game before, you should know roughly what to expect, a gorgeous landscape that seems to expand for miles, hundreds of dungeons littered around an incredibly beautiful and immense landscape, freedom to seemingly do anything in this gigantic sprawling world and hundreds of questlines to become lost in as you wander from area to area with a never ending sense of discovery. This sense of discovery, fundamentally, is Skyrim. The magnificent world that has been created that grants the illusion of freedom is Skyrim's greatest accomplishment. The huge diversity and variation of the natural landscape in Skyrim that encompasses the cities to explore and dungeons to plunder is absolutely remarkable. Although Skyrim is a natually mountainous region and thus mountains are a common sight in Skyrim Bethesda have clearly taken note of the common criticism of Cyrodill, that is that the world was bland and simply a gigantic forest, as there is far more than just mountains in Skyrim's colossaul world. From large open plains, marsh-like regions, icy tundras to small forests and of course Skyrim's staple mountainous regions, the diversity in the world makes it incredibly rewarding to pour hour upon hour exploring the magnificent setting that has been created.
However, that massive open world also contributes to one of Skyrim's biggest problem. Although the natural world in Skyrim is absolutely magnificent and an absolute joy to explore, many of the man-made locations fall flat in comparison. Although many of the outside dungeons are an improvement to what can be found in Oblivion they still remain unsatisfying to explore due to the lack of much unique loot. The result of this means that by the tenth dungeon you begin to just pass over them unless marked as important for a quest. Most of the major cities hold up well (Whiterun, Solitude, Windhelm, Riften and Markarth), with Solitude being the highlight due to the large area it encompasses, most of the cities feel bland in comparison to the picturesque world that exists around them. The excellent design of Bruma and Cheydinhal, the convenience of Anvil, the incredible scale of the Imperial City, those traits do not appear as strongly in Skyrim's. Whiterun for example, the first city that players are likely to encounter has a very good design but the lack of inhabitants within the city, the lack of proper shops and inns prevent it from delivering the impact it could if it was made large and more lively. The design of Markarth and Windhelm in particular is dampened due to the drab grey colour palette (if you can call it a palette) and it really dampens the enjoyment that may otherwise be found in the cities. Solitude is perhaps the best city in the game and rivals Skingrad both in design and presentation but there is still an almost hollow atmosphere within it and that, I believe is a result of the quests that are within the game.
The quests in the game although enjoyable and featuring many stand-out quests, the Daedric questline once again is a particular highlight and the Dark Brotherhood is very enjoyable, the term "bland" unfortunately is applicable to most of the quests in the game. There is a few highly memorable questlines within the game, but many of them simply lack either an interesting premise, have an interesting premise yet the execution is flawed or the is simply something mundane. It is as if Bethesda embraced a "serious, gritty, dark etc. tone" when approaching the quest design and although that suits the Dark Brotherhood, the Daedric Quests and, to a lesser extent, the Thieves Guild, for other random quests or questlines it leads to either boring, bland quests lacking excitement or interesting gameplay. Make no mistake though, this problem is in fact only a problem after many, many hours. If you have played an Elder Scrolls game before, or Fallout 3 or New Vegas you'll know that the most time consuming thing in the game is moving from quest to quest, becoming distracted and simply exploring the world to see what you find. It is only once you have explored a significant amount of the map, presumably after completing many quests when you look back and try to think of notable quests you've done without checking the journal that you struggle to think of many that aren't Daedric or Dark Brotherhood quests, that they start ot become a chore, simply an obstacle that you must do.
This may not be a problem if the gameplay was good enough to support it but this is another weak-point for Skyrim. Although an improvement over Oblivion the combat still feels "floaty" and is perhaps Skyrim's weakest point. The introduction of dual-wielding is done very well and its implementation feels very similar to Bioshock 2 but the core gameplay simply is not strong enough to make the gameplay feel really enjoyable after ten hours (which is still very impressive compared to that that is what most games last for) at which point it simply is servicable, a medium to get to what you want to do. It also doesn't help that the streamlined Oblivion has itself been streamlined with the skills being the biggest victim as they are merged, removed or made unneccessary. The lack of balance with the magic skills (ranging from completely overpowered such as Conjuration to completely and utterly useless such as Destruction). Smithing, Alchemy and Enchanting are also very poorly balanced and use of those skills completely eliminates all challenge from the game and removes any reason to look for loot as your equipment remains unparalleled. The User Interface, although much easier to use than Oblivion's on consoles, is blatantly not designed for Mouse and Keyboard controls and is a pain to navigate with such devices. The lack of proper quick selecting is also an incredible frustration.
The graphics are very good considering the sheer size of the game and the sound design (with the exception of the terrible voice acting which detracts from the serious tone that it seems that Bethesda is trying to achieve) is very formidable and the music as usual is excellent.
It's a very flawed game, the greatest strength is also it's greatest weakness but that strength is so formidable that it can easily sustain some level of enjoyment for at least fifty hours. After that however, it is only a matter of time before certain elements of the game begin to grate with you and.
Long review I know, hopefully I'll get another few done tomorrow.