Total Freedom
Remember when Grand Theft Auto 3 released and you thought that you could do anything your heart desired? Looking back now, you will see that GTA was just child’s play. In Elder Scrolls V, you are truly only limited by your imagination. If you can dream it, you can do it. Even something so mundane as staring at the night sky.
I have spent many hours just sneaking around town stealing items for no reason other than to quench the thirst of kleptomania. On more than one occasion this caused me to be pursued by a shop keep or homeowner. One such instance had an invincible shop keep chasing me for about 45 minutes. Sure, I could have let him kill me or went to jail, but as I said, you can do anything and I wanted to enjoy the chase.
Skyrim, though immersive and full of choices, does not carry consequences for your actions. Rather it resembles a “Choose-your-own-Adventure” book. In the books, you would be given a decision like, “Terrorists have hijacked your school bus. To wait for an opportunity to escape turn to page 42, to jump off the bus now turn to page 68.” When you turn to page 68 and the book says “The bus is going too fast and your body is splattered on the asphalt,” you immediately claim that you didn’t choose that and turn to the other option. Likewise in Skyrim, I found myself saving the game before every major decision and restoring that savegame if things didn’t go my way. In doing so, you never really face any consequences for your actions.
Mod-ability
As with Oblivion, the best platform to buy the game on is PC for no other reason than the limitless modding options. Oblivion still has one of the largest followings in the PC modding community and it appears that Bethesda has left this door open. Already hundreds of mods have hit the interwebs and become huge successes.
Spiders giving you a lot of trouble? Then the simple solution is to remove them from the game with a small mod. Do you have a truly beast PC and want to make Skyrim look even better? You can find many mods that increase the quality of the visuals with HD texture packs, better character textures, more detailed fauna, maps with roads, and even FXAA mods. Can’t seem to find the perfect weapon? Download them.
There seems to be mods for anything you can imagine. Now some game “purist” will scoff at these and even call some of them “cheats” (as some probably are), but gamers just looking for a fun time and a great experience will have a blast tinkering around. I would be lying if I didn’t say that Macho Man Randy Savage has already replaced my dragons. (Though he didn’t last long)
