2011 Game of the Year #03 - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Hailed as one of the best games of all time and certainly the most anticipated game of 2011, it’s hard to believe that Skyrim was not number 1 on my list of 2011’s best games – or is it?

I’m gonna put this bluntly, I loved and hated Skyrim simultaneously and here’s my reasoning why;

I loved Skyrim because of the expansive world, the fully customisable character skills, the beautiful dragons, the questing and I too at one point or another raved on about the same things that every other fan loved about the game. I absolutely hated that ultimately the game was broken. There were too many glitches and problems with Skyrim to make it in any way, shape or form a really enjoyable experience for me, be it improper physics, impractical glitches, random crashes or the ridiculous frame-rate issues on the PlayStation 3 version of the game – there was too much stuff wrong with Skyrim.

My friend put it perfectly by stating, “I applaud Bethesda’s ambition with Skyrim, but the development team lacked the numbers to create the vision they initially had for this instalment in the Elder Scrolls series. I can see what they were trying to do but by making the game so ridiculously big it left it open to so many technical issues, which have become so apparent across all the platforms, that is absolutely shocks me how Skyrim has managed to walk away with the majority of this years awards for best game.”

Let’s look at it another way, by analysing a gameplay style present in Skyrim. Taking combat, compare the pointless button mashing of this game to the technical combat mechanics of Dark Souls – the latter makes Skyrim’s combat system look like an absolute joke. In fact all of Dark Souls makes Skyrim look like an inferior role-play game.

I enjoyed a few key moments in Skyrim and to be honest that was the Dragon fights but aside from that … you know what, as I’m writing this I’ve realised I really don’t think Skyrim should be on my list – if I put this game on this list, I’d be lying to myself as a gamer. At this moment it’s here because I don’t want to be shunned by the gaming community who gave Skyrim all those awards, but I’ve decided they are unjust and it doesn’t deserve the ridiculous amount of praise it’s been getting. A game that where my horse can float around the map, dragons can merge with buildings and soldiers continue to take arrows to the knee, cannot be considered game of the year in my eyes because ultimately, it is a broken ass game.

With that in mind I will finish my list and come back to add another game over Skyrim later so as not to spoil the reveal of number 2 and the winner.

Thanks for reading and check the blog tomorrow as I reveal who will take 2^nd place.

As always check me out on Twitter @ss4Igor