The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim [Full ISO/RPG/2011] - Razor1911 - PC Game - Download MF, MU

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Bethesda's follow-up to Elder Scrolls IV is fun to play and has a fantastic interface – best book your time off work now …

As Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 looms on the horizon, gamers can prime themselves for at least one news story (it's bound to happen) about how much money employers are set to lose due to fans taking a week off work to play it. With that in mind, it's almost a good thing that Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is operating under the radar of mainstream news, otherwise it may be blamed for potentially triggering a double-dip recession.

Bethesda Game Studio's follow-up to Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is massive in nearly every single aspect. The game's environment is gargantuan, the number of NPC (non-player characters) populating it legion and the volume of quests on hand look set to consume hundreds of hours of the player's life. Not only that, the depth of the control system, the individual playing paths and the open-ended way in which players can tackle Skyrim promise a game that boasts a ton of replay value. Players can clock in a substantial amount of time on character creation, such is the level of customisation on offer here. Even though we were only allowed three hours at the controls of it, it's evident that Skyrim is a beast of a game. This is a title set to swallow a fair portion of your life.

Still, in spite of its size and complexity, Skyrim is easy and unintimidating to play, and this is largely down to the fantastic interface that Bethesda has created for its game. Players can switch between first and third person view by clicking the right stick. They can also customise the third-person perspective to a degree; by holding in the right stick, they can use the left to zoom in and out on their character. Combat is mapped to the trigger; tapping the right trigger puts the character in a fighting stance, and then the left and right trigger allow the player to use whatever weapons, defensive items or magical attacks they've assigned.

The Y Button is jump, X returns the player to passive stance and B brings up the game's four-option menu, allowing players to level up, scan the map, or examine their inventory and magical attacks. The menus in Skyrim deserve a nod – even though it sounds a little strange to say so. Players can cycle through their items easily, pull triggers to assign them, and even highlight favourites so they can access them quickly through the D-Pad.

Players level up by accessing a series of talent trees, represented in the game as constellations in the sky. Every activity the player engages in adds towards the different skill sets their character has, and the skills they use the most will naturally rise faster. Once they reach a certain level, players can light different stars in the different constellations, which unlock new abilities. So, for example, a player who spends a lot of the game wielding a two-handed broadsword and wearing iron armour, will find that new abilities in those fields will open up faster. In this way, in spite of the smorgasbord of abilities on offer, Skyrim allows players to tackle the game in exactly the manner they choose – and even rewards them for it. However, there's enough variety on offer within the talent trees to ensure that players are encouraged to try out new weapons and abilities.

And Lord knows they'll have ample opportunity to do so in the land of Skyrim. During the time we spent at the game's controls, we passed through the small town of Riverwood, where we used a smithy to craft a couple of weapons, aided the wronged party in a love triangle, and picked up a quest, which sent us into the snow-capped hills surrounding the settlement. Some bandits had made off with a golden artefact owned by the local storekeeper and with the aid of a new found ally – a Wood Elf archer – we ventured into Black Falls Sanctum to find them.

As it turned out, the bandits were horribly out of their depth; the leader of the gang had seized the artefact in the knowledge that it unlocked secret areas of the sanctum, and had taken it to Black Falls in search of treasure. What the artefact unlocked, however, was a tomb populated by sword-wielding skeletons and a giant Frostbite Spider. By the end of the quest, we had also uncovered some runes which, as Dorahkiin – the Dragon Born – our character could note down for use as a later date.

In just three hours, we had battled monsters, solved puzzles, sorted out relationships, traded items, fashioned weapons and armour and traversed acres of Skyrim's magical expanse. In that time, we also know that we barely scratched the surface of the game. A quick look at the relatively small area of the map we'd been gallivanting through was evidence enough to back up the developers' claims that Skyrim offers around 300 hours worth of playing time, if every nook and cranny of it is explored, and every quest is taken up.

And fortunately for any player interested in doing so, the world Bethesda has created is as inviting as it is massive. The presentation of the game is absolutely stunning; the lands to the north of Tamriel are a beautiful expanse of woodland, rolling hills and snow-covered mountains. The soundtrack is note-perfect, from the winds rustling through the trees to the sounds of the rushing rivers that snake through the landscape, and everything is complimented by the hauntingly beautiful score.

On the evidence here, all players need to lose themselves in Skyrim is a willingness to explore … and perhaps a couple of weeks off work.

Trailers:

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Genre: Role-Playing
Release Date: Nov 11, 2011 (more)
ESRB: Mature
ESRB Descriptors: Use of Alcohol, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Blood and Gore

Recommended Specs

Windows 7/Vista/XP PC (32 or 64 bit)
Processor: Quad-core Intel or AMD CPU
4GB System RAM
6GB free HDD space
DirectX 9.0c compatible NVIDIA or AMD ATI video card with 1GB of RAM (Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 or higher; ATI Radeon 4890 or higher).

Minimum Specs

Windows 7/Vista/XP PC (32 or 64 bit)
Processor: Dual Core 2.0GHz or equivalent processor
2GB System RAM
6GB free HDD Space
Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 512 MB of RAM