Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim ... yes, there are dragons to battle. You were expecting kittens?

For those of you who haven't played any of the Elder Scrolls franchise, it is a series of open-world, sandbox RPGs that take place on the fictional continent of Tamriel. Leveling up in this series is done by leveling up various skills and in order to get better at each of these skills, you must actually use the skill in-game. Also, in essence the player is able to be whoever they want and do whatever they want within the confines of the game. The player is even able to entirely ignore the main questline if they wanted.
Just like the rest of the series, at the start of Skyrim, the player must create a character. The main difference however is that, normally the player is allowed to pick a race, alter their appearance, and then select their class, major attributes, and birth sign; in Skyrim, selecting a class and major attributes is almost entirely thrown out the window. Instead, the player builds up various skills through using them, and eventually building up a more abstract set of major attributes. This means that as the player uses specific skills more often based around how they play, the skills they use more often affect their ability to level up more than using skills that they use less often, thus their "major attributes" are they skills that they use more often. Also, through the removal of classes, the player's style of play is no longer confined by their class like in past Elder Scrolls games.
Birth signs were also not entirely removed, but were actually replaced by various stones, each representing a specific sign, found throughout Skyrim, where if the player activates one of these stones, they get a special perk from it, based off of the sign specified.
Another detail that has been altered between past Elder Scrolls games and Skyrim is the level up system. The requirements for leveling up remain unchanged for the most part (the exception being that any skill increase contributes to leveling up instead of only increasing major skills), the main difference is in the process of leveling up. Normally, the player would have to find a bed and rest in order to level up and then select three stats (choosing between Strength, Enderance, Wisdom, Intelligence, Speed, Agility, Personality, and Luck), each of which governing various skills. In Skyrim, this has been changed to just choosing between increasing their Health, Magicka, or Stamina, and then selecting a perk for one of their skills (which each skill has their own, separate skill tree).
Outside of creating your character and leveling up, the actual gameplay of Skyrim feels more fluid and realistic compared to past Elder Scrolls games, especially in the battle system. In past games, when the player attacks, it usually felt very floaty and before Oblivion, when the player attacked an enemy, the game would decide whether the attack actually hit or not and how much damage was done, based off of the level of that individual skill. In Skyrim however, if the player attacks an enemy, it is guaranteed to hit, only the damage is determined around the level of the individual skill used. The player is also able to dual wield weapons and/or magic if they wish, unlike in past games.
Also, many battles tend to be very interesting, especially with the fact that almost every dungeon (if not all) features a "boss" at the end ranging from especially powerful mages and undead heroes to giant spiders and dwemer centaurions (which are like giant ancient mechs).


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
• DirectX compatible sound card
• Internet access for Steam activation

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).
• DirectX compatible sound card
• Internet access for Steam activation