Imagine you’re just taking a stroll through a very large forest, trying to get to a city. It is a nice sunny day, and it’s snowing. As you’re walking, a huge shadow goes over you. You look up, then out of nowhere, a dragon attacks! This scenario happens all the time in Skyrim. Skyrim is the most recent game in the Elder Scrolls, a great game series. The main reasons I like to play this game is because it has a good story, awesome features and complete freedom.

Skyrim starts off with your character being hauled in a cart with three other people. It turns out, they’re being taken to a city called Helgen to be executed. When the player is taken off the cart, one of the soldiers will ask, “Who are you?” That is when the player can customize their character. There are multiple races to choose from, each one has its own special powers.There are lizard people, and cat people. Of course, there are elves, like in any other RPG game. After watching one of the prisoners get his head lopped off, the player is sent to the block. Just as the character is about to be executed, what else but a dragon attacks the town. The player then escapes to find out that their character is something called a Dragonborn. The player will then do a bunch of quests to build his strength and reputation.

At the beginning of the game, players are given a wide array of weapons to try and master. There are bows, melee weapons like swords and axes, and there is magic. I personally like magic the most. There are also powers called shouts. This is when the character speaks in the dragon language. Each shout has different powers. If you own an X-Box 360 and Kinect, you can actually say the words in person and the character will do that shout.

The AI (artificial intelligence) in the game can be a little predictable, but some like mages and archers actually use cover and tactics. Some will actually lay out traps. Some of the enemies in the game will attack then run. That is very good programming, I like when the enemies uses tactics in fights and not just the “run and gun” style.

One of the only downsides I can think of about the game is that there is no multiplayer. I really think the game would benefit from adding multiplayer. I would say it should be up to four players that do quests together. It would also be cool if they had team based games with four person teams. They could do capture the flag, or a game style I thought of called “Kill the King”. What happens in it is four players with average weapons and armor take on one player with good weapons and armor. I think that would be a blast to play.

If players don’t want to do any main story quests, they don’t have to. They can do lots of side quests. There is also lots of dungeons to raid. Side quests are a good way to make money and gain experience. Dungeons are filled to the brim with wealth and enemies, a great way to pass the time and gain experience.

Like any other game out on the market today, Skyrim needs a good story and good features. The complete freedom is just an added bonus. After a while of playing and enough practice, dragons won’t be a problem to any adventurers travels. I highly recommend Skyrim to anyone who likes RPG (role-playing game) fighting games, I’m very glad I bought it and highly recommend it.