Created by Bethesda Softworks, a developer famous for its sprawling role-playing games such as the Fallout series, Skyrim is perhaps the most ambitious game of the year. The sequel to the critically acclaimed “The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion”, Skyrim contains over 300 hours of playable content, including the main storyline, countless optional missions and more.

Skyrim is an epic, in the purest sense of the term. In the opening sequence of the game, you find yourself being escorted to your own execution, along with a myriad of so-called “criminals” who are about to share your fate. It becomes quickly apparent that none of you really deserve to be there and the tyrannous “Empire” is simply abusing its power. Among the convicts are members of the “Stormcloaks,” being punished for their efforts to throw over the Empire.

After witnessing a brutal execution, it is your turn to face the chopping block. Obviously, since it wouldn’t be much of a game if you died then and there, your execution is interrupted— by a dragon, no less. Dragons have not been seen in Tamriel for centuries and make up the main plot line of the game. Sure, it may seem like largely stereotypical fantasy, but Bethesda manages to make it quite engrossing. Amid the chaos, you escape either with the aid of a sympathetic Empire official or with a member of the Stormcloaks — and the game opens up from there.

And boy, does it open up.

The options

The amount of freedom given to you in Skyrim is almost paralyzing. Obviously the natural course of progression after escaping the execution is to join the Stormcloaks and overthrow the Empire. Or not. Maybe you want to join the corrupted ranks of the Empire. Maybe you want nothing to do with either of them. The playable world spans almost 20 square miles filled with farms, towns, cities, dungeons, castles and people to populate them so needless to say, you have some options. Quests range from adventurous, like searching a cursed crypt for a priceless heirloom to  menial, such as chopping down trees. The many guilds to join including a sadistic cult of assassins, a wizarding college, a warrior fraternity and a notorious organization of thieves

The gameplay

So how does Skyrim compare to its critically acclaimed predecessors? Surprisingly, it lives up to all of its hype, and more. In addition to supplying the same amount of adventure as previous installments in the series, Skyrim improves upon them as well. Once a common object of complaint, the combat has been vastly improved with a snappier melee system, and a much more fluid and flashy magic system. The missions are much more varied as are the environments. No two quests are really the same, which is quite a feat considering the sheer amount of missions to carry out over the course of the game.

The presentation

Skyrim’s presentation is nearly flawless — aside from the abundant glitches players can and probably will experience. Among my adventures in Skyrim, I encounter floating horses and mammoths, was once rocketed into the atmosphere for no apparent reason and found that one of my traveling companions had a boot for a head. Not to mention the dozen or so times the game simply crashed.

Skyrim is filled with breathtaking landscapes, from distant mountains to cities. It also has a score worthy of any Hollywood blockbuster.  A common complaint directed toward the series was its  terrible interface.The clunky menus of the predecessors are nowhere to be seen, replaced with a terrific, minimalistic ones that are easy to navigate with a controller or keyboard and mouse. Unlike Oblivion specifically, Skyrim’s hundreds of characters are voiced by much more than a handful of voice actors and no longer look like hideous, cartoonish creations of a blind God.

The bottom line

“The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” is perhaps the smartest purchase a gamer can make this year. Hundreds upon hundreds of hours of slaying enemies, solving mysteries, exploring ruins and cities alike bundled with a satisfying combat system, Skyrim is sure to keep you occupied for months to come. It is very rare to come across a sequel that not only maintains all of the fun of its predecessors, but also improves upon them in nearly every way possible.