Most helpful customer reviews
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A truly immersive and intimidating experience, Sep 15 2006
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
This is my first time playing an Elder Scrolls title and for the life of me I can't figure out why I never played the others. Elder Scrolls IV, from someone new to the series, is a very easy game to pick up and start playing with. You can play from a first-person perspective or a behind-the-back third person and the mousewheel on your mouse acts as the zooming mechanism to move between these views.
The game starts out (after defining your character) with him or her in prison. As the story goes, you end up following the emperor through the secret door in your own prison cell and down into the sewers. It seems like a lot of time at the beginning of the game is spent in sewers and caves, but soon you'll have other challenges, like learning how to fight better and manage your inventory.
Speaking of inventory, here's a helpful hint to a newcomer: don't pick up everything you see. Your weight limit for inventory is determined by strength, and when you first start out you don't have much strength so you can't carry too much. It's best to only pick up potions, armour, weapons, and gold. Worry about food only if you need it and picking up cutlery and dishes is a waste. Nevertheless, this complexity makes it very interesting when searching places for new items - and there are a lot of places to search. Keep an eye on the color of the popup icon when you are in front of a chest, item, drawer, etc. Brown outline means it's fair game, red outline means if you take that then you are stealing. Try not to learn that the hard way, and if you're going to steal you must do it completely in obscurity.
The graphics of Elder Scrolls IV are quite good. Completely maxing out the settings may bog down even some newer systems, but at a "high" setting the game is still beautiful and with HDR lighting enabled it feels truly alive.
Sounds and music in the game are top knotch and are even key to certain aspects of quests. Different shoes and boots make different noises and so does different armour, keep that in mind when in the need comes to do stealthy work at night. Voices in the game are great, with two very familiar sounds: the Emperor is Patrick Stewart, and Martin the priest is played by Sean Bean.
Actually playing the game here is really the big draw. The size of the game is huge, and it seems as though there is always something to do. Very often you can find yourself in the middle of five quests, happily doing some inbetween others, as many are dependent on certain times of the day. As well, the ability to open or pick up nearly everything in the game makes for a realistic experience, and the look and feel of the world around you actually puts you into a medieval lifestyle.
Depending on your character's strength you may prefer wielding bow and arrow, short swords, long swords, claymores, maces, axes, staves, and so on. There is also a strong element of magic in the game, and it seems to be common place. There are stores where you can buy new spells and people in the street you can learn higher levels of skills with... for a price, of course. This world is based around money and wealth, so count your coins. Don't waste them carelessly.
The features mentioned in this review only scratch the surface of what can be done in this game, and this is probably one of the best single player games to come out in a very long time. Rivaling that of even Half-Life 2. Don't miss this game if you have the opportunity - it is worth every single, shiny penny.
VISUAL: 8/10 (loses points for high system load)
SOUND: 10/10 (decent voice acting, but sounds in general are terrific)
GAMEPLAY: 10/10 (great play, tons of control, fighting clunky at first but requires a bit of practice to master)
STABILITY: 9/10 (so far so good, only crashed once when opening a door in one of the fort's, occasional artifacts)
REPLAY VALUE: 10/10 (always keeps you coming back, it's nearly impossible to put this game down... even when you're stuck)
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Does it reach the expectations? I think so., Mar 23 2006
As many fans of the Elder Scrolls series, I had been waiting a many moons for this baby. And I wasn't disappointed. The graphics are amazing, the fighting very dynamic and bloody. The added minigames for lockpicking and persuasion are a welcomed addition. I was disappointed with the rigidity of the controls (no spell or weapon scrolling possible with the mouse wheel or extra buttons) and the lack of a mini-map like we had in Morrowind, but these are minor details that don't stain the sheer magnificence of the gamen that will also probably be solved with patches or plugins. I must warn you: you need a pretty big machine to run this baby if you want to enjoy it: My Area-51M 7700 3Ghz 1Gig Ram Alienware laptop still lagged during the intro when I decided to add some extra shadows and details. So make sure you have a good Video cards and lots of ram!
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2 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not a good game, Mar 24 2006
By A Customer
There are many bugs in this software. Also the system requirements have been changed by the manufacturer after the game was released. make sure you have one of the APPROVED video cards before you buy.
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Mature
