Skyrim

Have you spent the past few weeks as a nefarious female rogue warrior, which by now has picked up superior lock picking skills? If this makes any sense to you, then you are probably playing Skyrim, (PS3 Xbox 360, PC) the most recent installment and 5th sequel to the original 1996 Elder Scrolls game. 200 years have passed since the Elder Scrolls 4 and the land is plagued by not only civil war, but also dragons who were long thought to be extinct.

This is a game where the player can do entirely as they please, a massive fantasy sandbox with serious traditional RPG appeal. You can choose to take a quest, go dragon hunting, steal from old ladies, cook yourself dinner, craft a potion, buy a home, or start a butterfly collection. If you choose to, you can seek out the secrets of the dragons and put a stop to their terrorizing the lands of Skyrim. Each character will be slightly different as no two characters are identical; this is because the leveling system relies on a realistic system, which rewards the player for the skills they use. For instance, a player who only uses right-handed weapons will be much stronger in that arm than a left handed player.

It is hard not to be awed as you gain sight of a seemingly infinite mountain range or walk through a snowy field to a far off town. Even a tough crowd is sure to appreciate the spectacle of a dragon flying overhead and landing in your path. ‘Detailed’ does not begin to describe the world Bethesda's development team has managed to create. The world contains 150 dungeons and employed over seventy voice actors to record over 60,000 lines for the game. Skyrim also features 244 quests and over 300 points of interest as well as an entirely library of books and an entire 'dragon' language developed entirely for the game. Even without this astounding depth, Skyrim is easily one of the best RPG games of all time.