Skyrim..still amazes.......

I agree to a degree. The graphics are amazing (I've been playing games since the monochrome days ). However, I found the game itself bored me for some reason. The graphics were impressive, but the gameplay just didn't do it for me. Which is weird because on paper it sounds awesome, and it looks awesome. I just can't put my finger on what it is that I don't like.

It's predecessor did the same thing for me.  Oblivion was pretty to look at but boring to play.  I'd spend half my time looking at pretty vistas and night skies rather than playing the game. 

I think it's the combat system. Fighting a normal human feels nothing like fighting in real life, it's just "move in, swing, move out to avoid damage". It's the same rubbish combat system I see in every FPS that wants to add melee. Skyrim just went with an ancient model instead of looking at games like Overgrowth.

Morrowind was better. They really went a step backwards by making the game console compatable.

Skyrim is a truly fantastic game, one of the best ever.

Ranged combat, at least, is much improved in Skyrim.  No more 'You can pelt someone with a hundred arrows and they won't die, but one poke with a small dagger rips them in two!'

   Skyrim sucked was a button masher at least the other series required skill, skyrim fell short.  Story was boring and people never seemed to remember you after a quest.

I played Skyrim compulsively earlier this year, but the bloom is gone.  The game revolves around varieties of ways of killing things; once I realized that, I was through with it.  Don't think I'll play another Elder Scroll game again (played all three since Morrowind).  They are pretty though
For console gaming (what little of it I do) I've gone back to my Wii and Zelda: Skyward Sword.  Graphics so are not everything.

I'll give Skyrim this: being Dovakhim was cool, if only for a while.

I totally agree, Morrowind was an amazing game. It was dark and atmospheric. I did enjoy both Oblivion and Skyrim and played Oblivion for a good while but found that i didn't play Skyrim for quite as long. While the graphics are improving (as they should) the gameplay is getting dumbed down for the mass market. Thank your preferred deity for developrs that still cater for niche markets *nods at Stardock*

That was my quote. Don't want Heavenfall to get ya into any touble.

Personally I think Skyrim should have used a new title. It was a great game, but I would like to think there is room for Elder Scrolls and Skyrim. But ya, Skyrim is pretty. 

Wow, you guys have a pretty low threshold, if you consider Skyrim to be a good looking game. IMHO its graphics are absolutely horrible and the likes of Crysis (even the first one), Battlefield 3, Mafia 2 or GTA 4 with that high graphics mod shit all over it. Even Alan Wake looks superior, when it comes to exterior and lightning and its graphics are hardly superb either.

More than just the graphics, a world where you can go where you want when you want, with out gangsters( ala GTA).

You almost need to stop your life, to fully immerse yourself in this one.....

I don't even read most of the books and I am hundreds of hours in....

Try and find a copy of The Lusty Argonian Maid, if you haven't already.

Does it have a happy ending? lol

Skyrim is certainly one of my top games of all time.  I put about 160 hours into it so far with 2 characters and haven't even come close to halfway finished (and barely touched the main questline).  I put it aside about 6 months ago as I needed a break.  I'll wait now for all the DLC's to come out and for them to stop patching it before I dive in again, so probably a year from now.  Then I'll get all the DLCs on the cheap and mod the heck out of it (I already modded it quite a bit).  Start a new character and sink another 200 hours in.  Kinda like what I did with Morrowind (400+ hours) and Oblivion (600+ hours).

Graphics wise, don't know what you guys are talking about but Skyrim with the HD textures and a few mods is one of the best looking games I've ever seen.

Overall if I had to rank the ES series I'd list them Morrowind, Skyrim and then Oblivlon. Although I truly enjoyed them all.  All modded like crazy of course.

For me, the best open-world games were Gothic 1 and 2. I haven't played Skyrim yet, but Oblivion was ugly, consolised and dumbed down. The characters did not do anything, while in gothic they slept, forged weapons, talked to each other, even shouted at you when you trespassed. In Oblivion you can pick a house clean and the guy is still smiling at you.

Morrowind killed the fun by having stupid combat system - "always use best attack" was in options, that is what you call "system"?

RPGs would be worth playing if they had combat system like Mount and Blade. The story usually makes for it -and I loved Dragon Age, but the main game mechanics is running around and killing things by stupid mashing. Boring.