I've played Skyrim for about 3 or 4 hours and I'm absolutely loving it so far. I didn't enjoy the last Elder Scrolls game, Oblivion, so I was worried I wouldn't like Skyrim but that hasn't been the case.

The game feels very cinematic, the graphics are fantastic (PC on Ultra settings) and the interface is clean and easy to use (unlike Oblivion).

About 6.5 hours into skyrim and totally hooked. I picked it up at midnight last night and fell asleep playing the game, then would wake up and play for 25 minutes until I started falling asleep again. I was exhausted but didn't want to stop playing! My wife is really enjoying the game as well. It took me a few hours to really get into it but I'm definitely hooked. Gameplay mechanics are much better than oblivion, morrow wind or dagger fall (better combat, better menu navigation, better npc interaction). I'm playing as a high elf with a focus on destruction, conjuration, and one handed weapons. I'm in bed now but thinking about playing a bit more

I might add. I'm pretty much just stickig with side quests and dungeon romping for now. I've done may e 2 quests towards the main story

I bumped up the difficulty from adept to expert. It's been a good challenge so far. We will see how it scales once I start leveling up significantly. I haven't experienced any glitches yet. A few of the reviews that I read made it seem it was plagued with them, like Oblivion.

No glitches here either... at least nothing major. I've entered into conversation with one NPC through a wall which was weird but didn't cause any problems. I may bump up the difficulty as well.

I have experienced a few now as well. When mounted on a horse for the first time rotating the camera, the horse disappeared. Also there was a scene where there was a huge creature floating in the air for no apparent reason and crashed to the ground.

I must buy this game, despite the fact I will have no time to play it. If I could just wait until I do have time, the game would even be cheaper but I know I'll break down and probably have it by the end of the day. Goodbye sleep, it was nice seeing you for a change.

I played a little on Saturday but realized I made some bad perk choices so I restarted on Sunday. My goal was to play until I got a house which happened just short of hitting level 10 and only doing one real quest.

The interface is similar enough that it was easy to learn and so far the changes are real improvements. The pop-up list for favorites is great. Blocking really makes a difference in the amount of damage you take. I like that you don’t have to keep repairing weapons and armour after every fight.

Though it seems small I like that conversations don’t give you a close up of the face of who you are talking too, and that many conversations continue without locking you into that person.

I did “game” the leveling system a little bit but not as much as Oblivion because everything now levels evenly, a huge improvement. I hated the bookkeeping and planning needed to level efficiently in Oblivion. The only gaming I did was to follow someone around in town in sneak mode and watched my sneak skill shoot up. Also whenever I could find a single opponent I would just block them constantly increasing my blocking skill. However, this didn’t last as long as in Oblivion since you still take damage when blocking.

I’ve only run across two glitches so far. I wasn’t even sure the first one was a glitch until I restarted. When escaping from the first encounter the guy with me stopped following me, but the second time through he did, which is what I think is supposed to happen. The other glitch was just that a butterfly I was trying to catch landed on a stone and disappeared inside of it, but I was still able to grab it. I’m not sure if something else was a glitch or by some design but once when I tried to fast travel it only let me select locations fairly close. So to get to my final destination I had to fast travel in bounds rather than straight there.

Murph, just find a bed any you can sleep all you want “in game.”

I haven't tried to fast travel yet, but that's annoying if you have to do it from point to point.

I should have read up on the levels/perks, but I've just been winging it. I may regret that later. I actually kind of miss the athletics and acrobatics just because those would help me level up faster. I still do a lot of jumping everywhere out of habit.

The world is very beautiful. They do a really great job with the environment. The people's faces still don't look quite right.

I hope they included a place for me to park my monster truck.


And a gas station, or two.