GOTY 2011 Best Game of the Year – The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

What the last game where the number of locations one can discover and explore is bigger than the number of quests one can do? The last game where you as a gamer gradually develop the power to fight and destroy a dragon? The last game where you can become anything as long as you are willing to practice?

These are just three of the things that sold me on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim as my overall Game of the Year and I can quickly add other arguments, like: a number of very well crafted quest lines (especially Dark Brotherhood and civil war), some well developed characters, impressive random encounters, complex crafting systems, huge open world, improved combat over former GOTY Oblivion.

This is a video game that has managed to occupy about 100 hours of play time during my first run through it, when I did almost everything that could be done, and I am currently playing through it a second time and, because of choices linked to character development and chosen mechanics, I am having a very different experience.

Skyrim is an experience in which one gets lost and immersed and the same number of hours can be lost trying to find an elusive cave hoping for treasure or trying to beat a particularly tough group of undead occupying an old ruin.

It's a game where even the epic fights against Dragons fail to be the most exciting event, something that anyone that attacked a Giant can testify to.

This is also the sort of game that, despite having no actual multiplayer, is inherently social because it results in storytelling sessions that can be as epic as play sessions.

Sure, it is not without its own faults, from the rather brain dead companions to the glitches that have filled up YouTube videos, but no gamer who likes freedom and creativity can afford to go through 2011 and never play Skyrim.

There are more reasons for my choice of The Elder Scrolls V: Skrim as Game of the Year to be found in this series of Gamer Diaries and in this full Softpedia review.