We have created a rather long series of Game Diaries for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and even after writing a few thousand words on the game that Bethesda launched we have failed to address all the story, gameplay, character and world elements that make it the Best Role Playing Game of the Year 2011.
The Elder Scrolls series has always been known for creating worlds that beg to be explored but the main characters in both Morrowind and Oblivion have never been too attractive for me.
Skyrim solved this by making me genuinely care about the persona of the Dragonborn that I was inhabiting and by making the game genuinely be about me and the way I plan to solve the problems of the world, rather than just making me an important pawn but only one of the cogs in a larger machine.
The role playing mechanics are almost spot on, from the amount of ways to influence the game world to the way all the central locations are linked to the character in subtle but clear ways that do not exist for other character in the game world.
Skyrim is a huge game and one that can easily swallow hundreds of hours for dedicated gamers yet it manages to remain somehow intimate, an experience where I inhabit the protagonist even though the reworked User Interface makes it somewhat harder to maintain a connection.
The only downside for the role playing aspect of Skyrim is the fact that, while improved, dialog continues to be a weak points for the series but this is not enough to drag down the entire experience.
In a gaming world where ambition seems to be a problem rather than an asset Bethesda have shown with Skyrim that aiming high and trying to create a huge experience can lead to success.
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