9. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
"In their tongue they called him Dovahkiin! Dragonborn!"
Bethesda's fifth entry in the Elder Scrolls series took the player to the harsh Nordic lands (Norse if you've never played Elder Scrolls) of Skyrim. Taking what they learnt from Fallout 3 and the previous Elder Scrolls games, Bethesda managed to produce a game world filled to the brim with content. The main core of story and guild quests were present, but supplemented with a wide array of creation skills, the new "Shout" powers and of course, Dragons! The story was your basic fantasy storyline, but Elder Scrolls games are known for their world and freedom which is where Skyrim excels. The different Holds each had their own style, the civil war portrayed a land of deadly politics and the sheer variety of NPCs trying to go about their daily business simply immerse you into the world. The new conversations/animation system was also a welcome addition to help with immersion whereby the world didn't freeze and the character didn't stop working when you struck up a conversation.
The gameplay also saw some significant improvements over previous editions. The new two-hand system gave a new level of freedom and customisation to a series that already provided far more freedom than most video games. Playing a magic wielding, battle-ready, werewolf assassin has never been so much fun! The Shouts also gave new list of abilities to add to your play style which were needed for the dragon fights. Within the first 10 minutes you encounter a dragon and that sets the tone for the rest of the story. The first time you fight a dragon in the game is quite a experience as you desperately try to survive an onslaught of dragon breath on your low level character.
My only major criticism (with the exception of the bugs which plague any game of this scale) is that the guild quests aren't quite as interesting as in previous games. The Companion quest-line is fairly short although has a nice perk/twist in the story, the civil war quests are fairly generic and the Mages/College of Winterhold quest-line is criminally short. The Dark Brotherhood and thieves guild quests are still quite fun, but in general, the side-quests don't seem to have the imagination that they did in Morrowind and Oblivion. That said, the gameplay, game world and simply the sheer amount of content in the game more than make up for this.
