Congrats on this thread being in the notifications!
Sadly this SHOULDN'T be in the notifications. This is a Blizzard-Oriented site, but hey, things seem to change.
Oh, since everybody is giving a review, I think I might as well as give one.
I was looking forward to this game too, so don't yell at me for being 'negative'.
I own Skyrim on the PS3.
Rating system:
1 is cake.
2 is bad.
3 is average.
4 is good.
5 is what this game's hype is.
STORYLINE: 2.5/5
I am level ~25 and so far, the only storyline I've gotten from the game is "You chosen one. You kill big flying lizards."
I haven't found any major "plot changers" other than when you choose a side, so this won't compare to games like Dragon Age.
There's no character development (other than leveling up) so this doesn't compare to games like Shadow of the Colossus. Sure, you do menial tasks for people and become more famous, but honestly, is this new at all? Didn't you do the same thing in Oblivion? I was hoping for something that would be outside of this box.
GRAPHICS: 3.5/5
The biggest thing that people seem to forget is that this game is realistic about the scenery. UP NORTH, IN REAL LIFE, THE SCENERY IS EXTREMELY REPETITIVE. I give them kudos for making it as unrepetitive as they did. The mountains are gorgeous from away and surprisingly realistic, up close you can see where they patched rocks together and it looks bad. I like the small cuts you receive as your life drops, and as you heal they fade away. There are some models and textures they seemed to leave unloved, like the grass and the blood when someone is decapitated.
I still don't understand why people complain so much about the character looks and what not, the average population aren't supermodels, so the characters shouldn't all be 'gorgeous'.
The graphics don't compare to games like God of War 3, but they're manageable.
LAG/GLITCHES: 2/5
Oh god. So. Many. Glitches. They clearly did not thoroughly test the game out. The physics system is terrible. Heck, at least the engine seems to work fairly well. I haven't experienced any combat lag, and I've been in fights where there's ~20 guards. The loading works pretty well as there aren't major delays when entering new rooms, but I do receive a small lag when opening up my inventory which is a nuisance.
COMBAT: 3/5
Now, Oblivion isn't a combat based game, so its unrealistic to compare it to games like Devil May Cry or Demon's Souls. The magic two-handing is a nice addition and relatively fresh, but it doesn't have any "effects". Sure, when you use fire they burn, ice their stamina is reduced, lightning no magic, etc. but there's no real value in combining effects. For example, in Dragon Age (I bring it up again) you could cast a fire spell on a grease trap and it'd ignite. There's nothing like that in Skyrim. There's no real bonus for combining spells and seeing what happens, just the damage/duration increases.
The melee combat is decent, I still don't feel "heavy" when using weapons, the animations are improved but they aren't amazing. The killing blows are nothing worth mentioning - they've been around for a long time. (Devil May Cry was the first game I played that had those, and the killing blows were on you, not the enemies.)
SOUND 4/5
Very good overall, the voice acting was pretty good, I've only seen a few faults in it and considering how many characters are in the game, that's nothing major. The music isn't half bad either, it could be more variant. I dunno, I always want something on par with Banjo Kazooie.
Overall I'd rate it a 3.5/5. There's a shitton of hype about how massive the game is. My bias about that is that I want a game I can play, not a game I can grind.