Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised at how soon the player get's his/her hands on a decent suit of armor and decent dual weapons to swing. In Oblivion, I had to suffer through the god-awful sewer scene, pick up loads of unwanted stuff to sell later in town for a very basic suit of armor and weapon. I was surprised at how quickly I got a decent suit of armor and a couple of decent weapons. I do like how they skip the class and skills altogether in favor of a more hand's on approach later. But overall I am satisfied with the character creation. I would have liked some more options as far as facial structure is concerned - the possibilities pale in comparison to the tool set offered in Oblivion.

He is light skinned with red eyes and has a small war tattoo on each cheek. I spent about a half hour choosing and customizing my race - I chose a Dark Elf. Of course, they don't want an A rated game, and with graphics like that, bleeding from the neck cavity after a decapitation and flopping around like a fish would have surely got the game tagged with the dreaded 'A' rating, so I understand. No big deal, but I did notice that immediately. I played about an hour so far, I was impressed in the beginning with the guy getting his head chopped off - although I was surprised that they actually put that in the game, I would have liked to see more blood. This kind of game is all but linear, so much to enjoy, and read and find out about, so take your sweet time with it and you won't regret it. A lot of background to be taken in, not just rushing to end the game in under 60 hours or less, that's not the point of it all. One little piece of advice, at least the way I see it don't rush in to end the game's main quest, or else you might feel just like previous poster mentioned, 'meh.' It just doesn't do justice to this game's real potential. There are a lot of characters, books, stories, organizations that carry over from previous installments, or you're reminded of, and it's nice to see it all take you even further into this amazing adventure. I am not talking graphics-wise, I couldn't care less about that it's just that when I was looking at Oblivion's or Morrowind's general maps, I was thinking 'what could be in there, in those locked areas?' And now you have the answer, at least part of it. Right now I am enjoying the world of Skyrim, at least as much as Morrowind's and Oblivion's before this. So it's really good to start with at least Morrowind and all its addons, it's really good for the general feel of this universe. It's all about the timeline in all of the games, and it's really good to see the story, places, people and developing situations going further in and expanding on all that happened.

Oblivion map compared to skyrim