Tom's Hardware Steam Giveaway - Skyrim: Special Edition

[Jsimenhoff]

General Info on How To Enter

Spoiler

• 
  ■ These giveaways now span 2 full weeks instead of 1. This means there's more time for you to enter!
  ■ There are now two ways to enter to win! Each person can only win once.
  • 
    1. Enter the raffle via the gleam widget. All we ask for there is a name and a contact email. There will only ever be 1 copy of the game up for grabs with this method.
    
    2. Take part in the discussion in this thread! A discussion prompt will be provided each time. Just answer the prompt to be eligible to win! Eligible participants will be randomly selected to receive a copy of the game.

[widget="https://gleam.io/Po7wt/toms-hardware-steam-giveaway-skyrim-se", 600][/widget]

Hey everyone. We've got another awesome Steam giveaway lined up for you this week. Up for grabs this time are three (3) copies of Skyrim: Special Edition. Relive the classic RPG in glorious updated graphics. You'll be busy playing this game until 2018 as it includes all of the regular edition's DLC as well. As always, one will be awarded via the raffle (found above) and two will be given away to participants who answer the discussion prompt below.

And now, for the discussion prompt:

Of all the Elder Scrolls, which is your favorite, and why?

The Steam Giveaway will run until 12 p.m. EDT on Friday, December 9th. The game will be awarded to the winners as a Steam gift. A Steam account is required to receive the prize and play the game.

 

[ss202sl]

Skyrim is my favorite. No matter what direction I go, I always find something new. It would be easy to fast travel everywhere and just beat the game, or finish a quest, but you would miss so much of the world.

 

[tastyjerk]

General Info on How To Enter

Spoiler

• 
  ■ These giveaways now span 2 full weeks instead of 1. This means there's more time for you to enter!
  ■ There are now two ways to enter to win! Each person can only win once.
  • 
    1. Enter the raffle via the gleam widget. All we ask for there is a name and a contact email. There will only ever be 1 copy of the game up for grabs with this method.
    
    2. Take part in the discussion in this thread! A discussion prompt will be provided each time. Just answer the prompt to be eligible to win! Eligible participants will be randomly selected to receive a copy of the game.

Hey everyone. We've got another awesome Steam giveaway lined up for you this week. Up for grabs this time are three (3) copies of Skyrim: Special Edition.. Relive the classic RPG in glorious updated graphics. You'll be busy playing this game until 2018 as it includes all of the regular edition's DLC as well. As always, one will be awarded via the raffle (found above) and two will be given away to participants who answer the discussion prompt below.

And now, for the discussion prompt:

Of all the Elder Scrolls, which is your favorite, and why?

The Steam Giveaway will run until 12 p.m. EDT on Friday, December 9th. The game will be awarded to the winners as a Steam gift. A Steam account is required to receive the prize and play the game.

I've dabbled in all of the Elder Scrolls games as I grew up, but I think I gravitated more towards shooters and didn't have enough patience in my younger years. Once Skyrim was announced, I was totally caught up in everyone else's hype and couldn't wait to give it a shot. I ended up buying it on Xbox 360 before I got into PC gaming fully, and sunk so many hours into it. Skyrim definitely has a huge place in my heart.

 

[Slumy__57]

Skyrim, hands down. Everything about the game is amazing: the graphics, physics, vastness of the world, weapons, and armor. I have put many many hours into Skyrim and never fail to find something new and fun to do. I was also a huge fan of Oblivion, but the graphics put it in second place on my list.

 

[nimbian]

ESO! JK. Seriously though I have to go with skyrim. The first Elder scrolls game I played was Morrowind and while It was great I quickly found myself lost with little direction. I then played Oblivion also great however the leveling system really got to me. I ended up at a point where I couldn't kill anything because I tried to max out my character and ended up being a jack off all trades who got crushed by trolls. Skyrim came out and I fell in love. The ability to play any type of character and interchange on the fly with little consequence was an amazing time. And how can you forget dragons, DRAGONS!

 

[matthew_nicho2]

Morrowind. No contest. Yes its looks tired, there's no voice acting (very little) and feels cumbersome nowadays compared to modern games but the atmosphere, the story/lore and the cliff racers make this a fantastic fantasy game. Ok, maybe not the stinking cliff racers. I lost a good 3 years to this game with multiple characters one after the other. And with mods like MGSO it looks good again.

The big secret to the elder scrolls games, for me anyway, is to not finish them. As weird as that sounds heres my reasoning. I played Morrowind for years but never finished the main quest. I would become godlike in game and just start a new game. As soon as I finished it something happened to the world and the need to play just fell away. The same happened in Oblivion and in Skyrim. It can't be a coincidence because it happen to all 3 games. Odd.

tldr: Morrowind.

 

[TheWiseOldTree54]

Skyrim IMO. but skyrim is the only one i played but i played it back on console and it wasnt the greatest but it was defiantly better then the other one. Since im new to the whole gaming PC thing ive always wanted to re-try it since i here great things about it.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

Morrowind was definitely my favorite. I had tried the earlier games and could never get into them but Morrowind was the first big open adventure 3D RPG PC game I played that worked so well and I enjoyed so much.

I have played Oblivion a couple times through and have started 4-5 characters in Skyrim, finishing one playthrough.
But something about Morrowind's theme and the way the stories unfold still draws me in more than IV & V do. I can start a new character in Morrowind today and still feel very drawn in very quickly. But the graphics just do not hold my attention anymore like some newer engines and effects do which makes it impossible for me to get very far into the game these days.

...can't wait to see if SkyWIND actually ever achieves decent playability.

 

[Kuaneos]

I've only played Oblivion and I liked it. I hope I have the chance to play Skyrim! Thanks!

 

[SinxarKnights]

Of all the Elder Scrolls, which is your favorite, and why?

I have to go with Oblivion. Skyrim has its strengths to be sure, but Skyrim always felt so limited. The removal of the create your own spells feature hit me hard.

Why though? That is a good question. The default difficulty is a bit high - or so they say. See, the thing about Oblivion is that you are expected to enchant everything. Every time you close an oblivion gate you are given a high powered orb to enchant your gear with. Makes me think that people who claim it is too hard never even looked into basic mechanics.

Anyway one of my favorite discoveries is you can actually create gear (totally legit!) that will give you over 100% chameleon effect. Not much compares to shooting some bandit wearing high end armor with a bow while sneaking and he runs up to where you are and just says "It must have been the wind". I gotta say that is some insane wind you have down here in the sewers. 3x crit strike in the head by a high level fire arrow. "It must have been the wind".

Oh yeah and you could cast speed spells on your horse.

 

[knowom]

Skyrim was my favorite overall because it was beautifully crafted graphically and the sound and voice overs, but also game play itself was very natural and intuitive and drew you in. I think you can argue though that part of what's good about Skyrim is also part of it's negative.

In essence while the game is easy to get into it's very simple and casual much more so than the previous games in the series, but much like WoW and games that have really followed in their footsteps it's got far too much hand holding going on which while convenient isn't always a good thing it's not particularly rewarding and turns quests into feeling less like accomplishments and more like a list or chores to be performed rather than what they were intended to be challenges and adventures to overcome to figure out.

The game also feels fairly linear it would be great if it could really change more every time you play through a section of the game based on your actions and adapt around those choices more rather than feeling predictable and scripted. I think as a gamer I want to get to the point where if I inquire about a quest to a NPC depending on the time of day in game and/or the NPC's mood that could retroactively change they'd offer me different tasks which themselves completing were tied to game changing reactions within the world so it's in a flux of constant ebb and flow change adapting at all times.

That way every time you play the game would feel a bit different. If they could do something like that along with procedural generated NPC locations some could be partially fixed radius based vicinity such as a town or portion of a town like a bar it would spice a open world game like Skyrim up a lot. It would be fun to go into a bar in game and have it feel genuinely different every time for example...like on some nights it could be calm and others a drunken NPC might pick a unprovoked fight with you and the guards would get involved and try to jail you both for it.

All I'm saying really is that I think Skyrim is just another cog for Elder Scrolls it's got a lot of life left in it from a franchise standpoint for whatever sequel hopefully comes next. I think a lot of open world games are going to feel more life like and less scripted in the future it's just a matter of time and effort towards creating better simulated real life experiences within games themselves. It's not easy to replicate human thinking and interaction there is still a lot we don't know about ourselves in fact, but everyday we get closer to Skynet and our simulated Matrix like fantasy game worlds.

 

[duckandchicken]

Oblivion for it's 5$ horse armor

 

[DrGlickenstine]

I haven't payed any yet but Skyrim looks the shiz.

 

[akumaking]

It's definitely Skyrim, when I first played it, I was floored by the graphics, or maybe it was the arrow to the knee.

 

[SUP3R_FIGHT3R]

Hope to win it. I just bought a new gaming pc soi can have those ultra graphics <3

 

[Gam3r01]

I have only ever played Skyrim, had alot of fun with it but not enough money to invest into any of the DLC.

 

[glez13]

I only started playing the series with Morrowind. Of the three I have played the best has been Oblivion. The only problem it had was it's lousy voice acting. Skyrim simplified things way too much for my liking and Morrowind felt too annoying with it's over-simplistic combat and all that reading with almost no voice acting.

 

[DarksLight]

I haven't played any yet, but from the looks of it, Skyrim would be my favorite since it has good graphic and seems interesting to play

 

[Henry Cortes]

Skyrim is the only one that I've played, and I've enjoyed the time that I've played it.

 

[jpe1701]

I had heard all the hype about Skyrim and how everyone loved it and decided I would never play it because I had never played an Elder scrolls game before and I was afraid I wouldn't understand what was going on. Thankfully Xbox live had it on sale one day for $15 so I was bored and bought it. Omg I am glad I did because it became one of my all time favorite games. I've now played 3 of the Elder scrolls games but Skyrim will be a treasured memory.

 

[ultraglorious]

Skyrim is my favourite. I really like the music and viking theme. I have only ever played Oblivion and Skyrim, however.

 

[Dom_79]

Skyrim is my favorite most likely because it is the first game I played on PS3 that made me seriously start looking into PC gaming :lol:

 

[Velswraith]

I'm going to say it IS Skyrim. I really felt immersed into the Elder Scrolls world. The graphics were phenomenal and the storyline was really fun. I enjoyed the versatility offered as far as combat style (or if you wanted to just level up peacefully). I admit it was a bit buggy on release but it provided me with a fun memory. I had just purchased a horse and ridden it out into the lands. I hopped off the horse to go collect some flowers and catch butterflies. Suddenly a dragon came down and attacked my horse, carrying it off into the sky then dropping it. IT was GREAT! It is also the only game I found worthy to spend time into getting 100% steam achievement.
I would love to win a free copy and gift it to my sons account.

 

[ZeroRequiem]

Of all the Elder Scrolls, which is your favorite, and why?

It has to be Morrowind hands down. That was the first Elder Scrolls game I've played so I might be biased because of nostaliga but there is definitely more than that. Graphics are fairly dated compared to modern games but back in 2002 I was very satisfied. It was so easy to get lost in this huge 3D world. It was quite a jump after playing mostly Diablo2 only.

 

[GreatMaster]

The Elder Scrolls: Arena because when i was a kid i was playing this game along the doom game which has very similar game engine. i enjoyed this game and payed all its levels. even my friends and cousins were coming to me to pay this game. i was among the few guys who had a a computer at home and i was very friendly with the others to offer them the oportunity to play this game. i was liking to hit targets and reaching objectives. my mom was even angry with me for playing that game so much