It can be argued that the best time to review and discuss a game is a matter of weeks after its release — that is to say, when the highest percentage of gamers most likely to have something to say about what they’ve just spent their time and money on, and who aren’t taking full advantage of product hype and ignorance, have been able to fully grasp what that may be.
   
 For a game like “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,” that was a grace period of at least a month or so — and longer still for others. To many, open-world games with that level of detail and content create the pinnacle of entertainment. Certainly that sense of first-person freedom and, sometimes, purpose, is hard to resist.
    
Whatever you can say about Skyrim — and as a piece of entertainment that is loosely simulating reality, one based so closely on a formula having only been marginally refined (mostly just visually) over the course of more than a decade (from “The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind” in 2001), there is a lot to be said — one has first to disclaim any and all criticism with a solemn acknowledgment for what these games — and none more so than Skyrim — do for the total perception of single-player games.
    
There was disappointment with total industry sales last year (due mostly to a lack of Nintendo competency), but that’s missing the point altogether. Consoles didn’t sell as well because they’ve been out for around 10 frakin’ years, and there is only justice in the fact that Microsoft’s inflated console sales attributable to the rapid internal decay of the Xbox 360 is behind them. But with this hardware generation (which also affects PC) finally getting around to its climax and subsequent twilight, the most complete sample of game buyers and their love of semi-story-driven-but-also-totally-free-to-explore-open-world-games, was indubitably measured. And for those who are confused as to why I’m emphasizing the importance of the genre over the franchise, well, who besides Rockstar Games is actually making entertainment like this? So even if you don’t quite agree with their methods, it’s not their fault there aren’t more people trying to capitalize on a market with totally untapped potential.
   
 That said, instead of trying to dissect every aspect of Skyrim and how they all come together for a more complete picture, let’s start with some complaining. A perfectly valid way to measure Skyrim’s worth is by looking at the degree Bethesda overwhelmingly ignores the most direct form of feedback from its games: mods. Of course, mods are going to be a much more reliable and specific form of feedback than increasing sales in a completely cornered market.
    
Since Morrowind — which is, again, basically the same game in every foundational way — this franchise has classically enjoyed the largest of modding community on the Internet, and the collective message is overwhelming: more variety, and more context. The first thing anyone does (or undoes) to modify and enhance these games is to add a variety of clothing, weapons, armor, houses, accessories — the primary ways the silent characters express themselves in worlds where things get done almost explosively with force and money (usually gotten by force). And the most successful of these integrates it well into world, addressing all relevant contexts: narratively (relative to the mythos, location, politics) and economically. That an absolute value of realism is the ultimate goal for these games that reek of realistic fantasy is beyond doubt in my mind, but the game’s overall item system not being stagnant, even if only based on what the people buying your game deliberately change with each passing iteration, is the most imperative to overall enjoyment by the most people.
    
And Bethesda has barely lifted a finger to change its bland, overly statistical formula. Items and money, the primary motivation for exploring the vast world and its dungeons, remain primarily determined by a very narrow pool of armor, weapons, money/jewels and magical items that are completely independent from the context of their surroundings. And over-dependence on the player’s level, something the mod community takes great pains to abolish altogether, continues to destroy immersion instead of actually rewarding efforts.
    
Perhaps the most widely remarked upon complaint with Oblivion, whose items and enemies were almost leveled to the player across the board, was that the game’s randomly spawning bandits all wore the most powerful armor (forged with demon powers, mind you) in the game. This was actually something of a PR embarrassment for Bethesda, and they promised to never err so again. But is spawning generically enchanted, expensive suits of armor on random shelves and generic chests around the world really any less glaringly obtuse and boring? Boring out of sheer contempt for anything like a realistic context? What is promised is a reinvigoration of one of the most satisfying and widely appealing genres in entertainment to exist, and we get the same beautiful garbage that despite feeling so inherently fun, organic and deep, invites the discouragement of repetition to stop the experience in its tracks when the remedy is being made — well, en masse, and for free. It just makes no sense.
    
Agree, disagree? Wiley Robinson, junior in ecology and evolutionary biology, can be reached at rrobin23@utk.edu. Check back for more in-depth Skyrim and game rants in the future.