I bought The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim around release time last year, and like a lot of games I buy I hold off playing them. Well, I finally dusted it off the shelf and began my journey into its vast world. Although I only played a few hours last night, I know it'll be a long haul.

I should note I'm not playing on the glorious PC version, where graphics and performance are no doubt improved. My journey will take place on the Xbox 360 version (I can hear the laughing from here). Bethesda is known for their glitchy games, and I fully expected some crazy stuff to happen when I popped the game in.

My Xbox froze not even in hour in the game, right after escaping the initial dragon attack. Thanks a lot. I guess that update I downloaded immediately didn't do much. Luckily it occurred after an auto save, so I didn't lose too much progress other than harvesting a bunch of flowers and activating a stone to improve my combat learning. So now I save a lot, probably too much for my own good, but I hate having to repeat gameplay due to horrible game crashes.

I chose the Imperial class, which balances combat and magic skills. I'm currently enjoying the decimation of wolves and bandits by setting them on fire and smacking them with my mace. I'll probably stick with heavy armor over light, and harvest anything in sight to create all those fun potions. I used to be heavy into archery in past RPGs, but I'll probably ignore that skill in Skyrim.

Only a few hours in, I already got a ton of side missions to do. There's no way I'll do them all, but I expect to complete a heavy dose of them, seeing how they'll help in leveling up my character. Before taking a break on my journey, I killed my first dragon, absorbed its soul and learned my first Shout move. I got a partner in crime now, and will be giving her all that loot I'll collect for selling purposes.

So there's my recap of the first few hours. Now that I started it, I have to finish, right? I'll try not to wait another few months to continue playing it.

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