I'll admit it. I thought that the enormous Elder Scroll fanbase had no idea what a good video game was. How else could you explain their love of the ridiculous genre that is fantasy RPG's? I mean how in the world could a game about dragons, magic, elves, and trolls set in a Lord of The Rings-ish realm be anything other than boring? And that's not even factoring in the laughable weapon selection. Who in their right mind would want to use a sword, an axe, or a bow and arrow when the video game landscape is littered with so many great guns? When the latest installment in the Elder Scroll series rolled out in the form of Skyrim I rolled my eyes and thought, "Here we go again. Another ridiculous fantasy RPG that all these Dungeon and Dragon dorks are gonna love." So when the gaming community as a whole showered Skyrim with awards and glowing reviews, I payed absolutely no attention to any of it. As it turns out though, I'm a dork too.

I don't know why I didn't see it coming. I loved the Lord of the Rings movies and even today I find myself watching them whenever they pop up on cable. I don't know what it was but I was totally captivated by these movies; the world, the characters, and every single bit of this fantasy universe. I suppose that wasn't even the first real sign. When I was in 4th or 5th grade I was completely obsessed with a choose your own adventure book series called Zork. I would hang out with my next door neighbors and we would act out every part of these books over and over. That's right, dork. But 6th grade came around and somehow the popular girls took an interest and I left behind my dork roots for the life of sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. As gaming genres slowly emerged I found myself consistently leaning in the direction of FPS, with the last 4 or so years more or less solidly consisting of nothing but FPS shooters in one form or another. My field of vision narrowed so much that I found myself leaving behind games like Resident Evil and Assassin's Creed simply because they weren't some variation of FPS. It's not like I wasn't taking a chance on things that weren't military FPS's; there was Bioshock, Borderlands, the Arkham titles, and the odd Limbo and Bastion here and there, but the Elder Scrolls were completely off limits. Actually, any RPG was off-limits. If those letters appeared in any relation to a game, no thanks. But that started to change.

Borderlands was kind of my first foray into anything even resembling an RPG. I did try Fallout 3 when it first released, but I returned it in a day or two because of all that talking nonsense. It wasn't even until a year or more after Borderlands release that I even decided to give it a shot. Needless to say, the game completely opened my eyes. I realize a lot of people don't even really consider it a RPG, but trust me, in my book it was. After Borderlands I started toying with the notion of buying Fallout: New Vegas from XBL's games on demand. With nothing to play and nothing releasing within a few months, I took the leap and downloaded it. Somehow, I enjoyed it. That's not fair I suppose. Somehow, I loved it. As the game progressed I became obsessed with talking to every single person I could, obsessed with every upgrade, every gun, every part of this universe. An RPG had me. But the Elder Scrolls was still never even considered. I'll admit that I was curious about all the fuss. Game of the Year, a perfect 10, and all the other noise that seemed to be coming from this game definitely caught my attention. But it was a fantasy RPG. That stuff was for those guys that dress up as elves and play Dungeon and Dragons. That stuff was for people that would play anything as long as they could hold a sword or cast a spell. In short, it was for dorks and there was no way that I was associating myself with anything that a bunch of D&D dorks were into. Prejudice? Yes. Condescending? Yes. Sorry fellas.

So there I was one night walking by a Red Box (it's a vending machine for movies and video game rentals here in Texas. They charge $1 for a DVD so it's kind of popular) and I spotted Assassin's Creed Revelations. I swore off AC after ACII and even though I eventually caved in and even enjoyed Brotherhood, I promised myself I would never play another Ezio AC game. But I wanted to know how it all turned out, so I rented it. Long story short, the disc was massively damaged and I had to return it. It was there that I spotted Skyrim and decided why not. I'm not picking up Max Payne 3, I don't play Mass Effect, and as far as I was concerned there wasn't anything worth buying until September, so why not give it a go. After all, everyone and their uncles dog's chew toy seemed to be in love with this game. So I got home and began my character creation. What's with all these weird lizard dudes and cat dudes? What's with all this elf nonsense? I was combative from the get go, but I loved the way it looked. And then that dragon showed up. From that moment on, I was in love with Skyrim. It awoke the inner child in me, and as it turns out, that inner child is a total dork.

My man is Hanqx and he's an Imperial. He's joined the Companions, the Legion, the Stormcloaks, the Thieves Guild and most recently the Dark Brotherhood. For some reason I was under the impression that these disparate groups were some how mutually exclusive but I'm glad I get to experience all of them. I still can't figure out how I can be on both sides of a revolution and somehow still maintain an upright position, but there it is. I married Ysolda from Whiterun where I have a house and maintain a rather reputable lifestyle. We've since moved to much nicer digs in Markarth, but I still have a soft spot in my heart for Lydia, so I spend a lot of time in Whiterun. I don't steal there (much), I don't kill there (yet), and I try to do whatever I can for everyone. In fact, that's kind of my motto throughout all of Skyrim. When faced with being nice or going for the jugular, I almost always choose nice. Of course that is also the reason for my current predicament. I won't pass a person on the street without trying to talk to them. This means that every single person in all the holds (I actually still haven't been to two of them yet) with a mission or side quest available has given me one. My list is so stacked up that I can't even begin to deal with them all. I try. I try to go to the bottom of the Miscellaneous list and knock them all off so I can start on the main missions, but every time I finish one it seems like I end up with 2 or 3 more. It's this never ending battle to whittle down my missions so that I can focus on some sort of linear path to the end. But I'm losing.

I can't even begin to explain how much I am in love with this game. I came to it very late, so I haven't experienced all the infamous bugs and glitches. I'm in about 8 or 9 days now so I even have all the new killcams in play in my first playthrough. 8 or 9 days. I've never before in my life said those words. I'm in my 8th or 9th day of a video game. I don't work (this month anyway) so I pretty much do nothing but play games all day. So that's 8 or 9 days of doing nothing but playing Skyrim 8 or more hours a day and I'm nowhere near done with it. It's the most unbelievably enormous game I've ever played. Most of it is my fault of course. I get sidetracked so much that wandering around the woods hunting might as well be the main point of playing this game. It's usually not until a dragon attacks me that I wake up and realize I've been wandering around collecting ingredients and taking down elk and wolves (with the occasional bear, sabre cat, or forsworn village thrown in) for hours. I try to knock off a couple of Miscellaneous side quests, but they always seem to take me to a new area that I just can't help but wander around in. Don't get me wrong. I fast travel whenever possible when missions are concerned, but when I get to my fast travel location, I always wander off somewhere like a kid in a candy store. Not that there are actually still candy stores mind you, and I haven't found one in Skyrim, yet, but you get the idea. Everything around me is so incredibly beautiful and interesting that I can't help but look around a little. Well, more than just a little. And no matter how many missions and side quests that I complete, more just keep stacking on. I have so many at this point that I've almost given up on even trying to finish this game. I'll just keep looking for dungeons, hunting the enemy and wildlife, and if the game ends, it ends. But I'm not so certain that it ever will. It's like a lifetime. That's what it feels like at this point. The longest game I've probably ever played was either an Assassin's Creed game or Borderlands, although they both took around the same time to finish. 5 days, tops. 5 days. I've been in Skyrim for 8 or 9 and I have so many missions left that it's starting to look like I'll be at this for a month or more. I haven't checked the actual game time yet, but I'd have to imagine it's somewhere in the 70hr range. I wake up everyday, shake off the tired and eventually make my way into the game room. I sit down every day with the honest intention to start knocking off some missions. But there I am, every single day 5 hours in and I've probably completed at the most 2 misions. I just can't get anywhere with them. And you know what? I could care less.

Today I'm going at that sucker with the full intention of starting some of the Dark Brotherhood missions. I want to start getting my Assassin on, because Hanqx has been a nice guy for too long now. Normally I save my evil intentions for the second playthorugh, where any and all reprehensible acts are indulged in with reckless abandon, but I've been playing this so long that I can't help but feel like my character has literally aged and become jaded. In fact I spent a lot of time last night trying to kill my wife. I went full on Werewolf, dual-wielded my fire blades, and tried every shout I had on her and that women just won't die. I don't know if there is a way to get divorced, but I've seen so many other women I'd rather marry that I was hoping I could ditch Ysolda somehow. I made the mistake of just marrying the first girl that asked, and I've been regretting it ever since. Lydia would've been my #1 pick and now that I've heard you can marry her, I'm even more upset that I married that woman. I mean it's great to get some money every now and then, and I love when she cooks those dinners, but other than that she's completely useless and I'm sick of looking at her. Please Bethesda, let me kill my wife. But I digress.

As things stand, life in Skyrim is looking like it might never end. The Thieve's Guild has so many available missions that I'm actually scared to take any more until I've gotten rid of some of the ones I already have. I imagine it's probably going to be the same with the Dark Brotherhood. I haven't followed any Companion missions, Legion missions, or Stormcloak missions for the same reason. I just want to look at that list and see at the most 5 items total. Just 5. I have never had so many active missions in a video game, ever. But again, it's my fault. It's my fault that I can't walk down a street without stopping every single person that will speak to me and agreeing to do whatever they ask of me. It's my fault that on the way to my next objective I somehow always manage to wander off into the wilderness for hours on end. But you know what? It's really Bethesda's fault. It's their fault for making such a great game. It's their fault that they afford you so much freedom in this enormous, beautiful world of theirs. It's their fault that they let you do whatever you want, with whoever you want, in as many ways as possible. It's Bethesda's fault that Hanqx is going to be like 400 years old when he finishes his last mission, and it's their fault that I will have enjoyed every second of those 400 years. I may have been a hater and a condescending pr#*! for a long time, but Skyrim has finally opened my eyes to all the enjoyment that a fantasy RPG can offer. It's actually directly responsible for me giving Game of Thrones a shot, which has turned out to be the best thing I've seen in a long, long time. I spent an entire day watching every episode from season 1 and the premier of season 2. All because of Skyrim. Bethesda has just jumped up into a very short list of my favorite developers of all time. I'll be back in Skyrim every day until I've made it through Hanqx journey, and I can guarantee you that I'll be giving it a second run in the most dastardly way possible. Skyrim is absolute genius and I thank my lucky stars that whoever played that copy of AC Revelations before me placed it on a belt sander for a few hours. If it hadn't been for their complete and utter destruction of a game I always promised I would never play, I may have never seen Skyrim. But here I am. 8 or 9 days into a game that has absolutely no end in sight. Skyrim has absolutely become the game that never ends.