This may not have been ideal journalistic practice, but it does speak to what Skyrim really is, as opposed to what all those dramatic trailers present it as.

I was playing a female Khajiit, partially because I find the see in the dark racial ability incredibly useful but mostly because I own a female cat

The first task of character creation reveals that the process now results in more distinct avatars since we last manipulated jaw lines and skin tone in Oblivion. Each of the ten playable races have pre-defined boundaries within which you can push and pull their bone structure, meaning they still maintain key traits of their race no matter how crazy you go with the sliders.

After three hours in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim I haven't talked to a single non-player character. I've accepted no quests, engaged in no conversations and learned nothing about what's going on in the world. I know I'm missing out on what could very well be a lot of interesting content – the guild quests, the main storyline, the rewards that come with completing tasks handed out by those in town

they skipped past the intro because they don’t want to spoil any plot points. They don’t realize that the only plot point I care about is murdering townspeople

For my latest hands-on, I decided to venture as far Northeast as possible. A small, lonesome town, was plodded a great distance away on the map, and I made the decision to seek its shelter within my three hour gameplay session window.