The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Xbox 360)

Pros: Expansive world. Beutiful settings. Crafty story telling. Ridiculously large amount of things to do and places to go. You customize your charachter to fit your specific play style. This may be the most immersive game ever concieved.

Cons: As has become a hallmark of enormous Bethesda Titles there are glitches (to Bethesdas credit they have been progressively fixing them with patches but the game out of the box has some real technical flaws).

Summary: This game will swallow your life. This game is not for the Saturday afternoon casaul encounter gamer. If you don't have a good deal of free time you may want to shy away from this title. That is about the only reason.
The Elder Scrolls V, SKYRIM is a prodigious undertaking by a team with a proven track record for making insanely deep RPG's. Bethesda does not disappoint.
SKYRIM will get under your skin. The feeble character you start the game with doesn't stay that way, by the end you will have crafted a character strengthend by your own particular playing style. The character progression feels impactful. The enemies you face are formidable and plentiful. The sheer mass of quests and tasks you will have can be almost overbearing, but that's part of the appeal here. You will find yourself getting sidetracked more than once on your way through the game however the game scales nicely enough that you almost always feel rewarded for divergent exploration.

If you have the money to spend and you're looking for a new game here it is.

I can't say that there was nothing negative about my experience. There were a few items that piqued my ire during the gameplay.
The use of smithing, enchanting to create your items can outstrip the value of anything else you will "find" after you raise these skills up to their maximum. This is not a wholely bad thing since you will be allowed to craft the items you wish in keeping with your playstyle however I felt a more "Diabloesque" route would have been a better fit here. I personally feel the best items should be the relics you unearth during your travels, but such is not the case here.
The games moral center is skewed. It felt to me that the game almost encouraged sadisism, treachery, and greed. This is I'm sure due partially to the open nature of the choices they offer the player. You are always allowed to have your character walk away in disgust, it's just that you are rewarded more regularly and more handsomely for a playstle that leans towards evil. The good hearted will find themselves passing up some of the games best offerings both in the way of intersting quest lines and in way of loot.

Maybe they'll fix these in The Elder Scrolls VI when it's released in 3 or 4 more years. They are personal gripes though more than actual knocks on the game. The smithing/enchanting/alchemy systems have a nice synergy that makes your charachter feel like he's really earning the tremendous power you are creating. The open nature of the games fixed sequences and quests as well as the radiant quest system all work to make the experience fun and full of options that carry a wieght to them.

SKYRIM is awesome, If you feel even the slightest inclination towards playing an RPG of any sort, get it.

Easily 10 out 10 here.