Recent reviews by Riiak Shi Nal

ARK can be very brutal, but also addicting. Starting out you are virtually naked and have almost no knowledge of how to survive. You'll get torn to shreds by multiple dinos or maybe even starve to death before you really start to figure out how the game works. Though once you start taming creatures to help you and really start exploring the world and building your own base then the game really starts to be fun. Sure you'll still get torn to shreds, ambushed, overestimate your ability and end up losing your life and some of your tames, but it's worth it.

Note that the Crystal Isles map that they "released" has some fairly large parts of the map where no dinos spawn because there are no spawn points there (because they removed them when converting it from a mod to a free DLC), conversely though that can lead to areas where it can be ideal to build a long term base (especially because some of the areas require flyers to reach them). Most of the other maps are generally fairly well populated though.

You do need to be careful with some map mods if you are playing locally as some will overwrite your character information for The Island as they will use the same save directory.

I'm not yet done with the game, but so far it has been fun and challenging, though frustrating at times. The main point of the game appears to be trying to teach the player how to logically break down the steps to process each of the challenges. At this point you could probably look up all the answers for each challenge online, but that would take the fun out of it.

Fun, small jigsaw puzzle game. Though instead of the pieces remaining on the board (but not locking in place) if the position is off and snapping back to the ring it was grabbed from can occasionally be annoying if you were more than just slightly off in your positioning of the piece.

Similar in gameplay to the classic Syndicate, but far more modern. It is a fun game with interesting mechanics and multiple ways to do most things, but because jobs are static it is not the most replayable game.

While several mods still have not been updated for this version of Skyrim, generally this is the better version of the game to get (SKSE support was essential before I decided to move to this version). Being 64-bit means the game can be more stable with lots of mods installed (especially high-res texture packs along with better models).

I have dumped a lot of time into Skyrim (both the original 32-bit version which I bought and this version which I got for free because I owned the original game and all expansions) which can be seen by looking at my play time for both games. Mods can make the game a completely different (and arguably vastly superior) experience and I highly recommend them (most high quality mods are available for free either from the workshop or Nexus).

Short and Simple: Skyrim is a great game, get it.

Long: Skyrim takes the Elder Scrolls series and places it within the northern province of Skyrim and is occupied mainly by Nords. This means you will see lots of Nords in the game and the landscape will be mostly covered in snow and ice. While this will mean that the game doesn't have all the vibrant colours and landscapes we have seen previous games it does have vastly improved graphics and somewhat improved performance handling the better graphics.

The main story line will may take as much as 20 hours to complete, but the replayability, choices, side quests, and the modding system can easily take you hundreds to thousands of hours to explore and try different possibilities. I've spent more than a thousand hours in game and I still have fun creating characters and role-playing them in the world. Though mods will make this experience much better as there are some places where the game could have been better.

Pros:
- Beautiful game world with tons of stuff to do.
- Fully voiced dialog means that you'll be able to hear the conversations that you have and that are going on around you.
- Mod system allows for virtually unlimited customization of the game. If you don't like how the game works for one part or another you can usually change it or find a mod that will change it for you.

Cons:
- UI for the game is made more for consoles (though this can be vastly improved by getting a UI mod like SkyUI).
- Some dialog areas are somewhat limited so you may hear characters say the same things time and again (guards who have taken an "arrow to the knee", bandits hoping to pay off their bounty and "walk into town a free man", etc...).
- Game may become somewhat unstable with lots of mods.

For best experience with the game you'll want to be on a 64-bit operating system with at least 4 GB of RAM (preferably 8 GB so there isn't much memory swapping). That will ensure that you have the maximum available memory for the game to use as it can take up quite a bit. You'll also want to get the Skyrim Script Extender and a UI replacement (so it works better for PC users).

NOTE: With the release of the new "Special Edition" version the original edition of the game is still important as it supports more mods (including mods requiring SKSE) than the new version does. So currently if you care more about the mods the original or "Legendary Edition" version are better than the new "Special Edition" though once SKSE and most mods that require it are updated it shouldn't matter.

SKSE does now have an alpha version available for Skyrim Special Edition, but it is incomplete so for mods this is still the better version.