I've been a fan of Bethesda games since Morrowind came out. The combat in Morrowind always felt weird to me. You could attack something and miss even though it was staring you in the face. It was like mmo games where your character flails around for a while and eventually hits the monster, unless you die. Then Oblivion came out and had much better combat but still had the weird dialogue options.
I loved the Elder Scrolls up to that point but Fallout 3 made me fall head over heels in love with Bethesda's games. I could finally have a conversation with an NPC without needing to hunt through a list of dictionary words. The VATS system was cool but it slowed down the game a bit, making my shooting skills feel inadequate. Recently Skyrim came out...
I don't usually get excited about the release of new games but Skyrim was a different story. The past week I've been playing it every chance I get and the game keeps getting better. It's packed full of interesting characters, useful items, and how can I not mention... dragons.
They got it right this time. The combat is much more believable and includes things like shouts, blocking, and shield bashing. The dialogue is excellent, showing what you have already said and what new options have opened up. And not only did they learn from their past games but they made further improvements to the user interface (at least on consoles).
The ability to favorite a spell, weapon, potion, or clothing item is awesome. You can also quickly get to all of your items with a limited number of button pushes and flicks of the control stick. The waypoints now show if you are expected to walk through a door or if it is located in the area you are searching. It's a much less intimidating ui than the previous iterations.
My only complaint so far is that the dragon battles tend to get repetitive after the first few. Typically they land for a moment, breath fire/ice/etc and then take to the skies just to repeat the pattern again. When health gets low they stay on the ground and try to kill you quickly with their breath or by attacking you directly. As a magic user I found if I stayed at a decent distance the battles were relatively easy and I'm playing on master.
To anyone that enjoys action RPG games I highly suggest Skyrim. You should plan to spend a lot of time with it though because you'll get sucked into the atmosphere.
Bethesda, I look forward to your next game but feel free to take your time because clearly your games keep getting better when you do.