Kill dragons, save world in ‘Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’

In "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim," dragons are terrorizing villages. You portray a hero born with the power to kill these dragons and absorb their souls. You even speak in dragon, the way Harry Potter speaks in snake.

Aren't you special?

In other words, you are a supernatural savior. You alone can save the world: a Chosen One conceit that has consumed American megalomania from "Star Wars" to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

In the beginning, you choose to portray one of many male and female characters who have different traits. Do you want to be an elf? They're terrific at magic. Would you prefer to be a human? They are well-balanced at combat and magic.

Then you embark on adventures on a fantasy planet where you're attacked by wolves, bears, trolls, ice wizards and vampires.

So the game's central premise is to kill random baddies, steal their best weapons, and find and hone magic skills -- while exploring 150 dungeons and other locales to kill dragons. That's fun stuff.

You are regularly asked to help villagers carry out side quests, from working a day job to joining gangs. (I don't know about you, but the last thing I want from a video game is a day labor task.)

I'm conflicted about my feelings for "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim." On the one hand, it's an enormous, epic adventure full of dungeons, dragons, sword fights and magic spells.

It literally could take you months of hard-core gaming to do everything in "Skyrim." And then, you could start it all over again as a different savior character.

On the other hand, it is ponderous, man. I am constantly scouring every single cave for a bookshelf, because rarely, one of those books boosts my magic prowess. This is tedious maximus.

Worse: I have spent 10 to 30 minutes boringly running across the countryside to reach a given town. Once I discover a new town, I can start time-warping to it. But I must journey to towns by foot, first.

Way worse: "Skyrim" has crashed my Xbox 360 a few times, and the frame-rate sometimes slows down so that a fight with, say, a giant spider looks like it's in slow motion.

Way, way worse: The control system can be a mess. I had one dragon fight where I kept trying to hit-and-run, but the game wouldn't let me move my body, so he kept killing me with fire, making me feel like I was his idiot lunch.

Anyway, "Skyrim" is mostly entertaining, if you like this type of role-playing, open-world, action fantasy. But you may feel the urge to break the disc in half once in a while.

Also, this may not be a good game for you if you have obsessive-compulsive disorder. That is not a joke. If you have OCD, "Skyrim's" zillion details could devour your life forever.

("The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" by Bethesda Softworks retails for $60 for Xbox 360, PS 3, PC -- Plays entertaining except for technical woes. Looks good. Challenging. Rated "M" for blood, gore, intense violence, sexual themes, use of alcohol. Three out of four stars.)

Contact Doug Elfman at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.