If i'm brutally honest, aesthetically not much has changed since Oblivion, the previous Elder Scrolls game. Textures are of a higher resolution as only to be expected of a sequal 4 years down the line and the HDR contrast is through the roof as if to be shouting and screaming "I'm here, i really am here!". The bright blurs of light hiding some of the flaws in the finer details. The textures are of a desaturated nature also, giving the environment a more realistic feel. Many people, like Yahtzee, might complain about the cliché factor of a game reaching for realism with desaturated browns and greys, but with the more viking feel Skyrim has it really fits the theme more than detracts from it.
I had hoped with the years of development and technological improvements the aesthetics would have changed more than this but essentially all that appears to have changed is higher resolution textures, higher poly NPC's and better particle effects, all of which are in my eyes a given by default. Unfortunately the engine doesn't seem to have improved at all beyond that. Decals are still placed in such a way that they appear to float above the surface to which they are applied, and have a kind of exclusion affect when ever particle effects are rendered ontop of them, meaning waterfalls disappear when the player gets close enough to render the high resolution LoD snow textures.
Another issue is with the physics engine, which is still as atrocious as the previous Elder Scrolls game. In Oblivion ragdolls had a habit of vibrating violently when ever they were initiated with such force that caused them to clip into the environment creating massive amounts of noise spam and dust particle effects as the ragdol bones conflicted with certain surfaces. After escaping the dragon in the introduction part of the game i soon discovered when walking through the torture chamber that skeletons some how contained gold coins on their person. After the scene where you sneak past a bear there is a pit of bones. My initial thought was "Jackpot!", until i stepped on a pair of antlers and themurs only to have them perform th same nostalgic "Oblivion spazz out dance" and hit me in the face for 10% of my health meter. Later in the game i encountered the same physics bug whereby stepping onto another pair of antlers at the edge of a crevice launched my avatar 20 feet across an impassable crevice.
Other glitches are also made immediately apparent (noticed on the cart ride to Helgen at the very start) that were also common place in Oblivion, such as a characters clipping through their apparel when performing any animation besides his idle one. This was something i really didn't expect to still find in a current generation, 2011 release title.
Despite my initial disappointments with the engine's predictably average aesthetics, the desaturated environment and consolidated thematic appearence has made the game rather immersive and helped by further gameplay improvements. Class selection has been made a lot simpler, although confusing at first when creating my character when expecting further customisation of abilities such as the allowance of custom, hybrid powers (a-la Oblivion), star signs and race abilities are as simple as it came, making your gameplay role specific and not vague.
Other aspects of the gameplay have been improved such as smithing, one of the most tedious aspects of Warrior gameplay in the previous Elder Scrolls was the need to constantly repair your armour. A potentially potent immersive aspect of RPG gameplay it was in fact the opposite. It being consistantly necassery to take 20-30 repair hammers on a trip to any "dungeon" (more so in Oblivion) and to utilise these after each individual fight. A single Daedra enemy could render your armour from 100% effectiveness to 20% in a single fight. Realistic, perhaps, but fun? Not at all. This seems to have been replaced by the ability to merely improve weapon and armour beyond 100% and removed the capacity for armour and weapons to break/degrade at all. Meaning it is no longer necassery to carry 30 repair hammers and a secondary and tertiary weapon just in case.
On a final note playing through levels 1-10 has thus far been a charm. Oblivion was often difficult in this respect as any class besides warrior was stuck with a low mana pool, limited spells, low resistance to melee combat and archers had no ammo. The consolidation of skills and class perks makes a lot of sense.
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