I had the opportunity to play The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim at PAX Prime 2011 for 20 minutes and it was awesome.

Starting out the game, I began at the character-creation screen. The feature is quite robust as you would expect from a Bethesda RPG and allows you to choose your skin tone, race, eye brow color and more.  I picked a human-looking class who was supposedly good at dealing out magic and damage. Oh, and I also made him looking like a fierce, taller looking Gimli.

The build began in a forestry area. My guy is half-naked and so I equip some clothes, armor, and a sword for him. What’s cool about Skyrim is that you can choose which hand does what. I had my right hand wield a sword and I opted to set my fire spell to my left hand (as opposed to using a shield).

After finding out that my stamina didn’t seem to last long (running + sword swings were tiring my character out fast), I asked the Bethesda rep if I would be able to increase my endurance. According to him, players will be able to level up their endurance, magic, and health.

Visually, the game looks much better than Oblivion and Bethesda’s Fallout 3 after it. The new Creation Engine is able to render more intricate geometry with crisper textures. Furthermore, playing on the Xbox 360 build, slow-down and pop-ups, problems with other Bethesda releases, are pretty much non-issues here.

After admiring the gorgeous scenery, I hiked down into a small village. Another problem that has plagued Bethesda RPGs pertains to its stiff character NPCs. While the game may not win any mo-cap awards in this regard, you no longer are glued two feet in front of them during conversation trees. As the player, you can now walk away from the discussion and the distant sound of the audio changes accordingly. After talking to some townsfolk, buying some supplies, and checking in to an inn, I make my way past the village and into the nearby mountain.

Heading up the hill, I see a nearby stone tower guarded by soldiers. As I approach the structure, the soldiers attack me and so I light them on fire and strike them down with my sword (did I mention I was bad ass?). What’s great about the game is that its third person perspective camera is much improved and no longer feels tacked on (as it felt in the Fallout games); playing in third person felt smooth and natural.

After killing the guards and looting the tower, I continued to make my way up the mountain. Here, the grassy greens converted to snowy mountainous terrain. It felt cold just looking at the screen as the snowflakes flew in the wind.

As I made my way up the mountain, I encountered three grunts in front of some ruins. Two of them were equipped with arrows which allowed them to get some hits on me. I quickly dispatched of them using my fire and sword attacks and made my way into the ruins.

In the ruins, I was immediately greeted by dead bodies on the floor. Walking through its dimly lit corridors, I eventually ran into a couple of guards who failed to thwart my progress. However, eventually I was confronted by a locked gate with a switch in front of it. Upon hitting the switch, arrows shot at me like an Indiana Jones trap. It appeared that I would have to turn some contraptions to properly open the gate. This prompted the first puzzle element in the game. As I tried to solve it, my time ran out and I had to unfortunately end my demo.

While my time with Skyrim was brief, it looked, played, and ran great making it arguably my most anticipated game of the holiday season. Skyrim comes out 11-11-11.