Oh, don't even compare those two. The combat in Skyrim is nowhere near as good, and the third-person animations are ugly. It's really not about the visceral combat here, though...more about exploration, customization, etc.

Ah, bummer. I was hoping to see those systems cleaned up in Skyrim. When I heard about the stamina bar, I got a little excited for the possibility of interesting combat in an Elder Scrolls game.

It *is* better, with a blocking/staggering system, stamina concerns, power attacks, dual wielding, etc. But it's not great. :)

Ha, I know. When I mentioned I bought a guide on Facebook, a lot of gamers gave me a hard time about that. But it's not like I want someone to walk me through each quest. It's just nice to know a lot of stuff you might've missed otherwise, like secret locations or items...or for me, I mainly want it to help me with all the enchating and alchemy subsystems.