[Suzerain of Sheol]

5. Dragon's Dogma

It's like Skyrim, but way better combat :P

No, really. The concept is remarkably similar: an open-world fantasy action-RPG centered on slaying dragons. Except DD is 3rd-person to Skyrim's 1st, and the open world is much smaller, but it makes up for that with the truly incredible combat mechanics.

To get it out of the way: Buy Dark Arisen, it contains both the original game and the amazing expansion pack all in one package, and fixes several flaws in the original.

Now. Why the combat is so amazing. For one thing, you tend to fight really epic enemies like the eponymous dragons, as well as giants cyclopes, chimaerae, gryphons, ogres, beholders, and more, and these fights are EPIC. The main mechanic is the ability to scale these giant monsters and attack their weak points, and the way it plays is so fluid and enjoyable the combat never gets repetitive. And the DRAGONS! Oh, the dragons. These things make Skyrim's look like cardboard-cutouts of how dragons should fight. They will strafe you with breath and fly away before you can retaliate, they will snatch your party members, crush them, and drop them to their depths, they will smash down on top of you and crush you with their weight, they will sweep you aside with their tails, overrun and trample you to reposition, rend you with their claws, and of course bite you (often accompanied by flying off and dropping from considerable height). Oh, and they do all this whilst spamming fireballs and thunderbolts and maelstroms. The AI is just incredible, and when you finally kill one, the feeling of triumph is incomparable.

Next: the character creator. This should appeal to everyone here, since this game essentially doubles as a dress-up game. And the body editor is simply the most detailed I have ever found. You can pretty pretty much any character you can imagine, and *re-make* your character's appearance whenever you want. There's a hundreds of pieces of armor to kit yourself out in, it's just endless fun recreating OCs and then running around slaying dragons with them.

Third: The "multiplayer". Okay, so this game is single-player, but with a twist. When you start playing, you make not only your player character, but a "pawn", a customized NPC who travels everywhere with you (and yes, they are fully customizable!), and what happens is this: you can have a party of up to 4 characters, and you send your pawn to other people's games via XBOXlive or PSN to join their parties while recruiting other players' pawns to fight in yours. Pawns gain experience and often receive gifts from your fellow players while they're away (and they can visit as many other players as invite them, there's no limit. And they're always with you regardless, so there's so downside to it). I've never seen a system like this in any other game, and it's just really cool. Seeing the characters other people make is awesome, and trying to find ones that fit with your other characters makes for some fun role-playing.

4.: The expansion. Bitterblack Island is simply epic. It's a dark, dingy delve into a labyrinth filled with death knights, liches, undead dragons, armored giants the size of a castle, flying demons, minotaurs, and more. The whole time you're in there, you are chased by Death Himself, an incredibly difficult superboss with a great reward for finally killing him. The atmosphere is just incredible, the fights are thrilling, and the treasure is awesome. A flawless expansion to a great game. Cannot recommend it enough.