The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim - Hearthfire Review

An add-on that let's you build your own house and being able to adopt, and apparently grab children and priced accordingly is marked down for not having things that aren't about building a house and being able to 'own' children. Hmm

There's the adoption place in Riften that allows you to adopt kids, so adoption is definitely there. It seems you've just had a quick bash, not really explored it and then dismissed it for not being something it never claimed to be. That's how it read to me anyway. Why are oxm reviewing it anyway, it's like cosmetic items in fable or the gun packs in Mass Effect, it's not major dlc.

For £3 it's quite good at letting me build a house and adopt children.

This was a very good article. Very amusing, and having seen Hearthfire at play, very true to its points. Good work Alice.

An add-on that let's you build your own house and being able to adopt, and apparently grab children and priced accordingly is marked down for not having things that aren't about building a house and being able to 'own' children. Hmm

There's the adoption place in Riften that allows you to adopt kids, so adoption is definitely there. It seems you've just had a quick bash, not really explored it and then dismissed it for not being something it never claimed to be. That's how it read to me anyway. Why are oxm reviewing it anyway, it's like cosmetic items in fable or the gun packs in Mass Effect, it's not major dlc.

For £3 it's quite good at letting me build a house and adopt children.

Have to agree with you its £3 odd and its a nice little add on so why review it? And then why review it quite badly the article could go in to more detail and still be funny but the article seems a little rushed and pointless the DLC does exactly what it set out to do "build a house and adopt children" there is no plot line or quests so why even review it???

For £3 I think the 6 score should reconsidered

For £3 I think the 6 score should reconsidered

Agreed, you spend more than that on a cup of coffee never mind a few hours worth of game play.

For £3 I think the 6 score should reconsidered

Agreed, you spend more than that on a cup of coffee never mind a few hours worth of game play.

It seems like the review was hoping for more in a £3 DLC, its only a small addon. I would agree with the 6 if the DLC was priced like the Horse armor for Oblivion. Its £3 for goodness sake!

That is an utterly terrible review. Sorry but it really is, amongst the worst I've seen on the site in a long time.

You've put no thought into this at all, simply dismissing it as pseudo mini-sims experience when it has only 2 or 3 very loose similarities. I watched Match of the Day on Saturday, for an hour I thought I was watching Basketball. If anything it has just as many similarities to Minecraft, which is especially relevant as Bethesda were inspired by it, which they openly admit to!

Time to clear up some details and provide some stuff you've just plain ignored.

First of all, you can't remodel your house if you're not happy with it, I know this, I've tested every possibility. Your reporting this is plain wrong and huge misinformation, and is clear evidence that you haven't really played this game even enough to test the things you report. That's bad reporting.

Now, I'm not saying the inability to remodel is a good thing, it's not, it's a massive misstep from Bethesda. Building these houses takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money and resources, to then decide you want to change it and you can't is bad, but that's the way it stands. It doesn't matter if it's good or bad though, I would rather you tell people the correct and true information.

OK, as for the DLC itself, you are clearly missing the point. On the surface, this is just a bit of housebuilding, which some people will love, some will hate, that's fine, but it's real value is for RPG players who actually want to Roleplay. Let me build you a scenario. You build a hunter character, and decide to roleplay him, giving him the restrictions that he's not a true adventurer, but a reluctant one dragged into unwillingly, he is primarily the hunter, who prefers to live off the land, dabble in mining and alchemy to support himself. So you have a character, and you're playing him to your specs, you've been wandering the hills and woods around Falkreath, getting into battles with bandit camps, random wolves and the occasional Sabrecat. Now then, normal gameplay says that it's getting night time, just carry on playing of fast travel to Falkreath to wait out the night and sell what you've picked up on your travels, which, being an ES, game, is EVERYTHING. So you are in Falkreath and you sell the 11 swords and 6 sets of fur armour you're carrying, along with the dozen and half pelts, 3 gems, soul stone and 4 iron daggers you picked up on the way. Great, that's ES as most people play it, and these houses won't really serve a purpose as there isn't anything in them that you can't get from the house you buy in Whiterun. But what if you're truly roleplaying and don't want to just fast travel around, and instead you want your own place in the wilderness that you can work from, deposit your loot as you find it, sleep in by night? This sort of dlc supports that sort of character. One you can play as you want it to be, allowing you to build and develop a house stage by stage, adding what you need as go along, then at some point, if you like marrying, adding children to add something to the experience. It is true roleplaying support. Sure, if you just charge in, and spend all the money your character has and sell all the 3000 swords he currently has stashed in an end table somewhere, purely to fully build the house, then you're not really getting everything from the experience, indeed, you're probably not get anything from it at all. But if you have the good sense to build these houses into your gaming experience, build them bit by bit, see your hardwork throughout the game pay off as you build yourself a nice little cottage in the mountains that you can start your own adventure from, then slowly watch it grow into a nice big house that you can build to suit your needs. It really is a roleplayers DLC.

OK, now I'll also grant you that this doesn't make it the best piece of DLC in the world if it only really suits certain players, but, it still has significant functionality for none RP players if they choose to use it. More importantly, recognizing it for what it is, a phenomenal addition for roleplayers, is what this 'review' should have done to begin with. It doesn't, it recounts a few small details, not entirely correctly, then dismisses it.

Right, house building itself. It offers a large variety for us. We start off just by building a small one room cottage, which can be fully furnished if we want. When we move on to larger houses, the 'cottage' acts as an entrance hallway and can be remodeled to suit. That is the ONLY piece of remodeling available. Once you add the main hall, you can then add 2 wings a back room and a cellar. The two wings and backroom each have 3 options of what you want to make them, making for a total of 9 possibilities. It is a little limited as it means that you can only pick from the 3 options available to each wing rather than having all 9 options and utilizing them as you see fit, but again, it's only right that this is made clear, something this 'review' didn't do. What does make this house building fun is that you have a hell of a lot of decorative options, which you can add as much or as little of as you like. Again, you can't manually place the decorations. You provide the materials, make them yourself, put are placed in static places. This is may disappoint some people, but there is a very good reason behind it. You see, if the game was to make allow you to build exactly what you want and then place it exactly where you want, then the way the game works would need to be fundamentally changed. Whilst this dlc does have some similarities with both Minecraft and The Sims, it isn't either. Their games are built to allow building and remodeling and adding decor etc, that is the entire point of their existence. Skyrim is an RPG, and Hearthfire is adding a small hint of those to aid in roleplaying, that is all. for a 400 point dlc, expecting something which fundamentally changes how the game works is foolish. Of course, people would be more aware that those expectations are unrealistic if they had a good review to read that explained this. Shame they can't get it here, I wonder if CVG has covered this yet?

Adoption, seems, on the surface to be a silly little thing, similar to Fable's stab at having children, but it is so much more than that. Again, I will say, adoption is more for the RP players than anyone else, but for those players, it is an incredible addition.

First up, if you want, you can adopt and move children into your homes in the cities, I first moved my child into my whiterun house. In some ways this is even better than moving them into your built houses as it gives your children a chance to interact with the world around them, which to some degree they do. You adopt a child from Solitude and move him/her into your Whiterun house, and in a few days they'll start talking about the other kids in the city, about how Braith is mean and a bully, or how they feel sorry for Lucia, things like that. Considering there are a lot of kids in the game now, and 5 different houses in different cities, that's a lot of dialogue options available just to make these adopted kids feel more alive and part of your world than even the spouses do.. If you get 2 kids it's even better as they can start squabbling and will complain about each other, even get jealous of one another. I haven't adopted 2 kids yet, so have no first hand experience of this, but it is well reported as being the case over on the official bethesda forums, some people talking about how one child became jealous of the toy sword the other had, things like that. What I can tell you for sure is that these kids will play games with each other in the house and the surrounding area, including the other city kids if you live in the city, which you can join in with if you so desire. You can give them toys to play with (kids with toy swords will charge off to practice dummies and start smacking them around). You can make them do chores or go to bed when you tell them too, sometimes they'll do it happily, sometimes they'll complain and say they don't want to. If they are told to do chores, they will wander about the house sweeping up for 4 in game hours (yes, I timed it as I watched the whole sequence to see what they would do). Sometimes they will walk up to you and ask you for an allowance, or they'll tell you about their day, that they went to the market and learned how to make a cake, or bring a random small animal and ask to keep it as a pet (which met with great hilarity by me after I slew my childs new mudcrab pet by mistake after seeing it just sitting there and thinking it would attack). There are plenty of things these kids do which serve no other purpose than to give them the semblance of life, which greatly adds to the Role Playing experience. A great example of what these children now mean to the game are in their back stories. Each one has his or her own reason for being orphaned. One little girl's father went off to fight in the war and never returned, another lost both parents, then her aunt and uncle moved in to the farm and kicked her out. I adopted this one after hearing her story as I was thinking long hard thoughts of hunting down the farm in question and extracting long and bloody vengeance on her aunt and uncle. That sort of response to a game is almost unheard of in an ES game, which generally serve as just being a huge hub for a create your own adventure game. Not this time though, these kids have been given great little stories (which technically you can't do anything about, although the idea of searching every farm in Skyrim to try and find these 2 is a joyous one) and great lines of dialogue and routines to follow, the very much feel a part of your characters life. A lot more so than they whiny brats Fable throws at us.

However players of Orcs, elves and beast races, even Redguard will have a few problems as the game doesn't cater to their needs. Yes, you people can certainly still adopt children, but not of your own race. You only get white skinned Nord children, which aren't a problem for Imperial or Breton players, as they're generic enough to fit, but all of you after your own little Kitten are bang out of luck. It's disappointing, but understandable. To add those it would require modelling a lot of new child characters, adding a lot more variation of dialogue, new clothes, new voice actors etc etc, all for the same end result, just with a kid with point ears by fangs or a tail. I'm disappointed at the lack of redguard children, particularly as there is one in the game, already, so they could have easily added another one that could be available for redguard players, nevertheless, another oversight by Bethesda, however, as I said, it is understandable from a development point of view.

One important thing which NEEDS to be mentioned however is that there is a glitch with the children (there are a few glitches in the game which I'll address in a moment). One of the gifts you can give a child is clothes. Sometimes, these glitch and the child will take them off and will be running around essentially naked (they still wear underwear, which I assume is drawn in as part of the base model of all humanoid models. This is a fairly serious problem as if it is not dealt with quickly, Bethesda could find themselves in serious legal trouble. In the US, pictures of children, even in underwear are considered child pornography, so I'm sure you can see the problems that could well accrue from this. As it happens, it's all rather innocent and silly, just a little glitch, not at all a deliberate attempt to provide indecent images, but something that small can be serious and needs to be made known, especially in a review.

OK, other glitches, well the one serious one reported is that the game has corrupted. I've only seen one report of this, from Ghosty on this site, and he didn't specify what it did, but I assume it corrupted his save file in some way. But that is the only report I've heard of this so far. More frequent problems are walls and floors disappearing, which even happen in the vanilla game, and all you need to do is reload the cell (enter and exit through a load screen again) and it will be fixed. There are also problems with getting the steward to decorate your rooms as sometimes he just takes your money and does nothing, so you need to be sure to save before using him. apart from those, and the child clothes glitch, I haven't read anything else yet.

One last point to raise is that you never bothered to mention what this dlc means to the future. Of course this is all speculation, but it should really be mentioned how this is a great template for the future. If it is well received, and works well, then in the future we could see more additions, more house designs, or a greater use for the basic gameplay additions, perhaps a rebuild Helgen mission? It would use the same system, just adapted slightly. Again, yes, this is all speculation, but it is certainly worth mentioning.

So, to sum up. A 400 point dlc that lets you build your own house and adopt children. Neither of which is particularly useful for normal players (unless you want a house in those specific places), but for roleplayers, it's something of a dream dlc. Some people may have no use for it, but if I can take my Roleplaying character, and slowly build my house by hand, mine and gather all the materials to keep expanding slowly but surely, if it helps support the character I am playing and make his life in this game feel more rounded and worth playing, then it is perfect. Yes, it does these things, for me, as a roleplayer, it is perfect, even the few glitches make very little difference. It is a great sign for the future as it could lead to greater creation elements in the game, and it signifies that Bethesda is willing to add content that they think will improve the experience of the basic game, not just add more content. It's a fantastic DLC that means so so much, all for 400 points.

8/10 here because it has some glitches, a couple of which are fairly serious, it is better suited to roleplayers than casuals, and it misses a couple of serious options that really should be available.

I'm aware my review isn't exactly brilliant, but it is a damn site better than the tripe that is currently inhabiting this article, which basically amounts to OXM saying 'we don't have a clue'.

This was a very good article. Very amusing, and having seen Hearthfire at play, very true to its points. Good work Alice.

Read Grummy's article and you will realise that you are wrong, I mean half a page FGS!
Where is ed!?!

Ed's doing a secret spy mission overseas, he borrowed my watch that fires laser beams. I hear he's breaking into EA boss John Riccitiello's office to plant fake focus group data recommending that they sell BioWare to Square Enix.

Grummy, I know you love this DLC but a lot of people are raging about it, saying it's the "new Horse Armour". They're whiny LameFAQs idiots, but this reviewer isn't the only one to spectacularly miss the point.

Bethesda can't seem to do right for doing wrong lately, the announcement of Hearthfire was met by PC gamers screaming "we've already got mods that do this better", PS3 gamers screaming "where's Dawnguard" and both were whining about the exclusivity deal.

It was just something they thought TES fans would like, especially on consoles where mods aren't allowed. I hope the whining hasn't discouraged them from making more small DLCs like this one.

Ed's doing a secret spy mission overseas, he borrowed my watch that fires laser beams. I hear he's breaking into EA boss John Riccitiello's office to plant fake focus group data recommending that they sell BioWare to Square Enix.

Grummy, I know you love this DLC but a lot of people are raging about it, saying it's the "new Horse Armour". They're whiny LameFAQs idiots, but this reviewer isn't the only one to spectacularly miss the point.

Bethesda can't seem to do right for doing wrong lately, the announcement of Hearthfire was met by PC gamers screaming "we've already got mods that do this better", PS3 gamers screaming "where's Dawnguard" and both were whining about the exclusivity deal.

It was just something they thought TES fans would like, especially on consoles where mods aren't allowed. I hope the whining hasn't discouraged them from making more small DLCs like this one.

Yep, and I think I did mention that a lot of people have missed the point of it. But the difference is, they're just gamers playing the game, they're perfectly within their rights to be dumb, but someone writing an article for a professional publication does not have that luxury. This tripe that was thrown up here is not anywhere near good enough to be worthy of any publication, let alone the Official publication for the platform. I'm not trying to toot my own horn here or anything, as I'm far from being anywhere close to good enough to be a professional journalist, but I threw my review up in one sitting, took me about an hour, including stopping to double check a couple of details, and it was all based on one good days play, which amounted to 5 hours, which included my dawdling way of playing, and it is significantly better in every possible way than what we have here. Seriously, Jonty if you want it, delete my message and use it as your review instead, you can even credit it just as OXM staff and not name me, I don't care. A journalist, whether paid or interning, should be putting some effort to do a worthwhile job. It's not about how much I love Bethesda, their games or this DLC now, it's about quality of the journalism, which is beyond awful here.

Sorry about that, it comes across like I'm yelling at you, not my intention at all, it just disappoints me that this publication, that I love quite strongly, hence why I'm always badgering them to do new things to help expand, has put out something this poor and amateurish.

As for Bethesda, well, I can't really defend them on too much, especially as I don't agree with the exclusivity and don't like how the PS3 crowd have been treated, but I can defend this dlc. Yes, the DLC is excellent, and is in no way horse armour. It adds a lot of new, interesting gameplay, is great for roleplayers, and it hints and great possibilities down the line. It also shows that Bethesda is willing to release content that will improve the base game experience, not just add new areas and story. There is nothing sinister or bad here, it's a great gesture and a great piece of content. Unfortunately, it doesn't help the PS3 lot, who are perfectly justified to be pissed off, but there's nothing I can do about that, and not everyone at Bethesda can work on the PS3 issue, so they're still going to work on other things, such as this content.

Yeah , yeah Gruumy it's all very well writing a big novel about why it's amazing for your hunter/gather RPG character , but you haven't answered the most important question about this DLC :

Can you adopt a kitten? Or a little egg , or an Orcling?

Or Elflings?

If you end up not liking your house you can always change and rebuild rooms whenever you like, providing you have the materials necessary.

Sorry but I'm pretty sure that's not true. If it is I'd love to know how.

Yeah , yeah Gruumy it's all very well writing a big novel about why it's amazing for your hunter/gather RPG character , but you haven't answered the most important question about this DLC :

Can you adopt a kitten? Or a little egg , or an Orcling?

Damn you and your ability to point out the things I've missed.

No, you can't, again it's a bit strange, but there it is. My test character is an Orc with an Orc wife and a Nord child..... another oversight that they should really fix, but I doubt they will. Getting in actors to play child Orcs or beast races would be awkward I think. Also hilarious. But it's a whole new bunch of character models and animations to make, and again, for a 400 point dlc that was really there just because it's fun, it's a good field test for some new gameplay, and it's nice for console players to have a bit of what the modders can do. I'd love to see it, but it's a lot of new work. If anything I'd expect it would be an update attached to a future, larger piece of DLC, but I'm doubtful, very doubtful indeed.

Could be that Tamriel's children aren't allowed to emigrate between provinces, hence only Nord kids in Skyrim.

Could be that Tamriel's children aren't allowed to emigrate between provinces, hence only Nord kids in Skyrim.

"THE ARGONIANS ARE INVADING AND RED MOUNTAIN IS ERUPTING, QUICK, PACKS ON THE GUARS AND ONTO THE SILT STRIDERS, HIDE YO' KIDS! HIDE YO' WIFE! FLEE TO SKYRIM FOR SAFETY!!!"

"Sorry, can't do that, the little fetchers aren't allowed across the borders and these native animals which will ensure our survival have to stay behind as well."

"Oh, OK, by then kids, have a nice death, mummy and daddy will think about you dying horribly whilst we're safely ensconced in Skyrim. I like Nords, such a nice, accepting, people."

"Don't forget to feed nibbles, kids"

"But Daddy, I want to go too....."

"Shut up you little N'wah! Our race my be on the verge of going way of the Dwemer, but we have to obey the laws dammit!"

Red Mountain erupted in the early years of the Fourth Era, over 150 years before the events of Skyrim, there might have been a temporary lifting of the law I made up.

Red Mountain erupted in the early years of the Fourth Era, over 150 years before the events of Skyrim, there might have been a temporary lifting of the law I made up.

And in all that time no other species had any children whatsoever?
I take it the cross province rule also includes a no bonking clause?

Red Mountain erupted in the early years of the Fourth Era, over 150 years before the events of Skyrim, there might have been a temporary lifting of the law I made up.

And in all that time no other species had any children whatsoever?
I take it the cross province rule also includes a no bonking clause?

You mean the adults who have emigrated to another province not being allowed to have children? But they'd be adults by now, or dead, depending on the species. But then, there were no children at all in Cyrodiil at the end of the Third Era and there are still Imperials about.

Magic, I tell ya!

And in all that time no other species had any children whatsoever?
I take it the cross province rule also includes a no bonking clause?

You mean the adults who have emigrated to another province not being allowed to have children? But they'd be adults by now, or dead, depending on the species. But then, there were no children at all in Cyrodiil at the end of the Third Era and there are still Imperials about.

Magic, I tell ya!

Can't be, the mages guild was disbanded, they're not allowed to do magic anymore. I say it's gifts through Deadra worship. They're all infidels.

That is an utterly terrible review. Sorry but it really is, amongst the worst I've seen on the site in a long time.

You've put no thought into this at all, simply dismissing it as pseudo mini-sims experience when it has only 2 or 3 very loose similarities. I watched Match of the Day on Saturday, for an hour I thought I was watching Basketball. If anything it has just as many similarities to Minecraft, which is especially relevant as Bethesda were inspired by it, which they openly admit to!

Time to clear up some details and provide some stuff you've just plain ignored.

First of all, you can't remodel your house if you're not happy with it, I know this, I've tested every possibility. Your reporting this is plain wrong and huge misinformation, and is clear evidence that you haven't really played this game even enough to test the things you report. That's bad reporting.

Now, I'm not saying the inability to remodel is a good thing, it's not, it's a massive misstep from Bethesda. Building these houses takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money and resources, to then decide you want to change it and you can't is bad, but that's the way it stands. It doesn't matter if it's good or bad though, I would rather you tell people the correct and true information.

OK, as for the DLC itself, you are clearly missing the point. On the surface, this is just a bit of housebuilding, which some people will love, some will hate, that's fine, but it's real value is for RPG players who actually want to Roleplay. Let me build you a scenario. You build a hunter character, and decide to roleplay him, giving him the restrictions that he's not a true adventurer, but a reluctant one dragged into unwillingly, he is primarily the hunter, who prefers to live off the land, dabble in mining and alchemy to support himself. So you have a character, and you're playing him to your specs, you've been wandering the hills and woods around Falkreath, getting into battles with bandit camps, random wolves and the occasional Sabrecat. Now then, normal gameplay says that it's getting night time, just carry on playing of fast travel to Falkreath to wait out the night and sell what you've picked up on your travels, which, being an ES, game, is EVERYTHING. So you are in Falkreath and you sell the 11 swords and 6 sets of fur armour you're carrying, along with the dozen and half pelts, 3 gems, soul stone and 4 iron daggers you picked up on the way. Great, that's ES as most people play it, and these houses won't really serve a purpose as there isn't anything in them that you can't get from the house you buy in Whiterun. But what if you're truly roleplaying and don't want to just fast travel around, and instead you want your own place in the wilderness that you can work from, deposit your loot as you find it, sleep in by night? This sort of dlc supports that sort of character. One you can play as you want it to be, allowing you to build and develop a house stage by stage, adding what you need as go along, then at some point, if you like marrying, adding children to add something to the experience. It is true roleplaying support. Sure, if you just charge in, and spend all the money your character has and sell all the 3000 swords he currently has stashed in an end table somewhere, purely to fully build the house, then you're not really getting everything from the experience, indeed, you're probably not get anything from it at all. But if you have the good sense to build these houses into your gaming experience, build them bit by bit, see your hardwork throughout the game pay off as you build yourself a nice little cottage in the mountains that you can start your own adventure from, then slowly watch it grow into a nice big house that you can build to suit your needs. It really is a roleplayers DLC.

OK, now I'll also grant you that this doesn't make it the best piece of DLC in the world if it only really suits certain players, but, it still has significant functionality for none RP players if they choose to use it. More importantly, recognizing it for what it is, a phenomenal addition for roleplayers, is what this 'review' should have done to begin with. It doesn't, it recounts a few small details, not entirely correctly, then dismisses it.

Right, house building itself. It offers a large variety for us. We start off just by building a small one room cottage, which can be fully furnished if we want. When we move on to larger houses, the 'cottage' acts as an entrance hallway and can be remodeled to suit. That is the ONLY piece of remodeling available. Once you add the main hall, you can then add 2 wings a back room and a cellar. The two wings and backroom each have 3 options of what you want to make them, making for a total of 9 possibilities. It is a little limited as it means that you can only pick from the 3 options available to each wing rather than having all 9 options and utilizing them as you see fit, but again, it's only right that this is made clear, something this 'review' didn't do. What does make this house building fun is that you have a hell of a lot of decorative options, which you can add as much or as little of as you like. Again, you can't manually place the decorations. You provide the materials, make them yourself, put are placed in static places. This is may disappoint some people, but there is a very good reason behind it. You see, if the game was to make allow you to build exactly what you want and then place it exactly where you want, then the way the game works would need to be fundamentally changed. Whilst this dlc does have some similarities with both Minecraft and The Sims, it isn't either. Their games are built to allow building and remodeling and adding decor etc, that is the entire point of their existence. Skyrim is an RPG, and Hearthfire is adding a small hint of those to aid in roleplaying, that is all. for a 400 point dlc, expecting something which fundamentally changes how the game works is foolish. Of course, people would be more aware that those expectations are unrealistic if they had a good review to read that explained this. Shame they can't get it here, I wonder if CVG has covered this yet?

Adoption, seems, on the surface to be a silly little thing, similar to Fable's stab at having children, but it is so much more than that. Again, I will say, adoption is more for the RP players than anyone else, but for those players, it is an incredible addition.

First up, if you want, you can adopt and move children into your homes in the cities, I first moved my child into my whiterun house. In some ways this is even better than moving them into your built houses as it gives your children a chance to interact with the world around them, which to some degree they do. You adopt a child from Solitude and move him/her into your Whiterun house, and in a few days they'll start talking about the other kids in the city, about how Braith is mean and a bully, or how they feel sorry for Lucia, things like that. Considering there are a lot of kids in the game now, and 5 different houses in different cities, that's a lot of dialogue options available just to make these adopted kids feel more alive and part of your world than even the spouses do.. If you get 2 kids it's even better as they can start squabbling and will complain about each other, even get jealous of one another. I haven't adopted 2 kids yet, so have no first hand experience of this, but it is well reported as being the case over on the official bethesda forums, some people talking about how one child became jealous of the toy sword the other had, things like that. What I can tell you for sure is that these kids will play games with each other in the house and the surrounding area, including the other city kids if you live in the city, which you can join in with if you so desire. You can give them toys to play with (kids with toy swords will charge off to practice dummies and start smacking them around). You can make them do chores or go to bed when you tell them too, sometimes they'll do it happily, sometimes they'll complain and say they don't want to. If they are told to do chores, they will wander about the house sweeping up for 4 in game hours (yes, I timed it as I watched the whole sequence to see what they would do). Sometimes they will walk up to you and ask you for an allowance, or they'll tell you about their day, that they went to the market and learned how to make a cake, or bring a random small animal and ask to keep it as a pet (which met with great hilarity by me after I slew my childs new mudcrab pet by mistake after seeing it just sitting there and thinking it would attack). There are plenty of things these kids do which serve no other purpose than to give them the semblance of life, which greatly adds to the Role Playing experience. A great example of what these children now mean to the game are in their back stories. Each one has his or her own reason for being orphaned. One little girl's father went off to fight in the war and never returned, another lost both parents, then her aunt and uncle moved in to the farm and kicked her out. I adopted this one after hearing her story as I was thinking long hard thoughts of hunting down the farm in question and extracting long and bloody vengeance on her aunt and uncle. That sort of response to a game is almost unheard of in an ES game, which generally serve as just being a huge hub for a create your own adventure game. Not this time though, these kids have been given great little stories (which technically you can't do anything about, although the idea of searching every farm in Skyrim to try and find these 2 is a joyous one) and great lines of dialogue and routines to follow, the very much feel a part of your characters life. A lot more so than they whiny brats Fable throws at us.

However players of Orcs, elves and beast races, even Redguard will have a few problems as the game doesn't cater to their needs. Yes, you people can certainly still adopt children, but not of your own race. You only get white skinned Nord children, which aren't a problem for Imperial or Breton players, as they're generic enough to fit, but all of you after your own little Kitten are bang out of luck. It's disappointing, but understandable. To add those it would require modelling a lot of new child characters, adding a lot more variation of dialogue, new clothes, new voice actors etc etc, all for the same end result, just with a kid with point ears by fangs or a tail. I'm disappointed at the lack of redguard children, particularly as there is one in the game, already, so they could have easily added another one that could be available for redguard players, nevertheless, another oversight by Bethesda, however, as I said, it is understandable from a development point of view.

One important thing which NEEDS to be mentioned however is that there is a glitch with the children (there are a few glitches in the game which I'll address in a moment). One of the gifts you can give a child is clothes. Sometimes, these glitch and the child will take them off and will be running around essentially naked (they still wear underwear, which I assume is drawn in as part of the base model of all humanoid models. This is a fairly serious problem as if it is not dealt with quickly, Bethesda could find themselves in serious legal trouble. In the US, pictures of children, even in underwear are considered child pornography, so I'm sure you can see the problems that could well accrue from this. As it happens, it's all rather innocent and silly, just a little glitch, not at all a deliberate attempt to provide indecent images, but something that small can be serious and needs to be made known, especially in a review.

OK, other glitches, well the one serious one reported is that the game has corrupted. I've only seen one report of this, from Ghosty on this site, and he didn't specify what it did, but I assume it corrupted his save file in some way. But that is the only report I've heard of this so far. More frequent problems are walls and floors disappearing, which even happen in the vanilla game, and all you need to do is reload the cell (enter and exit through a load screen again) and it will be fixed. There are also problems with getting the steward to decorate your rooms as sometimes he just takes your money and does nothing, so you need to be sure to save before using him. apart from those, and the child clothes glitch, I haven't read anything else yet.

One last point to raise is that you never bothered to mention what this dlc means to the future. Of course this is all speculation, but it should really be mentioned how this is a great template for the future. If it is well received, and works well, then in the future we could see more additions, more house designs, or a greater use for the basic gameplay additions, perhaps a rebuild Helgen mission? It would use the same system, just adapted slightly. Again, yes, this is all speculation, but it is certainly worth mentioning.

So, to sum up. A 400 point dlc that lets you build your own house and adopt children. Neither of which is particularly useful for normal players (unless you want a house in those specific places), but for roleplayers, it's something of a dream dlc. Some people may have no use for it, but if I can take my Roleplaying character, and slowly build my house by hand, mine and gather all the materials to keep expanding slowly but surely, if it helps support the character I am playing and make his life in this game feel more rounded and worth playing, then it is perfect. Yes, it does these things, for me, as a roleplayer, it is perfect, even the few glitches make very little difference. It is a great sign for the future as it could lead to greater creation elements in the game, and it signifies that Bethesda is willing to add content that they think will improve the experience of the basic game, not just add more content. It's a fantastic DLC that means so so much, all for 400 points.

8/10 here because it has some glitches, a couple of which are fairly serious, it is better suited to roleplayers than casuals, and it misses a couple of serious options that really should be available.

I'm aware my review isn't exactly brilliant, but it is a damn site better than the tripe that is currently inhabiting this article, which basically amounts to OXM saying 'we don't have a clue'.

Yeah...what he said!

Although on a serious note, i do very much agree.

I would rate this DLC at least 7 or 8 as so far im loving it.

I had over 50,000 gold with nothing to spend it on and so far i have spent over 20,000 and have not even completed half of the rooms.

The fact is, i can now smith, enchant, smelt, improve, grow, raise animals, lock up my belongings in specific categories within specific rooms all within my own house is nothing short of amazing.

I love my greenhouse, armoury and trophy rooms, this is everything i have wanted for a long time.

Finally a place where i can put everything and store everything, gazing upon my trophies and past adventures..brilliant

Wait, Ghosty, I thought you said it had corrupted your game or something?

I've got to agree on it being a terrible review, I didn't want to be that guy who said it because I actually think this particular reviewer is ship. No offence to the person, it's just my opinion - always seems rushed.

As for PS3, personally I think bethesda are afraid of releasing anything for fear of backlash, we all know it's more difficult to code for the 256mb ram splitty thing they've got going compared to 360s combined 512mb which is easy like sunday morning at Lionels house. They want to iron out as many kinks as possible, and have even inferred they might not release it at all because it is too much to undertake - frankly I'd just release it as a beta and get results back from the wider number of people playing, that way the customers get some dlc for cheap, and bethesda can release the content and have a better view of how to fix it. PC players have mods, so they don't count.

Wait, Ghosty, I thought you said it had corrupted your game or something?

Yeah it did, but after deleting, reinstalling 3 times it finally worked. Although still a little buggy.

I think it was a case of day 1 DLC gremlins, plus all the Xbox live issues

Wait, Ghosty, I thought you said it had corrupted your game or something?

Yeah it did, but after deleting, reinstalling 3 times it finally worked. Although still a little buggy.

I think it was a case of day 1 DLC gremlins, plus all the Xbox live issues

Not awesome, but I'm glad you got it working in the end.

Not awesome, but I'm glad you got it working in the end.

Agreed, i was scared my save game would be corrupted and i would lose everything, but luckily this was not the case.

I think for 400 points, this is the best DLC they have ever done, purely in terms of value and usefulness.

Admittedly you cannot choose where you place your furniture and such like, but at least you are given some choices and also plenty of space to put everything.

It has brought me back to skyrim, at least until Armoured Kill is out next week that is.

I've got to agree on it being a terrible review, I didn't want to be that guy who said it because I actually think this particular reviewer is ship. No offence to the person, it's just my opinion - always seems rushed.

Isn't she the intern? Seem to recall that from somewhere.

She's been there a while if she is. Plus they've had others as well, including our very own ginger ninja, and at least some of them have written articles of decent quality,

Decent Jam was pretty good, though I may be biased as he's a nice guy and I've read a lot of his reviews and like the writing style, is he the ginger ninja or is that FishyG?

Thanks, as ever, for the feedback. I'm pretty sure Grummy's post represents the most comprehensive feedback I've received in ten years in this job, which is a commendable achievement in itself. Ed has been sent on his first trip to America and thus can't be here in person. Be sure to ask him how he coped with LA next week, though.

On the subject of factual accuracy, it would appear that we were the victim of one of Skyrim's famous glitches. Alice was able to remodel her house during the building process - converting a kitchen into a library - but having revisited it following your comments we can't repeat the process. So that was presumably a bug, and we've corrected the review to reflect that. Apologies.

The other feedback is a greyer area. We're judging it in the spectrum of RPG expansions, and indeed Bethesda expansions, and we're trying to reach everybody - not just hard-core roleplayers, which is a very specific way of playing. The aim is to give a snap judgement on its value to Skyrim fans, and in that respect it's a less worthy expansion than (for example) Dawnguard. Getting into specific use-case scenarios is a dangerous process; I'm sure there's somebody who could argue that horse armour was essential for a very specific form of play style. It's short because it's a mag review rather than an online one, and thus spent more of the wordcount on description than analysis. It's not ideal, and there's a bigger discussion about how that works and indeed games writing in general, but it's what we've got.

As far as the specific score goes - arguing about opinions represented by numbers will go on forever, and to no mutually agreeable conclusion. But to my mind, 6/10 doesn't mean it's terrible or unpurchasable, it means it's inessential.

Decent Jam was pretty good, though I may be biased as he's a nice guy and I've read a lot of his reviews and like the writing style, is he the ginger ninja or is that FishyG?

I could come at you like a strong westerly wind and you would never know. I am indeed a ninja but..ahem, in my best Alec Guinness voice, I'm not the ginger you're looking for.

Well known fact that along with all japanese, all gingers are ninjas. My vulcan neck flipper pinch is also devastating.

Thanks, as ever, for the feedback. I'm pretty sure Grummy's post represents the most comprehensive feedback I've received in ten years in this job, which is a commendable achievement in itself. Ed has been sent on his first trip to America and thus can't be here in person. Be sure to ask him how he coped with LA next week, though.

On the subject of factual accuracy, it would appear that we were the victim of one of Skyrim's famous glitches. Alice was able to remodel her house during the building process - converting a kitchen into a library - but having revisited it following your comments we can't repeat the process. So that was presumably a bug, and we've corrected the review to reflect that. Apologies.

The other feedback is a greyer area. We're judging it in the spectrum of RPG expansions, and indeed Bethesda expansions, and we're trying to reach everybody - not just hard-core roleplayers, which is a very specific way of playing. The aim is to give a snap judgement on its value to Skyrim fans, and in that respect it's a less worthy expansion than (for example) Dawnguard. Getting into specific use-case scenarios is a dangerous process; I'm sure there's somebody who could argue that horse armour was essential for a very specific form of play style. It's short because it's a mag review rather than an online one, and thus spent more of the wordcount on description than analysis. It's not ideal, and there's a bigger discussion about how that works and indeed games writing in general, but it's what we've got.

As far as the specific score goes - arguing about opinions represented by numbers will go on forever, and to no mutually agreeable conclusion. But to my mind, 6/10 doesn't mean it's terrible or unpurchasable, it means it's inessential.

Fair enough but why even review it ? its nothing like as big as dawngaurd and better than any horse armour yet it falls into (in my opinion) the same category as horse armour, extra weapons etc etc so there fore no review. In my eyes it is just a 3 quid muck around giving us console owners a taste of the pc mod life! or something extra to do in skyrim and if you do review you should take into account its 3 QUID for alot of content that should have least bulked up the score!

I don't take issue with length or score, just that it reads as if the reviewer spent ten minutes with it and wrote it up on the train, standing up next to the obligatory dude with a bike who is on the train for some reason. That, and it's not the first time I've noticed how rushed/missing the point the specific persons writing has been/comes across. To me anyway.

As far as Hearthfire goes, there were some bits and pieces I would have quite liked to see...for example, the ability to actually mix and match the the wings. I'd love to have an armory and a library, but that's impossible (short of having two separate houses for them). I'm not really sure why it's impossible though. I'm the first to point out that I don't design games and so can't appreciate how difficult it is, but I can't see why players couldn't be given all the different options for each wing. After all, the outward designs wouldn't change - each wing has the possibility of being a tower, a sloped roof room or a flat-topped room, and all the internal details obviously already exist.

My other gripes are just personal things - I'd like more lights (some parts are quite dingy), the library is an awkward shape (I honestly think a regular room would have been better than a tower), and as a Dunmer I would have loved to have a shrine to Azura in my basement, screw the Divines. But that's just me

As people have pointed out though - it's worth about £3. Not everyone's going to appreciate the decisions they made, but for that price it's not that big a deal. And as for the review...perhaps just a bit more consideration of this needed to be taken into account.

Not sure why some people had such a big problem with this review. I found it pretty useful - when I first heard about Hearthfire I was expecting something closer to a full bodied PC mod that gave you a huge amount of flexibility with where and what you could build. Thanks to this review I now know that Hearthfire isn't for me, it just sounds a bit limited, underwhelming and as Alice said, lacking in drama. Granted, if you role play heavily you can find more enjoyment from it, but I have enough problems managing my own life, let alone having to deal with a virtual one as well! It may only be £3.00, but do you know how much Tesco value pasta I can get for £3.00? 5 Kilos! I'd rather have the pasta....

Thanks, as ever, for the feedback. I'm pretty sure Grummy's post represents the most comprehensive feedback I've received in ten years in this job, which is a commendable achievement in itself. Ed has been sent on his first trip to America and thus can't be here in person. Be sure to ask him how he coped with LA next week, though.

On the subject of factual accuracy, it would appear that we were the victim of one of Skyrim's famous glitches. Alice was able to remodel her house during the building process - converting a kitchen into a library - but having revisited it following your comments we can't repeat the process. So that was presumably a bug, and we've corrected the review to reflect that. Apologies.

The other feedback is a greyer area. We're judging it in the spectrum of RPG expansions, and indeed Bethesda expansions, and we're trying to reach everybody - not just hard-core roleplayers, which is a very specific way of playing. The aim is to give a snap judgement on its value to Skyrim fans, and in that respect it's a less worthy expansion than (for example) Dawnguard. Getting into specific use-case scenarios is a dangerous process; I'm sure there's somebody who could argue that horse armour was essential for a very specific form of play style. It's short because it's a mag review rather than an online one, and thus spent more of the wordcount on description than analysis. It's not ideal, and there's a bigger discussion about how that works and indeed games writing in general, but it's what we've got.

As far as the specific score goes - arguing about opinions represented by numbers will go on forever, and to no mutually agreeable conclusion. But to my mind, 6/10 doesn't mean it's terrible or unpurchasable, it means it's inessential.

As always, Jonty, you provide a sound voice of reason, and I don't particularly disagree with anything you say, except for for how you were judging it in the 'spectrum of RPG expansions'. I understand that a small mag piece can't be as wordy as my diatribe was, but if content is deliberately designed to provide a certain function, which is not even once considered in the writing of a review, I call that poor journalism. Of course you need to write something balanced, but the content isn't balanced, and it wouldn't have taken much to write a few sentences about how that content really fits in.

I'll say this, I do think this a difficult content to write about, it's a small piece, that shouldn't really warrant a solid review at all, but it's use and implications for the future of this series are all very relevant, to simply publish what Alice wrote doesn't do justice to what it provides, as it barely covers the basics, let alone the admittedly more grey area of how it is used in play.

So,as Kronk said, this does raise the question of why even bother to review it at all? I may be wrong here, but I don't remember you reviewing all the houses that were released for Oblivion as they weren't real DLC/expansions, and neither is this. It's just a game support add-on.

Bezza also has a good point that the score and article size aren't really the problem so much as that it reads badly, like Alice barley put any time into it and didn't really spend a lot of time making the review say anything of worth, or highlight any salient points, it reads like a rushed rehashing of the raw facts that we already knew before it was released. Didn't really need a review for that.

Falcon, the reason people have a problem with it is that it is poorly written, doesn't give any really relevant detail, and does criminal injustice to what it actually does.

Bezza also has a good point that the score and article size aren't really the problem so much as that it reads badly, like Alice barley put any time into it and didn't really spend a lot of time making the review say anything of worth, or highlight any salient points, it reads like a rushed rehashing of the raw facts that we already knew before it was released. Didn't really need a review for that..

It reads badly , like Alice didn't put any time into it because that's exactly what did happen if her recent "hilarious" feature is genuine. 3hrs 45 with an hour or so spent dicking about.

An amusing enough feature granted ( although hardly the beacon of comedy some commenters have suggested ) but it sadly proves that the Hearthfire review was half arsed at best.

Bezza also has a good point that the score and article size aren't really the problem so much as that it reads badly, like Alice barley put any time into it and didn't really spend a lot of time making the review say anything of worth, or highlight any salient points, it reads like a rushed rehashing of the raw facts that we already knew before it was released. Didn't really need a review for that..

It reads badly , like Alice didn't put any time into it because that's exactly what did happen if her recent "hilarious" feature is genuine. 3hrs 45 with an hour or so spent dicking about.

An amusing enough feature granted ( although hardly the beacon of comedy some commenters have suggested ) but it sadly proves that the Hearthfire review was half arsed at best.

Indeed. I didn't even crack a smile reading it tbh. I shan't say anymore though. I don't like her recent articles, and I've ripped into this terrible review. Although it was perfectly justified to have done so, it does no good to keep tearing into her, after all, I'm sure she's a lovely girl, and I don't really want to hurt her feelings.

I'm sure she's a lovely girl, and I don't really want to hurt her feelings.

I know it's (probably) not intentional , but that is possibly the most insulting comment in this thread!

I'm sure she's a lovely girl, and I don't really want to hurt her feelings.

I know it's (probably) not intentional , but that is possibly the most insulting comment in this thread!

It's the unsaid 'she makes a good cuppa' that does it

In all fairness though, I always use that line (or a variation of) when I've been tearing into someone and I want to be clear I'm not trying to be personal about it.

Hearthfire is a good way to continue your expansion into Skyrim, there are many ways to bulid and customise your house or houses and its only 400mp or £3. Well worth the money if your up for a change of your normal Skyrim game play

The other feedback is a greyer area. We're judging it in the spectrum of RPG expansions, and indeed Bethesda expansions, and we're trying to reach everybody - not just hard-core roleplayers, which is a very specific way of playing. The aim is to give a snap judgement on its value to Skyrim fans, and in that respect it's a less worthy expansion than (for example) Dawnguard.

Isn't that the problem though? With this kind of DLC, you have to remember that it'll attract your role-play nuts more, rather than the other types.

As Grummy pointed out, this sort of DLC is built more around the role-play aspects of Skyrim, which is what it does quite nicely I might add. Plus for £3 you can 'ardly go wrong can you?

I've now had the chance to properly play the DLC for a while, and I have to agree that this seems badly written, and has been given too low a score. As people have mentioned, the part about 'grabbing' a child is wrong, which goes to showing how little effort was put in really. When I booted it up, I was given the message to adopt a child from the Orphanage in Riften. I think you have to do the Dark Brotherhood starter quest to be able to get children from there, but that wouldn't have taken long to do. The review also mentions that there's no questions asked when you try to adopt, yet if you don't have a child's bed and chest, then (at least for me) you wouldn't be allowed to adopt.

Another thing about the children is that the review doesn't actually talk about them at all. I really had fun with the two I adopted. Their characterisations are surprisingly deep; the girl is grateful for anything given to her while the boy isn't really bothered, the girl is happy to do chores and go to bed, plus they often ague and insult each other. I think they're really nice additions to the game.

As for the actual house side of the review, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that it's time consuming building a house. On one of my accounts I was loaded and found that building the house quickly just using my funds made it feel too easy, and I didn't get much out of it. However, using my low-level, low-money account, it took me several hours to build up a house with one wing and a little bit of furniture, and each bit of building that I finished gave me a sense of achievement. Since it was more time-consuming, I enjoyed it far more.

I realise that this one was done for the mag and had to be short, but surely a little more effort could have been put in to actually playing and discovering everything the DLC has to offer, because I think that for 400 microsoft points its a great bargain, because it could have been priced a lot higher and I would have still liked it. I'd definitely give it an 8 or 9.

im not sure why people are saying it cost money to build when you can build the whole house for FREE! all you need is a pickaxe for mining and thats it. i'm currently creating the hiljjmarch (probs not spelt right sorry) house and so far have only spent the £5000 needed to buy the land. all the stuff you need for the basic cottage is in the chest next to the work bench. there's a clay mine right next to the log pile, a stone mine just round the corner, and if you are friends with the saw mill owner they will let you cut your own logs and deliver them to you for nought. the longist thing it took to get is the iron ore for all the fittings and nailes but a quick trip up the coast to dawnstar and i had my armory up and built. furnishing the place is another matter, but even then the only other things i had to buy was the glass for the display cabinets, some hay for the archery targets and bed, and some goat horns for the lights. total cost (at about 50 speach) £5500ish, making an enchantment tower next, then the alchemy tower. its worth noting that if you get the garden built you can grow your own crops and alchemy ingredients, the mead barels in the celar give you 5 bottles each, the chicken layes eggs, im sure if you built the greenhouse you could start selling and end up turning a proffit!! all it takes is a bit of patence. isn't that what building a house is about?

im not sure why people are saying it cost money to build when you can build the whole house for FREE! all you need is a pickaxe for mining and thats it. i'm currently creating the hiljjmarch (probs not spelt right sorry) house and so far have only spent the £5000 needed to buy the land. all the stuff you need for the basic cottage is in the chest next to the work bench. there's a clay mine right next to the log pile, a stone mine just round the corner, and if you are friends with the saw mill owner they will let you cut your own logs and deliver them to you for nought. the longist thing it took to get is the iron ore for all the fittings and nailes but a quick trip up the coast to dawnstar and i had my armory up and built. furnishing the place is another matter, but even then the only other things i had to buy was the glass for the display cabinets, some hay for the archery targets and bed, and some goat horns for the lights. total cost (at about 50 speach) £5500ish, making an enchantment tower next, then the alchemy tower. its worth noting that if you get the garden built you can grow your own crops and alchemy ingredients, the mead barels in the celar give you 5 bottles each, the chicken layes eggs, im sure if you built the greenhouse you could start selling and end up turning a proffit!! all it takes is a bit of patence. isn't that what building a house is about?

Yes, that's building the house the long way, the good way, but when people talk about it costing a lot of money, they're talking about paying up and buying all the materials to get it all done ASAP. THAT is expensive.

Personally I don't know why people would do it that way as it really spoils it, but they do nevertheless.

I found the enchantment tower a disappointment.

I went for the Green house and armoury which is much more suited to my needs!.

I don't need bedrooms as my coffin is in the basement. (on skyrim i mean)