Something special happens when you completely learn a game's systems, and its limitations. Your imagination goes wild, and you can exploit the mechanics. Last night in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, I attempted to achieve a goal that should be out of my current character's reach. Last night, I went troll hunting.

Heeding the call of the Greybeards, my character Dekkard ventured out toward the logging town of Ivarstead. Beyond the Seven Thousand Steps to the Throat of the World, Ivarstead is the doorway to High Hrothgar, where the ancient order of Greybeards call home.

Read more: A battle of wits between a couple of nitwits »

As vast and intricate as today's video games are, a few bugs are bound to sneak past testers. As long as they offer entertainment and don't harm our playing experience, we're okay with them happening.

A few choice bugs and glitches have already been seen in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Thankfully, in the age where everyone seems to have their own YouTube-based production company, these problems have been well documented. Our favorite? The case of the sleeping and spinning man.

Watch: Those are some magical dreams and falling naked people! »

ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks announced today that they've shipped 7 million copies of The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim to retail across various territories. These launch units, which include pricey $150 special editions, alone are estimated to generate $450 million in global retail sales.

Read more: Estimated 50% sell-through rate in 48 hours »

There are a number of outstanding (and even creepy) mods available for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, making it hard for me to recommend any version other than the PC release. One of the most impressive game tweaks is 'Map in Full 3D,' which helps adjust the game's ini file to allow players to zoom all the way down to street level from the in-game world map.

Read more: It's like 'Google Street View' for Tamriel »

Bethesda is (unsurprisingly) working on patches for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on all platforms. In the meantime, PR VP Pete Hines has directed fans on how to report bugs through the proper channels, and asked for "a little time" as they work to correct the problems.

"Patches/updates take a little time. We can't turn it around quite that fast. It's been three days. Calm down. We're working on it," Bethesda's Pete Hines assured fans.

Read more: Team trying to fix 'any bugs and perf issues we can' »

The value of life in Tamriel is slightly skewed, according to the Imperial Legion; I learned this the hard way while playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Trekking through the world, I stumbled upon a brood of chickens. Due to my proclivity for collecting everything laying about the province of Skyrim, I slayed one of the mighty beasts and removed its raw meat for a stew concoction I had in mind.

Killing that chicken proved to be a grievous error.

Read more: The trail from Riverwood to Whiterun is deadly »

Since Microsoft began allowing installs on the Xbox 360, you may have gained the habit of making that your first step before starting to play any new title. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim hits stores today, and while it may be tempting to hit the Install button, you might be better served by waiting -- at least for now.

Read more: Reports of some textures scaling down, but not back up »

It's easy to get lost in the fantasy lands of Skyrim. The northern realm on the continent of Tamriel, home to all the Elder Scrolls games, offers a majestic setting for this fifth installment in the series. I wandered through its wilderness, hiked around crystal lakes, and climbed snow-peaked mountaintops oftentimes simply because I could. Seeing it all in first-person, as if through my own eyes, made my adventures an intensely personal experience. And though the occasional technical issue might momentarily break its spell, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim kept calling me back, long after I'd finished it for review.

Read more: Exploring the snowy expanse »

Even for the time, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion had slightly dodgy animations. Fortunately, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has a shiny new animation system in its revamped engine, with all sorts of motion-captured shininess, as developer Bethesda details in a new developer diary.

"We didn't want to have the 'one size fits all' for all characters. In the past, we had a very rigid system--every character, whether they were a bipedal humanoid, or a robot, or a quadraped, all had almost the exact same animation structure. And they don't move the same, and that was very limiting, and it just didn't make sense."

Watch: Fancy Skyrim animations in motion »

With Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim launching in ten days, developer Bethesda Softworks is hard at work teasing the industry with new promotional footage. Today, the company has released a short clip of "Behind the Wall: The Making of Skyrim," a documentary included on a bonus DVD featured in the game's Collector's Edition.

Watch: Glancing behind the curtain at Skyrim's development »

With an asking price of $150 during such turbulent economic times, you really need to get a good look at the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 'Collector's Edition' before deciding to pick it up.

The over-sized edition of the game features a large plastic statue of one of the game's (all the) dragons, bonus DVD, and 200-page art book. Get a closer look at everything included in our gallery unboxing after the jump.

Soon after our review, we'll introduce a new series we're calling "Skyrim Stories," where editors from Shacknews will share their tales from the wild world of Skyrim.

Look: Dragons and Art unboxed »

With The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim fast approaching, how will your PC hold up? Bethesda today unveiled the system requirements, revealing that, really, as long as you're not still rocking the computer you built in 2006 to play Oblivion, you're probably all right.

Read more: Minimum and recommended specs »

The gameplay walkthrough is surely the ruler of all video game trailers, wed to trailers of edited gameplay, and support by a court of short teasers, and cinematic trailers. At the bottom of the hierarchy, we have the court jester: the live-action trailer.

Still, the fool trailers can be pretty to look at, as is a new live-action trailer for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Watch: Man versus dragon »

The first, but surely not the last, judgement in the Mojang vs. ZeniMax trademark case has come down in favor of the Minecraft developer. A Swedish court denied an interim injunction against Mojang's Scrolls, ruling that it was unlikely to be confused with The Elder Scrolls series developed by ZeniMax subsidiary Bethesda.

Read more: Not the end of it all »

Last week, I spent three hours slaying vampires, traversing the blistering cold wilderness of a mountain-side trail, and putting my morals aside to join a guild of thieves. Yes, I played The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and I cannot stop thinking about it.

Weekend Confirmed co-host Jeff Cannata and I were handed controllers, and we made a pact to go off in completely different directions in our respective games. After the event, we discussed our progress and only had original stories to tell each other.

Read more: An Argonian about town »