Video & PC Game Discussion

I ain't even mad. I've had one glitch that maybe made a quest unwinnable, but it was a side quest and maybe it'll get fixed.

My current feelings toward Skyrim:

I love it, I really do - actually improves upon Oblivion. The levelup system is intuitive rather than counter-intuitive. It's a lot harder to screw yourself over. I remember my last save in Oblivion - had a level thirty mage that was practically unplayable because I got most of my levels through alchemy (robbing a few vineyards and farms will do the trick). The combat is visceral and exciting. The random critical finishing blows are always fun to see, especially on the dragons. The game is gorgeous. It seems to take the disorienting, expansiveness of Morrowind and couples it readily with the flash and panache of Oblivion. Each rusty sword swing that connects is stimulating and gratifying. Wolves will leap at your throat, nearly toppling you with their forepaws and your character will frantically swing at their neck in a flurry. I love how there's no traditional 'class' system (though most folks will probably fall into old cliches, the same cliches that Bethesda fought against on Morrowind and beyond). 

I love how it sucks you in with so many little touches like munching on baked bread at some random pub sipping some Nordic Brandy while the competent Bard strikes up a merry tune-tale on his lavish lute. It's how people react to what you're wearing, what you've been eating, how sick you may be, etc. Hell, you can catch butterflies or go salmon diving. There's a competent 'party' system now. Your follower is much more tactical than it was in Fallout III. They cut out a lot of the unnecessary character flak; these are minor touches mind you. They took mercantile, speechcraft, and persuasion and melded them into one fluid skill. 

I do miss a few things. I wish they'd brought back crossbows, spears, throwing stars and the like. I haven't gotten too far into it, but I don't think there are any katana/dai-katana anymore, either. I also wish they'd given players the option of learning 'art' skills like playing the lute/flute/drums or writing, but that's very minor. I love how you can literally hunt and track deer, take their hides and tan them out to leather straps, mine for iron, then put it all together in a smithy for your own created armor. Everything is more accessibly intriguing. Even small optional town quests become engaging adventures. For example: what starts off as a simple whodunnit walk about town for the culprit in an arson case ends up with several armed townsfolk rallied together in a battle party outside a cave to go forth and vanquish a den of vampires. 

The NPC's seem to breathe and act like real people. They gossip, scold their children, work in their shops, sit down for evening dinners, and sometimes they'll just sit to relax. They read and get drunk, lie and make jokes. They'll go to witness public executions or they'll attend schooling. They'll take up a broom and sweep off their front porch before going back inside to cook some tasty lamb for dinner. Another addition, the primary focus of the plot, is in the Voice. I love how, when using my dragon shouts late at night, the guards in town will beg me to stop to keep from frightening the sleeping villagers. The children will play tag in the streets and look up in fright. 'What was that?'

The AI is so vastly improved that even the daunting giants work with fantasy realism. They herd and milk woolly mammoths, stomp over the fields in small groups and keep big tubs of mammoth cheese. They will stare at you as if you were a space alien. It's so intricately detailed that there are even several different types of cheese - goat cheese, mammoth cheese, aged cheese, etc. Many cooperative bandits will work butchering animals for their rare parts - tusks, snouts, etc. There's the illegal Skooma trade still functioning, and of course the many factions are back in full swing.

Fanatics will preach and scream in the streets while cultists will persecute the religious in a sort of fantasy prejudice crusade. Orcs are no longer goofy green-bean splotches. I spent fifteen minutes just trying to pick my first race! The lockpicking takes cues from the Fallout III world as well - no longer relying on dissatisfying randomness. The graphics are so delicately detailed that, while walking through a forest with the sun beating down will have each visible shard of through-the-leaves light trickling and dancing on your blades, sticks, or shields. 

The wielding system is at a peak - dual wield a longsword and a dagger; punch with either fist.  Equip two spells at once if you want to. See frost form on your shimmering elven greatsword as you trot over the pernicious mountain tops. At one point I was barrelling down on this thief and, when I was about to kill him, he got to his knees and started begging for his life. I shot him in the eye. 

The game actually makes you feel good no matter what character type you've got. It doesn't punish you for trying out unusual things, and without a strict class system, everything folds out in congruous waves making me feel truly free in the game. 

And, as for any bugs - I've not encountered a single one. I am playing on-disk with my Xbox 360, and have played enough to kill two dragons and am at level 13. I haven't experienced any real slowdown/framerate drops either. A legion of necromancers in an abandoned fort firing off spells and conjured creatures with arrows zipping in swarms didn't hurt my framerate one bit. Which reminds me - I love how npc's will fight each other. I've come across bandit raiders stumbling upon necromantic rituals and both groups fall into a vicious melee.

The game blows my mind. No game I've ever played has had such measured detail - each splinter from a tree trunk fallen in the woods, the separate strings of hanging moss on straw-roof huts. Each random creek flowing beneath a no-longer-travelled bridge. It's how they seem to have spent countless hours on places most folks might not ever see, like a poor old depressed widow woman living alone in a cabin overlooking a lake, or the folks that live off of crab-fishing. 

It's in how every kitchen stove has a diverse array of foods - seared fish, baked potatoes, carrots, bread loaves, or sweet cakes. It's how they got at least three times as many voice actors, with a character design system even more open-ended. It goes so far as to allowing you to adjust how much dirt is on your character's face and what shade it is. Dust collects in closed-off tombs and blood spatter drops in mixtures on your blades with all the sweat and frost. I may sound like an obnoxious fawning fan, but I'm not. I love it as a game, not as a product by any given company. It gives me, in full effect, what I play games to have - total immersion. It's one of the very few video games to ever 'take me away'.