Thoughts on Bethseda’s Skyrim
I rented the popular new RPG Skyrim last weekend and lost 2 days to it. This game is a GOTY contender and has garnered over 200 perfect scores from game writers. The usually reserved (and incisive) Eurogamer goes as far as calling it a “masterpiece.”
I think it’s pretty good, although I’d say Bethseda’s older RPG Fallout 3 is still superior for a few powerful reasons:
- Fallout 3 takes itself less seriously, but is no less perilous. Only in Fallout can you plunder a ray gun from a crashed alien, for example, or follow a trail of clues to a life-or-death confrontation in a scavenger hideout over a treasure that turns out to be an item called “Naughty Nightwear.” And it’s useful, too; wearing it imparts great charm bonuses for trading, natch.
- It’s hard to do sword/axe/pikearm combat in a videogame. Without going third-person*, how do you tell a near-miss from a hit? (And when, oh when, will we get a game where a good sword strike stops the sword instead of clipping through the target?) With Fallout, it’s projectile-based combat, complete with the limb-subtargeting gameplay that the original Fallout was known for. No such thing in Skyrim, and as a result combat is simply much less tangible.
- Fallout’s retro alterna-’50s mood is entertaining and the vintage music enchanting. In my admittedly-brief exposure, nothing comes close in Skyrim.
Skyrim Still Totally Worth Playing
I also reserve final judgment for a full playthrough. Many of the game’s quests and character development are yet to be explored by this humble game writer. And there’s a lot to like about Skyrim. Like F3, it has a truly great UI for inventory, quest, and trading management, and it doesn’t suffer from grinding or slow-travel problems. I was a little annoyed by the heavily pixelated shadowmaps of the dynamic shadows in Skyrim (I’d rather have them turned off or static than see obvious globs of shadow fringing moving shadows), but I truly enjoyed the dragon encounters and the eerie combat in the catacombs of ancient Nordic temples.
Skyrim also has an entertaining thread where you can become a werewolf, and I’ve read that vampire is possible too.
Thanks to my fellow ex-3DO colleague Keith Meyer for triggering this post!
There has been so much written on Skyrim that it is hard to add anything else, but I do have 2 random thoughts on it.
I thought the conversation trees were kinda weak. In Fallout 3 you always seemed to have more choices. In Skyrim the fleeting Persuade just seemed to let you skip an extra fetch quest or 2, but never really did much.
And probably my biggest gripe (after 200+ hours of fun)…when I beheaded someone (go go 2H power!!!) the cut along the neck was jagged and looked like done by a clumsy broken bottle wielding hobo and not a skilled nordicesque warrior wielding a sword honed to a fine edge bearing the souls of the damned.
Just saying…
Anyway, back the Whiterun…Lydia is getting lonely.
I have always loved Elder Scrolls games and Skyrim is great! Especially now we have got a new Skyrim patch.
Ah, sweet Lydia. She called me “thane.” I think she likes me.
Yes, I totally agree — the convo trees in Fallout are a ton of fun. I usually never throw any skill points at Charisma or Speech in a game, but I did so in Fallout 3 because I wanted to be able to open up those possibilities. No regrets!
I am looking forward to enchanting up some heavyweight buff-tastic items in the future. Right now my magic silver rings of magicka regeneration increase my magicka rate by… 2%. Bwaa waaa.
Must be a pretty good game when your biggest gripe is a ragged beheading! Maybe your warrior should do more honing.