At the dragonheart of it all...
I immediately recognised the abilities of the Creation Engine as a leap in graphics from Oblivion and even Fallout. Being able to look close up at 3D rendered rotatable models of everything in your inventory from mammoth meat to weapons is great and essential for oooing and aawing at quest objects.
Thou shall not cross me
Dialogue does not play second fiddle to outstanding graphics in Skyrim. People talk around me and I can follow their voices, which makes the game a much more immersive experience than Oblivion with it’s forced close-ups. I follow NPCs around as they go about their daily tasks while chatting to me about whatever quest I need to complete next. The odd compliment on my female physical appearance didn't go amiss either. Skyrim does an outstanding job of intuitive quest tailoring, matching and monitoring my gameplay and character style.
Skyrim's combat is remarkably fulfilling. Sniping giants from afar, or sneaking up on mighty vampires with a x15 damage backstab are equally enjoyable. During one my quests I became a werewolf, which really helped during the boss battles when I couldn't use my stealthy cat-like prowess. Bethesda have gone some way to creating near perfect pick and mix game mechanics.
Pick it up
I can experience the world from a first- or a third-person perspective, and Skyrim plays equally as well in both. Coming from a World of Warcraft background, I felt more comfortable in third-person. But I could almost play through the game again because I expect, in first person, it is a completely different experience.
There is no doubt that Skyrim is an amazing game that you can spend 100+ hours exploring but I found the user interface terribly clunky and time consuming. My favorites list got too crowded and it took too long to select what I needed considering how many times I needed to changes spells or weapons. Hot keying is possible but in my experience not very user friendly.
Verdict
As professions go, what kind of assassin would I be without a couple of poisons and potions at my disposal? So I started using Alchemy. But it was also useful to have blacksmithing to sharpen my blades. High level blacksmithing would allow me to make magical weapons. Soulstones are used to power and create magical items, and I was lucky enough to obtain The Black Star which collected dark souls and is reusable. The quest to obtain The Black Star ended up in the backroom of a pub with me in werewolf form murdering the guests. Or was that just last Friday night at my local? Either way, I can't remember having more fun.
Serving up a portion of hot wings
As I take a break to open my next cider I am left imagining Skyrim as an MMO and doing this with my friends. Bethesda has created what MMOs should strive to achieve. Bethesda should be applauded - Skyrim is groundbreaking in its scope and vision. ®
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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
COMMENTS
Face Arrow
If you’re playing a sniper like assassin with a bow (and it’s a great deal of fun) you can clock someone in the head with an arrow and they will, understandably, come looking for who did it. However should they not locate you after a while they will mutter that it was “probably just their imagination” and wander back to do whatever they were doing before their near fatal head injury with the arrow still embedded firmly in their face.
This never fails to amuse me, that’s a pretty vivid imagination you’ve got there fella… now stand still again for just a second…
Agreed on Dialogue cringes....
I swear this game should have been titled: Elder Scrolls V - Land of Swartzeneggers based on the accents...
Except the user interface in Skyrim isn't a progression forwards, it's a step back to the days of DOS programs. It's just a series of text lists, no context, no colouring, no categories, no means to sort. It's just in alphabetic order of everything in that section.
For example, you need a Health potion. So bring up the potions list.
I'm well into the game 40+ hours, so have lots of stuff. So my potions list is about 3 screens long, and due to the random nature of the names of potions, i.e. a potion to Heal, could have 4 different names and so is in four different locations in the list, also if a potion is of a different strength (+25, +50 etc.), it has the same name, but is listed as a separate item. You have to actually highlight the potion to see what it does.
This really breaks the flow of the fight moments, it's like going from a manic fight, to looking at an Excel Spread sheet, but with no options to filter or sort items.
Just colour coding would help, or some filter buttons, Health, Magica etc.
This is an interface designed for a limited console controller.
25 hours in I fully agree with this review: amazing game with a clunky, jarring interface clearly designed for the consoles and then hastily ported over to the PC.
Hotkeys are especially annoying for Dual Wielders.
I'm loving it
Playing on the 360 as there is no way my laptop would come close to running it and I am loving it.
I love the world, I love how I feel like just a tiny part in something much bigger. The world doesn't seem to start when I turn my 360 on and stop when I turn it off.
I love the random moments. People running up to me to hand my random objects. Happily bartering in the market one minute and then a dragon attacks the city in the next. It just feels so epic. I'm about 40 hours in and have barely touched the main storyline. I just keep getting distracted by everything going on around me.
I can easily see me clocking up hundreds of hours on it.
