So, who has it? What have you all been up to? No main quest spoilers!
So far all I’ve really done is talk to townsfolk and do random quests. I’ve really enjoyed exploring this world, I find it a lot more interesting than Cyrodiil. I remember in Morrowind there was a lot of variation in the territory and though I have yet to scratch the surface of Skyrim it seems to be almost as interesting.
As I’m playing on PC I’ve modded the game to remove all markers from the compass so I’m forced to explore instead of giving in to temptation and looking at those hints. Makes the game a lot more enjoyable to me.
In the middle of SS now but I’ll be downloading it right after Batman: AC is done, I’m just not sure when I’ll get to playing it. Hopefully some of the issues will be worked out by then though. And have some nice fan GUI tweaks, it looks all kinds of awful.
I told myself I wouldn’t start other games before finishing SS but dead Wiimote batteries forced me to try out some PC games. Skyrim runs pretty well on my lowly rig with high to medium settings across the board, seemingly better than Oblivion (which wasn’t made to use multicore CPUs I guess) so far. The game seems quite good, improved in all the right ways to some degree. The environment design and lighting and actual shadows and all the extra fog/cloud/whatever effects make the average scene look a lot better than Oblivion. I hope performance doesn’t go downhill in later areas, I’m just in the first decent city called Whiterun after wandering about random wilderness and clearing a few caves/dungeons/hideouts. Combat is solid enough (as a warrior for now, I might go Paladin style and invest in Restoration too) and I got used to the bleh menus after spending some time buying, selling and crafting too. I think I’ll spend many hours in this.
That’s not to say it’s perfect of course, I’ve barely scratched the surface and there are already some silly things to see, like the way some wildlife (deer, rabbits and a fox I found while wandering) hopelessly attempts to flee yet sometimes runs parallel to or facing you, I think the AI in Oblivion was more effective in doing that. And some crazy hillbillies attacked me over killing a damn chicken. That’s a bit over the top.
Arkham City starts out so boring I have no issues putting it off. I’m sure it gets better…
The more I play the more it’s starting to be like Oblivion all over again. I’m still enjoying it for now, but I think I’ll get back into the main quest and only get sidetacked if something interesting shows up, focusing on exploration and side tasks alone has been very hit or miss. Not that I have high hopes for the main story but it should at least have a given pacing to keep the interest up. I’ll have to invest in this gem soon to satisfy my RPG itch.
If you liked Morrowind or Oblivion at all, I definitely think this is worth it. I played and loved Morrowind. I tried really hard to love Oblivion but had lots of complaints with the leveling system etc. Skyrim is really the most polished of the ES games. Combat especially is improved, including magic combat. I actually like the Perk system. It adds a little complexity to the regular stat leveling affair. I do kind of miss leveling up individual attributes like Strength and Intelligence. They have streamlined that into Magic, Health, Stamina now as the only things you can level in addition to one perk every level. It works well though. The quests seem to be paced much better now. I have yet to enter into a quest and feel like it has gone on too long. The dungeons are much better now than they used too be, not nearly as repetitive. They are just large enough to be challenging but not so long as you wish you could just find the exit. The dungeons also seem to be more unique now. I have completed the College of Winterhold and Companions quest-lines (Fighters/Mage guilds of this game) and they actually did not take that long to complete. Once you become head of each of these organizations you are still given quests to complete if you want more to do. The dragons are pretty damn cool although I can see that once you find all the shouts, Dragons at that point just become more of an obstacle, but they don’t seem to be too difficult or pop up all that often to make them too tedious. The world itself is large and varied enough also.
Steam just had it on sale last week and I am sure it will pop up again on sale. I do think the game is worth the full price though as I am about 40 hours in and not even a 1/4th through the main quest at this point and I still have the Thieves Guild quests and the Imperial vs Stormhold questlines. I have spent the same amount of money on games I haven’t played near as much.
I’m pretty much done with Skyrim now so I thought I’d share my closing thoughts here.
I have really enjoyed the time I’ve spent playing it, though like a lot of others have noted it does fail to really give you any kind of connection to the characters. The character I’ve felt most connected to so far was my own character, but I think that’s really only because I’ve not been happy with a couple of decisions that I’ve made which have had less than savoury outcomes.
I was disappointed with how short all the secondary quest lines were. I don’t remember doing much fighting in the fighters guild, or maging in the mages guild. At least the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests were pretty much what you’d expect, although extremely buggy. The end of the Thieves Guild just fell over for me, and the entirety of the DB line had issues in every quest. I’d have been severely annoyed if I’d been playing on Xbox with no console to help me fix things.
Maybe I’m just suffering Elder Scrolls burnout after racking up over 500 hours in the series. I did really enjoy Skyrim, and it was easily an improvement on Oblivion and definitely my Game of the Year. It was just more of the same though, which kinda drags after a while.
Thanks for the comments. At this stage, I’d be getting the 360 version since I don’t have a gaming PC at the moment, and Skyrim sure as hell won’t run on my laptop. So the Steam version isn’t an option right now.
Never finished Morrowind or Oblivion. I enjoying exploring those game worlds, but they didn’t hold me enough to stick with the main story all the way to the end. However, I’d still like to give Skyrim a try, even if the same ends up happening.
Maybe I’ll look for a cheap secondhand copy. Since it requires a lot of time, I’ll wait until after the project I’m working on at the moment is finished before I dare enter such an expansive fantasy world. Otherwise I might not finish it. :anjou_embarassed:
Skyrim is definitely a game that doesn’t offer much benefit new if you can get it used cheaper on 360. This is the first ES game I know I will replay down the road. I am having so much fun now, I definitely want to try out a new character down the road once I catch up a bit on my backlog.
I do agree with Shadow’s comment on the characters. In general your character is the one you care most about, they don’t have a strong storyline for any of the side characters. I did like the Companions group, but they didn’t flesh out much in that respect. I guess because these games are so open, Bethesda just didn’t have time to flesh out everyone. It would be nice through if there was a little more solid connection to at least the main story NPC’s. The world itself is what draws me in in this game though. My character and my explorations. I haven’t had any notable bugs as of yet, but I didn’t pick this one up right away. The 1.3 patch had come out before I started so most of the issues on the 360 were fixed. The only bug I have had is the one where water disappears until you walk into it in places. Doesn’t affect gameplay, but it was a little distracting in parts. This seemed to correct itself when I saved and loaded again.
Although skyrim is really cool, I believe that oblivion with skyrim graphics and physics would be much better than skyrim itself. the story’s great but lots of ablilities are lost. the fact that you have to switch between spells and doublehanded weapon is really annoying cuz I’m a hunter and when i need to heal myself and block the coming blow from some npc, I have to switch and it’s especially annoying when u have neither food, nor potions with you.
liked that fallout 3 thing that carrying too much slows you down, disables fast travel and so on, but YOU CAN MOVE and that’s a great improvement in comparison with oblivion (cuz I carry a lot more stuff than limited)
