Ode to Skyrim

Ah the elder scrolls games I have been looking forward to it ever since Notch announced it in march of this year ... oh wait wrong scrolls.

Anyway I've played 4 of the 7 Elder scrolls games (though only five of them have numbers the other two were The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard an early 3rd person action game and An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire)

The series has its ups and downs and I think Morrowind still holds a special place in my heart due to the wacky spell system where you could enhance physical attributes and even make a potion that allowed you to jump across continents (though the landing was touchy).

Skyrim is Bethesda's latest effort gone is the hideously dated and clucky engine that powered oblivion and fallout3/NV and in comes an all new Creation Engine.

Once again we start the game a prisoner and a blank slate and we are in a prison wagon on our way somewhere. One guy keeps wittering on about the rebelion and the empire.

As beginings go it's not bad gives you some time to take in the sights apreciate the prettyness of the engine in a low key start introducing the games two main factions the Empire and Stormcloaks (the rebels)

You and the rest of the prisoners are lined up and eventually you are selected and you get the opportunity to select name and race your race conveys various pluses and minuses . So far so normal however unlike the previous games you don't pick a class you just then accumulate expreinece in the various skills to gain ranks in each skill. Each time you go up a rank you gain some experience towards your level so after some number of ranks you level up (but it doesn't matter what the ranks are they can be all in one thing or across the board).

There is a brief intro fight where you get to try out the various options a very brief choice between the two main factions (that a lot of people I spoke to missed because it happens in the heat of a battle with a dragon) then you are out into skyrim proper and off you go.

Skyrim is another open world game with a fairly expansive environment and a if you can see it you can likely visit it, make your way through it, and make off with all it's gear. The landscape takes it's queues from fairly Scandinavian influences so thing icy mountains alpine villages and fyords.

As with any open world game the scope can be somewhat overwhelming you could spend many hours running about doing missions without even touching the main plot. And there is huge freedom in how you choose to approach the game want to be a sneaky thief backstabbing their way through relying on stealth pick pocketing and lock picking you can do that. Want to be a big axe wielding nutter or a master of the arcane arts or some mixture just grab the weapon/spell/shield/armor equip and off you go.

The game has a left hand right hand system so you can have a one handed weapon and a shield equiped or one two handed weapon or a 1h weapon and a spell two spells two weapons and so on they then map to your joypad triggers or your mouse buttons. Some traits enhance you ability to use two things at once so equip the same spell twice for a much more powerful combined version or some such. It's a fairly flexible system and works pretty well for the most part. I've been doing mage things and usually had a utility spell like soul trap in the right and a damage dealer in the left.

The level up system then lets you pick one of your three base pools to increase magika (used for spells) health (for living) and stamina (for bashing things) the stats have some secondary effects so stamina increases your carry capacity. You then get one perk to spend each of the various skills (all the schools of magic the theif skills the crafting the weapon types all have their own set of perks) which are arranged in the patterns of stars and have skill level requirements.

The game has numerous factions (major ones like empire and storm cloaks and minor ones like companions or mages college or the individual Jarls who rule the various towns) all of which have missions for you to do and often specific rewards. You can also spend the game exploring the world encountering random events patrols or bandits wild animals poachers and giants and their mammoths. It's a very pleasing place to explore there is stuff to find animals to skin herbs to collect minerals to mine.

You can also do a lot of crafting there are 3 separate crafting paths smithing that allows you to make and enhance weapons and armor, enchantment that allows you imbue objects with various boosts to stats or skills, and alchemy that allows you to make potions that boost various effects or damage others making poisons that can be applied to weapons. It's a fairly fulfilling little side line in the game. The old mechanisms of persuasion and haggling are much toned down in the game. Crafting is good way to get better kit or make a little money or both.

The game includes the companion system which fallout3 started so you can persuade someone to follow you and then use them as an ai run fighting partner. I treat mine as a mule by loading her up with all the crap I gather from the people I kill so I can carry twice as much before needing to visit the shops. The AI is ok commands rudimentary and most of the time they don't get in your way. Still it's a fine line between helping and hindering with these people.

You can purchase property not sure if it can go to the fable route were you can own all the houses all the shops and collect rent on them it's more a place to stash your stuff.

There are also a few odd jobs lying around like chopping firewood or cooking food or mining for ore they feel like they could have been worked in a bit better.

The games quests are mostly goto x then by your choice of method kill everyone there and escape. There are traps that you can avoid or use to your advantage and environmental effects like pools of oil that can be set on fire to roast anything in them. There are occasional fairly simplistic puzzle solving aspects which make for a nice change of pace.

The game allows fast travel to places you know about but also a wagon that will for a fee take you to one of the major towns without having been there. It allows you to do some exploring or hop to somewhere specific. Roaming the country side finding various camps or outposts and so on is a nice way to enjoy the games scenery and just collect up stuff for crafting kill the odd passing animal. You are also supposed to have a horse but I must have missed the intro to horses quest it hasn't been a problem so far you move fairly quickly.

The game is all around dragons they have returned for some reason and are kicking everyones arse except you because you are dragon born (handy that) and have the ability to absorb their power by eating their brains (at least that's what I like to think is happening during the highlander esq dragon soul absorption particle effect) shouts do a variety of things (the first one you get pushes things away, one sets things on fire, another allows you to leap forward at great speed which is handy for dodging traps) they consist of words in the dragon language that you can unlock using the dragon souls. They also upgrade as you proceed. They are basically another magic thing but with it's own recharge often a useful last resort in a fight and sometimes a useful utility power. You get souls by killing dragons who wander the world as nasty flying threats if you get in range they come down and try and kill you they are a tough fight but so far I've killed 4 of them.

The game is very pretty and there is a lot to do sometimes almost too much the graphics are a great improvement over oblivion and they've put some effort into making the faces at least generic and face like rather than the potato head versions from oblivion/fallout.

The mini games have been mostly removed lock picking is now like fallout with the rotating pick in a lock that you can turn to see if you have the right spot. Persuasion is now completely numbers based no mini game and it only shows up now and again. Haggle is also mostly gone it seems to happen automatically.

Potion making is slightly better I thing it automatically rules out combinations that don't work and you can just eat the ingredients to have a chance at working out what they do and get a small boost to alchemy skill

Crafting is mostly mechanical put in X Y and get Z. The enchantment has some choice there but again not a lot.

Audio is pretty good the score is similar to oblivion a lot of the same tunes popping up but good orchestral stuff. The character speech is a marked improvement over oblivion but not the best I've seen it doesn't grate too much.

Missions are for the most part fun and well thought out with good story work behind them even if they are incidental.

Now the worst part of the game is its interface it hasn't been thought through for the pc so that's where it's worst but even then it is clunky. Little things like the left mouse button mapping to an icon that says R (for right hand) and right to L which is confusing the first few times. There is also no hotkeys system you instead rely on a favorites menu to quickly (well more like slowly) select from favorite weapons or spells or shouts.

The menus are shody and confusing there seems to be no way to view your characters status that has just gone from the game so how you tell if you get ill I don't know. Working out what you have equiped and comparing stats is also clumsy and the level up system is very awkward to work with.

The map system is pretty terrible it's a top down 3d view of the world but from high altitude so it might as well be flat it also has lousy detail such that paths are almost impossible to find on it. It makes navigating hit and miss it also lacks detail views for some parts so it's hard to navigate the towns at first. Inside buildings there is an easy to read 2d map why that couldn't have been used all the time I don't know.

Anyway in conclusion a fun massive scope game that for the most part works well but has a few rough edges like the UI and the map. It's worth a go for people that like this sort of game but it can consume your evenings.