Skyrim - Fallout with Fjords and Swords

I don't love fantasy as much as I love apocalyptic or sci fi settings. I don't love fantasy much at all. The main reason for this is that it is buried within Tolkein (et al) tropes that a broken at the peril of the creator. Move too far from fantasy and those who expect fantasy tropes will not enjoy your game. I bought Skyrim anyway as it was only just over 22 quid and I thought it was worth a punt given I loved Fallout 3 so much. My ageing ATI 4950 runs it without a problem. It's not as gorgeous as it is on other systems but it's breathtaking enough.

I'm not going to repeat all of EMW's excellent post but instead give a bit of a personal view.

Buttocks

My character, Buttocks, was aways going to be a tank that would specialise stupidly in one weapon (not a bow, they're gay - GET STUCK IN) and one or two spells (I knew something to do with fire and healing myself). I decided to be nice at first with a very short temper and low boredom threshold. A beefy, hairy Nordic type with scars and war paint and shit. The character choices were cool and varied but I'd sort of decided I wanted to be a stock belligerent twat before the game had finished downloading!

Out into the Alpine fresh

Fuck you, I said to the obvious initial plot draw and went on a wander. The landscape, with its muted beauty looked like it had a lot to show, so I thought I'd see a bit of it. I met a bard early on, who was keen to tell me his life story. "Fuck off!" I thought and let him stand talking to no-one by the lakeside. Mountains rose up all over and I decided to check the map, which is both 3D and pointlessly 3D, there was a settlement not too far, so I bimbled over to it. En route, some wolves attacked and I skewered them sharpish with the sword-of-wank I had from the start. I had also taken a shit load of damage, which made it back by the time I saw... Giants! Two of them. Right, I thought, fuck you giants and waded in. One nonchalant hit from the first giant and I died. I hadn't quick saved (F5), so it was back to the start.

Go back and start again

Right, the Bard was going to get it in the face but the bard wasn't there this time. Balls. Wandering about is safe enough, as long as you don't charge into silly battles, so I thought I'd harden myself by doing a bit of plot. Off to Riverwood it was. En route I met a witch all in black, who set me on fire. I had failed to hit F5.

Go back and start again

This time I was going to follow my companion to Riverwood, the little local starter village. They call it a town but it only has 9 houses. That's not a town, that's barely a fucking village. While there, I settled a few scores, nearly killed a townsfolk for being a twat and was polite to an elf (who was looking at me funny). The quests ended up sending me to the proper town Whiterun (which is called a city but isn't nearly big enough). I eavesdropped a load and ran a couple of little quests until I bought a horse. Horses aren't much faster than running but I got attached to it so I did some more plot.

Oh my god, I killed my fucking horse!

It was an upsetting tragedy when I rode the fucker off a cliff by accident. Not only did "Bollockchops" cost me 1000 gold but I'd got attached to the wolf-kicking mare. I'd normally run past encounters I wasn't interested in (bandit camps etc) but if they so much as touched Bollockchops, I'd clear the fucking area. Every mother fucking one of them dead. I was like a one-man mounted plague. When the Mrs came in to tell me it was late, I was well miffed. I could have reloaded from the previous quicksave but then that felt like cheating because I'd fucked up. Buttocks had killed his horse. Dead. The next horse would be better looked after, after I'd finished a period of mourning. The next random character I met (another bard) got a steel Warhammer in the chops. Sorry about that, it was a bad time to talk to me about the fucking Imperials or whatever.

Fuck off, we're Elves

I took one quest that required me to go across the map and try and free some Nordic chappy from the Elves. He's been a bit of a nob-end and had been locked up. I had not been that way yet, so couldn't fast travel so I decided to walk it, without using the handy cart to get to the nearest town to it. I'm glad I did, en route I twatted numerous bandits, bears, wolves, ice wolves and wankers looking at me funny. Then, while crossing a mountain a fucking dragon decided to have a go. I got up nice and close and personal, with my one weapon attack, and proceeded to smash its scaley face in bit by bit. It felt epic. The wind was blowing snow across the mountain top and the dragon was trying to toast me. I killed it, absorbed some sort of power and off I went. By the time I reached the Elves, I'd levelled up a fair bit and was pretty nails then. Not Chuck Norris, just handy. I asked the Elves nicely to let nob-end go.

They told me to fuck off. They laughed at me.

HAVE AT YOU!

F5 and run in. I made a mess of it, surrounded and butchered. Quick load. Run in. No, not like that. Quick load. Fire magic, no. Quick load. Run past the guard at the front? No. Try some super-expensive magic scrolls? No. This was the problem that I had with Morrowind - not giving up on a task you're not hard enough for. In Morrowind I gave up, thinking the game was shit. In Fallout, I got used to the idea. In Skyrim, I'm going to get tooled up to the fucking eyebrows and go back there to serve them their shiney Elven arses.

Plotty plot ploty

So I did some more plot, read the odd book or two, found out that I was special and got the special magical power (which requires a bit of a fucking trek). Getting harder (but not much better weaponry or armour just yet). Not going into too much of it because it's all plotty.

House or Horse? Hourse?

So I have a load of cash and I need some better stuff. My period of mourning for Bollockchops is coming to an end so I am wondering whether I should buy a house to put my MASSIVE book collecting in or whether I should just buy more powerful toys to go Elf twatting. I think it might be the latter because those pointed eared fucks deserve some serious payback. I've not been to many of the other big cities, which is where the snacky stuff to buy will be, so that might be the next thing to do. I won't go along the plot for a while - I have scores to settle. I might also join a guild or something.

So, I am compelled to play it but I'd like it more if it was Fallout 4.