GB Skyrim Review

[dragon wench]

I didn't say Skyrim feels empty. The closest thing I said is that Skyrim doesn't have enough content in it, but that was in reference to the number of unique entities in the game rather than to how full it is. Bethesda squeezed a bunch of stuff into their world, but they used way too many draugr and bandits and dragons.

SWC

OK, fair enough. Though... this is not much different to either Morrowind or Oblivion, and it is why modders in those games have created various creature plug-ins and the like. Not that this is an excuse.. Bethesda shouldn't always be leaving it to the community to fill in the holes, especially considering that many people actually play on consoles.

However,
I think this is also a feature of open-world games generally, the focus on creating huge areas that allow the player to go practically anywhere leads to a certain generic feel. MMOs also suffer from this problem, it is one reason I stopped playing LOTRO.. seeing simply more difficult versions of the same monster with a slightly different skin gets old quickly.
I periodically enjoy ES games, though, because the modding community makes them far less generic and even in their vanilla forms there is still far more story than anything an MMO offers.

Because of this, and other reasons, if I'm gaming I will often alternate between an Elderscrolls title and something from Black Isle or CD Projekt. As I mentioned in an earlier post, right now when time permits I'm switching back and forth between a heavily modded Oblivion and Planescape Torment.

As to Skyrim, though, I do think that out of the three it is the most playable in its vanilla form. I am certain that once the Creation Kit is released the modding community will do an amazing job with it. I just feel for the people who don't play on PC. Sure, platform is a personal choice, but a lot of mods end up being basic fixes that the devs didn't bothering addressing in their patches; the Unofficial Oblivion Patch and the Morrowind Code Patch are prime examples of the kind of thing I'm talking about.

p.s I gather you weren't one of the people who nominated Skyrim for its GB award?

[galraen]

Skyrim didn't win any awards from GB, just runner up in two categories!

[dragon wench]

OK fine, runnerup, then. To Witcher 2 no less... which was given a superlative description on the awards page, and is a tough candidate to beat, not only because it is a really excellent game, but because it's a real RPG.

And here is the description of Skyrim on that page, I'd say it's a tad kinder than the GB Review

"Skyrim continues to raise the bar for what The Elder Scrolls series has always done well: it draws you into its an awe-inspiring world and then continuously taunts you with the temptation to explore its dozens of cities, villages, keeps, towers, dungeons, caves, and other landmarks that dot its enormous map. In sheer scope, it's hard to find any other game that can stand up to Bethesda's offerings, and Skyrim is no exception. It's also a huge step forward in comparison to the relatively disappointing Oblivion - it has better writing, a more cohesive setting, and more varied dungeon design.

However, for as much quality content as the game offers, there are a few glaring faults that keep it from taking our top award this year. Balance issues, repetition of mundane quests and enemy types, lack of world reactivity, and optimization issues mar an otherwise amazing experience, though we suspect that there aren't many players out there who will find any of these elements to be deal-breakers. As such, we consider Bethesda Softworks to be the masters of open-world excellence, and it's the continued call of hundreds of hours' worth of adventure that have us forgiving Skyrim of its flaws."


Ugh!!! This GB display bug is driving me mental, I have to use two barely functioning browsers to properly read and reply to posts. Maybe I'll try Firefox, though I hate it.

[galraen]

I finally found Skyrim at less than £20 so at long last I have the game, and so far I'm loving it.

I haven't been playing that long, I've just set out from my training session with the Grey Beards having complete a handful of side quests (tried doing The Blessings of Nature quest and got my but well and truly kicked! ).

I'm playing a Breton focusing mainly on magic (surprise, surprise) and therefore relying almost entirely on destruction magic, with restoration and conjuration thrown in. Alchemy seems well done, and no more toting around your own equipment is IMO better.

I'm off to play some more............

[galraen]

Today is the first time I've been able to login since my last post on this thread. I don't know what happened, but I'm back (groans all round! )

I couldn't find a thread for player's reviews, so if Buck doesn't object I'll stick my ten cents in here.

My love affair with the game didn't last very long after my last post (above), once my fortify destruction reached 100% it was game over. I tried again with a straight fighter, Bow and dual one-handed weapons, but that became too easy even more quickly. Game balance is dreadful, dragons quickly become easy meat, in fact no opponent lasted long enough to make any of my subsequent characters break sweat. Enchantment and smithing are total game breakers. So I tried a two-handed fighter (didn't use bows as they are ridiculously over powered) vowing not to use enchantment or any smithing boosters I didn't buy, it took a bit longer to reach god status, but reached it well before the end of the game.

The main quest was a serious disappointment, I thought the MQ in Oblivion was too short, but Skyrims makes that look like a marathon.The most enjoyable faction quest line I thought was the mages guild, although some of the plot line was rather lacking in credibility. The thieves guild turned into a really boring grind, far too many repetitive quests. The Dark Brotherhood was almost as good as the Mage quest line, although rather short; I liked the last quest, then killing the quest giver to make sure there was an opening for the newly vacated position for the rightful owner, me!

My last run through with the two-handed character was in many ways the most enjoyable ironically, mainly because of the storyline I created for myself.

Out of the box, I'd say it was, once I got the hang of what was going on, marginally a downgrade from Oblivion. At the end I was pondering what would be my ranking of the ES games I've played:

Out of the box: Morrowind>Oblivion=>Skyrim - Daggerfall disquilified for not being completable out of the box

With patches Morrowind=Daggerfall>Oblivion=>Skyrim

With DLC Morrowind>Oblivion>Skyrim (Daggerfall never had DLC as I recall)

Which got me wondering, was Morrowinf really that good, or was I looking backwards through rose tinted spectacles? So I dug the old game out and gave it a run out. No, not rose tinted glasses, it really is a far superior game to anything that came after it.

final not. I'm glad I bought Skyrim, it was worth the £19.50 I spent on it, but unless there are some good DLC/Mods to come it's replay value is very low.

[GawainBS]

Morrowind had veritable expansions, not mere DLC.

There's a seperate board with user reviews.

I agree with your opinion about Skyrim: the game is terribly overrated by the "professional" critics.

[Claudius]

I like the game because the villages seem alive. The dialogue of the villagers around you makes sense. Also the villages have different things. There aren't 7 villages all with the same facilities. In this game some of the villages are tiny and might not have a smith.

The combat is kinda weird because there are regular bandits that I kill in one hit, but then a tough boss which I kill due to an IV of health potions. I am not a god yet, just level 15.. Actually I had a difficult learning curve in that for awhile every dungeon I went into I couldn't beat. So I had to make a second guy that just put all perks in combat skills.

The dungeons are awesome looking but eventually the streams and so forth get repetitive but it seems that they are at least more interesting. Thinking about the dungeons makes me think of the important balance a creator must walk. The dungeons are very linear which makes them less epic. On the other hand since there are over a hundred dungeons they can't all be awesome. My golden star of dungeons goes to dungeon lords and I think it would be cool if skyrim would have 3 or so elite dungeons with better layout and puzzles. Nonetheless the eye candy of the dungeon is nice and I feel really intense going through them. They are still enough challenge for me too.

The character building is very important to me in a game. Sometimes I spend more time designing characters than playing. My build has a basic set of: two handed, block, heavy armor.. Then I have the soul trap line of conjuration and bound battle axe. This is the lazy mans soul trap. I just buy as many soul gems as possible. So if there is a room full of daugr just one soul trap on my axe user friendly not having to switch to spells every second. Then I have tons of souls and I power level enchantment. In the end I am using all three crafting skills to make my final ascent. Oh and I'm not reading any optimized strategies online (no forums) so that I can keep a struggle to succeed for awhile. Then I will beat the game and be done with it.

I really like the system of the alchemy. It remembers which matches you have made and they grey out. For example if I mix blue mountain flower with some other herb and it is not a potion match, then from then on it will be greyed out. Enchanting is kind of strange. It makes total crap like +1% magic regen (quite small) at least in the low levels and low souls. So it is odd that the power curve makes it so weak at first and then getting much stronger. Smithing graphics of the town smith stoking belows and pounding on glowing swords is awesome. It was kind of cool to have all those stations like a station to smelt ore and make your own jewelry.

As far as enemies I feel it was quite ambitious to make fights with dragons. I would turn the spawn rate of random dragons down a little because a single dragon can level a city so how is everyone staying alive when there are 100 dragons roaming around? The giants tending the mamoths is a good visual it made me surprised and delighted. I have fought mostly daugr and bandits but also a troll and some animals. Ice wraiths and possibly there will be more for me to fight.

The world created is just beautiful. The flow of the lands and mountains and snow. One thing I do is to play games with lower graphics for like 2 weeks and then switch back to skyrim so I can return to the newness of good graphics. I was shocked how good the graphics are; I think it was very beautiful.

So the sense of wonder in the game is beautiful. There is an aspect of character building and crafting. My main criticism is the combat. I think that's partly because I have a pretty bland strategy of powerattacking with two handed sword while sucking down health and stamina pots. There are still times I reload but I haven't had that middle ground where I barely grind out an epic battle. It has just been easy or reload/give up.

[galraen]

My initial reactions were the same as yours Claudius, sadly once you've seen the rather limited range they get extremely repetitive.

Villages!? One unfortunate aspect of all TES games since Daggerfall is there are only villages, even the Imperial city is a very slightly overgrown hamlet. As for the NPC dialogue, wit until you're a member of the dark brotherhood, not wearing DB gear but still almost every guard comes up to you and says hail Sithis!!!

As for Dragons, don't waste time shooting arrows at them, wait until they land and wack them with your appropriately enchanted melee weapon. If they survive that is, town guards I noticed will usually kill them first. Just note what type of breath weapon they use and then use the weapon with the opposite enchantment, fire breath, wack them with a frost weapon for example; likewise for spells.

The one crafting aspect that really annoys me is smithing; it's hard to not use as it makes a massive difference, but it is an obnoxious grind; so is enchanting for that matter. My real beef with smithing though is the sheer lunacy of the concept. It take years of apprenticeship to become merely adequate at, then more years until you become good, and even more to become a master, and that with spending your entire working life at the trade. The very idea that you can become a 100 master just by spending half a few hours every once in a while is ridiculous. One can stretch one's disbelief so far, but this just goes way beyond credibility. To top it off, the guy Grey Mane, who's supposed to be the greatest smith in Skyrim only turns out rubbish, while your guy quickly turns out far superior weapons and armour in next to no time!!!

A couple of pieces of advice:

1. Don't ever make fortify restoration potions, they are so over cheesed it'll destroy the game for you, in no time you'll have an armour class over 1000 and weapons dealing out hundreds of hit points of damage.

2. Don't give you follower a weapon that traps souls and a bunch of soul gems, they fill every soul gem in their inventory the first time they kill something.

The biggest surprise to me is that Skyrim isn't over run by rats, the amount of cheese in the game would pull them in from all over Tamriel!