I never got into any of the previous Elder Scrolls games. I could never get past the graphics which as Tycho likes to say “has kept me from enjoying a great many things.” I just always thought the characters looked ridiculous and the world felt so bland. I was able to get a copy of Skyrim for the Xbox a bit early though and so I decided to give this one a shot.
The world really is beautiful this time and that makes me want to explore it. The people still look stupid most of the time and the voice acting is pretty spotty. Still I was having fun running around and discovering old ruins. I found a cave full of vampires and killed them all only to discover I had contracted vampirism. Getting rid of that kept me busy for a while. I really like the way the game lets you create a character simply by playing the way you want to play. It’s incredibly smart and so seamless. I only wish actually playing the game was more fun.
There’s just nothing to the combat. Killing a cave full of vampires is cool because at the end I got a rad sword but actually fighting them was pretty boring. Fighting shit in Skyrim isn’t about how well you can manipulate your controller, it’s about numbers. The level of your shit vs. the level of whatever you’re pointing your hands at. For me this just didn’t hold my interest.
The other big problem I had is probably because I was playing it on the Xbox. So much of the game is about exploring and I enjoyed doing that out in the wilderness but in towns it drives me crazy. The towns are full of buildings to investigate but the load time when you want to go inside is so bad that I just avoid it all together. So unless it’s a shop or an inn I just don’t go inside which means I’m missing tons of content. Tycho says the load times don’t exist on the PC so that’s not really an issue for him.
In the end it comes down to the same problem I have with all these sorts of open world games. I find them sort of paralyzing. When I meet a group of people in Skyrim and they want me to join their cult or whatever I just freeze up. If I do join it, will I miss out on some cool thing later? If I don’t join it, are they going to have some rad adventure without me? No matter what I choose I feel like I missed out on something awesome. I’m not picking a direction to go, I’m deciding not to go a hundred other directions. Obviously I’m a crazy person but that’s just how these games make me feel. I need a much more directed game experience to have a good time.
Also a Yarl gave me my own woman and I didn’t know what to do with her so I left her sitting alone in his keep. She will wait there for me forever but I’ll never come back. I felt really bad about that.
-Gabe out