Additionally, outside of the loot menu, E is used both to loot a corpse, AND to pick it up and fling it about like a maniac. While this certainly makes sense on a console controller, the tap duration is so short, it is entirely possible to try to loot a corpse or pick an item up off the floor in combat only to put your weapon away and be left holding it like a moron while a bandit uses your face as a pin cushion. For reference: Oblivion used separate key binds to distinguish between pick that thing up/loot it, and drag it around and throw it at people.
Finally, the quick key equip slots are gone, in their place is a favorites system bound to the Q key, what this does is instantly freeze the game, and allows you to rifle through a smaller subset of your inventory while the game waits for you. Aside from a criminally short display, regardless of how many items you've crammed in there, it is actually a rather nice alternate. It has some of the issues associated with the larger inventory, including the L and R indicators being swapped in comparison to the mouse controls, and only being able to see about six items at a time, reminding us all uncomfortably of Fallout 3.
Because this is a PC review, I wouldn't normally comment on console functionality, especially after blasting the PC's UI for eight paragraphs, but the favorites menu is vastly preferable to the d-pad inventory select system Oblivion and Fallout 3 used on the consoles.
Skyrim is a very easy game to recommend, if you have any fondness for the kind of open world fantasy the series focuses on, this is a must play. If you played Oblivion and found it wasn't to your taste then Skyrim really isn't for you, it is more of the same, more polished, but not on the whole something that will change your mind on the genre.
Love the review. Though I have a handful of other minor complaints. For example, when I place items in a chest or barrel that is in a house I own, I should be able to sort those items in a similar way as my inventory. What? I have to scroll through 90 items to get to a ruby? Annoying, and would have been a relatively easy fix.
Love the review. Though I have a handful of other minor complaints. For example, when I place items in a chest or barrel that is in a house I own, I should be able to sort those items in a similar way as my inventory. What? I have to scroll through 90 items to get to a ruby? Annoying, and would have been a relatively easy fix.
The thing about that, that really annoys me is Fallout 3 and New Vegas actually work exactly this way. Additionally it filters the "Take All" to just that category when filtered. If there is a way to filter items in containers, I haven't found it.
In reverse order, I didn't review the story because it was a first impressions. At that point I'd only advanced the plot about far enough to be attacked by dragons randomly, whenever I was trying to do something mildly important.
There is a pretty decent narrative that lands fairly solidly in the Conan-esque Sword and Sorcery genre. There are also a lot of nice touches scattered throughout the game where you'll come across a small story in the environment.
But the main quest is a fairly standard save-the-world arc involving the return of the dragons, who have been absent from the setting for thousands of years (if not longer).
As to the gameplay, you're right, I didn't. I made the assumption that the reader had prior familiarity with the franchise, and if you don't then I owe you an apology.
The (numbered) Elder Scrolls games, as a whole, are first person action RPG sandboxes set in various parts of a fantasy pastiche of the Roman Empire. Skyrim turns the player loose in the frigid province of the same name, and lets them sneak, slash, or magic their way to riches, glory, or to just explore.
The game is divided, unevenly, into civilized areas, wilderness, and various kinds of dungeon (tomb, ruined fort, bandit camp, and so on). Dungeons tend towards straight up combat, or sneaking around enemies.
In the wild, you'll run into bandits, wolves, dragons (once you've advanced the main quest a bit), giants, and the like. What's interesting though is while some of these are automatically hostile, not all are. Giants, for instance, are entirely willing to let you just wander around so long as you don't get to close or make a nuisance of yourself.
The game has a heavy combat focus, so, while there are crafting skills, characters who focus on raising their non-combat skills primarily can expect to suffer quite a bit in the dungeon zones.
The reason I didn't address this in the review is, for the most part, none of this is an innovation for the series. The critter ecosystem is more evolved, so to speak, but that's about it. So if this isn't something you knew already, then, again, I apologize.
I definitely knew about those things, and I think you summed them up decently. But since I'm a fan of the series, I think that makes lack of innovation even more imporatant. Especially when the premise for the game is markedly worse (at leased more contrived) than some of the other installments.
I definitely knew about those things, and I think you summed them up decently. But since I'm a fan of the series, I think that makes lack of innovation even more imporatant. Especially when the premise for the game is markedly worse (at leased more contrived) than some of the other installments.
To be fair, with The Elder Scrolls, it seems like it's a kind of comfort food approach to gameplay. The changes for as long as I've been playing it have been in line with streamlining the franchise, from each iteration to the next, but otherwise, they don't really seem to want to shake things up. And, honestly, both Oblivion and Skyrim were much less adventurous than Morrowind in the shaking things up category.
While Skyrim seems to have an eye on that and is trying to recapture it, the result seems to be more of an Easter Egg burred in the background effect. Morrowind was a game with giant crab shells and magically grown trees for buildings, gigantic insects as carriages, and their carapaces used for armor. In turn Oblivion was a standard demonic invasion of a fantasy world, and Skyrim is Dragons invading a standard fantasy world.
I'll be honest, I don't know what you mean when you say "contrived."
Contrived means forced or artificial. Honestly, dragons don't seem like they belong in the Elder Scrolls. The Elder Scrolls series has a lot of original content that it could draw upon to create conflict. The Daedra and Aedra as well as the Almsivi have still have a lot of untold stories. Instead, in order to grab headlines with, "DRAGONS ATTACK SKYRIM!", they added in a totally stock and previously unreferenced menace out of the blue. It may be classic RPG stuff, but its old, and they added relatively little to dragons to make them interesting. The voice is kinda neat, but it plays out like nothing new, except fire breath and a couple of spells. Its artificial because it doesn't really feel like it belongs. Even Oblivion, while having a rather stock story of the cult trying to bring about the apocalypse, used Mehrunes Dagon, a standard in the universe that worked well in the confines of the universe. I hope this explains what I meant a little better.
To remark to your earlier comment, I feel that the adventurousness of the elderscrolls (as far as gameplay wise) was one of the things that made it unique and worth playing. Sure it was slower paced, but it was built smartly around a slower paced gameplay and it worked well with itself. Now with half-assed finishing moves, a lame dual wielding system, lame enchanting and spells, overall lower customizability and interactivity, the game doesn't have a real strong point.
Skyrim is a very easy game to recommend, if you have any fondness for the kind of open world fantasy the series focuses on, this is a must play. If you played Oblivion and found it wasn't to your taste then Skyrim really isn't for you, it is more of the same, more polished, but not on the whole something that will change your mind on the genre.
Thank you very much for acknowledging that people who don't like Oblivion actually exist.
Weentastic said:
Contrived means forced or artificial. Honestly, dragons don't seem like they belong in the Elder Scrolls. The Elder Scrolls series has a lot of original content that it could draw upon to create conflict. The Daedra and Aedra as well as the Almsivi have still have a lot of untold stories. Instead, in order to grab headlines with, "DRAGONS ATTACK SKYRIM!", they added in a totally stock and previously unreferenced menace out of the blue. It may be classic RPG stuff, but its old, and they added relatively little to dragons to make them interesting. The voice is kinda neat, but it plays out like nothing new, except fire breath and a couple of spells. Its artificial because it doesn't really feel like it belongs. Even Oblivion, while having a rather stock story of the cult trying to bring about the apocalypse, used Mehrunes Dagon, a standard in the universe that worked well in the confines of the universe. I hope this explains what I meant a little better.
This is how I feel. My post-Oblivion speculation on what TES V would be about produced a number of theories, every one of which was vastly more interesting and lore-friendly than what they actually went with.
On another note, doing anything with Almsivi would be hard, since (8 year old spoiler):
at the most it's just "vi" now, and more likely, they're all dead.
Weentastic said:
To remark to your earlier comment, I feel that the adventurousness of the elderscrolls (as far as gameplay wise) was one of the things that made it unique and worth playing. Sure it was slower paced, but it was built smartly around a slower paced gameplay and it worked well with itself. Now with half-assed finishing moves, a lame dual wielding system, lame enchanting and spells, overall lower customizability and interactivity, the game doesn't have a real strong point.
Yes! Exactly! All the game has going for it is scale. As for Morrowind, I still maintain that it's the best-paced open-world game I have ever played. People complain that it has an agonzingly slow pace, but that's perfect for a game that you can spend over a hundred hours on. Characters in Oblivion seemed like they were trying to instill a sense of urgency in the player, but this is not in any way reflected in the game world itself, which waits patiently for you to proceed. The result was, in my opinion, a poorly paced game.
The customizability is a big deal, too. In Morrowind you almost had to make three or more different characters to experience everything, and they felt different... and on top of that, there was just so much stuff you could create, on top of the huge amount of cool stuff already in the game. In Oblivion you can pretty much do everything with one character. Save before picking a side in the civil war and you can do the same thing in Skyrim.
Contrived means forced or artificial. Honestly, dragons don't seem like they belong in the Elder Scrolls. The Elder Scrolls series has a lot of original content that it could draw upon to create conflict. The Daedra and Aedra as well as the Almsivi have still have a lot of untold stories. Instead, in order to grab headlines with, "DRAGONS ATTACK SKYRIM!", they added in a totally stock and previously unreferenced menace out of the blue. It may be classic RPG stuff, but its old, and they added relatively little to dragons to make them interesting. The voice is kinda neat, but it plays out like nothing new, except fire breath and a couple of spells. Its artificial because it doesn't really feel like it belongs. Even Oblivion, while having a rather stock story of the cult trying to bring about the apocalypse, used Mehrunes Dagon, a standard in the universe that worked well in the confines of the universe. I hope this explains what I meant a little better.
It does actually. I was thinking you meant the opening where you escape from Alduin is contrived (which it is), but I wasn't sure. As I mentioned, Dragons have been featured pretty prominently in the lore of the setting for as long as I've played it. Morrowind and Oblivion both made a point of reminding you that Uriel Septim was a Dragonborn, but what that meant was never really explained.
But, all of that was background material, so it was always very reasonable that a player could flat out miss it over multiple playthroughs. On top of that, things that did reference Alduin all the way back in Arena were in incredibly dense metaphysical texts. Though, honestly, the dragons in Skyrim don't really live up to their reputation from the lore. IE: Unkillable death machines.
Weentastic said:
To remark to your earlier comment, I feel that the adventurousness of the elderscrolls (as far as gameplay wise) was one of the things that made it unique and worth playing. Sure it was slower paced, but it was built smartly around a slower paced gameplay and it worked well with itself. Now with half-assed finishing moves, a lame dual wielding system, lame enchanting and spells, overall lower customizability and interactivity, the game doesn't have a real strong point.
The finishing moves are worse when an enemy will randomly crit and kill you with over half your life still intact. The action honestly reminds me of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic... and then reminds me that Dark Messiah had some of the best melee combat I've ever seen in a first person style game. In retrospect it's kinda sad that I look back on that game when I'm playing Skyrim, and wishing they'd stolen more from it.
I'm sorry, I know that's going in the opposite direction from what you're asking for, but if they're going to go this direction, why not go the rest of the way, and make it even more satisfying?
ComradeJim270 said:
Starke said:
Skyrim is a very easy game to recommend, if you have any fondness for the kind of open world fantasy the series focuses on, this is a must play. If you played Oblivion and found it wasn't to your taste then Skyrim really isn't for you, it is more of the same, more polished, but not on the whole something that will change your mind on the genre.
It'd be hard to forget they exist given that I'm nominally one of them. I'm saying that with the caveat that there are some really fantastic mods that do make the game pretty damn enjoyable, but for vanilla Oblivion the only two things I actually really enjoy are the Dark Brotherhood quest line, and Shivering Isles. The rest struck me as remarkably normative fantasy, with Knights of the Nine as a remarkably playable bit of blandness.
ComradeJim270 said:
This is how I feel. My post-Oblivion speculation on what TES V would be about produced a number of theories, every one of which was vastly more interesting and lore-friendly than what they actually went with.
On another note, doing anything with Almsivi would be hard, since (8 year old spoiler):
at the most it's just "vi" now, and more likely, they're all dead.
I always figured the time jump was to push the game out of the comfortable fantasy genre Oblivion settled into. Give us primitive guns, or some kind of steampunk, even if it's salvaged dwarven tech, introduce a new dynamic into the old Mage/Stealth/Soldier routine. I like the idea that the Empire is in decline, because that is somewhat different, but, again, there doesn't seem to be a lot of reasons in game for the 200 year time jump.
ComradeJim270 said:
Weentastic said:
To remark to your earlier comment, I feel that the adventurousness of the elderscrolls (as far as gameplay wise) was one of the things that made it unique and worth playing. Sure it was slower paced, but it was built smartly around a slower paced gameplay and it worked well with itself. Now with half-assed finishing moves, a lame dual wielding system, lame enchanting and spells, overall lower customizability and interactivity, the game doesn't have a real strong point.
Yes! Exactly! All the game has going for it is scale. As for Morrowind, I still maintain that it's the best-paced open-world game I have ever played. People complain that it has an agonzingly slow pace, but that's perfect for a game that you can spend over a hundred hours on. Characters in Oblivion seemed like they were trying to instill a sense of urgency in the player, but this is not in any way reflected in the game world itself, which waits patiently for you to proceed. The result was, in my opinion, a poorly paced game.
The customizability is a big deal, too. In Morrowind you almost had to make three or more different characters to experience everything, and they felt different... and on top of that, there was just so much stuff you could create, on top of the huge amount of cool stuff already in the game. In Oblivion you can pretty much do everything with one character. Save before picking a side in the civil war and you can do the same thing in Skyrim.
Yeah, it was actually above three unless you did some very careful planning. The biggest thing I'm missing here is honestly the multiple factions each with their own separate but interrelated trajectories.
In Morrowind there were, what? 10 separate playable factions you could join? Each with their own distinct questline, that would intersect at odd points making progression in both impossible. You'd need to pick sides. Every major faction was opposed by at least two other factions. I'm not sure about the others, but I know the Fighters Guild had multiple endings.
In Oblivion it was... what, four? Five? All of them were, to my knowledge (I never finished Mage or Fighter Guild) there were no branching plot lines.
Skyrim seems to have stuck with four. This might be an overhead involving having to record dialog for ever quest in the game, but it does harm the replayability.
Ironically the customization issue that really irks me, and I'm seeing this in Skyrim in front of me. Morrowind had a bunch of clothing slots, shirt, pants, skirts, shoes/boots, belt, two rings, amulet, gloves/bracers (left and right), robe, Curiass, Pauldron (Left/Right), grieves (what actually amounted to armor pants), and helmet/hat. And all of those were separate slots. Meaning if you wanted to play a guy in full armor with a suit of clothes underneath wearing a robe over his armor, that was possible. If you wanted to play a character who was shirtless, wearing sleeveless armor, that was possible. If you wanted a person who ran around naked with their right arm covered in plate steel, that was possible. The issue was too many enchantment slots, but, honestly, it gave players a lot of customization in how their character looked.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
. For me, the UI system is manageable, if far from ideal. My main gripe about it is it's unresponsiveness to the mouse.
