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Skyrim
14 years ago
General
Its been roughly a month since i bought this game and as a big fan of morrowind, i can only say - meh...
Its a great single player expiriance, thats true - IF you are looking for a time sink, easly comparred to WoW or such, since Storywise, this is a quite weak game. I mean, Oblivvion was far more worse, althought it had sum interresting quests, or at least an interresting way to solve them - Skyrim, with all its technical cappabillities turned to be a boring "Go there, fetch me this" quest-galore executed in most dull way possible and with most uninterresting backstory that they could find. I still havent beat the game, but i allready finished some of the quest lines and had to concentrate hard to be invested in them. Dark brotherhood is weak as hell, and dont let me start on Thieves Guild and Companions - even the daedric quests (where Morrowind and Oblivion shine with their creativity) are just a bore fest "Go and kill that guy and bring me XY item". It just seams they invested all the time they could to dumb the interface and gameplay down and concentrate on exploration to give us, the players, an valid reason to be invested in the whole crap that is going on - even the dragons get boring after ya slayed 2-3 of them. I wish i could bring a specific egsamples of bad storytelling, but the main problem is also, the whole quests are forgettable, so i cant quite remember of a good one...
But lets talk about the interface - first off, i LOVE the dual casting, well, dual wielding in general - its a fresh wind in the series and allows for interresting combinations. The Menus are good for the consoles (i own a xbox 360 copy), but show its weakneses in enchantment menu. As far as ive heard, the PC version is worse in this matter, but yeah...cant really tell. But let me go over my main complaint - the Skills and Leveling. All possible roleplaying is taken away as soon as the character can advance in Level with ANY skill - you can literarry level up by farting all the time (at least, thats how i call the speech skill, which degenerated to gimmicky skill...well, one of the skill that took that way - ill just say alchemy). I know i dont speak for everyone, but i just cant expiriance the game if i cant give myself and act as a certain role. Leveling up in Skyrim has no tactic to it and really no right or wrong timing - there is no possibillity to "level wrong" or be overpowered - it doesnt matter how you skill up, the challenge is always medicore, well, as long as you dont run into enemies with instant kill moves. Also, lowering the mass of attributes to three is just plain dumbing down. Also, i cant wrap my head around the skill points - no matter how hight your skill is, it feels like ass unless you invested sum points in the skill tree. Its a lazy design and i could think of hundreds of better ways to improove it, I mean, how do you learn off the bat how to chop someones head off? Why cant i do that automaticly when i reach a certain level? Why do I have to bring a star to shine in order to learn that? Would, I dont know, a QUEST be too much to ask? Find a blademaster, fetch a thing for him (since thats how everything gets resolved in skyrim - oh wait, you can start a brawl too) and hell teach ya how to chop heads off yer enemies...The whole "Skill points to make little stars twinkle" doesnt make any sence to me, at least not in Elder Scrolls game.
All in all, Skyrim feels like a wattered down version of Oblivion, which is wattered down version of Morrowind which, again, is an more accassable version of Daggerfall - yeah, make a game like Daggerfall again, ya Bethesda Chipmunks (Not the City, the Company). From twenty something diseasses in that dos game, only one didnt killed you - or is that too complicated for the general audience? I just want a game with a good story and a giant world - you allready did it with Morrowind (and Oblivion to much lesser extent) - why is it hard to get a quest in skyrim that doesnt feel like made in Quest Generator 7? Every single line feels like the whole writing staff decided to win "Who can write the blandest text" tournament.
But yeah, Im spiting on a game that ive been playing CONSTANTLY for past month - as said, exploration is a key word and only thing you want to see is whats hiding behind next corner, whats adventures are to be found in a dungeon or if the next dragon fight wont be won without using glitches...speaking of which, the Bugs arent as sewere as i feared - at least, there are no bugs that make you start a new game (yet). But yeah, Bethesda game without bugs just doesnt feel right and no matter how much a bitch about skyrim (trust me, the same ammount and allmoust the same things as when i bitched about oblivion), im still interrested what will come next? How much can they dumb it down? I - for once- hope its going to be TES Adventures, since redguard just wasnt enough ;D
And now, out of order, more reasons why i dislike Skyrim (even tho i cant stop playing it)
- Fighting skills are fucking overpowered! You can bash everyone and everything to death with your shield, and once you wish upon certain stars, it doesnt matter what you wield - you always pound enemies to the ground...
- Theres no Athletics and NO Acrobatics - sorry, i just dont feel like a thief if i cant jump more then a feat up in the air.
- Turning into a Werewolf is equivalent of drawing a bulseye on your chest and run nakked on battlefield. You do no damage, sustain little to none damage on your own ( i was killed with one hit, even tho i was pure strength character) and look like a sumthing i would draw 10 years ago.
- Vampires walk in broad daylight - let that sink in...
- once again for the record, Alchemy is USELESS!!!!
- Enchanters cant refill your magic items - not that you needed it, since the items have more charges then all items i found in morrowind put together.
- Marriage feels like an "Achievement get" thing - i cant get less invested about a ingame character that sprouts three different sentences all the time.
- Hand to Hand is overpowered and doesnt even has its own skill!
- Pickpocketing shouldnt be a extra skill - since morrowind, its same as sneak. Why cut a perfect working skill in two when you could put in - oh, i dont know- FUCKING ACROBATICS!?!
- merchants are bugged as hell - sometimes they wont sell stuff at legitimates time, restock at pure random or dont show up at all...really, i lost a merchant, imagine that? He just didnt showed up to work one day and i never saw him again...guess he decided to enjoy a good life after i invested 500 coins in his smithy, clever dude...
- why do the guys in newly explored dungeons, at high level, still drop such a bad loot?
- why is smithing so overpowered? Not only you can access the best weaponry as early as lvl 15 (really, i ran out with daedric weaponry and full glass armor just cause i happened to find two unintended daedra hearts - figure that out...speaking of which)
- why are daedric hearts both used in Smithing and Alchemical skills? Decide game! And also...
- Why cant i create anything exotic with smithing skill? If the game tries so hard to be like WoW, let me buy some Smithing recepies off traders around the world.
- Houses are still a joke - i want my Morrowind Like stronghold back!
- Question: who reports me killing the last eye witness? Shouldnt that take away my bounty instead of increasing it? No perfect crime in Skyrim, i guess...
- Everyone fucking knows where you are, no matter how good you sneak...
- Why can a dude still atack me with three arrows stuck in his head?
- and some more...
And, as a treat, ill tell you about my funniest Story from this darn game:
In whiterun, i decided to upgrade my weapons and headed off to smithy. Adrianne was sitting there, sharpening a sword on a grinding stone, so i forced her away and sat myself down. As i was working, she started talking "Have you met my fathers, hes UGH". I was kinda currious what happened, so i stood up and found that she fell from a feet high slope down to the watter stream which killed her instantly. As a true hero, I ransacked her body, leaving only her naked rump to be carried away by the stream. Knowing i cant sell anything to her now, i went inside the Warmaiden in order to sell my stuff to Ulfberth, only to find him heart broken over Adriannes demise from just few seconds ago. "News travel fast here" i told to myself, leaving the Warmaiden only to be greeted by a postman who gave me Adriannes Last will and 100 coins - while her still warm body was being washed down the ditch just few feet to the left...I think i spent next five minutes laughing out loud about the absurdity of the whole situation and really, who wouldnt ;3
Its a great single player expiriance, thats true - IF you are looking for a time sink, easly comparred to WoW or such, since Storywise, this is a quite weak game. I mean, Oblivvion was far more worse, althought it had sum interresting quests, or at least an interresting way to solve them - Skyrim, with all its technical cappabillities turned to be a boring "Go there, fetch me this" quest-galore executed in most dull way possible and with most uninterresting backstory that they could find. I still havent beat the game, but i allready finished some of the quest lines and had to concentrate hard to be invested in them. Dark brotherhood is weak as hell, and dont let me start on Thieves Guild and Companions - even the daedric quests (where Morrowind and Oblivion shine with their creativity) are just a bore fest "Go and kill that guy and bring me XY item". It just seams they invested all the time they could to dumb the interface and gameplay down and concentrate on exploration to give us, the players, an valid reason to be invested in the whole crap that is going on - even the dragons get boring after ya slayed 2-3 of them. I wish i could bring a specific egsamples of bad storytelling, but the main problem is also, the whole quests are forgettable, so i cant quite remember of a good one...
But lets talk about the interface - first off, i LOVE the dual casting, well, dual wielding in general - its a fresh wind in the series and allows for interresting combinations. The Menus are good for the consoles (i own a xbox 360 copy), but show its weakneses in enchantment menu. As far as ive heard, the PC version is worse in this matter, but yeah...cant really tell. But let me go over my main complaint - the Skills and Leveling. All possible roleplaying is taken away as soon as the character can advance in Level with ANY skill - you can literarry level up by farting all the time (at least, thats how i call the speech skill, which degenerated to gimmicky skill...well, one of the skill that took that way - ill just say alchemy). I know i dont speak for everyone, but i just cant expiriance the game if i cant give myself and act as a certain role. Leveling up in Skyrim has no tactic to it and really no right or wrong timing - there is no possibillity to "level wrong" or be overpowered - it doesnt matter how you skill up, the challenge is always medicore, well, as long as you dont run into enemies with instant kill moves. Also, lowering the mass of attributes to three is just plain dumbing down. Also, i cant wrap my head around the skill points - no matter how hight your skill is, it feels like ass unless you invested sum points in the skill tree. Its a lazy design and i could think of hundreds of better ways to improove it, I mean, how do you learn off the bat how to chop someones head off? Why cant i do that automaticly when i reach a certain level? Why do I have to bring a star to shine in order to learn that? Would, I dont know, a QUEST be too much to ask? Find a blademaster, fetch a thing for him (since thats how everything gets resolved in skyrim - oh wait, you can start a brawl too) and hell teach ya how to chop heads off yer enemies...The whole "Skill points to make little stars twinkle" doesnt make any sence to me, at least not in Elder Scrolls game.
All in all, Skyrim feels like a wattered down version of Oblivion, which is wattered down version of Morrowind which, again, is an more accassable version of Daggerfall - yeah, make a game like Daggerfall again, ya Bethesda Chipmunks (Not the City, the Company). From twenty something diseasses in that dos game, only one didnt killed you - or is that too complicated for the general audience? I just want a game with a good story and a giant world - you allready did it with Morrowind (and Oblivion to much lesser extent) - why is it hard to get a quest in skyrim that doesnt feel like made in Quest Generator 7? Every single line feels like the whole writing staff decided to win "Who can write the blandest text" tournament.
But yeah, Im spiting on a game that ive been playing CONSTANTLY for past month - as said, exploration is a key word and only thing you want to see is whats hiding behind next corner, whats adventures are to be found in a dungeon or if the next dragon fight wont be won without using glitches...speaking of which, the Bugs arent as sewere as i feared - at least, there are no bugs that make you start a new game (yet). But yeah, Bethesda game without bugs just doesnt feel right and no matter how much a bitch about skyrim (trust me, the same ammount and allmoust the same things as when i bitched about oblivion), im still interrested what will come next? How much can they dumb it down? I - for once- hope its going to be TES Adventures, since redguard just wasnt enough ;D
And now, out of order, more reasons why i dislike Skyrim (even tho i cant stop playing it)
- Fighting skills are fucking overpowered! You can bash everyone and everything to death with your shield, and once you wish upon certain stars, it doesnt matter what you wield - you always pound enemies to the ground...
- Theres no Athletics and NO Acrobatics - sorry, i just dont feel like a thief if i cant jump more then a feat up in the air.
- Turning into a Werewolf is equivalent of drawing a bulseye on your chest and run nakked on battlefield. You do no damage, sustain little to none damage on your own ( i was killed with one hit, even tho i was pure strength character) and look like a sumthing i would draw 10 years ago.
- Vampires walk in broad daylight - let that sink in...
- once again for the record, Alchemy is USELESS!!!!
- Enchanters cant refill your magic items - not that you needed it, since the items have more charges then all items i found in morrowind put together.
- Marriage feels like an "Achievement get" thing - i cant get less invested about a ingame character that sprouts three different sentences all the time.
- Hand to Hand is overpowered and doesnt even has its own skill!
- Pickpocketing shouldnt be a extra skill - since morrowind, its same as sneak. Why cut a perfect working skill in two when you could put in - oh, i dont know- FUCKING ACROBATICS!?!
- merchants are bugged as hell - sometimes they wont sell stuff at legitimates time, restock at pure random or dont show up at all...really, i lost a merchant, imagine that? He just didnt showed up to work one day and i never saw him again...guess he decided to enjoy a good life after i invested 500 coins in his smithy, clever dude...
- why do the guys in newly explored dungeons, at high level, still drop such a bad loot?
- why is smithing so overpowered? Not only you can access the best weaponry as early as lvl 15 (really, i ran out with daedric weaponry and full glass armor just cause i happened to find two unintended daedra hearts - figure that out...speaking of which)
- why are daedric hearts both used in Smithing and Alchemical skills? Decide game! And also...
- Why cant i create anything exotic with smithing skill? If the game tries so hard to be like WoW, let me buy some Smithing recepies off traders around the world.
- Houses are still a joke - i want my Morrowind Like stronghold back!
- Question: who reports me killing the last eye witness? Shouldnt that take away my bounty instead of increasing it? No perfect crime in Skyrim, i guess...
- Everyone fucking knows where you are, no matter how good you sneak...
- Why can a dude still atack me with three arrows stuck in his head?
- and some more...
And, as a treat, ill tell you about my funniest Story from this darn game:
In whiterun, i decided to upgrade my weapons and headed off to smithy. Adrianne was sitting there, sharpening a sword on a grinding stone, so i forced her away and sat myself down. As i was working, she started talking "Have you met my fathers, hes UGH". I was kinda currious what happened, so i stood up and found that she fell from a feet high slope down to the watter stream which killed her instantly. As a true hero, I ransacked her body, leaving only her naked rump to be carried away by the stream. Knowing i cant sell anything to her now, i went inside the Warmaiden in order to sell my stuff to Ulfberth, only to find him heart broken over Adriannes demise from just few seconds ago. "News travel fast here" i told to myself, leaving the Warmaiden only to be greeted by a postman who gave me Adriannes Last will and 100 coins - while her still warm body was being washed down the ditch just few feet to the left...I think i spent next five minutes laughing out loud about the absurdity of the whole situation and really, who wouldnt ;3
And an assassin, I could 1 hit a sleeping dragon.
But mages are the least well scaling class.
basicly just learn how to enchant a item to boost your alchemy and learn some ingredients to make a enchantment boosting potion, then just jump back and forth between the two until you have a strong enough potion, then gulp it down and say add a fire enchantment to a sword that makes 100th of fire damage.
To a PC player, the menus and UI are frustratingly crude, obviously intended to be used on a console, which is only fair since it's easier for a PC user to adapt to a clunky UI then a console gamer to adjust to an over-designed one.
But for me, the biggest clincher when it comes to games like Skyrim (or Bethesda games in general) is the modding community. The UI I have is nice and sleek, damages and weights on all weapons and powers have been adjusted (you can choose between more realistic, or more balanced), and textures and settings can be tweaked to optimize framerate and runtime. This is something that PCers have been enjoying for years and consoles are finally starting to pic up on.
Yes, I know, "the players shouldn't have to fix the developers mistakes". That's true, we shouldn't have too. But we can. More then that, Bethesda supports and encourages the modding community to the point where even 4-5 years after the release of TES4: Oblivion, it was arguably a more fun, engrossing experience because of all the mods and 3rd party patches then it was when originally released.
Skyrim is shaping up the same way. The amount of user generated content has increased the life and interest of the game 50 fold. From new homes and redesigned cities, to new quests and companions. With the CK out and folks getting more familiar with it's operation, the resulting mods get better and better.
I do agree that Oblivion had a better story with a lot more depth, but not having played Morrowind (and not planning on picking it up anytime soon), I can't say how it compares. It's to the point however that hearing people say "It was sooo much better in Morrowwind" has become the gaming equivalent of record store hipsters. Right alongside Megaman fanatics and those guys who think that the original Super Mario was "the greatest single-player platform experience ever made".
The construction set has its benefits and when i get a better PC, ill also get skyrim for it too - with my current steam powered Komputor, i can hardly play LoL on middle graphics ;3