Friday, December 2, 2011

Games I Haven’t Played Reviews - Skyrim

Hello, and welcome to the first installement of Games I Haven’t Played Reviews, where I review a game without having played any of it, making my opinions from youtube videos instead, and in the end decide whether I will eventually purchase or avoid the game. This edition’s game - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Skyrim is the latest in the popular Elder Scrolls series, taking place in the frozen Viking-themed area of the series’ kingdom. Now, I have played previous Elder Scrolls games, so I can’t honestly say that I’m completely inexperienced in the game world. I know it has a number of your basic RPG elements. Pick a class and race and go out into the world to complete side quest after side quest to gain levels and kick stronger and stronger ass.

You’ll start your game as all Elder Scrolls games begin. Imprisoned. In a few minutes, however, you’ll see the story begin and be able to choose a race. You have a number of choices: humans, elves, werewolves, cat and lizard people. The only correct choice, however, is the Dark Elves, because you can be Danny Trejo.

Why would you be anything else?

As for classes, there doesn’t seem to be a way to choose anymore, instead allowing you to play however you like. Of course, to be effective you’ll end up falling into one of the usual types: warrior, mage, thief. This game has added a bunch of new powers, though, allowing you to mix and match more than before. Dual-wielding was the most hyped addition, but from what I’ve seen, the most popular power is cheeseomancy.


Truly one of the best spells.

Once you’ve set your character and picked some starting equipment, you’ll get attacked right away by some of the new enemies the game has to offer. Dragons.


Apparently there’s a lot of them.

Yes, unlike the previous games where your first taste of combat is a room full of rats, this game just drops dragons on you like nobody’s business and tells you ‘deal with it.’ If you survive the initial attack and maybe defeat the dragon? I don’t know. You’ll get through it somehow and can then move on to the main storyline which is something about you being descended from dragons, so you need to kill dragons and gain dragon powers and dragons dragons dragons.


One of the dragon powers. Really loud shouting.

There doesn’t need to be much in the way of story, though, for this game to be good, since you’ll just spend all your time doing side quests and putting pots on people’s heads in order to rob them blind.


They’re like babies. No object permanence.

When not running around towns being a dick to townsfolk, your main activity in the game will be combat, in which you will die. A lot. Because not only have dragons been added to the series, but giants have come in as well, and they kill you so hard even gravity gives up on you.


“You’re on your own.” - Gravity

You can get help, though. Another addition is something Bethesda has done previously in their Fallout series, AI companions!


They’re as bright as one would expect.

If you persevere, you can get through the tough battles and gain more strength and powers, much like any rpg, and once you feel safe enough, you’ll be able to relax and take in the stunning scenery of the game. Seriously, the game looks great. Just don’t stare TOO closely, or else you might see some of the various glitches that have been occurring to players.


See if you can spot the glitch in this video. It’s subtle.

Altogether, it looks like Skyrim has a huge immersive (kinda) world, where there is a lot of good derpy fun to be had. Also, I enjoyed the previous games in the series (none of which I’ve ever finished), so my recommendation is this: if you like action-rpgs and dicking around for no reason, you’ll probably like this.

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