(You might also be interested in this week’s Arcane Envoy Plays, which was posted only a few hours before this)
Yes, this is a few days further away than I was originally wanting, but I’m lazy, so there you go.
Before we begin, you might want to listen to my rambling ‘Lets Play’ (they don’t count, I should actually play through the whole game if I’m doing an LP), of some parts of Skyrim, which you can find here.
This post will be pretty long and feature a fair few pictures, so under a break it will go.
Skyrim has a very clean main menu
The game has a pretty strong opening. Not “WOW THAT IS AMAZING” strong, but it’s more interesting that Oblivion’s “you’re in prison in a cell which lets you get broken out by a soon to be assassinated Septim”, or even Morrowind’s brief “wake up, I heard we’ve reached Morrowind, I’m sure they’ll let us go”.
Obviously, I think this game is pretty good. Not as good as some people, as I can’t play for more than about an hour in a single session, but I’d like to think that it’s mostly because I’m trying to make this last -forever-. I don’t think my meager 17 hours of time in Skyrim to date is anywhere near enough to make any definitive statement on the game’s quality, but I’ll see what I can whip up.
Just in case you've forgotten what game it is we're talking about, here you go
Everything looks kinda cool (specifically the Map and the Skills screens), but they’re worse to use than Oblivion’s. The 3D map looks kinda cool, but it is harder to use than a nice flat slightly abstract map – I’m really happy I have the physical map that came with the game, or I’d not see like 90% of the roads or anything.
It's pretty, but not useful at all for navigation
The skill interface is also pretty, but not great from a “I just want to see what my skills are and what perks I have” perspective. You only really get to see a handful of skills at once, and the perk trees themselves could be more abstract to help see things “at a glance”.
Yes, I'm playing a Dunmer named Rachel. She has the hots for an Imperial called Ross (no she doesn't - or does she? (no))
That being said, it’s a minor blemish on what is otherwise a great game. Firstly, even with the landscape not being as super pretty as Oblivion or as cool and strange as Morrowind, Skyrim is a super pretty game. Like dang.
Speaking of super pretty, the people no longer look really weird. You don’t get quite so much choice in character creation (not so many sliders), but that’s okay, because it’s much easier to make much less ugly dudes (or probably ladies, because who plays dudes? Dudes are booooooring (I play enough of them in RL?)).
That being said, my character is still kinda weird looking. Like all Dunmer! (Why am I so angry all the time? I thought the future would be cool?!)
And a few other things of note as I push this post into the realm of like 7k words (gogo pictures!). One: I forget what the summons are called, but Oblivion prettied up it’s fiery summons. :O
What can I say, she's pretty hot :3
Also, NIRNROOT. An obsession begins again. Although I don’t have a quest for them yet, so I dunno.
NIRNROOOOOOOOOOOT!!! *shakes fist at sky*
Okay. I think that’s probably about it. I mean, ultimately, you should play it yourself. Unless I’m forgetting something, it’s nigh-undoubtedly RPG of the year. (For the record, Disgaea isn’t really an RPG to me, it’s a strategy game – that being said, MMORPGs count as RPGS – not that TOR really has any chance in hell of being a better game than this, but we will see, it’s going to be getting the “in depth” treatment too)
So, with that all said and done, I will see you next week. Not sure what I’m going to be talking about, but we will see, I’m sure. I’ve got a couple of ideas for what to do for AE plays, but they’re mostly MP games that I’m not likely to play in the nearby future. :V Still, I’ve got a few things up my sleeves yet.
