One More Skyrim Posting

Dragons don't actually exist, so I can't say with any authority what it would be like to fight one. But I suspect, at least, that it would be harder than in most CRPGs that feature dragons. Such games seem to easily forget that a) dragons are much bigger than people; and b) dragons can fly. I don't care how armed, armored, and experienced you are, I want you to imagine the likely result of taking on a grizzly bear in melee combat. Now imagine if the grizzly bear was 8 times bigger, had wings, had natural scale armor, and could breath fire. Yeah.

Yet in games like Might & Magic and Ultima V, they just casually show up in lists of monsters that you manage to slay with swords and arrows. There are plenty of games that feature dragons, but there are no games that have made me feel like I was truly fighting #&$@#ing dragons!

Until Skyrim, that is. This is the first CRPG I have ever played in which battles against dragons proceed pretty much how I would expect them to proceed, with the dragon taking advantage of its air superiority, and my character hiding behind things and feebly sniping at it with a bow until it gets tired and lands, at which point I go charging with my axe, and most of the time get burned to a crisp in mid-stride.

And if you think that's cool, you should see how the game handles giants. They're actually giant. And they wield weapons that, quite sensibly, kill you in a single hit.

Two days ago, I said: "This will be my last word on the game until about 2023, though: Tomorrow, it's back to Wasteland. I promise." The disheartening thing is not that I'm breaking my promise, but that I didn't even try very hard to keep it. For the last 48 hours, I have done absolutely nothing but play Skyrim, except to feed the cats--but only then because they were howling at me so much that it was interfering with my playing of Skyrim.

I rescind my earlier reservations: the game is fantastic--perhaps the best CRPG I have ever played. More than any other game, the combats make you feel like you are truly fighting for your life. The game world is impossibly detailed, and exploring the dungeons is the most immersive experience I've ever had playing a game. NPCs have real conversations with each other as you wander through cities. The quests, far from the mostly fetch-and-carry missions of Morrowind and Oblivion, are original and nuanced, and offer real role-playing choices. Unlike previous Elder Scrolls games, there are real dialogue options here (although not as extensive as in the Bioware/Interplay titles).

And then there's the back story, which reveals itself only slowly, and brilliantly, in dialogue and books. Set 200 years after Oblivion, the game features a world in which the fabled Empire is truly falling apart, and it's hard to tell at this stage whether this collapse is related to, or independent of, the crisis facing Skyrim. I can't remember another game in which I was so eager to see the main quest unfold, or to try what I've already accomplished with different character classes and choices.

I was wrong about the "dumbing down" of the skill development system. As killias2 said earlier today, "it's like they subtracted 4 and added 10." I wouldn't have minded if the attributes were still there, but overall the "perks" system is a decent replacement for the previous systems. I confess, though, to some paralysis about which perks to choose, so I've been racking up points without spending them.

Did I mention the spells? This is literally the first CRPG I've ever played that really made me want to be a mage. Blasting the bandit with fire from one hand and lighting from the other never gets old.

I haven't quite reached a verdict on how I feel about the smithing process (you can smelt your own ore, tan your own hides, and--using the ingots and leather strips that result from these processes--create and upgrade your weapons) or the alchemy system yet. But I can't say that I hate them.

My one major quibble is the way that a strike from a giant sends you spinning into the stratosphere. It's amusing the first few times, but I suspect that in real life, the hammer would just turn your body into paste. I don't know for sure whether this was intended or a bug.

Anyway: Sorry. I will be back to Wasteland tomorrow, and I can promise this because--after trying every possible way to trick and wheedle my way out of it--I've had to leave my home to go to Rochester, New York for the week. As I couldn't bring my Xbox with me, Skyrim is not an option until I return this weekend. I should have won Wasteland by then; I feel like the end is very close.

The rest of you need to be playing Skyrim. Someone tell me how it is on the PC.