Skyrim Break

Yesterday, I drove home from D.C.--about eight hours--and as I got off the exit for my town, I realized it was almost midnight. Out of idle curiosity, I decided to swing by the local GameStop and see if they were going to be open at midnight for people wanting to purchase Skyrim.

Ho boy. There was a line stretching so far that the people at the end could have probably had the game shipped to them faster than they were going to get it at GameStop. I stopped and chatted with a few of them. Oddly, they weren't all in line for Skyrim, though I was pretty sure that was the only major game released today. Most of them were, though. A lot of them had pre-ordered it, and the consensus seemed to be that expecting to waltz into GameStop and purchase it today was the height of folly. Reasoning that I had plenty of other things to do this weekend, I just drove home and forgot about it.

This morning, I drove down to Wal-Mart to get a universal power adapter for a laptop, and what did I see? An entire case full of copies of Skyrim. Ha! I guess the people who pre-ordered and waited in line got to play it a few extra hours last night, but otherwise I can't imagine why you'd spend a couple hours standing in the cold for it. Anyway, I paid $60 for it and spent most of the day playing it. (I should mention that I bought it for the X-Box 360, not the PC, which is why I couldn't just download it.)

This is the first game that I've bought on opening day, and the first new game I've played in which I didn't read anything about it first. Thus, the plot and gameplay elements were complete surprises to me--and not necessarily happy ones.

I know you don't come to my blog to get breaking news and reviews of current CRPGs, so I'll keep this brief. As in all Elder Scrolls games, you start as a prisoner--this time in a wagon, trundling to your execution in the Nord city of Helgen. The conversations of the other doomed souls in the wagon reveal them to be "Stormcloaks," followers of a lord named Ulfric Stormcloak who has styled himself the rightful king of Skyrim and is in rebellion against the Empire. As the wagon pulls into town and you disembark, the game asks for your race, sex, name, and appearance, and I was happy to see that at last I had the ability to create a bald character.

The executions begin, but just as you put your head down on the chopping block, a dragon appears and starts attacking the town. To hear the locals describe it later, there hasn't been a dragon 'round these parts in a thousand years. As everyone flees in panic, you have the option to follow the Stormcloaks or the Imperial Guard. I chose the Guard--I've never been much of a fan of separatists--and was rewarded with my freedom for helping to save the guard captain. After that, as is par for the course with The Elder Scrolls, the game opens completely up and allows you to go anywhere on the map, though it's strongly suggested that you start in a nearby town. Like Oblivion and Morrowind, the world is vast, with numerous towns, forts, ruins, caves, and other areas to explore, and there promises to be dozens of quests.

The game so far hasn't given me any indication of how long after Oblivion it takes place. I've been avoiding spoilers on that. But clearly some weird stuff has happened, because the folk speak of the "eight divines"--apparently worship of Talos (the ascended Tiber Septim) has been outlawed throughout the empire. Whether this has anything to do with the main quest, involving dragons and civil war, I don't know. [Later edit: I realized that the starting date, in-game, is listed as year 201 of the 4th era. Since the 3rd era ended at the close of Oblivion, I guess this game takes place 201 years later.]

Having played it for a few hours, I'm honestly not sure if I like it. The graphics are beautiful, the sound is first-rate, and the world is very evocative. But the dumbing-down of the character development system that began in Oblivion has continued in Skyrim. In particular:

• You don't choose a class. Instead, you just focus on the skills you want to improve on and sort-of self-define your class. (Increases in any 10 skills lead to a level increase.) This isn't horrible, since you could essentially do the same thing in the previous games (no matter what your initial selection, you could choose to specialize in other skills); however...

• Some of the skills are gone. Particularly irksome are the loss of athletics and acrobatics--I really liked improving those in the previous games. Combat skills have been reduced to "one-handed" and "two-handed" (a far crime from Morrowind's spear, axe, short blade, long blade, and blunt) and there's no more hand-to-hand skill. Overall, Morrowind had 27 skills, Oblivion had 21, and Skyrim has 18.

• Perhaps most shockingly, there are no attributes! Strength, speed, endurance, and so forth are fixed and immutable. Instead, when you increase levels, you make direct boosts to your health, magic, or stamina--these are no longer derived.

Balancing this somewhat are "perks," which are tied to specific skills and are chosen by the player during level-ups. For instance, players who want to specialize in the block skill can choose a "shield bash" perk and marksmen can choose a perk that allows them to zoom. There are hundreds of these, so you have to make more choices than in previous games when it comes to focusing your skills.

Still, many of the things I used to like about Morrowind and Oblivion--incrementally increasing my maximum encumbrance; getting to the point where I can race, leaping across the countryside because of high athletics and speed levels; mixing attribute-boosting potions--are no longer available.

There are some gameplay elements that make up for the changes in character development. Combat is much more realistic and, consequently, much more brutal. You have the option to dual-wield both weapons and spells. Spells are cast continuously, so when you choose to cast "flame" on someone, you can just hold down the trigger and become a human flamethrower (expending magic points constantly, of course). The physics are very realistic, and you can set things on fire (although it doesn't seem to permanently damage them). I like the conversations marginally better, and there's more depth and complexity to the quests. I haven't quite decided if I like the new "smith" skill which allows you to create and upgrade weapons and armor given the right raw materials (unlike previous games, you don't need to repair things), and I'm still struggling a bit with the lockpicking minigame.

Health regenerates continually, like mana and stamina, which I think is somewhat lame.

Oh, and apropos of our recent discussion on the issue, there are children in the game, although I have confirmed that you can't harm a hair on their heads. (Trying counts as a crime and rouses the entire town to slaughter you, however.)

So, a mixed bag, but I still have plenty of things left to discover and may end up liking it in the end. This will be my last word on the game until about 2023, though: Tomorrow, it's back to Wasteland. I promise.


Note: Sorry for the lack of images here, but I don't really know how to capture them on my TV.