Skyrim: Mid-Game Review

Because I can't take images from my television, I've stolen these screenshots from The Unofficial Elder Scrolls pages. If they ask me to remove them I will, but I hope my theft is mitigated by my earnest plea that everyone visit TESP because they've done an awesome job cataloging every game, including some I never knew about.

         

When you're a CRPG addict, most games help you temper that addiction by having a certain limit to their duration. I could love Pool of Radiance, and want to play it from sunrise to sundown, but if I did the game would be over in about two days, and I could go back to doing other things. The Elder Scrolls games, on the other hand, go on forever. They're like single-player MMORPGs. I could see marriages ending and players losing their jobs because of Skyrim.

I'm reaching that point that I've noticed before in Morrowind and Oblivion where the game starts to exhaust me. They all have a way of dragging me in with their non-linearity, immersion, compelling plots, and constant character progression. But, ultimately, I tend to burn myself out on them. I've won both Morrowind and Oblivion, but I've started about 6 times as many games as I've won. I've only finished the Morrowind expansion packs once, and I've never finished the two major Oblivion expansions, as much as I liked the game.

All of this sounds negative, but I still maintain that Skyrim is a great game. Maybe not the best I've ever played, but certainly one of the most addictive. Today, as I was playing, I made a quick list of the things I like and don't like about the game:
        
Good Things in Skyrim
          
1. The world is dynamic and chaotic. More than any other game series I've played, The Elder Scrolls represents something of a simulation rather than a tightly-scripted game. The creators established the rules of the engine, seeded the world with objects and characters, and sat back to watch them interact. Thus, every player encounters situations that no other player does. For instance, while traversing the countryside, I came upon a dragon, who immediately engaged me in combat. I fought him for a while, but my hit points dipped dangerously low, so I decided to duck into a nearby house and see if I could recharge. As soon as I got through the front door, the owner--some mage--took exception and started throwing ice shards at me. I ran back outside, pursued by the mage, and ran headlong into the side of the dragon. The mage and dragon apparently decided that I was the least of the threats and started attacking each other. I watched from a distance, cast "heal" until my hit points were restored, and watched as the mage got stomped to death. I then finished off the dragon, whose hit points had been satisfyingly reduced, with a poison-soaked arrow.

It works against you too, unfortunately. I had just left a pleasant farmstead, having promised to deliver a letter from the owner to his son in another town. I suddenly got a message that I had "failed" in the quest. Returning to the farm, I found the owner and his wife dead in their field with a sabre-toothed tiger standing over them.

How many other games allow this kind of randomness in gameplay? NetHack comes to mind, but that's about it.

2. There is a satisfyingly complicated political situation that gives lots of opportunities for role-playing. None of the factions come across as "good" or "evil." You might want to support the empire, but why do they allow bands of Thalmer to roam the kingdom persecuting Talos worshippers? You decide that the Forsworn are barbarian throwbacks, but then hear about all the atrocities the local Nords have been committing on them. Thus, you can pick a side and be lawful neutral, you can adopt a chaotic stance and refuse to pick sides, or you can craftily use the situation to your financial advantage.

3. You have to read to really get a handle on what's happening. Characters tell you about the Stormcloaks, the Thalmer, the Forsworn, and other factions, but you only really understand them if you take time to read the associated books. Like many Elder Scrolls players, I usually start the game determined to read every book--a resolve that collapses the first time I encounter a substantial bookshelf. But I make sure to at least skim everything and make sure I'm not missing some key element of politics or intrigue.

My wife: "You just spent two hours reading books in a game?"

    

4. Combat is realistic and brutal. I'm not saying it's like real melee combat; otherwise, we'd spend most of the game crying. But it's about as real as you can get and still have fun. Swords connect in sprays of blood. If you get too close to enemies, you end up hammering at them with your pommel instead of swinging. Shields can bash as well as defend. Two-handed weapons do more damage but are much harder to wield and aim, as you would expect.

5. I never get sick of fighting dragons. Some seem to have fixed posts, but others roam randomly, much like the Oblivion gates in the previous game.. Realistically, they sometimes ignore you and go flying off as you stand beneath them howling in frustration.
            
6. When I first read about smithing, I thought it sounded stupid. And now I'm addicted. The game offers a set of complicated, interrelated processes by which you can tan leather, smelt ore, improve weapons and armor, and create weapons and armor from scratch. Part of why I like it is related to the economy (below); it's very satisfying to turn two pieces of ore and an amethyst worth 40 gold pieces into a silver ring worth 200. There are also very tangible benefits to improving weapons and armor.
            

7. As far as I can tell, they finally got the economy right. I blogged about game economies early in my career, and it remains a major category in my GIMLET. In Morrowind and Oblivion (as well as countless non-Elder Scrolls games), I find it too easy to get rich too quickly. Skyrim offers so many ways to spend money that 20-30 hours into the game, I'm basically dead broke. (Although I did buy a house in Whiterun.)

8. The alchemy system is cool, but it doesn't break the game. I've liked mixing potions in all the Elder Scrolls games, but Skyrim is the first one to get the balance right. You can't do it anywhere: you have to find an alchemist's lab. The potions aren't quite as strong as the ones in previous games, reagents aren't quite as plentiful, and you don't level up quite as fast. This means that you rarely have a stock of 100 healing potions waiting to bail you out of any battle. I also like that you have to "catch" some of your reagents, like butterflies, fireflies, and fish.

"And now you're spending a half hour making potions? What kind of game is this?"

            
9. The monsters are monstrous. I've mentioned dragons, but there are also giants, sabre-toothed tigers, giant spiders, mammoths, bears, and trolls that are suitably intimidating in their size and prowess. I've played plenty of CRPGs in which I buffed myself before dangerous combats; I don't think I've ever played one in which a foe actually made me turn around and run. My character is level 23, and these creatures still crush me--crush me to goo.

Skyrim's giant spiders are suitably giant and terrifying.

          

10. If you commit murder, you can avoid a bounty by killing all the witnesses. You might wonder who would do this, but if you're roleplaying an imperial loyalist or a Stormcloak separatist, you have plenty of opportunities to ambush and slay roving bands of guardsmen or rebels on the road, which would otherwise count as assault and murder.

11. Although they're nowhere near the level of the Interplay/Bioware titles, NPCs are a lot more interesting than in previous Elder Scrolls games. You have some real dialogue options, not just "topics," with them, and they have very realistic conversations with each other as you walk by--not just a bunch of nonsense about seeing mudcrabs the other day.

12. The world is full of animals, including snowshoe hares, elk, moose, foxes, chickens, cows, fish, dogs, and bats. (Though, strangely, no cats that I've seen.) None of them are threatening, although you can kill them for food. I find that they give the world a lot of ambiance. I've also heard you can create chaos by casting "frenzy" on them in the middle of town, but I haven't tried it yet.


Jury's Still Out

         
1. Occasionally, as you strike the final blow, the game cuts to a brief killing animation, showing you slashing the enemy's throat, or driving your sword through his chest or something. It happens about 1 out of every 10 kills, which is enough to still be fun and not routine. However, my character is often teetering on the edge of death himself by the end of combat, and it's easy, when the game suddenly takes control, to assume for a second that I've been killed. My wife keeps hearing me yell, "OH GODDAMN--oh, wait. Cool."
           
 2. You find a lot of food in the game, and if you have a mind you can find a cookpot and whip up stews, roasts, and apple pie. Cooked meals grant more hit points than their raw materials, but it still seems silly.

3. I realize the lockpicking system is much more realistic in this game, but I don't like it.

4. In Oblivion, you could set one active quest at a time and you'd see a marker pointing your way to it. In Skyrim, you can set any quest as "active," and you see multiple markers. It's not that I don't like the ability to have multiple active quests, but I think quest markers are lame. What's the fun of sneaking into a house to search for some juicy bit of evidence if there's a big arrow pointing you to its exact location? I turn them off and set a custom marker when I want to go to a specific place.

5. The game world is huge, but it's dominated by mountains, which you can't easily scale. Going from one town to another often takes a long time as you try to find passes and climbable slopes. I realize it's more realistic this way, but I still find it annoying.

6. I still haven't quite reconciled myself to the loss of attributes, particularly speed.


Could Do Without Them

1. Almost every dungeon wears out its welcome before I've finished. I find them way too big. I don't mind tough combats, but don't make me wander through two hours' of corridors to find an amulet.

2. The speed and pathfinding of followers in Morrowind was atrocious. You'd get a quest to lead some Argonian to Ebonheart, and it would take hours of slowly--oh, so slowly--walking there, all the while protecting him from Nix hounds, which he was likely to charge, unarmored, with a dagger. Oblivion greatly improved upon followers, making it so that you literally couldn't lose them; if you got ahead of them, they'd appear by your side when you entered a new location. One of them, the infamous Adoring Fan, not even death would shake. Skyrim has reverted to Morrowind's level of pathfinding. While it's nice to be able to swap inventories with a follower, it doesn't do me any good if I have to carefully lead him around every rock and bush. And just like Morrowind and Oblivion, followers have a way of lunging in front of your sword thrusts.

3. In Oblivion, you could hotkey various items and quickly switch among them in combat. In Skyrim, this has been replaced with a "favorites" menu that, while functional, breaks the immersion a bit.

4. Skyrim makes a distinction between alchemical "ingredients" and food, the latter of which can't be used in potions but can be eaten for minor gains in hit points (between 1-5, usually). If you have a lot of food, you can stop in the middle of combat to wolf it down and heal. I'm not sure what's more absurd: the idea that my stomach could hold 26 heads of cabbage, or that an enemy would stop and wait for me to finish gorging myself on them.

5. While I appreciate the dialogue in the game, the voice acting isn't very good and, like Oblivion, depends on too many of the same voices. Claudia Christian, who played Susan Ivanova on Babylon 5, seems to have voiced all the females in the game. It's nice that they got celebrity voice talent, but if you're going to rely on one actress for so many voices, it ought to be someone capable of sounding like different characters.


20-30 hours into the game, and I've barely done anything on the main quest. I've yet to visit the capital, Solitude, nor to find the Imperial Legion, the Blades, the mage's college, the bard's college, or the Thieves' Guild. Haven't encountered a Daedra yet, but I know they're out there. I know there's vampirism and lycanthropy, but they remain in my future. This is a huge game.

I apologize for those of you who think I should stick to my chronology and only look at historical games, but I promise I won't play new releases that often. I may give you one more posting--perhaps with a GIMLET--once I've won, but until then, let's finish up Wizard Wars and get on to Wizardry. I was just about to note the coincidence in names, and then I realized it's because I was playing in alphabetical order. Duh.