A 1 month on review

[tomhughes]

So we've all played a lot of Skyrim right now (100+ in the first couple of weeks for a lot of us) and I feel that having completed retty much all the main and guild quests and built several characters I can really write a proper review for this game.

 

First off I think it is fair to say that overall it is a very good game - a good improvement on some of the weaker parts of Oblvion (levelling and characters especially) whilst retaining what really makes the Elder Scrolls great; an in depth world with so many different ways to approach it. A lot of this has been written in reviews and I hope while you read the next part you keep in mind that overall I really love Skyrim.

 

However..........

 

I can't help but feel that there are a few issues that should be addressed and I would really like people's feedback:

 

1) Some questlines are tooshort and implausible: You can pretty much beast the Companions and College of Winterhold in a few days (in game) and then somehow become guild leader when there are far more experienced people around you. When you compare it to the recommendation idea for the Mages Guild in Oblivion this just seems an insanely short amount of time to do it in, quite frankly implausible and most annoyingly just plain laziness from Bethesda's point of view

 

2) PC gamers seems to have been forgotten: Go and pay Skyrim right now, find a rug and look at the corners - pretty sure you will find the same texture there as in Morrowind; graphics wise it certainly seems the same. It just seems that for having some truly beautiful scenes Bethesda have cut corners in one too many places with graphics and given what PCs can do nowadays it seems like they just forgot the sort of graphics we expect nowadays

 

3) Arrow to the knee: come on guys it's the sodding mudcrab thing all over again

 

4) The entire Civil War: Now I can accept the CoW and Companion quests - short yes but at least an interesting storyline. Second only to the main quest the civil war was advertised as the big thing in Skyrim and what do we get - roughly 5 castle battles and the most boring ending in game history.

 

So say what you think. Overall yes a good game but I just feel corners were cut (for 11/11/11 perhaps?) and improvements weren't made in places where they should've been.

 

Of course one of the main reasons we love Skyrim for PC (and you all read the Nexus sites) is because the modding oppurtunities for this game are huge. In 6 months I am hoping (expecting sounds too demanding) some amazing mods that fully utilize both the computers and games abilities but until the CK is released I have to say I am getting a bit bored with Skyrim

 

TL:DR Well done Bethesda but the modders will truly make this game everything it should be

Edited December 18, 2011 by tomhughes

[Deleted2282112User]

a die-hard tes fan here, but it's prettymuch what i've though, word for word almost of Skyrim. That aside, i'm still addicted, but yeah, definately beth didnt put as much as they think they did into this one. It seems to be a trend now in todays 'gaming' society..

 

"TL:DR Well done Bethesda but the modders will truly make this game everything it should be " THIS. - even so, beth seem to have jipped every mod community by 'delaying' the CK for their bs integration of steam workshop, wtf is this sh*t? watch modding communities catch fire when they start making it so people can 'buy' mods..

[tomhughes]

It defeinitely does seem true in the last couple of years as games have become more accessbile/popular to a larger portion of society the quality has generally gone down. Just look at what happened to COD....

[JenLit]

I'd rather Bethesda Softworks go to the lengths of releasing a 'Creation Kit' at all to the general public, compared to what just about everyone else does, thus enabling us to carry the torch far beyond the borders of commercially feasible development, than having Beth themselves build 10 more quests, a couple of spells or the like with their time. The CK is such a boon, a gigantic multiplicator, and the better of the choices for us gamers in the end.

[Thoreai]

snip

I agree...the only thing i dont agree with you is the depth...in my opinion it absolutely lacks in depth..while being a beutifully crafted world, its filled with puppets, that are reminding you of it everytime they speak their given phrases...there are no emotions in that game.

 

Also there are no real choices in it, as nothing you do really matters..you are a hero,thief,mass murderer all in one person and nothing of that matters.

 

Also the civil war..i was never convinced that there is something like that going on....the whole thing is static....if you arent continuing the q you dont even know there is a war at all.

 

I want to believe in this world, but everytime i play the only thing that comes to mind is "i need CK", the game itself in vanila state, while being fun in contrast to vanila oblivion, reminds me of a playground...here they did a bit of this, there a bit of that, but nothing has been really finished/polished and everything screams of "we werent given enough time".

 

I like the game, but im getting somewhat tired of their attitude "modders will fix it for us".

Edited December 19, 2011 by pavy

[elderiii]

I can't think of a single other (TES games excluded) game that I have spent almost 180 hours on without any co-op or multiplayer features.... I consider a 40 hr game these days to be an unusually good value, so to have as many hours into this game as I do thus far without installing a single mod is pretty darned good. Oh, did I mention that I don't think I have experienced even half of the content yet? In fact I doubt I've done much more than 1/3 of what the game has to offer.

 

Is the game perfect? No, and heck no! ... but considering the typical tripe which we get nowadays that lasts 10 hours if you're lucky.... I'm counting my blessings. ;)

 

Now, before anyone flames me for not nitpicking on the flaws in the game that I've been enjoying so much, let me say that I am looking forward to the Creation Kit just as much as any of you are and yes, I do intend to mod things myself.... just don't forget that we have been given (or will be rather) a tool that lets us do crazy things with modding. How many other game developers do that for their customers, after they have already bought the game? ;)

[JimboUK]

I get the feeling it was rushed, they set a date and rather than push the date back they released it in an unfinished and untested state which is a shame.

 

The world is static where nothing you do makes the slightest bit off difference.

 

They've replaced Oblivions ridiculous Mudcrab conversations with repetitive garbage that begins to grate after a while.

 

The quest lines are far too short and you progress far too quickly through the various guilds, there is no sense of achievement whatsoever from becoming leader.

 

The world is a chore to navigate, I'm getting tired of either having to walk round mountains looking for the one path up or spending time glitching my way up the rocks. It's a shame in their rush to remove more things with each game that we've lost the two things from previous games that would have solved the problem, climbing and levitation.

 

They've made no effort whatsoever with the PC version, it looks like a 2005 game and the less said about the UI the better.

 

I feel no connection with the PC at all, there's no facial expressions, no acknowledgement of the world around him/her, it's like controlling a zombie. Also the "be all things" system makes one character feel much like the last one.

 

There is fun to be had dungeon crawling and dicking about but if they had fleshed the game out, made the world coherent and remembered those little things that make a big difference it would have had the makings of a classic.

[Thoreai]

They've made no effort whatsoever with the PC version, it looks like a 2005 game and the less said about the UI the better.

Speaking of that...this screenshot comparsion here the first pick http://skyrim.supermensa.org/page/2 made me lol.

[JimboUK]

They've made no effort whatsoever with the PC version, it looks like a 2005 game and the less said about the UI the better.

Speaking of that...this screenshot comparsion here the first pick http://skyrim.supermensa.org/page/2 made me lol.

 

Yeah that didn't go unnoticed and neither did the rug texture the OP mentions, it does look like it's been lifted from Morrowind.

[tazmo]

ok, my two penerth.>!

I tend to agree with all your experienced comments, I was basically an FPS gamer myself (as I am an ex squaddie and luv shooting and blowing things up..!) but, after playing morrowind for a short time, then progressed to Gothic 3, the dragon knight saga, oblivion and finally now skyrim, i can honestly say I am hooked.

Oblivion was great for me, nice and open worlded, quests that you can do how you want and when you want, deep long storylines like the thieves guild and dark brotherhodd which i found quite immersive. Now, skyrim, I just cannot believe the sheer size of the free roaming gaming world available to us, I am on my second run through, having done over 120 hours first time round and i didnt even start the civil war or main quest (past first visit to High hrothgar), so i decided to start again and walk everywhere seeing what i could discover.

I agree with the above commenst, the quests in skyrim are too short, especially the dark brotherhood and companions quests and what the hell was the college quests all about..! I like the addition of the werewolf option but to me that could have been done better, making your werewolf character MUCH more powerful and scary to all other NPC in the game, also making a constant war / battle with the vamps would have been good.

now, the civil war, great idea, and as i said, i didnt start the civil war quest last time (as i hadn't even got round to it) but, surely if skyrim is gripped i a civil war, how come we dont see it, there is plenty of talk about it, but no action, there should be towns and villages besieged and burning, smoke in the distance, dead bodies, to me a very lame story line that bathesda could have gone to town on. i do believe that the award of best RPG game for 2011 is well deserved as in my eyes it beats the cr*p out of anything out there, and personally i am sick of hearing about the battle between battlefield 3 and COD, they are bothe boring platform style games full of obnoxious yank soldiers who could't shoot for sh*t, so skyrim gets my vote for best GAME for 2011.

The graphics are just plain stunning, i luv the view, the butterflies, the leaves rolling over the ground, beautiful touches to an awesome landscape.

if it wasnt for the fantastic modding community (cottoned onto it with oblivion) out there to make the game EVEN better, it would be a buggy game that we would still put up with, CTD's included and I am sure you will all agree when i say.....`skyrim is reality, all else is just fake'