PC Gamer pays small tribute to Elder Scrolls...

[Marxist ßastard]

PC Gamer's "Alternative Lives" column -- to be honest, the first time I saw this, I mistook it for a column on alternative lifestyles and decided to leave the out-of-place text be. When I later saw a headline talking about being lonely, my suspicions were, in my eyes, confirmed. However, this small block o' text next to the simulations column and between a downright mediocre Q-and-A on hardware with someone going by the name "Vederman" and a risibly small and slightly inaccurate cheats section caught my eye with a small picture of Basks-in-the-Sun and the area just West of Fort Frostmoth accompanied by the text "Get your lizard on in Morrowind."

 

"Okay, cowboy," I think -- "you've got my ear, but someone is going to get flamed if that 'it's still growing' in the title will lead to what I fear it will."

 

My thoughts drifted, at that time, to Better Bodies 2.0 and what relevance it potentially had in Morroiwnd's inclusion in the "Alternative Lives" column...

 

...And then, realizing that this is the author of an RPG genre column looking back on the history of The Elder Scrolls, my thoughts turned kittens, and I started reading...

 

TAMRIEL TURNS TEN, AND IT'S STILL GROWING

 

IN 1994, THE PROSPECTS for the RPG genre seemed as bleak as the Vede's love itinerary.  The three flagship series of the '80s -- Ultima, Might and Magic, and Wizardry -- were enduring misguided overhauls and lengthy delays between installments.  Interplay had inherited the D&D license from SSI, but was using it to green-light lame projects like Descent to Undermountain and Blood and Magic.  Publishers had myopically released a flood of redundant, uninspired titles and then ironically began to doubt the genre's commercial viability.

 

Then Bethesda Softworks released The Elder Scrolls:  Arena, and 10 yeara later the series is still profoundly affecting the genre.  Arena culled the smoothly scrolling first-person view and accessible journal features of Ultima Underworld and packaged them in a much more ambitious, non-linear RPG.  To celebrate the anniversary of Arena's release, Bethesda recently made the game freely avaliable at the community's website.  [ignorant comment about XP and DOSBox removed; everyone should know about the UESP's guide here. -- mß]

 

Arena was followed by Daggerfall (1996) -- another landmark RPG, despite its being incredibly buggy upon release [Play through the pain!  Spitters are quitters, cowboy! -- mß].  This sequel relied on random generators to create an open-ended gaming world too vast to ever fully explore.  Best of all, it offered unparralleled oppurtunities to roleplay personalized charachters.

 

Then came a couple of spin-offs:  Battlespire (1998), a flawed dungeon-crawler notable for offering a cooperative multiplayer mode [...and the Daedric Crescent! -- mß], and Redguard (1999), a gorgeous adventure/RPG hybrid.  Finally, Morrowind (2002) rewarded us with its amazingly detailed 3D gameworld, comprehensive background fiction, and hundreds of hours of epic gameplay.  The Elder Scrolls RPGs are so massive in scope, and so open-ended in design, that their closest peers are probably massively multiplayer RPGs [No.  And am I the only one who catches the irony here?  -- mß].

 

Most fantasy RPGs treat Tolkien's works as scriptures, but the Elder Scrolls' Tamriel rejects the stereotypical charachterizations and has its own memorable history.  Bethesda's developers (who have included Todd Howard, Ken Rolston, and Julian LeFay [it means "The Fay" in French.  What could be cooler than that? -- mß]) have crafted an unforgettable world wherein Wood Elves are carnivorous weirdos [...that keep losing their rings to barrels that every new arrival to the island feels somehow obligated to loot... -- mß], Dwarves are an extinct race of scientific masterminds, and the mysterious Daedra are both gods and demons.  I can't wait to see the next decade of Elder Scrolls adventures, as Bethesda has even more ambitious plans for Tamriel that it's not ready to reveal.  Happy anniversary, guys [Dear God, it is an alternative lifestyle column!  -- mß] -- and thanks.

 

So there you have it. A, er... veteran, I guess... RPG player reflecting on the history and influence of the Elder Scrolls series following its tenth anniversary. I remember PC Gamer, the publication hosting this article, celebrating its own tenth anniversary two months or so ago. I believe it is reasonable to assume that Arena, which they gave an 88% rating, was in with the first several games they reviewed. "A great technical achievement," they called it -- even if those Pentium Pros run it too damn fast. Anyways, here's hoping that PC Gamer has another good decade, too, because I need hard copies of slow-coming news and slightly biased reviews regarding PC gaming and hardware for when the grid goes down.