Early Look At The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 210
Bethesda plans to launch their newest Elder Scrolls game, Skyrim, in November, and they've finally started to take the wraps off the game. A preview at Eurogamer provides some information about the game's combat, the UI, and exploration of the game world. Quoting:
"RPGs send you into menus more than almost any other game genre, so it's weird that more thought doesn't go into inventory design, but as I play around with powers, weapons and items to lighten my load it becomes clear that Skyrim is a welcome exception. Its nested menus are accessed almost as smoothly as iPad page swipes, and navigating them is quick and clean. You can set favorites, equip items to either hand, and examine things in detail. More than once during my brief hands-on I have to rotate an object to look for a clue to a puzzle, or read a document, and it's all done without going to a different screen or do anything more complex than wiggling sticks and hitting a face button. It's easy to imagine that a system like this in Oblivion or Fallout could have shaved hours off the average player's actual game-time. As it is, it saves valuable seconds in my hands-on, and seconds are my currency today, so thank you to whomever at Bethesda designed the inventory."
Re:Meh... (Score:5, Interesting)
No, you're definitely not the only one to feel that way. In fact, I'd say it's a time-honored tradition for older games to come out and poo-poo the latest Elder Scrolls game, regaling us with stories of how complex and deep the older games were. That's not to say that I disagree; in fact, I whole-heartedly agree with this criticism. However, I also find the later games to be enjoyable for what they are. As long as you're willing to accept that certain features have been irrevocably streamlined away, and they're not coming back, you can still have quite a bit of fun with Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 (which isn't an Elder Scrolls game, of course, but still uses the same engine).
I get just as frustrated as everyone else, when I load up the newest Elder Scrolls game, and some weapon or skill that I liked is gone, but -- usually -- the rest of the game makes up for that. And they can never take Arena, Daggerfall, or Morrowind away from us. If you want to levitate, while shooting a crossbow, well, you can always load up one of the older games. In fact, Morrowind and Oblivion both still have a surprisingly active modding community (or, they did, when I last re-installed the games and was collecting mods).
Now, I'm not a fanboy, and I'm not saying Oblivion was an amazing, top-notch game -- but each of the Elder Scrolls games has been deeply flawed in its own idiosyncratic way, and I've been able to overlook those flaws, because I like the overall game design. Arena is a bit fuzzy in my memory, but I remember it being a bit shallow. Personally, I thought Daggerfall was almost unplayably buggy, soullessly random, and had a horrendous UI. Morrowind was frankly a bit boring, with nothing but endless Cliff Divers for miles and miles. Oblivion heavily penalized you for improving any non-combat skills, and the vaunted Radiant AI was a total joke. But there were aspects to those games that kept me playing for years. So, in the end, I'd advise cautious optimism and trust in the game design. The worst thing that happens is that you post another stereotypical "back in MY day" rant on the official forums and wait for a mod that fixes all the bone-headed decisions they made in the new game.