The Elder Scrolls Return With Skyrim 158
Today marks the release of Skyrim, the fifth installment of Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls series. The game is set about 200 years after the events of Oblivion, at which point the province of Skyrim is embroiled in a civil war, and dragons roam the skies. Early reviews for the game have been largely complimentary — one at Rock, Paper, Shotgun artfully details all the things the reviewer hasn't yet done, despite playing the game for over 30 hours. Quoting: "I seriously worried Skyrim would, for all its talk of lavishness, depth and dragons, continue the transformation into a trudging, consolified action game filled with clunky acting. It does not. It slams on the brakes then reverses at dangerous speed back into Morrowind territory. Some things are lost (e.g. Persuasion is a sadly watered-down, irregular affair now mostly to do with shopping), many things are changed (e.g. recharging magic items can be done anywhere) and it’s certainly not as weird (no flying or Siltstriders), but it truly reclaims that sense of being in another world, rather than a generic soft-focus, over-familiar fantasyscape." An addendum goes into more detail on the specifics. If you're curious how the game looks in action, Giant Bomb has posted a ~52-minute quick-look video with commentary.
52-minutes is 'quick-look'? (Score:5, Insightful)
52-minutes is 'quick-look'?? Really?
Re:My favorite quick look so far... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm generally of the opinion that exploits in single player games are only a problem for people who are such gigantic assholes they can't help but fuck themselves over. The game does seem to have its share of legitimate bugs too though, but that's not all that surprising for a game of its scope. The important ones will get worked out in time though, and it's still an impressive game.
Re:11/11/11 11:11:11 (Score:2, Insightful)
With my settings (and when logged out of Slashdot) the post time does, in fact, show up as 11:11.
I'm wondering if he remembered to post at 11.1-bar seconds of that minute for good measure. (Also I posted this when there were already 11 comments.)
Re:My favorite quick look so far... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is actually something acceptable. You can also write in the console and have infinite money, but that won't make your game any more enjoyable. This follows under the same category, in my opinion. you'll only screw yourself out of a great experience if you want to - no one is forcing anything.
And honestly, whoever thought about this, deserves that piece of bread that got stolen. Genius
Re:My favorite quick look so far... (Score:5, Insightful)
IIRC, Morrowind didn't have monsters that leveled up with you. It had it's own set of leveling issues, like it became impossible to level up any more or increase stats beyond a certain point, but I was able to play and enjoy Morrowind without focusing too much on gaming the leveling system.
With Oblivion, I completely screwed up a few games and wasted many hours by leveling "incorrectly" and running into exactly the problem you described. Plus I generally disliked the idea of leveling up but the monsters kept up with me- why bother leveling up if I'm just going to be running in place?
Re:Rewrite (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:52-minutes is 'quick-look'? (Score:5, Insightful)
When that 52 minutes is much less than 1% of the content? Yeah.
Re:Rewrite (Score:2, Insightful)
No resale value.
Can't install without steam.
Pirates get the following:
Free game
Able to install anytime, anywhere
Updates when they want to update
No internet connection needed to play.
I recommend months to a year later (Score:5, Insightful)
Reason is again bugs and also mods. They tend to provide top notch mod tools (I don't know if they have with Skyrim, but they have for the games in the past) and there are hard core modders out there. So not only do you get bug fixes, but you get a lot of improvements and changes.
As an example I really didn't like Oblivion as it was done stock. I don't like the way everything levels with your character. Just ruins the feel of the game for me. Well no problem, I'm not the only one and people have changed that. So I can nab a bunch of mods that change it more to my liking, and improve the graphics and so on, and in the end have a game that I just love and have replayed many times.
So ya my view is hold off unless you have nothing else you wish to play or are just the kind of person who has to have it day one. Wait a bit, and you'll enjoy it that much more when you can mod it up as you desire.
Of course that only applies to the PC version, but then the PC is where these games have their heritage so probably the best platform to play them on.
Re:Rewrite (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, it means that if you're going to spend more than a handful of days anywhere without internet access, you can't actually play it. Well, not if you pay for it anyway - pirates don't have to worry about this.
Re:My favorite quick look so far... (Score:2, Insightful)
"You can also write in the console and have infinite money, but that won't make your game any more enjoyable."
I can assure you that I enjoyed Oblivion much, much more with infinite lock picks and infinite gold than without. It instantly transformed it from a grind to a marvelous world to explore freely. Your point is well taken, but be aware that it doesn't apply universally. You can only speak about yourself when you say things like "doing X won't make the game any more enjoyable".
Re:52-minutes is 'quick-look'? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're doing it wrong.
In Elder Scrolls games, the main quest is the filler.