To make things even better was the fact that it was a roam-like-crazy fantasy game where I could basically point my character into a direction and walk for as long as there was ground to walk on. And, with the exception of Monks - whose hand-to-hand fighting style didn't actually work - and some other leveling up flaws, I could make my character whatever I wanted and send him or her wherever I wanted to.
Magic. Sheer crazy, geeky magic.
And I played that game to death and then some. The story lines were compelling. You had your three guilds - the standard Thief, Fighters, and Mages - which are not very imaginative, but the stories they wove into them were really good. You cared. You wanted to know what's going to happen. You didn't just run around killed stuff for no apparent reason - well not most of the time. You felt that there was sufficient motivation, whether it be the main quest, the guild quests or the random dude by the side of the road who just really wants them evil fish' scales.
After Oblivion I actually worked backwards and played Morrowind, which had no voice acting whatsoever and a helluva lot of text to read. Regardless, I loved it too. There is just something so amazing that Bethesda had managed to bring into this series so that you can't help but look over all the trite stuff and just go 'ooohhh'.
Skyrim released roughly five years later. The wait was sheer agony because there was no doubt in my mind that it was going to be brilliant. I didn't need a trailer, a demo, concept art, combat tutorials and all the other stuff they brought in to sell the crowd. They had already had me when I finished Oblivion for the umpteenth time - and by umpteenth, you need to understand that I was STILL playing it a month before Skyrim was released.
And then it came...
I had this whole plan. I was going to wait a while since my budget was tight that particular month and it was so close to Christmas and I'm one of those people who make a point of buying myself gifts. It was all perfectly sound reasoning.
I blame my car for not being able to drive further than the gaming store. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. I bought Skyrim on its release date,
Well, I could, but not. See, in the first five minutes of the game you're basically on this ox cart being taken as a prisoner into a small town. You have no idea what is going on, you can't move or talk or loosen your hands. You can basically swivel your head from side to side to look at the NPCs talking around you but that's it. The ox cart travels into this town, stops by a wall and you're character gets off. From here, after some roll calling, you're confronted with the question of "Who are you?" and you get to choose what you're character looks like. After that, the introduction is still not done and you still don't have control over your character. No, you first see them lob someone's head of and put your head on the block... and then the actual game begins.
A tad long, but okay, we can go with that. So what was the hiccup?
The problem was that I couldn't get off the wagon. At. All. Somewhere along this whole "let's have the gamer sit in a cart and listen to dialogue" session, there is a bug that makes the NPCs stop talking. Their dialogue is kept in sync with the route of the cart which means if the dialogue doesn't come through, the game can effectively not continue. The ox takes you through the town and into the wall... and keeps on walking and walking and walking while the cart is standing motionless.
This didn't happen once or twice or three times or ten or twenty. I kid you not when I say that I spent an ENTIRE Saturday trying to get past this one point. Because what else could I do? Return a supposedly defunct game which might work on everyone else's console but mine? There's nothing wrong with the disc, the game itself is the problem.
So an entire Saturday went by in which I was reading, writing, cleaning, washing - because all I would need to do is start the game and come back five minutes later to see whether the oxes stopped walking. Then repeat until insane. To say I was furious... big fucking understatement.
I had given up. I had decided that the money I had spent on the game was a complete and utter waste and the best I could do was face this reality, deal with it and move on. I tried still tried, persisted, couldn't stop myself. And eventually, three days after putting the game into my console for the first time, the fucking oxes stopped walking...
YAY!!!!!!!
.... and then the game tanked for some other reason.
But they had stopped walking once, I reasoned. They might do it again. And sure enough, those oxen got tired of wanting to walk through the wall a couple of tries later. Like a woman starved I leapt for the controller and saved at the first chance. Then started screaming like only a geek could.
Long story shorter: the game kept bombing after every five to ten minutes. A bit after that, I got a different xbox - about a year younger than mine, never hooked onto the internet and only updated through what was sometimes put on games - and suddenly the craziness stopped. I would've simply said "okay my xbox was clearly possessed" had I not heard of others having similar problems.
The look of the game is sheer brilliance. If I marveled at Oblivion, I'm stunned by Skyrim. Bethesda boasted that whatever mountain top you see will be something that you can stand on. I wouldn't go as far as saying they are completely, 100% truthful about it, but they're pretty darn close. I went out to test it. You have to find a route - which can be tricky - and then you have to fight saber tigers (evil cats that like hunting adventurers trying to test Bethesda's boasts), but with persistence, you'll get there.
So, in short, 'ooooh! pretty!' One could argue that they could've gone better on their characters, but it's okay. Maybe they were too focused on how to kill them.
Which brings me to the combat. I can't say I have any problem with how you fight in this game. I think they really took their time thinking it out and there's just no way to even compare Oblivion's now seemingly clunky fighting with what Skyrim is having you do.
But you don't have to just run around and kill stuff. The game really offers you a lot of freedom to go and occupy yourself however you may see fit. You can forge your own armour - a little simple but it's kinda neat running around in something you made yourself. I don't see the "you can make whatever you want" type of boast Bethesda had ringing true here. You're limited in how your armour is going to look. It might've been nice to have the option of variety, but okay, we won't pitch a fit about it. You could also cook. Yup, you can grab fruit and veggies from barrels and from out of a farmer's field (both of which seem like stealing even if they don't penalize you) and then throw it in a pot and make some food that'll keep you healthy when being attacked. There's no particular skill connected to the cooking and, though I have munched a helluva lot of food right before the blow that could kill me, it seems kinda pointless. Then there's of course alchemy. Here I actually like what they did in having you discover ingredients and what potions can be made, etc.
To be honest, it's mostly fluff that most gamers might take a shine to for a moment and then just go 'meh' at later.
I also like what they did with their leveling up system. It's simpler, the perks might not be quite what you want right off the bat, but every little perk does help in the long run.
All of these things would make Skyrim a game I'd play day in and day out if it weren't for one thing: Uncompelling story lines.
Wait! But what about the Dovakin thing? What about all those guilds and their little weaves? What about the civil war?
In terms of story... Skyrim is pretty much like weak tea.
Now before I launch into my final rant, let me say I do still play Skyrim but it often stays on the back burner. It's really pretty and I have a sense of wanting to see how it ends simply because no one buys a game simply to see the beginning. With that being said, it's not on my favourites shelf. More on the "shame it wasn't as much as it could have been" list right along there with Enslaved, but that's another story altogether.
Bethesda
I have to throw this out here. While Bioware did do what they did with Mass Effect (and subsequently everyone wants to kill them), the outrage I feel for Bethesda is far, far worse. See, what Mass Effect has done every single time is to make you care. Bethesda has never been incredibly brilliant in terms of story but these are the guys that brought us Fallout! Even Fallout New Vegas was more compelling. How is such a thing possible?
What also pisses me off is the number of bugs that slipped through. Where was the quality control checks? There will always be ways to fix a game and there will always be some random thing that pops out of nowhere that will require some attention. However, it is never acceptable to bring out a substandard product with the notion of 'oh we'll fix it later'. Quite frankly, I find that insulting.
And it's not just because I was stuck on a wagon for a whole fucking weekend. Here's another one of those bugs that, might be hilarious, but pretty unbelievable. So your character can marry (what on earth for, I don't know. Every ugly bastard can look your way and then they basically just call you honey afterwards and give you a couple of coins. wtf?!) but here's a rather crucial FYI: try not to get any of your companions killed before you get hitched. Why? Because they'll gatecrash the wedding.
I am NOT kidding.
At which point everyone thinks you're a bastard and walks out including the potential spouse.
The hilarity doesn't stop there. So to fix this, you wait a day, propose again, go to the chapel, HIDE the corpse in an adjacent room and no one has an issue with the wedding proceeding.
THEN - yup, it doesn't stop - when I went back to the house I bought in one of the cities, wouldn't you believe it, the corpse crashed there too!
It's funny, I'll give the glitch that, but honestly? I felt buying Skyrim first-hand was a waste of my money. And I'll only seriously consider purchasing future Bethesda products once it hits somewhere close to the 'classics' brand.
