Adventures in gaming: Skyrim

Released in November, Skyrim is the 5th addition to the Elder Scrolls library of games. Bethesda has yet again proven they are masters of unblieveably immersive worlds. Similar to it's precessors, Skyrim places you in a fantasy world where you are free to do as you see fit, this time in the north country. I was glad to see that some of the almost expected elements had been changed up somewhat. The Thieves, Fighters, and Mages guild have all seen better days. In actuality, only the Theives guild remains, but I'll leave it up tp you to find out why 🙂

Another change from the previous installments are a lot of the components to the character builders. Rather then choose a profession, skills, bonses etc, Skyrim just has you choose a gender and a race. Rather then choose one of the three base "professions" – Fighter, mage, thief – you are free to build your character as you see fit.While the races each offer a little bonus that is usually predispositioned towards one of the three archtypes, it in no way locks you in. If you desire your axe wielding, heavy armored orc to have a strong lockpicking skill you are free to do so. I am glad to see that I have succeded in creating a character that blurred the lines.

Visually, Skyrim is astounding. I can't tell you how many times I have just stopped and stared at some of the mountian top vistas or night skys. This usually holds true for every Elder Scroll game, and Skyrim is no exception. I had initially worried that, being set in the north, the majority of Skyrim's landscape would be snowy tundra. I'm glad to say the landscape is quite diverse. 

With all thats great to be said about it's supurb immersion and atmosphere, Skyrim is not without it's flaws. Even through they continue to add more and more voice actors, I still feel that they are way over used. It may sound trivial, but when guards across the country side all sound alike, it starts to great on you. The game engine is full of bugs galore, even after 2 sets of patches. For me, nothing game breaking so far. The biggest annoyance has been dealing with some of the conversation interfaces. Getting the selection I want to highlight always ends up being more work then it should. I have the suspucion it was designed with a console joystick in mind rather then my mouse. 

As far as story and plot go, theres plenty of that to go around. Unfortinutly, little of it is compelling me to follow the plot. I find myself playing through plots and quests just to simply get the reward rather then enjoy the story. I'm not saying all the quest lines are like that. There have been several side quests that have been very compelling pieces of story telling, but as a whole the main quest and the largest side quest dealing with the civil war both seem very vanilla to me. I am provided with no strong reasons to join either side of the cival war other then the basic case stated to me in a few sentences of dialog. 

However, all Bethesda lacks in great story telling, they make up for two-fold in creating an amazing ambient setting. Whether its running along side a fox through a forest, catching butterfles and picking herbs to mix into a potion, hunting vampires and werewolves, exploring old dwarven ruins, hunting dragons, solving murder mysteries, saving caravans from bandits, becoming a bandit yourself, discovering shipwrecks, or getting married there is something for anyone and everyone. 

You call yourself a gamer

For most of my life I've walked the line between hardcore and casual gamer. When I was in high school my friends and I would spend an immense amount of our free time playing various video and computer games Looking back, I can honestly say I wasted way to much time playing these games, but who knows where I'd be if I had spent my time engaged in some other timesink.  This lifelong history with games has brought me many times to the debate on people wasting their lives playing said game. There are all sorts of arguments on how your health degrades if you spend to much time sitting in front of a screen, but rarely does sanyone brings up the remark about the millions of people in offices for 8+ hours a day for 5 days a week. The health aspects of a game are beyond my ability to correctly assess or debate.  So I wanted to express my oppinon on two other aspects of the gaming debate.

First off, a little about me. I am a huge fan of stories. I love reading all sorts of stories, from childrens stories to long epics. I watch an endless amount of movies depicting stories in the directing teams beautiful way. I love going to the theatre and watching a new take on a story. This extends to my love of video games. It is their portrayal(and interaction) that sucks me in to a story more then anything else. In a movie or book I am usually pretty good at expecting twists. I am rarely suprised by anything, and that isn't always because the filmmakers are doing a poor job. More often then not I have become accostumed to seperating myself from the story as an observer. In a game I become so entranced in the story, and being a part of the story that I am totally blown away by what should have been a obvious plot twist.  By being given the illusion that I am driving the story the elements sink in much deeper. 

Another common argument that I hear is the lack of social interaction among video gamers.  Being someone who loves and craves interacting with other people I can say that most of my game playing comes specifically from interacting with other people. Whether its playing an online game with other people I've never met or playing multiplayer in person, other people make the most boring games more interesting. Minecraft is a perfect example of this. I can't stand to play this by myself because I get bored of it quite quickly. However, if someone else is willing to play on a shared server I find myself consumed for hours. Interaction towards a common goal has brought more joy then any single player experience I have discovered. 

Kendrick