So you want to play Oblivion 2 yea?

 

I must prepare you for one thing before you start, you will see a lot of this:

Yes, that’s a windows desktop…You will end up here a lot.

The more I play, the worse it gets. Today alone Plank and I managed to lose count at little over 30 crashes within a few hours. The crashes happen when events load (i.e. travelling, winning battle or finishing quest) and there is no error…one minute I’m running around…the next I’m looking at my desktop. While Nana-tan is nice to look at, I’d much prefer to see my Dark Elf Duelist kicking some ass.

In the time I actually got to play the damned game though, I enjoyed every minute of it. I think I’ll have to be careful otherwise I might end up gushing and praising a game developer I loathe…

 

Who am I kidding, Skyrim kicks ass!

Following two hundred years on from the events of Oblivion, we have moved on to the Nordic region of Skyrim which is far to the north of Cyrodiil and very far west of Morrowind. I know this because my pre-order copy came with an awesome map and some average novels…

Seriously check this out!

Anyway, the game itself feels very much like Oblivion…anyone who adored that game will love this. Thankfully they’ve spruced up the combat a little and now everything feels more responsive, there is still a lot that could be done to make it truly amazing but what Bethesda have pumped out feels great.

Really though, the first thing I want to talk about is the graphics.

I am fortunate enough to be able to play this game on absolute max graphics on a PC, sure it looks great on the consoles (see here for comparison video) but when you have a huge amount of raw power under the hood, it is a joy to look at.

Oddly enough, the installer came in at only 4.1gb and fully installed its only 5.6gb. I’m looking at my copy of The Witcher 2 here and wondering how these are so different considering Skyrim has a massive world. I guess it comes down to the texture size, Bethesda kept things simple and while it can be sometimes noticeable, they made damn sure it looked good in between.

The Graphics

The thing that separates this game from any other beautifully crafted world is that no matter where you go, you will never cease to be amazed. I really mean that…even now I get stunned at how much I enjoy going off the beaten track to get to my destination through my own pathfinding skills.

The hillsides, the creatures, the sky, the changing environment…it is absolutely stunning. This is a game where I honestly wish it was designed for PC only, if they had slapped truly amazing textures and really gone hard on graphics, I would hands down stop playing everything else and live in Skyrim for the rest of my life.

When you visit an upbeat area, it will feel vibrant and will be full of colour and life…conversely when you trek to the frozen wastelands of the north, the environment will treat you harshly.

I really could go on for days about the visuals, but I wont…I will let the rest of my screenshots do the talking, if you disagree then fair enough but I implore you to at least try and walk through the world of Skyrim and not be amazed.

The Story

I guess seeing as this is an RPG then we had better discuss some of the story eh?

Basically, you’re a Dovahkiin…a Dragonborn. You live as a dragon’s soul inside of a mortal body. This grants you immense power and lets you speak the language of the dragons, which, if you use correctly can literally blast any enemy you find into a fumbling ragdoll. Honestly, yelling at people to push them off cliffs never gets old.

All would be well if it weren’t for the damned dragons though, one in particular is being a total prick and is raising other long-dead dragons from their graves. The Nordic people, while extremely hardy, cannot stand up to the immense power of a dragon…they would need someone who can fight on equal footing with these horrific and majestic creatures.

That’s where you come in, first and foremost you must stop the dragons ravaging Skyrim. Everything outside of that is completely up to you…if you want to help the Nords take their land from the Imperial scum then you can…if you want to grant the Imperialists total control over the Nordic dogs…you can.

Of course, this was always the selling point of Oblivion and Morrowind…what you do and how you do it is entirely up to you.

The Sound

Ok, I gushed a bit before…but here’s where I get weak at the knees. The audio is stunning.

There. I said it.

More and more these days, AAA titles are being blessed with outstanding audio. I guess the developers have found that since no one actually listens to orchestral music outside of movies and games any more that they have a surplus of musos that are bored out of their minds.

What results is this:

 

Please start that video and continue reading…because its amazing and deserves a listen. I recall once reading about the Halo Original Sountrack that the composer put a lot of thought into why songs are memorable…why is it that you can so easily recall the themes from Mario and Tetris, but for the life of you…you can’t remember the Deus Ex: Human Revolution theme? The answer seemed to be the melody…leading with a strong part of the song made the songs memorable. The video above shows this, the voice is the focal part and it echoes through you mind.

I can’t stop humming the damned thing…

Moving on though, the environmental sounds are light within the game but help add to the immersion. While games like BF3 really spam environment sounds that add to the action, Skyrim’s sounds add to the lazy highland feel. When you adventure through the hills it actually feels as though you are part of the world. Its great but it would be far better if the land wasn’t so sparse and barren…there just isn’t enough around.

Combat sounds are predictable as you might imagine, someone obviously spent many hours smashing bits of wood and metal together in a studio.

The Gameplay

I’m going to discuss the gameplay in two sections here, the first is the adventure mechanics while the second is the combat…so lets get cracking.

Adventure mechanics:

Exploring the world of Skyrim is both tedious and rewarding, you’ll be treated to stunning views but getting those views usually means you took a wrong turn somewhere. Typically you get a marker location on your map and the game hands you the reins to get there how you want but because Skyrim is a mountainous area, you will almost always be either too low or too high…leading to death defying jumps or lots of rock climbing.

No matter though, the game gives you the option to part with 1000 gold in trade for a horse. Your horse has sticky hooves and can easily trek down the side of hills with his magical Nordic powers, this actually annoys me because it makes you adventures too damned easy. The other problem is that your horse can’t go backwards…the moment you try to reverse the asshole does a full half circle, which inevitably means you found the means to inadvertently leap off a cliff…over and over again.

Thankfully this game doesn’t punish you for exploring like Mount and Blade would, if you go to a location, you can simply open your map and teleport there in expense for time. This means people like me who scout the edges of the map and then run through the centre end up with a relatively easy quest path as I can “fast travel” somewhere nearby almost all the time. What it will punish you for is locating fancy new places. Note: if you find a lovely clearing in the middle of a swampy forest….don’t go to it…the branchy bitches that attack you are ruthless.

 

Combat mechanics:

I both love and hate the combat mechanics in Skyrim. It is a lot more skill-based than it ever was before, this meant I could fulfil my dream of being a duellist. Wearing nothing but light Elven armour and wielding but a single one-handed sword, I am able to overcome even the most hardy of foes by dashing in and out of combat. What ends up happening is that if I fight well, I can dominate any opponent I face…even bears…this helps fuel my egotistical and power hungry nature.

Unfortunately, while the ability to choose your own fighting style is great, the love stops there. The combat is so sticky and lacks any sense of fluidity, every strike seems deliberate and nothing really rolls on from it. What I wouldn’t give to see a game go back to the likes of Jedi Academy where rolling about and spinning led to unique combos. I guess why this annoys me so much is that The Witcher 2 also featured such gameplay…however because of the fluid combat, the game was very hard…Skyrim is the opposite. It almost wants you to run and up and spam mouse clicks until whatever is in front of you stops being in front of you, it makes my duellist dream so half-arsed. There is no quick step or any way to really efficiently combo….and occasionally you’ll somehow instakill your enemy with a special attack…which is nice, but wholly unpredictable.

It’s also great that you can wield anything in any hand but the flaw is that switching between weapons is a total bastard. My main sets are my solo sword, my sword and shield, my sword and healing spell or my dual swords. Yes, I can favourite these items and access them via a quick switch menu but I would have adored sets to be mapped to the number keys on my keyboard….alas console players strike again with their development priority.

I guess to sum this up I have to say that this game is amazing but flawed. The graphics are well thought out and placed but just don’t live up to what they really could be, the combat is easily customisable but it is sticky, the sound is amazing but a little thing occasionally and the story is a little predictable in its epic manner.

All in all though, I loved this game a lot. I would love it a lot more when they eventually patch the constant crashing and once this is done I have two more characters that I want to build…but for now I have to have patience. I see myself playing this game for a long time yet because there is just so much too it.

What would really make this game amazing is a merging with a remade world of Cyrodiil and Morrowind.

How awesome would it be to go back (albeit in the future) to those old countries and explore just as you do in Skyrim.

Even better, allow two player coop.

 

Here are some other screenshots to show off the game:

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