Skyrim Review
Author: Michael Owen (PapaWarlock)
From small beginnings can come greatness. There are not many beginnings that are as small as being a prisoner. Your captors would love nothing more than to dispose of your corpse and go about their lives, but Fate has a different path set out for you. As you head towards the chopping block a massive Dragon flies down and starts to bombard the area with dragonfire as well as wrecking the area you’re in. Two people, a guard and a rebel, want you to follow them along different pathways to escape the fury of the Dragon. Your first choice will start you along one side or the other in the civil war that is plaguing the land of Skyrim.
You are Dovahkin. Dragonborn. A person born with the soul of a dragon. As Dovahkin you will be able to learn various Words of Power that are usable in “Shouts”. Shouts are special abilities that can only be used after learning the Words of Power and absorbing the souls of the Dragons you slay. You will have to seek out these words as they aren’t just handed to you or bought in a store. As you progress the main story line, you be able to string together up to 3 Words of Power to form powerful Shouts.
In Skyrim you have the main story quest which is to learn why the Dragons have returned and to stop them. Unlike in Oblivion where the main quest felt tacked on, Skyrim’s story line is much more interesting and well done. Progressing the story will lead you to developing your Dragonborn powers. When the main storyline is over, the game is not over. You also have Faction quest lines or side stories to work on as well. The Companions (fighter’s guild), College of Winterhold (mage’s guild), Thieves’ Guild, Dark Brotherhood, Civil War, Daedric, and a few minor quest lines as well like the Bardic Guild. Not to mention hundreds of books to read for various stories and histories of the realm.
One problem that plagued Oblivion and often RPGs in general, is that sometimes it’s hard to know exactly where to go or who to see. Skyrim has 2 things to help you out. One is a spell they added called Clairvoyance that when cast, will light a blue “cloudy” pathway towards your goal. You’ll have to refresh the spell, but very useful. The other way they help you out is at the top of the screen is a compass bar. This bar shows you which direction you’re heading in and has a Destination Marker that gives you the general direction you need to go. Also helpful. There are also markers for dungeons, stones (that can add stat bonuses), mines, towns and farms.
Bethesda’s Skyrim team have taken the basic RPG experience and simplified it. In previous Elder Scrolls games (and most RPGs in general) you are locked into one class or job. Warrior, Mage or Thief tend to be the basic archetypes. Each with its’ own pros & cons. While previous Elder Scrolls allowed you to level all skill and work outside the strict class build, only leveling the core skills would allow your character to level. Thus making it nearly useless to develop only the skills you wanted to use for your play style since odds were good, half the skills you wanted to use did nothing for your leveling. In Skyrim, if you find yourself wanting to explore the benefits of magic after spending the last dozen levels solely as a warrior, then you can easily pick up Magic wielding and not feel like you’ve been handicapped.
This is both a boon and a curse. If you are new to the RPG genre you’ll find it easy to find a play style that you’ll enjoy. Every skill you use will count towards leveling your character. But for more seasoned veterans, many might find this new system to be too easy. Often when a developer opts to change the formula that their fans are used to, in favor of a more simplistic set up, the game ends up feeling like it’s way too easy for seasoned vets. Not so with Skyrim. You can easily set yourself along a pathway that will resemble the classic archtypes that you might be used to.
You can assign spells or weapons to the Left 1 and Right 1 buttons. These two shoulder buttons are what you use for combat. You can set a foe on fire and then follow up with a dagger stab, use a sword and shield combo, ranged weapons, 2 handed weapons or even double up on spells like 2 Fireball spells for twice the toasting capacity. You can also assign weapons and spells to the Favorite list. To use the Favorite list, use the Up directional on the D-pad and assign it to one shoulder tab or the other. Great later on in the game when you have a lot of spells. You can also use the O button to pull up the menu for Skills, Map, Item and Magic to browse your inventory. One cool thing I’ve seen so far is something akin to oil on the ground in some dungeons that allows you to ignite with fire and set multiple foes on fire.
Skyrim introduces Elder Scrolls fans to a new system called Perks. As you level up, you can choose from various perks that are set up along the skills that you’ve used. Such as with Magic. I’ve been using Destruction Spells and the first Perk I chose was the ability to cast Novice spells for half cost. A welcome change from Oblivion where I was often frustrated because it was too easy to run out of mana before I was even half finished with combat. From there I chose a dual casting perk that more than doubled the damage when I use the same Destruction spell with both hands at the same time. There are all sorts of perks for other skills like Arcane Blacksmith which allows you to enchant pieces of gear you create; Backstab which allows you to do double damage while sneaking and attacking from behind; create more powerful potions, gain more gold on trades and so forth.
Crafting is pretty easy to do in the game. You can mine, harvest material from everywhere (including the animals you kill), cook, create potions, armor, jewelry, weapons and even enchant items. All you need to do to create items is find a Forge, a Cooking Spit (or fire), a Tanning rack, an Alchemy Lab or an Enchanter’s table. Any recipes you know will be listed. If you have the ingredients for the item it will show up in white lettering. For Alchemy you can use any ingredients you want to created potions and if successful it’ll be listed on the left hand side for easy crafting in the future. For Enchanting, you’ll often need to disenchant items to learn an enchantment. from there you choose the item you want to enchant, the enchantment you want to use and a Soul Gem. The more powerful the Soul Gem, the more powerful the enchantment.
Graphically the game is very impressive. From the wind blowing snow in areas to rain or snow falling; from the animation in the various spells like the flame in the fireball or the lightning bolt’s pathway; to the detail in the trees, grass, flowers, townsfolk, the ingredients you use for crafting, the weapons you use, the foes you fight, the dungeons and caves you explore, there is very little to complain about. I have come across a few instances where the light shed some strange looking shadows, almost blocky looking at times and once I had some weird shimmering effect in a house I was sneaking around in. But nothing that will take away from the overall beauty of the game.
The sound is the only real area of concern I have for the game. The voice acting is great. The sound effects are great. It’s the background music that I feel is lacking. It is decent, but nothing compared to Uncharted 3′s soundtrack or Final Fantasy soundtracks. I might be spoiled when it comes to back ground sound tracks. It’s good, just not great.
Game Summary:
Presentation: 10/10 As a story driven gamer, I love a good plot in my games. There is so much to do that it’s hard to get bored. I know I’ll be doing all the faction quests that I can.
Graphics: 10/10 The few minor flaws do nothing to take away from the overall impressive beauty of the game.
Sound: 8/10 Solid voice acting, great sound effects and a decent sound track make Skyrim a great overall experience.
Gameplay: 10/10 A solid gaming experience. Easy to learn. A massive amount of stuff to do. So many ways to play your character that it’s hard to get bored. Sometimes it can be a bit daunting trying to figure out what you want to do, but overall a great game to play.
Final Score: 9.5 out of 10
