» Sat Oct 08, 2011 8:33 am All credit to Chris Comiskey and PC Gamer. Thanks for a great article.
I just received my digital copy of PC Gamer - December 2011. I am going to read through and post anything interesting or new.
What I am excited about the most is they played Skyrim on this system:
Core i7-980X
6GB RAM
GTX 470 @ 1680x1050
7,200RPM drive
Updates start here...
PC UI
- F is default key bound to "favorite" an item
- There is apparently a sub-menu called favorites that opens when he does this (PC only?)
- Send potions, spells, armor to favorites menu, then keybind those to the number keys
- Autosave game intervals from 5-15 minutes
Sound
- With 5.1 the sound was amazing
- Dynamic music system. It doesn't just play all the time like Oblivion. It'll sleep for a bit, and then you do something important and it'll ramp-up
Graphical
- Trees and wildlife look near photorealistic
- Rocks and vegetation poke up through crystalized earth with little aliasing
- Entering caves/dungeons takes seconds on a 7,200RPM drive
- Performance is impressive on a "non-optimized" build
Gameplay
- Female Nord with broken nose and jagged scars and war paint
- Attempted to ignore the main path
- Saw courier coming up the path, decides to kill him
- Wanted to use dual-Flame, but since it's the first perk he couldn't use it
- Without the perk there are two separate streams of fire that drain his mana completely
- Draining all mana with a dual-Flame attack did not kill the courier (must be higher level)
- Switched to longsword and iron axe, held both mouse buttons down to execute the fleeing courier with scissor-like finishing move
- "You can also do a quick attack with both hands if you hold both buttons down and have enough stamina to do what we call a 'blender move'" - Todd Howard "Looks really cool in 3rd person too."
- Heavy armor and sprinting resulted in a really fast empty stamina bar. Todd told him light armor or robes would help with that.
- Stumbles on a pack of wolves attacking a dog
- He equips longsword plus a shield he found from the dead courier above
- Shield bashes and sword swings feel wonderful combined
- While he's attacking the wolves one or two of them begin to flank him
- By saving the dog from this attack he is able to have him as a companion! The dog had been following him, so he was curious and attempted to talk to him and the companion menu popped up. He could not use the dog to carry items though.
- Possible Companion options:
- Go attack guard
- Go open this door
- Go look in that
- Go steal this thing
- Go attack guard
- They won't always do what you ask due to their AI (e.g. asking a Priest to steal items)
- Finds a crafting station in an abandoned camp. It's an animal hide stretched out between wooden rods. This one could be used to make leather strips.
- Creatures generally get harder as you get higher into the mountains
- He kills more wolves. Once dead his dog sniffs around their corpses
- Enters a cave and can tell someone is there. Goes into sneak mode and his dog also sneaks! (or attempts to anyway)
- Your companion can be detected through stealth, but you can succeed, and only they will be attacked
- Cave is inhabited by vampires
- Stealth bow shot at 10x (he says tenfold) damage does not take the first vampire down. He shouts panicked to his vampire buddy, but PC was still in stealth. Second arrow takes him down. But now 2nd vampire spots him. Vampire casts drain life and PC is afflicted with vampire disease. Needs to find a cure or turn into vampire.
- "This is not where I expected you to be." - Todd
- He attempts to jump down the mountain which results in two deaths.
- Discovers a large stone deposit. "If you have a pickaxe, you can mine ores, and then you can use smelters and craft them into ingots."
- Runs into a traveling pack of Monks, the Vigilants of Stendarr, and they heal him of the vampirism.
- Travels to Falkreath and "harasses a local bard, operates a saw mill, stabs an insulting gate guard, attempts to steal a cache of magical staves (has to reload after getting clubbed to death for that one), attends a graveside service, sells loot, pisses off the town Arl and then heads to a pub."
Screenshots
- Most of them are the same things we've seen before. But the main article image is a PC in a brown robe dual-wielding a Flame spell and a dagger. He's torching a saber-tooth tiger. The tiger is a yellowish-brown, bearing its teeth, on its hind legs about to pounce the PC. It is large, the size of a bear, and a bit shaggy. Hard to see everything due to the flame spell that has enveloped it. It's hind legs are on fire. Lots of detail in the face though, teeth, gums, etc.
- Frost Atronach towering over the camera.
- The one with the chick's boobs.
- Orc wielding a 2H axe or mace. PC is dual-wielding fire and sword.
- The one with the PC wielding the bound bow and attacking the bear.
- Nord/Breton/Imperial in hooded robe dual casting Flame at the camera.
- Fly-over of skyrim from trailer, but looks like a dragon or two flying around.
- Almost all of the review characters from before are scattered throughout the article
- A female in iron armor (Dovahkiin helmet) dual-wielding flame/sword against an orc
- Lockpicking in action. Just like FO3, but with Skyrim art style
- A picture of the map chronicling the player's exploits:
- Picks up dog companion and names him Shaggy
- Sees "aurora borealis"; stunningly gorgeous
- Shaggy and I spend 10 minutes chasing a deer. It escapes
- Stumble across high-level cave; infected with vampirism
- Mudcrabs! Slaughter one needlessly
- Kick back in a pub
- Picks up dog companion and names him Shaggy
- "A summary of Skyrim's 10 playable species". These are definitely not the preset faces. They've all been tinkered with.
- Male Orc with an almost ebony color to his face, and golden war paint. Looks like his eyes are tinted red too.
- Female Dunmer with a sandy coloring, blood red eyes and a gray'ish blue "hand" tattoo. Dark Brotherhood?
- Female Altmer that is a ghastly, pale white with green'ish eyes. Looks witch-like.
- Male Redguard with a lighter brown complexion, normal eyes, red warpaint, bald with a long beard
- Male Breton that is pale and somewhat plain to look at
- Female Imperial with normal skin and eyes, red eyeliner and a strip of paint down the chin
- Male Bosmer with brownish skin tone, red eyes and maroon warpaint
- Female Nord who looks a little older, pale skin
- Male Khajiit typical looking choices, but the fur color is a muted brown/gray/white that I don't think I've seen
- Male Argonian typical looking choices with green/yellow coloring, round eyes
- Male Orc with an almost ebony color to his face, and golden war paint. Looks like his eyes are tinted red too.
Extras
They apparently designed the "level up during combat" on purpose:
When you level up your health, stamina and magic all go to maximum. So what you start learning to do is, 'Well, I'm gonna wait till the middle of a fight when I'm low, then I'm gonna level up.' It acts like a super potion." - Todd Howard
"Combat feels far more authentic than it did in its predecessors. In Oblivion, driving a warhammer into a leather cuirass would sometimes do zilch, while rolling away from a sword lunge would still result in a hit. That wonkiness appears to be fixed, swapping blade strokes with bad guys is fluid and beautiful, and blocking and parrying requires reflexes and twitch-based skill."
By the numbers:
Number of levels Skyrim is balanced to: 50
Max level (if you're insanely dedicated): 70
Total perks: 280
Number of hours needed to reach 93 of those perks: 1,000
Damage multiplier for sneak-attack backstab: 10
Number of caves and dungeons: 150
Times I died during my 3.5-hour play session: 5
