» Fri Oct 14, 2011 4:31 am It was a noticeably old build, as I was not left without issue, bug or crash. In fact, my first 15 minutes with the game ended up in about 5 of those minutes talking with Gstaff while he rebooted the Xbox. It was this problem that spurred my second play through, and a deep desire to come back and attempt to play through unhindered. My second play through was a victory, as it was glorious.
Any doubt I had in my mind was wiped away once I'd gotten my hands on the game; watching the videos just isn't the same. Once you actually play Skyrim the controls suddenly makes sense and the combat feels quick, fluid and visceral. The world ebbs and flows in sync and it's not hard to get svcked into the charm inherant in any Elder Scrolls game.
The detail and care taken to craft this world in phenomenal. I played an Argonian during my second play through for the sole purpose of exploring the underwater environments and wasn't dissapointed. Within minutes of going underwater and just off to the side of a winding stone patched road I discovered a ship that had sunk. It's side was torn open while muck, dirt and plants filled the once sprawling deck's passages. It was the fact that I knew right away that the boat had been there for ages that I was sold on this world as whole. I found chests filled with loot half burring in the sand, while the muddy water skewed my vision beyond several metres. The visibility was believable, and not as hindering as the thick blue-oil that Oblivion portrayed.
This is a game that promotes exploration and advancement. You aren't tied down by choices and within the first seconds of choosing your character; you're progressing your skills and advancing in your own personal story. The world actively focuses on you and it's noticable in the subleties they inject into the world. To me it seemed that everything in the world served a purpose; every plant could be seemingly used for alchemy. Mines that you went in too could be raided for raw materials that could then be smithed into a more usable form.
This is a game that promotes everything from your character's oddities to the players desires to explore of follow the main quest.
If there was any doubt in my mind that this was more hack n' slash than RPG, than my fears were put to rest. This is an RPG.
They found new ways to inject the numbers behind the scenes. They're still there if you look for them and you can see the numbers in the more visual style they've employed in everything from the UI to the animation. It's hard to explain as it really isn't meant to be watched, but played. This is a game that celebrates the player behind the character you play, not the system that runs the technology.
This is a world to get lost in. A place where you can love a character one minute and feel a sense of loss when you realized you've joined a clan he loathes.
The Elder Scrolls has never been about employing arbitrary systems. It's always been about the player experience and making it the best that Bethesda Game Studios can make it. At the core of this philosophy is to remember that it's ultimately about the experience as a whole; it's about getting lost in a world that feels as if it breathes when we breathe, feels what we feel and acts accordingly.
This is what Skyrim is, it is Elder Scrolls; it is RPG. Thirty minutes wasn't enough, and I can't wait to dig deeper into this rich world full of intrique, story, characters, environments and creatures out to murder me.
