» Mon Dec 12, 2011 8:33 am Mostly not wanting spoilers from the forums because launch blitzes usually have people excited, but I'd thought I would anyways as some people are interested in my opinion apparently even if they have Skyrim for themselves, others want a look from someone who isn't quite caught up in the fan movement of the series nor even this game but has played the originals.
As a warning I do have a bias that leans away from Bethesda Game Studios. I'm not a fan of the Elder Scrolls but have played all 4 core games starting with Arena and am currently going through Skyrim and have put the most time into Daggerfall(Which I consider their best work) and Morrowind(Not so much, I consider MW the framework for which all recent BGS titles follow). As you can guess Fallout 3 burned me out the most.
Skyrim could be called a redeeming title in a way in terms of MW and OB. I've put in around 30-40+ hours currently but these impressions are from the 16ish mark.
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I'll blaze through RPG mechanic/statistic elements very quick. The simple minded GURPs based system has been stripped to it's bones but it's honestly the same as it's ever been. Too bad BGS threw it away instead of revamping along with equipment repairing, spell making, etc. Hopefully it's an area to look at in the future.
But the "role" part is the same with some buffing. If you consider the role in RPG the ace area then Skyrim does fit it as does add/re-add simple elements that add to it all and does have a good bit to do and assume into. The MQ is easy to ignore although the opening sequence is pretty much talked about everywhere and some side questlines seem to touch back into the MQ.
Voice Acting is at an all time high for BGS games and range from alright to fairly well done, and thankfully there's a wide enough voice cast. Not enough dialogue for every NPC and cutting the misc. ones to just a few lines might be a minus but when text is combined with paid actors concessions are there.
The writing is also better so far in terms of Oblivion and seem to almost match Morrowind although it's not really an impressive feat. There seems to be a faithfullness to lore without a great deal of backtracking so that brings hope to other franchises such as Fallout in Zenimax/Bethesda Softworks arsenal
Music is a good note and is done well and paced for your ears-At first- and keeps up well throughout the experience as your ears mellow to the tunes. Soule's generic epic pieces could be complained about against other more melodic composers and that his potential, much like BGS's, is in a way wasted but it all works.
But I do wish like previous games the music available on-disc was of more quantity as you run by them all fairly quick, and even say each city having an unique track would of helped. But as a PC player I do have other options available, yet new music is always nice to get right inside.
Speaking of PC I won't go over the interface as others have. It's not very good so to say. I negate this through the fact that I've mostly played hooked to an HDTV with a 360 controller-All the merits of consoles with extra performance.
PC seems to be the most troubled version next to PS3 but I'd say this is BGS's least buggiest release to date. I'm pretty impressed actually at how stable it is. Pop-up is there and also graphics only reach the bare high end standards of..well consoles. But it all looks good. My issues aren't with a few instances of low res textures in place of the base ones taking to load.
AI. AI. AI. I'm very underwhelmed with how much Bethesda expanded on A, with intelligence not getting any better. As in I expected more secondary and advanced behaviors by themselves. Other than some scripted token moments it just seems they have a long way to go as excellent standalone AI would really impact the game. I won't go into details of the topic as there's been other topics with it and a variety of other stuff in the past 11 months to launch.
Another minus point is cities, noting that I haven't been to Markarth yet or explored Windhelm at depth. Yes they are different in both design and people compared to the dime a dozen packed into Oblivion. Great direction to go in. And the scale looks mighty fine.
And yet the cities feel slightly empty at times and also small, more packed village than city. Vivec and IC easily dwarf the cities available also. I found Whiterun having 3 districts funny as clearly you can walk through the entire thing in minutes(If you were a resident).
And while say the Blue Palace's every room or cranny loaded might of been overkill I still see many of these palaces available in-cell space pretty small.
We're still away from the time that a ton of people can be represented in the space which is why I'm guessing cities/places are smaller. While more NPCs can be displayed BGS attempted to shy away from one person doing 50 NPCs but that means to get most of those NPCs with different VAs a ton of money has to be spent.
One of those areas where text would of been more suitable, even if I prefer voice acting.
They also seem to be a bit short on unique quests per city but I'm not sure enough to state so. Those looping generated quests should sate most people who go for the pure number of quests available.
Dungeon design is something I'm glad about thoough as long as you approach one of the more critical aspects with a certain mindset. The puzzles that I refer to are more for a change of pace/fun than trying to challenge anyone with some Indiana Jones mix. Every single one I've been to so far is from that same 5-6 kit of layouts but their designed differently and everything has a small hook which is a good direction to go back to. Placements -should- make sense and bandits should have a good reason for being in the middle of no where scrounging into the deep so that small back story or scene helps while making more sense than them trying to failingly incorporate dungeon design into Fallout 3.
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Little odds and ends there but as an intitial impression not really going to put them down. While this might read like a review it's more like an overview of things I've found that could be subject to change as long as it's not a small quantity or is static. As in I probably won't stumble into a grand city not told to us yet or 20 more music/ambient tracks but still could be surprised by quests, dungeons, people, writing, etc.
It goes without saying though that I've put down pretty minor down sides. While far from the best RPG ever as a game and being all in to allow you to play a role Skyrim does excell in that respect which ever-more makes me and other RPG fans sad that more statistics and mechanics aren't being re-added.
Take what we can get I suppose. This is a better altogether game than Oblivion cohesively, seems to be poised to beat Morrowind unless casting/attacking having a dice roll makes it more-so of an RPG than Oblivion(Both are vastly more "dumbed down" than pre-MW) and other tidbits, and Fallout 3. As games MW and F3 were seen to be better games than Oblivion as well as RPG supposedly, but F3 is the most un-RPG game BGS crafted. As in Oblivion other than in attribute and skill systems obliterated it aswell, pun intended.
Hopefully this is the path they follow and as they do these games become both statistic and role inclined RPGs. At the least I hope to never get another Fallout 3 from them, or the equally bad writing/VO from Oblivion again.
Either way I'm glad they improved from their 2000 era projects. Digging back into Skyrim then. Thanks for reading.
