it has to be a case of individuals. i for one felt the review was spot on. it doesnt mean i dont waste lots of time on the game tho, because as its said, its still great fun.

i dislike it that so many people hide behind "subjective reasoning" to defend a games faults. why cant we discuss teh faults as they actualy are? dont get me wrong, things like the leveling system may be actually subjective...but things like the combat certainly are not. it makes me feel like the rose tinted glasses argument is valid, especially when i see people quote a one sentence definition as if its supposed to be all encompassing and use it to ignore the entire body of the thread...repeatedly.

Not sure I fully understand what this is about, but I'm inclined to agree. The minute to minute gameplay is not very engaging compared to other recent games, and once you try to get that same satisfaction out of it, you'll be disappointed.

"As a game, Skyrim is sometimes profoundly broken, and not just because of the occasional bugs and busted AI scripting. This is all too often a frail illusion that will collapse under its own weight, if not the weight of Bethesda's traditionally sloppy testing or their utter cluelessness when it comes to usability issues. Welcome to one of the worst interfaces this side of a Pip Boy."

Worth repeating. Get your $#!# together Bethesda.

Also, "occaisional" bugs???? Heh!

Add:

"For all Bethesda's ambition, why haven't they gotten better at the basics of moment-to-moment gameplay? This is the same game they've been making since 2002's Morrowind. In fact, you can trace this design as far back as Bethesda's 1990 Terminator game, in which you played Kyle Reese battling the Terminator across an open map of Los Angeles. Has any other developer worked with the same basic idea for more than two decades and still asked you to accept such fundamental compromises as this sloppy melee system, overbearing inventory management, and brittle AI scripting?"

When some of those "faults" are based on subjective reasons..... :shrug:

Yes, a demonstrated lack of performance or function in an interface is objective. How difficult you find it is somewhat subjective. Ranting and railing against the fact that the game lets you min/max to the point where you dominate things (as some threads have done) is purely subjective.


For instance:


I don't get the same impact from that statement as some people do, because I didn't have any issues with the PipBoy interface in FO3. What was wrong with it? (Yes, some of it's aspects are better than the slightly-flawed Skyrim interface, but that still doesn't relegate both of them to "horrible". :shrug:)

Agree that:

1. Combat needs (more) of an overhaul than just adding a few finishing moves.
2. Stealth is weird. Squatting to become completely invisible is a laugh and is pretty fun but I wish it was deeper and more complex. Like actually hiding behind stuff and pressing up against walls and junk.

Unsure about:
1. Magick list is as long as your arm and unwieldy : I think the list is far too short and is limiting. Especially because of the absence of spell crafting. Unless the poster had really short arms and Im misunderstanding here.

I think the addition of combat rolls and better hit detection would really add to the games action. I mean it svcks to slash an enemy across the face with your sword only to have him not even notice. (his Hp goes down but the guy stoicly svcks it up.) I can understand a Draugr shrugging off the gaping head wounds Ive just carved into its skull, seeing as its a horrific, undead mockery of life but a bandit should react to a having his nose chopped off.

All that said Im still playing it compulsively and really do enjoy the game.

I agree with the review. I've been a long-time Elder Scrolls fan and player, and have enjoyed all the games. You can't approach any of these games as a "game." If you want a "game," go play WoW or something. TES games are more of an aesthetic experience, almost a fantasy SIMS. Focusing completely on grinding, leveling, getting teh lewtz and stuff is not the way to play a TES game.

The writer didn't say it wasn't a game. They said that when you examine it as a game, the mistakes become hugely apparent. It's like if I were describing a movie and said, "It makes some interesting comments on subject Y, but as a film it fails." Obviously I'm not arguing that it's literally not a film. Rather I'm criticizing mistakes made in regard to it's pacing or lighting or cinematography or whatever.

in all honesty i do not see the semantics. and the bolded line. uhmm...how about completly different?

and why would i forget about the word, then wed have no basis of discussion.

in this day and age, especially in this "group" (videogame industry) the definition of game is greater thent hat one sentence. so to use it as a defense against the flaws of a game...is not only impossible, its laughable.

i will concede that the reviewers inability to accurately describe what he means as "game" dillutes the effectiveness of his argument. but it does not erradicate it.

skyrim is great fun, but when you take its individual game mechanics and look at them, they are...sub par. the crafting, melee, sneak, speech, dialogue..they all lack what todays games at least partially expect.

we have splintercell that did stealth very well

a plethora of fps and fighting games to perfect combat

lots of rpgs that gave us great speech and open dialogue options.

game with very indept and rewarding crafting systems.

skyrim has all these things...just they are all subpar/barebones

im not asking for a splinter cell stealt game when i roll stealth, or a god of war/cod game when i roll melee/ranged. but with just how far beind those individual elements are to todays standards...is surprising.

i realize this would probably result in the game being held back longer...something id be ok with in the end.

Actually, looking at it from a different perspective....


I'd think that someone "approaching it as a game" is probably enjoying it more. Compared to some of the "fans" (both before it's release and after) who seem to want to approach the TES series as the second coming of Jesus, or a life-changing event, etc.


Much more enjoyable to just realize that it's a game. Nothing more. :shrug:

What you've just described is called slang, and it's part of how a language continuously evolves over time to suit the manner of expression, and can either create new meanings for certain words that were not used before, or corrupt them from their original meaning into something less, such as the word "anarchy" in how it's often used simply to denote a state of chaos, when its actual definition means "absence of government" or otherwise the absence of a centralized body of authority and control.

This is also why Latin is called a "dead language" because it no longer is in such widespread enough use to give rise to any kind of changes in meanings, and thus remains more or less completely static, while modern languages continue to demonstrate immense plasticity.

All that said, however, language is still something that is a binary construct: It either has the meaning that people commonly understand, or it doesn't.

Without a common basis for definitions of words and grammar structure, language would be utterly useless as a form of communication as one word could mean one thing to one person, and something else completely to another person, which is what the old allegory of the Tower of Babel was about.

Skyrim is a game, and I can approach it as a game. It fits its definition, regardless of what other "definition" someone else wants to impose of his own accord. No one person is the ultimate arbiter of what a word means, especially when there is already an agreed-upon definition that comes from a definitive source that everyone understands.

Just because semantics exists as a concept doesn't mean that a person can't use a word in the incorrect fashion, as has been the case with this review.

:shrug:

Agree completely, Skyrim is basically GTA IV when you examine it's strengths and flaws.

Game world is atmospheric and great, the whole thing has character. When it comes to the actual mechanics involved in navigating the world, improving your character, and handling combat, it's dated and clunky as hell.

"It's also an RPG in which the leveling is almost beside the point. Like so many other things in Skyrim, it happens, but it hardly feels worth chasing. There's very little of the forward pull you get in an RPG with a good character development system."

:spotted owl:

you edited out where i said yes some may be subjective reasoning (like peoples feelings about how you level). but the majority isnt subjective and people try to label them as so.




skyrim interface is horrible. it ignores basics that are needed in these types of game to make a morewieldly and less cumbersome interface.

tho i guess calling it "horrible" is like saying you get horrible gas mileage in a humvee...doesnt stop people from liking it.

I said this same thing to myself when I was playing - not to treat it like a game. The reason is because Skyrim is about immersion, exploration and role-play. It's not a shooter, a strategy or an action game; it focuses more on the environment than the gameplay, so if people are expecting great combat from it they will be disappointed. I think that's basically what this is trying to say. The best way to enjoy it is to lose yourself in it.

So you're saying not even Morrowind was a real RPG...

works for me.

OH NO U DIDN'T

what an odd thread(dear god coming from me that wierd but yeah)

The TES series used to be an important evolution in gaming. In the same way that Deus Ex might have ushered in greater freedom, interactivity, and player agency. Instead, the TES series has mostly languished, changing little since Morrowind, and bleeding features over the years. The majority of criticism centers on gameplay changes or losses. I'd argue those who care less about lost features are less likely to care about the game as a whole.

More like Morrowind was made nearly a decade ago and was a substantial shift compared to Daggerfall, and so many of it's faults are forgivable considering those circumstances. Those same mistakes are not as easily overlooked ten years later.

The broken gameplay can be a pretty big road block though, I think is the reviewer's point. This is easier said than done, and I have yet to manage it. When I was a teenager playing Morrowind, I probably was far more capable of overlooking this. Unfortunately, I grew up and Bethesda's approach to gameplay didn't.

language is not math which is how i feel your treating it.

in the same sense that no one person is the arbiter of what a word means, as such your last statement is false. ask people the definition of the word game...i gaurantee you virtually none will mirror the dictionary definition, and in fact words need to be taken within the area they are designated too...in this case...from a gamer...to gamers. which skews things furter because you would get even more varied definition of the word game from this crowd.

hell according to that dictionary def dark souls isnt a game...and its one of the best ive played.

basically, this isnt joe the plumber talking to rick the mechanic about skyrim. this is a gamer to a gamer. and needs to be read as such.

Yes totally agree with that post. Well written as well.

On a couple of threads I have described Skyrim more as a movie. I get to choose which order the scenes are in (i.e. the order of quests). For sure this game under the cover falls well short of the sandbox RPG experience that a lot of people expect from an Elder Scrolls game. But for what it is, it's pretty good. That first dragon fight and then all the NPC's running over to talk about the battle/dragon is an immense experience. I loved everything about running through the Winterhold quests until becoming the Arch Mage.

I posted a thread (that got quite flamed lol) the basis of which was that the negative comments about Skyrim are due to people's expectations rather than the quality of the game itself. For ￡29.99 Skyrim delivered a good game, that was good value for money. It's just that other games in the series game me seminal experiences which I still fondly remember decades later. I will have forgotten about Skyrim in 6 months. It is what it is.

Ok this is a world were the minute to minute can be as engaging as RPing a trip to stock up some supplies for your kitchen. Or finding that perfect arrangment of books in your library.

This game is about taking a stroll and truly getting lost, ignoring your map and wondering what might be on the other side of...

More of an interactive story book is what the elder scrolls have always been, for good reason.

If anything this is the role playing infination, the player to character contection, and the world sprawlyness and openendedness, with every cup, shovel, troll skull and weapons given by the gods, that every fable, dark souls, and mass effect is missing.

See this fence here ling this road? and all those tree leading off into the horizon? Yeah i can jump over this fence leave this road and chase that deer down. til i get distracted by that giant ass daedric shrine that popped out of nowhere.

Actually, math is a language. It's Greek in origin.



And that's my point about there being a definitive source for what the meaning of the word is, you just basically reiterated my explanation without understanding what I was telling you. It is meant to be an objective source, because relying on subjectivity alone means that nobody is actually speaking the same language if everyone has his own definitions for what a word means, and no one person's usage is the same as another person's.



People derive pleasure from a variety of things, and if you're enjoying it and deriving some sort of positive pleasure from it as you continue to play it, then it actually does fit the definition of what a game is by the dictionary's terminology.

Not everyone likes pain, for instance, but there are a good number of people who derive sixual fulfillment from being beaten and whipped and choked, which are all acts of violence that most people would not find pleasureable. That is why there is a saying: "Pleasure is pain, pain is pleasure."



And it has been. Just because you want to make your own meaning of the same word I use doesn't mean that I'm using it wrongly, or that you're using it correctly.

its not my meaning, its that nobody todays meaning of the word matches the dictionaries meaning...as such...how accurate is said dictionary? or are people become that stupid, at that point all communication is merely a series of failures anyways.

a three way switch means more to a electrician then to some guy working at denny's with no practical knowledge of electrical switches, but knows of them.

people are trying to read the review as the denny's boy, when they should be reading it as the electrician.

blah, i dont know why i involve myself in these tings, just a bunch of people who want to believe what they want...and nothing else.

you get a really devoted fan...hes gonna be a really devoted fan...at no point anything you are anyone says will cause him to deviate from this.

a haters a hater...same deal.

if by chance there is a reasonable person...it just gets drowned out by the two opposing sides and each label aspect of them as one or the other. because there no middle ground...there is no reasoning.

i think the whole babel story was more then strict language >.>

gonna go enjoyed skyrim...a fun..flawed...sometimes annoyingly so game that is quite addicting.

Who cares about the definitin of the word...

Skyrim for what it is, is scoring what? 95, 96 on metacritic? Thats a lot of people who have pushed the definition of skyrim into being a VIDEO GAME worthy of the higher escleons of gaming greatness. If you fail to enjoy the game for what it is then you are in the minority. Some people didn't like ocarina of time or golden eye either, both of which had flaws too.