The Elder Scrolls series, by Bethesda Game Studios, is widely regarded as having led the way in the RPG genre in terms of scope and freedom. A hallmark of the series has been the liberty to play the game in many different styles, and with a great deal of role-playing - though the games have extensive (and impressively designed) "main" mission arcs, it is entirely possible to spend many hundreds of hours exploring the world (the second game, Daggerfall, is reputed to have a play area twice the size of Great Britain), carrying out side missions, roaming the wilderness, clearing out dungeons, and rising to prominence in various guilds and organisations. Hell, there's literally days' worth of gameplay potential in hunting and skinning animals, and mining and refining ores, to craft your own weaponry and armor; in gathering alchemical ingredients and finding their effects to brew powerful potions and poisons; in learning the secrets of enchantments, and gathering the means necessary to forge your own magical artifacts. You can catch about fifteen different diseases and disorders, including vampirism and lycanthropy ("werefolfism"). You can carry out quests for several of the native gods and demons who are hanging around the continent of Tamriel. And that's without getting into the backstory - almost every building you can enter will have a bookshelf or two, with readable books, often detailing the politics, history, and culture of the regions you're inhabiting. The list of titles of books in Skyrim alone runs to 2 1/2 pages on my browser (http://bit.ly/twkKtf) - and this is literature that the dev team are fully aware you may not ever even bother with, because you're too busy casting spells, swinging swords, and killing bad guys. These are DEEP games.
I greatly enjoyed both Morrowind and Oblivion (the third and fourth installments in the series), and have been waiting with bated breath for the latest game, Skyrim, since I saw this trailer:
DRAGONS!
Ideally, I wanted to play Skyrim on the PC, as another characteristic of the series is its extensive modding community, but I didn't know whether it would run ok on my aging laptop. Oblivion, the previous game, had run fairly smoothly, but I imagined there would be a big step up. After running a pirated version of the game on my laptop for a few days, it became clear that that wasn't a feasible option, so I decided, sadly, to forego the amazing modding possibilities for a smooth-running game on the XBox 360, and bought a copy.
This was about two weeks ago, and I can safely say that this is one of the most immersive and impressive game experiences I've ever enjoyed. That's not to say that it's perfect, because it's not. Several bugs are definitely present - companion AI leaves something to be desired, some conversation trees don't make complete sense, and horses sometimes seem to have trouble deciding where ground-level is - but when you set out to make a game as open-ended and ambitious as this, some flaws are inevitable. The only way to make a flawless game (or, indeed, any work of art) is to play it safe, to take no risks, and to stay well within your comfort zone. I'd rather enjoy something that occasionally stumbles as it pushes the envelope.
A few days into play, I decided that a play diary could be an interesting thing to do. If this gets overwhelmingly negative responses, I'll stop (lord knows there's enough people on the internet talking about Skyrim already!), but it could be fun! For any ardent gaming-haters out there (why are you reading my blog again!?), please do at least read installment on character creation, as it strays into some interesting psychological territory.
Oh, and one more thing - I can confidently predict that one of the first comments on this post will be George railing against the fact that I still haven't played Arkham City yet. Sorry George.
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