Skyrim- lulz
let's put the gameplay quality aside, I always headdesked about how people in general and in reviews of other games compared game graphics to skyrim in a way "the graphics aren't quite "skyrim" but they are nice overall"
are you joking ? TES: Skyrim's graphics are utter rubbish, poor lighting, completely dull and repetitive zones especially the frozen areas are only a couple of white boulders, even on the highest settings the texture quality is subpar at most, the engine looks like it got no upgrade since oblivion and the animations are as clumsy as ever, not to mention even morrowind had better looking water than this.
and did you even see the characters you can pick from? been ages since I saw so ugly main characters in a game (considering the age it came from ofc)
as ugly as it looks it even dares to drop frame rates on high-end computer (1300€ price range) for no obvious reasons. the fanboys ofc will always argue that the graphics are leet or that "they are significant improvement since oblivion" lol. only game I can think of that has worse graphics vs its hype is probably Diablo 3.
I've seen better graphics in free-to-play low budget asian online games.
on a side note, gameplay is elite so far, lol.
my 5 cents.
-EDIT-
so there is some commotion going on throughout the thread about me "hating" the game for pointing out its flaws
here I present you my biased/objective review of the PC version of the game
TESV:Skyrim
The game is set in the land of Skyrim, a world loosely based on nordic mythology a world in the midts of a civil war that erupted with the assasination of the high king.
You start your journey as a prisoner, falsely accused of being a member of the Stormcloak rebellious group but about to be executed regardless of the fact (yay judiciary!)
You however, manage to escape thanks to a sudden appearance of a dragon that interrupts the act
From here onwards you are thrown into the game to either learn to swim or die a horrible watery death
First thing to strike fears is the horrible UI you will be presented to that bypasses any laws of common sense
Some of the menus are accessible by mouse alone while others won't even budge
un/Equipping gear tends to be more of a hassle than it should, thankfully you can keybind swappable gear or set up a favorites menu
the fact game pauses whenever the menus are brought up and lets you munch potions consumables and stuff
in comfort with no regards of the dragon raping your back does break the thrill a lot of times
fear not if you successfuly pass the purgatory of UI there is little to spoil your play afterwards
soon enough you will find out that you are what the ancient call "Dovahkiin" a dragonborn, person born with a dragon soul
and that you are the only hope for the world in order to put the recently awakened dragon god back to his slumber
Yes Skyrim is one of the few games that will actually make you feel like what you did so far mattered to the world it is set in
After you slay your first dragon you will feel like a hero, proudly boasting with the title of thane and the big ass axe on your back
Songs will be sung for your glory throughtout the inns
Sadly the game forgets the hero you once was the moment you enter your next town, the guards will treat you as trash
regardless of all the heroic deeds you have done, regardless of the amount of thane titles you have
people are more likely to remember you as the nobody from the college rather than dragonborn or a thane of their own town
it feels kinda sad to be advised to join the college of winterhold for the twentieth time despite the fact you are the headmaster himself
or being shouted on by some random useless mage who is "one of the best" in the land
The game is atmospheric and has a great story telling that is only strengthened by the outstanding musical score
Even walking the plains and staring at the epic mountains in the background can be a lot of fun
Your first random dragon encounter will leave your pulse deadly high even a good couple of minutes afterwards
sadly the thrill will decrease with each one you will kill and becomes more and more of a tedium with the sheer amount you will encounter
dragon shouts are fun, rather gimmicky on their own though and you will soon realize that you rarely use them for more than shouting stuff off the cliffs
the game makes it no better with the fact that obtaining them is no fun
if you plan to calculate which one to put your souls into think again
you are very likely to have multiple times more souls than you have unlocked shouts it could use some more limitation to it or a complete redesign
(hunting down dragons in order to learn their shouts by being shouted at ?)
and considering the dragons are quite easy to beat especially as you progress further into the game
not to mention there is not enough variety in their patterns behaviour and skills
yeah we could say the game is a bit disappointing on that part
leveling up and grinding skills is not the best executed of ideas though
you do not gain xp,
instead your level raises with the amount of skills you raise so yeah, if you wanna be 50 too bad
you will simply have to raise skills that aren't part of your gameplay style even though this is no tragedy and you can eventually realize
that smithing/alchemy and enchanting are actually fun
it however does lead into needless tedium and a couple of exploits connected to that
(getting levels in matter of minutes by just spamming the same skill over and over with no real effort or thought put into it or just buying the "knowledge" off trainers)
this proves to be a balance issue of sorts, some skills are easy to raise while others are far from that
the rate at which your skills raise tends to be frustratingly slow and even using one type of skill all the time does not guarantee a fluent raise
not to mention if you favor to have followers helping you on your adventures you may find your skills getting crippled because of that
the game makes it clear that if you want to advance you will have to do some extra homework (read: grind)
if you are aiming for level 50 prepare to have at least 10 skills maxed out, this makes no sense as you will be unable to put perk points in the skills
you were forced to raise anyway, because you will want to save them for those that actually matter
and to put it straight some of the skills are nonsense, skills like speech and lockpicking are pretty pointless to raise
good luck trying to raise light and heavy armor skills, because being hit is the last thing you will want
the main attributes got significantly dumbed down and are likely to disappoint many rpg fans
they only affect the mp hp and stamina not to mention their worth is equal to a poke in the eye (an archer can do pretty well with no hp or stamina)
you are likely to spend much more time dungeon crawling and thankfully this is where the game does not fail at
even though the combat quality is nowhere near gothic or action games it is not that bad overall
equipping two spells at one time or combining spells and one hand combat is satisfying for the most part
and allows for a variety of playstyles heck even stalking and bow is no longer the rubbish it once was in oblivion
if you enjoy treasure hunting, exploration and dungeon crawl Skyrim won't disappoint
there are so many dungeons it makes your head hurt and they even achieve to not look like copy-pastes of each other
albeit slightly repetitive in design and sometimes longer than they should be (for the player's and his sanity sake)
the visual design is rather inconsistent to say the least
while dungeons and some of the towns look stunning for the most part (Solitude, the college of Winterhold and Markarth are the places you wanna visit fast)
the snowy regions and rather dull plains do disappoint in contrast to that
especially due to distant areas suffering from severely low LOD even on the best of the best settings (which makes no sense as these spots are the ones where the FPS jumps significantly up)
and waterfalls simply stop falling when you're distant enough, yet still close enough to be able to see them perfectly
the engine feels and plays outdated and no matter how much bethesda tries to claim that it is not gamebryo they aren't gonna fool anybody
because the little changes they made to its code are barely enough to make any difference
The main story is no Forest Gump but it is plenty to suck you in
the side quests is where the game shines bright and even the smallest quest can start a storyline of gargantuan proportions
many of which are genuinely entertaining on their own
(my favourites are the winterhold story arc and the nightmare town, ok that one is not so gargantuan but was real fun)
The game actually achieves making the world feel alive and real (as far as in-game one can go)
even though animals tend to do some weird stuff from time to time and the characters are hard-scripted
watching a lurking khajiit training his spells like a madman and all these little things are a thorough fun
there is just so much to do in the game, miscellaenous or not it is usually fun, stuff like companions, marriage or buying a house
that has no real impact but is a welcomed break from the core gameplay
even though it bears quirks of its own (hint: do not attempt to decorate your house)
Skyrim makes it hard for those who looked forward to living a criminal life
guards and the denizes of Skyrim are omnipotent, while the game does allow you to kill all of the witnesses of the crime
thus removing the bounty off your head the way you are witnessed is rather arguable to say the least
sometimes you can get bounty just for stealing a horse from middle of nowhere where there is nobody around at all
while beating up a guy you are witnessed by a man who is standing behind a wall (and logically has no way to see you)
people can perfectly discern your identity at night in heavy snowstorm and generic wear when you shoot arrows at them from miles away
when you enter a house the owners tend to wake up right away even if you are in stealth, other times you can even cast spells
and turn their houses over with fireballs and they won't budge at all
also once you steal something the original "steal" tag still aplies, so don't go dropping your item at your own house
because you will be called guards on by your own wife for picking up an item in your own house
only to have her fight the guard who she herself has called for
the way characters turn hostile is done poorly and with no thought put into it
you can get attacked by citizens/guards for fighting a bandit
there is no condition check so they turn hostile regardless of situation you attack them in so accidentaly hitting a citizen
while fighting a dragon in village will turn him hostile towards you as soon as the dragon is dead, and potentially alarm the interest of guards
other times people get hostile towards you even if you deal no damage to them but some other source does (dragon)
pickpocketing a sleeping person is apparently enough for him (the whole building) to find out just because you do not have enough "skill"
neither it's too rare to have a kid order your death for something that you just can't recall
and remember remember, killing a chicken is a felony
the game claims to be a sandbox world while it most certainly is not
your decisions matter little and they rarely even have any impact on the game
if you happen to kill a person in the town there is a good chance it will render some quest broken (yes, the quest won't turn failed but broken aka the marker pointing at a dead body)
sometimes you can even come across a dead body in the middle of a street for no real reason, a fact that can tick off immersely knowing the game
just nuked a portion of your gameplay just because it can (possibly a bug)
your "decisions" usually only matter in minor quest that don't matter at all and rarely have any further impact than deciding your quest reward
killing a person only leads to generic bounty event so don't expect anybody else to react mourn or show any emotion for that matter
jarl will act just as friendly to you even if you murdered his whole family and house
be careful to not do something that game did not inted you to do because such behavior can lead to unexpected (and often unfortunate) consequences
if you choose the quest progression route A yet go against it the game will still go with the route A
(helping a bandit leader in folk uprising only to kill him a second afterwards will still make the townspeople believe the guy is on the loose)
the game never really makes it clear where the "deciding" point really is and you may end up disappointed for doing something you did not want/or get a reward you did not want
ultimately forcing you to reload the whole thing again (if you have the option)
the events are hard scripted and it can be hard to tell whether the game requires your interaction or not
sometimes when you see a couple of bandits struggle against the local militia (no, don't help the bandits they won't thank you back) and stand around
the guards will thank you for help despite all you did was stare at the fight
interfering in some may lead to much more fatal consequences than just a few frowned men
being swift and killing a man that is about to kill a woman at the town square will only lead to his target being not interactable (just as the rest of the crowd)
and the rest of the city will still pretend the woman is dead
other times attempting to save a man from having his head detached in spite of unadequate court decision will only lead to
the game standing firm and simply making his head fall off despite both his executioners are dead
still 'minor' decisions tend to be ok, releasing random prisoners will usually lead to them doing the most logical of ideas, weaklings will run away and the stronger ones
will help you in punishing the ones who locked them up, the dumb ones (sabercat) will simply turn hostile towards anything in sight and bandit asking for help
with a promise to help you eradicate the rest of the cave, will until they are all dead then immediately turns against you
I gotta admit I'm no voice acting hoar, that and as long as I can understand what the characters have to say it's all right
there is a slight issue with the game having really weird 3d sounds
forcing you to stand close to npcs in order to understand
and even moving your camera a bit away can cause their voices drop really low
or being interrupted by a passerby npc ultimately ending up in understanding neither crap of what they are babbling about
also the lines of guards could be a little more generic because, apparently all of them once used to be adventurers like you but took an arrow in their knee
these issues are nothing all that serious anyway and tend to escalate into comic situations
Skyrim has its quirks though, ranging from silly bugs like horse spasming around through getting stuck in geometry and boulders on the ground
all the way to major ones like quest items disappearing or a conversation option not coming up, bugs that can break quest or even the main storyline
there are some designs that could be done differently (or polished up if somebody didn't insist on 11.11.11)
this alone though is not enough to spoil the fun that Skyrim is
summed up TESV:Skyrim is fun, it does have its quirks though they are nothing major overall
the game is really atmospheric and it will pull you in
the lack of direction may feel suffocating for some but it usually wears off afterwards
do not break the game down, Skyrim really is a sum of its parts
the game does have this quantity > quality mindset even though some of the parts aren't quite as good as the rest
fortunately the overall product is hardly what we could call bad
and if properly patched sometime in the future, TESV:Skyrim could become one of the best PC rpgs available
ps. yeah for a freaking sake a norse mythology based game with no sea monsters ?! I'm disappointed
score reduced due to escalated major balance issues end-game
7.5/10
lol.. at least i hope thats it
