Hey everyone I think I have decided to make this a GAME DESIGN Club on dakkadakka. Where we get to talk about games in a reasonable matter. All sexism arguments and issues that are quite controversial in the games industry must be avoided this is mostly because I am interested in talking and learning from both players and designers.
Asherian's Game Review of Skyrim
As requested by his professors.
Opinion Piece
Platform :
PC
NOTE:
Alright people I will be writing a few opinionated pieces on here. Mostly discussing games and implications and the problems encountered in it. I usually test a game by playing it for 10 hours at least. And having knowledge in the industry will let me discuss the problems in the game in a bit more depth compared to the average game reviewer.
If you find mistakes in my work. Please message me or comment on this forum without further ado.
Title of Game: Skyrim
Publisher and Game Development Studio: Bethesda Studios
Platform:
PC
Genre Action-Adventure-Open Role Playing Game
Rating : M
Player Mode: Single Player
Time Interval - Real Time
Graphics Engine: Creation Engine
Introduction:
Welcome to a world filled with dragons, mythic beasts that speak a language far beyond our own, a world filled with elves, orcs, demons, humans, and many other incredible creatures. In this world there are mortals who carry the soul and blood of a dragon. There are the Dovahkiin, Dragonborn. This adventure takes you from the cold frozen wastes of Winterhold, to a slightly warmer but still cold looking Riften to the mid-summer home of Solitude.
Now this one of the first times I have ever played this game. One of the things I quickly noticed was its lack luster beginning. Now it is something that is pivotal in a game. The beginning of the game should have the hook or the initial introduction of the world. Unfortunately Skyrim does extremely poorly up to this point.
You start in a carriage chained to the floor. You can't even move you can only move the camera. This is highly ineffective, as we are told all these names, as a new comer would be quite confused by the dialogue. In the first few minutes we the words akatosh, Windhelm, Ufric Stormcloak, stormcloaks, Hammerfell, Sovogaurd, The Empire, and several other names. First in my head. I'm going. "Wait who? Whats that?" That may work on fans of the series, but newcomers would be immensely confused by this.
This is a huge mistake. You need to introduce me to the world, but slowly. You can't throw names around without confusing the player or reader. They will be immensely confused.
This game's introduction should set the scene. Not build up this giant world immediately at the get go. Baby steps in this regard is high perferred. If we added going through a camp and the initial bit where you are captured the introduction would of been far strong. As we can see in the very introduction there were bits and pieces that didn't work. In Skyrim it is famed for its beautiful environments. Unfortunately it does not get to this point till 30 minutes in.
There is also the problem of tension. In the beginning you are sent off to die. Immediately when you step off your carriage. You are asked. "What is your name again?"
And then a screen pops up and you can choose what your character looks like and what their name is.
This is ineffective as it throws out the entire tension out the window all that tension they were building up was gone in an instant. Because why would they kill the player in the first 15 minutes after introducing your character? It would of been better to have done this after this whole introduction, or to have you been killed by the dragon. And then cut to riverwood when a stranger comes to town and you go out for an adventure. This would of made the whole game more interesting. Like as if the son of the character killed is looking for their father and trying to figure out where they were. A simple problem then could evolve into something else.
I felt no drive in the beginning to go forward. I had to push myself to enjoy the game. But after that hurdle. The game got much much better.
What Worked:
Attractiveness of the game or the Environment and Graphic Engine:
One of the most notable features of Skyrim is its immense environments, its very beautiful scenes that will make you completely surprised. The game knows this and feels like it should reward you with these scenes. This makes the game feel grand, epic, and adventurous. This also adds a bit of immersion to the player and to anyone playing the game. The graphics themselves for their time were revolutionary in the way they did many things, though compared to todays technology it really isn’t a complaint. Unfortunately even on maximum settings everything has this glossy texture to it. Now you may be wondering why you be covering this bit? Because thats only the humanoid characters, all beast creatures, or creature with hair or even the dragons are extremely well done, they seem very real. You can tell more work was poured into the dragons and beasts than into the humanoid models. The environment changes from a world of snow, to slightly less snow, to the beginning of summer. Something I wish they had implemented was seasons. I mean you have rain, snow, moons, and cloud movement. You would think that weather seasons would be quite easy to obtain.
Gameplay and its Replayability:
Due to the scale of the game, It is best to talk about what the game offers in terms of mechanics and gameplay. In fact there are so many things to do in Skyrim that one of the things you can’t do is have all the skills and perks available for your own personal use. This is not a drawback, its a bonus.
This is a hardcore, if you make a mistake you have to live with it choice. As in recurring games media this seems to be overlooked a challenge to the player having to think about his actions is just as rewarding and if not more beneficial to the player than allowing them full access to all skills. The only complaints is that there is far too much to do in skyrim. (Having Invested 10 hours into playing the game and seeing its problems.)
Like most
RPGs, you can customize your character to your liking each level you gain a perk and along these lines you can choose from an assortment of skills, in total there are 18 skills you can use. They are as follows:
The Mage
● Alteration
● Conjuration
● Destruction
● Illusion
● Restoration
The Warrior
● Enchanting
● Archery
● Block
● Heavy Armor
● One-Handed
● Two-Handed
● Smithing
The Thief
● Alchemy
● Light Armor
● Lockpicking
● Pickpocket
● Sneak
● Speech
I decided to go a more interesting root, taking conjuration and one hand, heavy armor, archery, and smithing. Unfortunately that is a ton of perk points to invest in. (It means I screwed up), apparently you are suppose to at the beginning of the game only invest in two skill paths. I invested in many. Though we are never told to do this in game. I only found this out due to investigating a bit further in the game.
These skills once level also you level you up. But you need a certain amount of skill level ups in order to achieve a character level there is a set requirement of how many per level. Each time you gain a Character level.
The gameplay is quite addictive correlate your right hand and left hand weapons with their respective side of the mouse.
This actually adds quite a bit depth into the game and makes it quite immersive and addicting. Now lets move onto the most interesting part.
What is the game really like? It plays out like newer
RPGs where it gives you a set of quests that you have to complete. It reminded me a lot of World of Warcraft. But instead of finding the person with the hovering glyph or exclamation mark above their head, you would come into a town and you would talk to the townsfolk. Huh imagine that, a game that thought about immersion. They would give you a quest and then will reward you with a small amount of gold for your efforts.
In this game though unlike World of Warcraft, it actually feels rewarding to kill the targets, like you are making a difference, as each camp of bandits. No matter how many times I destroy a bandit group it always plays out different. With variety in enemy types there is no telling what type of bandit you will face. Though this repetition has made me quite battle harden with my level 19 Conjuration Master. As I just summon minions to kill everything.
This game gives you quite a bit of freedom I often feel like it hits me over the head with it quite often. The strongest part of skyrim is in its freedom to basically do whatever you want. It is basically a sandbox
rpg game. If that doesn’t spark interest. I don’t know what will.
The irks are that these big organizations like Winterhold College, The Companions, The Dawnguard and whoever, their stories just were far too short. They were the same thing over and over. The Companion missions be fetch this from an enemy stronghold or from a crypt. It was tiresome and got extremely boring to the point I thought to myself. "Oh god if they send me to one of those places one more time I swear to god!"
Which they abruptly did. If they added more variety like an actual fetch quest, or kill this many animals, or kill this many animals and shave their skin, or deliver this note, or help me organize this bookshelf, It would of made these repetitive quests more interesting.
Though there are a few things you cannot do, well you can but it is deeply discouraged from doing them. You can’t go into a town and lock picking into someones house while a guard walks by. That is the surest way to get caught. Its not like I have tried killing an entire town while transforming into a werewolf to rob peoples silverware. In my opinion in order to be a good game you have to a balance of all things, Skyrim has excellent gameplay and replayability. So much so that it is incredible.
Music:
I think by now I am quite jaded when it comes hearing music from games, as most times its rock and roll. But Skyrim has one of the most beautiful scores, I’ve heard from recent memory. It uses a blend of beautiful overtones and voices that make them sound angelic to the ear. It is also a great way during the game to get the player pumped up. Now there are many things that happened whenever a dragon attacks, the music pumps up. And it really gives you the energy to fight that dragon.
This is something I enjoyed very much. Though sometimes it felt like there was a symphony orchestra following me around. Sometimes the music though comes in on the wrong time. It is also a great cue to tell you. “HEY LOOK SOMETHING IS HAPPENING!” This really adds to immersion in a way, it makes you want to do something quite epic. But now we move onto the problems I had in skyrim.
The Problems and what I didn’t like:
Story:
Basically what the story is like;
As far as I could tell the story is one of most confusing messes I have ever seen in my entire life. Lets start with what is the main point of the story. To kill dragons and save the world. You learn you are the dragonborn, and then there are hundreds of extra quests. The Civil War of Skyrim being one of most notable extra quests. For a civil war it is probably the shortest one in history, and what do you get for helping the jarls or empire winning? An item. Yep, just an item, a not very good item either, an item that you have by that time already gotten something better. So there is no real point to doing the quests, as there are only five of them. I was quite disappointed by this. The story was very confusing and hard to follow for this questline. For this game the storyline is hit and miss. (Mostly Miss) By that point I figured out that the writing department must of just thought “You know what, Lets stop trying.”
I found that the main organization quests were quite boring. I felt hyped to fight in the civil war of skyrim. But it just sort of ended. Shouldn't there be... I don't know.... Defense missions or scouting missions? Or i don't know battle missions where you fight in giant battles where dragons fly over and killing troops?
It just felt empty to be with these famed organizations. Also them making you their leader seemed kind of, out of place. "Hey there is this mute guy. Lets make him our leader."
"Right behind you, man!"
This becomes extremely apparent in several missions when at the end of the winterhold college missions you become the arch-mage. Funnily enough, I had yet to use a single magical spell. I had been using a sword the majority of the time, and only used conjuration magic, and some restoration magic.. It just disconnects me from the game itself. The story was all over the place. We already know who the bad guys are and they aren't that threatening after you kill the first twenty.
The enemies felt weak after a while, and didn't live up to the world's definition of powerful. They seemed weak and letdowns compared to their mythical powers. Such as the wolf queen quest. Which should of been a lot longer than it was. As I completed it in an hour. There was very little dialogue as well, which did not help the quest chain either.
To improve this they need more character interaction apart from in the beginning and the end of a quest. You need to sparkle it through out the game.
Though there are some good parts to the game. The last winterhold college quest is probably the best quest I had played in skyrim. Mostly due to the very hard labyrinth where my magic was drained and my healing abilities severely reduced. It made sense in the story. We were in a labyrinth that sucked our magic away from us. And what do we find out the main enemy couldn't hurt me because he was far enough away that I just picked him off with a bow. There are several problems in skyrims story lines. But making a big world like this is probably where they put most of their resources into.
My major issue is that it feels disconnected and so many disconnects happen in the game that I stop thinking about the world I am in. Its just another game. The story is the most important part, and Skyrim was Incredibly lacking in that degree.
Sound And Voice Acting:
She is quite chatty (Not really)
I think anyone who knows a lot about skyrim or has played thus far knows fairly well that the voice cast consisted of 20 people. Or what felt like at least 20 people. It is one of the things that rips you straight out of the experience as guards constantly bicker at you or insult you, and all seem to have the voice.
The words “I used to be adventure like you, till I took an arrow in the knee.” Is one of the most annoying things in the entire game that and the same stupid dialogue that was impressively breaking. The sound itself is not impressive, the voice acting is not impressive, in-fact it is probably the worst voice acting I have ever heard. There is no character, there is no emotion in what these people are saying. Some hit it, most don’t. I had a child come up to me and say that her parents were killed, I was not in the least bit convinced by the tone of her voice. She sounded bored, in fact all the children in skyrim just feel wrong to be around.
There are many things that I would say that broke the game for me. And the voice acting just took it a step too far, that made the game feel rushed and not as well put together. Now the best way to enjoy skyrim is through the mods set up by the community, because there is a hotfix that fixes everything I just said about the voice acting. Minus the children of the corn.
Now on the sound. The game feels empty.
There should be birds and the blowing of the wind but I didn’t. It felt game breaking, there is so much they could of simply added and it would of added volumes to the story and gameplay as a whole. Though other than this the main characters, mainly the Jarls (Vassals/Lords) are voiced properly and have the best actors in the whole game.
This is a problem because they are the ones you interact with least. I Found that I visited the stores to get rid of my stockpile of items I get from an adventure. The actresses and actors were quite mediocre at best.
I want to feel emotion for these characters, but I don't get that emotion, because there is no soul behind the words said. I don't feel sad for this character. If this character says her parents are dead, I want to feel it.
Not.. "Hey! My parents are dead. Okay. So what now?"
Shouldn't it be the girl crying at the door of her house, and you take notice of this child?
All the children in Skyrim act like adults. They don't act any different I found it hard to tell.
And that one brat who talked down to me like she owned the world. Was one of the few times I saved my game turned into a werewolf and tried to kill her, Unforunately the skyrim creators must of thought. "Hey you know those demon childs we put in the game we should make them unkillable, and essential. Because there might be people who hate their characters and might want to kill them!"
The Pathing and the AI:
Suddenly Everything is right in the world.
One of the worst bits of this game is traveling from place to place on foot. Especially those hard to reach areas, there is a certain way up. I Took this a challenge and claimed up a peak to only bug out of the wall and fly high in the sky and die. Another time I ran my horse up a cliff and glitched out and got stuck in the wall permanently. Infact I think the game knows this and after you have visited a place you can fast travel to that location. In a blink. This is a recurring problem as objective markers sometimes misplace themselves in areas they shouldn’t be, mountains you can sometimes walk through, sometimes you trip off a ledge and die. Sometimes the objective marker is so far off it is almost comical.
Its those times when you wonder if anyone had actually tested those areas. Traveling to those far off regions especially when they are on water.
Now you can swim, but the problem is that it takes longer to do so. As the map sometimes improperly locates the objective marker on your map a literal mile away from the objective. Its this type of thing that makes the game kind of terrible for those who need proper linear pathing. Though for someone like me, I find it kind of joyous to be absolutely lost in the wilderness surrounded by frightening creatures.
Another problem that is seen is that the AI charge out and attack a dragon or a vampire (provided you have installed Dawnguard onto your game) and this you will notice quite quickly sometimes the shopkeepers and critical carriers of quests are suicidally brave, for going their homes, and instead wanting to use their wimpy knives and clubs to beat up a dragon or any hostile creature that enters the village. This probably the worst bit of the game. As sometimes those critical
npcs stop entire quest chains. And resulting in a mission failed. And you do hope for a quick save from before because losing an
npc, especially a shopkeeper is the most frustrating thing in all of skyrim.
Rating:
Overall this game which I have tedious calculated the score from my own personal enjoyment, bugs, artistic direction, mechanics observations, gameplay liking, and story liking, I give this game a prominent 8.6. A score which it deserves. Though this is not a bad thing this game is definitely worth the buy. Though you might get annoyed from time to time from the gamebreaking bugs. Meanwhile I will be on my adventure and killing dragons.
