Skyrim

I have a somewhat good relationship with The Elder Scrolls and Bethesda in general. I know their games very well but never managed to finish them because of something else getting my attention, despite the amount of fun they brought me. I was kind of sceptic that Skyrim would be any different.

I am always happy to be wrong.

Turns out it may be my first victorious full-fledged playthrough of the series. Skyrim gave me pleasant surprises in it's first ten minutes, stealing my freedom for a good 6 hours straight, and it keeps delivering. This never happened since Mass Effect, who was another surprise at the time, but that is something else. Sure, Skyrim got Fallout-lienated somewhere in the making but I have no problem with that. Same for most of the NPCs having their hands nailed to their waists when they have nothing scripted to do. And same for the game becoming a lot more simple, which I think is another plus.

Might as well jump into this last point right away. A lot of things changed, some for the bad but most for the best. Yep, in addition to the super shiny AND useful menu, the updated magic system, the skill trees and the *each hand is independent to the other* thingy, it appears that you can SPRINT! A real fast sprint too, not just a smooth relaxing jogging while being bombarded by spells, arrows and gooey stuff like zombies as if time was not an issue. In fact, Bethesda didn't had to pull their hair out with a super bad ass trailer. All they had to do was to show a player character sprinting away from an ambushing mountain kitty. And then you loop this 10 seconds clip three or four times to give you good length, and then you succeed in life. The best decisions are the simple ones indeed.

What's best is that you can now combine these mechanics to better results. For example, blocking is now useful when you wanna make the two-hander *piss off* then rush towards the poor mage zapping you, which would have been impossible and useless before. having two *independent* hands, a la Bioshock 2, is amazing because you can now relish a lighter, quicker weapon without the beforehand unavoidable shield of I-reduce-efficiency +2. Fighting with a sword and popping a spell at the same time is quite satisfying, especially when flame throwers are involved (or icegun throwers, whatever suits you. That one is for you Nick XD).

-But wait, if you can fight with spells and melee at the same time, then what's the point of making a pure mage or warrior?

Good question. Because mages can use BOTH hands at the same time. It's like a two-hander but with fireballs instead, it's really fun. Trained mages also have an improved casting in a spell school if they use both hands, which results in a slightly different spells. For example, a warrior using both hands to cast a *flamethrower* spell will end up with two normal (and little) jets of fire, one for each hands. But the mage skilled in destruction magic will be able to *combine* his hands, forming a huge stream instead. Sort of like ghostbusters. The only sad part is that you cannot combine different elements or effects but I guess it makes sense. A fireball that heals you might be confusing. What's also nice is that taking cover in front of a mage and taking the safe but longer path is worthwhile now because spells will not go through rocks and corners just because their animations told them to do so. Except if you have nuke AoE bombs, then it makes sense.

Same with warriors. Being skilled with your weapons doesn't only mean you will deal more damage, you will attack more efficiently. It's the difference between finesse and smashing things with a big, slow log made of iron really. I tried to hit an enemy with my mage using a two-handed sword power attack. It wasn't pretty at all and I ended up missing him because my blow took ages. And I wasted all of my stamina. And I died because my enemy thought I was extra slow and I couldn't run away.

I am sure the thieves, assassins and speechfull bureaucrats also have their share of goodies, skill related, however I did not try to play with those yet. I can say, however, that not all the skills encountered in the previous games are in Skyrim. There is *only* 18 of them, but do not let that number anger you. Some skills are the gathering of numerous ones, like the one or two handed weapon skills affecting all weapon classes. Because you would think that a warrior would know the difference between a log and a butter knife. Additionally, the attribute (strength, intelligence, etc) system is gone. Weapons will not break (but enchantments will depletes) so the armored skill is gone and replaced with blacksmith. Acrobatics is also gone, replaced with nothing at all which made me cry a little. My favorite strategy in previous TES games was to jump down a hill, successfully levelling my legs. After a too-much-numerous-levelling-up time I ended up making 10 meters high jumps and could access rooftops and other unreachable areas, bombarding my enemies with fireballs. Fun times in Morrowind and Oblivion.

Well, it's a good thing in the end. I only cried for a minute or two because I realised at some point that my life and mana bar was going up by itself. At first I thought that dragon had a particularly good breath this morning but then realised that it went up all the time. This means, among other things, that rushing and whacking enemies as fast as you can in order to suffer the less damage possible is not the ultimate best strategy there is. You can take out a few dudes, go hide somewhere to let your mana bar go up a bit and get back into the fray. Potions or healing magic are no longer a dependence and are now used for emergencies. There is no limit on how many bottles you can shove down your gutter, but you do not have that much to begin with so it's all right. Well, in my case anyway, I wasted all of my cash levelling up my blacksmith skill. Apparently I can craft elfic gear and I still didn't see a single one of them ( I mean the elfs themselves). No game is perfect XD

Graphically the game is great. Oh, the mountains, plains and creatures are as enchanting as every other TES games (compared to their respective times), here I am talking about *oh snap* moments. Especially spells and other sparkles. Lighting effects aren't the best but it's nice to see the bad guy you just set on fire actually generating light. Force effects (like force push...screams?) are nice to see since they push back the entire environment, dust, objects, remains and vegetation included. Same with large creatures running, jumping or landing. Spells are not only pretty, they're really fun to use...on rocks! The first time you will see a dragon breath fire on a wall you will stop playing for a second or two and admire the fiery stream splitting on the surface. Ice spells will freeze the landscape, fire spells will burn the ground, fun stuff overall. To note, the grassy plains being brushed by the wind is really convincing however the gatherable plants and flowers will not move at all. No game is perfect, and it's not a sore to the eye. It took me some time to realise it.

As for the audio, no worries there. The orchestra will follow your epic battles and adventures wherever you go and you may tremble in the face of a very angry gigantic creature roaring at you. Voice actors can be dull sometimes, but nothing dramatic or annoying. I'm interested in the big monsters anyway so points for Bethesda and their priorities, you can keep your occasionally bland actors :D


So. Is the game close to perfection or what? Course not!
The game does have it's share of problems, bugs and dumb AI, but nothing I should get angry at. Sure, I may be patient to the point of not using powers against Spark Mandrill...or Crash man DX... but nothing made me want to punch the screen in rage or annoyment yet. Some rare times you will be stuck on a ledge for a second or two, and it may happen at a bad time. Sometimes your enemies will derp over a bridge, wondering what to do as you arrow them to death. Or sometimes they will get stuck in a doorway. Even NPCs just wandering around in towns will go complete retard. Once, a man going up and a woman going down were trapped in each other. None wanted to collide with the other. I actually watched the scene for a good 5 minutes, tried to push them and stuff, they stayed like that. Amazing.

When you will realise that crafting a chesplate then a knife will give you the same amount of experience you will rage a bit. Made items should take the item consumption into consideration, and that includes alchemy. Really dumb of them. Similarly, abusing the butter knifes and cheap potions is too easy. Yes, this annoys me more than any other bugs in the world and I am surprised that nobody figured this one out. Pretty fields and birds are working just fine, but DAMN this knife is tempting me to farm it to death!

But these bugs aren't bugging me, they're just funny (except the knifes). At least they make you realise that Skyrim is a game, not the life you would like to live.


So, in short? Skyrim is a neat upgrade on it's predecessors despite it's flaws. The game is so huge you shouldn't stop for such trivial annoyances. It removed a lot of things that bothered me in previous TES games by adding and changing some features, and I think the sacrifices were worth it. It worked very hard on impressing you and it succeeded. Sometimes you will literally drop your jaw. The game is simple yet enjoyable and it's easy to leave it for a while. You will be tempted to try out different characters and to explore various areas. I even loaded some segments of the game just to redo it a couple of times. It could be seen as more of the same, and I would agree to this, but it does have it's unique charm. For me, it was worth my buck. I usually do not give scores to my reviews but the Geek team invited me with open arms (even if this review ends up in my personal Blog). Frenchy gives Skyrim a 8.5 out of ten and will stop being frenchy (but it is impossible).

Thanks for the read and I hope you enjoyed!