The last single-player game I bought as soon as it was released was Final Fantasy XII. Not that it was the last single-player game I would ever buy, but it convinced me of two things. First, that you REALLY need to wait for proper reviews to come out before buying a game (note to Square-Enix fans: I think you know I'm right). And second, that MMOs are always going to be better when it comes to smart purchases due to extensive feedback during Beta testing or Public Testing Realm reviews in the case of content updates. Overall, this synergizes wonderfully with my job at ZAM, as we're all about MMOs. I could swear off console or PC games and focus on others that have months of advance notice... and then Bethesda Softworks released elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Skyrim is the latest incarnation of a series of RPGs known as the Elder Scrolls. Since the third iteration (Morrowind), the series has been defined as an "open-ended" RPG: it gives you almost complete control over all aspects of your character. Want to play a mage character, the classic glass-cannon? You can. No fun? Why not a mage character who wears heavy armor, and also has healing spells? Perfectly fine. Want to be a sneaky dual-wielding ninja who throws out bolts of electricity? Fine. Let's go deeper than just “class build”: want to be an “evil” character? I'm not talking about “I'm so evil, I chose the sarcastic response to your family's slaughter!” I'm talking about “I'm so evil, I just slaughtered an entire town. For fun. Because I could. And you don't respawn.” Yup, that's Elder Scrolls. Welcome to Skyrim.
Behold, my dual-spell wielding, heavy armor-wearing, expert lockpicking character. He also cooks.
The combat system refines that of the previous game, Oblivion. Players have 18 “skills,” broken into three main categories: thief, mage and warrior. As a player works on these skills, they each level from 1 to 100; and as a player gains more of these skill levels, he/she gains more experience toward a character level. Each character level allows the player to choose a +10 bonus to either health, magicka (for spells) or stamina (for physical moves), as well as a perk, which is an unlockable skill in one of the 18 skill trees. For example, a player may hit level 10 in one-handed weapons and level 2 in character level; they could put a perk point into the “Armsman” perk, to cause 20% more damage with all one-handed weapons. Or, if they cast spells, perhaps a mage would do the same in the destruction tree, allowing them to do more magical damage. The skills are not all straight combat: each has a crafting skill (smithing, alchemy and enchanting), as well as other non-damage skills (like Sneak, Pickpocket, Speech and Lockpicking for thieves; restoration, alteration and illusion for mages; and light armor and heavy armor for warriors). While I enjoyed the condensation or removal of some skills (such as Speech combining Speechcraft and Mercantile and the removal of Athletics), one factor that Skyrim does not bring back is the ability to create your own spells. As this was one of my favorite features in Oblivion, I'd rate it as one of the few disappointments I had in the newest game.
In what I figured would be just another random cave, I discovered a massive underground tree. Pretty...
As previously stated, the game is almost entirely open-ended. Yes, there is a main storyline that will progress the state of the world: for example, if you disregard the storyline once outside of the tutorial zone, dragons will not appear anywhere else in the world. If you continue the main quests for a bit, suddenly dragons have a chance to swoop out of the clouds at you all over the place! But you can choose whatever pace you desire to speed up the main story; it's perfectly fine to hold off on it all until you've done everything else. If players have tried out Oblivion then they will be familiar with enemies that scale to the player level; however, Skyrim makes the scaling much less painful (still, near the beginning bears felt more dangerous to my character than dragons). The developers expect the game to take about 50 levels to complete; however, players can max all of their skills if they desire. It is important to note that they will only have 70 or so perks at the end; and as there are over 200 available, they must choose carefully!
While there are many static quests, Skyrim also boasts random ones by asking for work.
The background of the game can be kept short, sweet and to the point. You start out in a wagon on your way to an execution for the horrendous crime of crossing the border (shame on you, undocumented immigrant!). To be fair, the High King of the country (Skyrim) had just been murdered, and you're in the same group as the king slayer, but still... tough luck. You get to sit back, listen to some idle chatter, and get a feel for the graphics of the game as your pending decapitation draws ever nearer. The first thing I noticed about Skyrim is the graphics... I'm used to playing a game on the lowest settings, in order to get the best framerate and least lag. In Skyrim? Even on medium graphics, the game looks better than any other I've played, and runs smoothly (hint to PC players: go to Settings in the Esc menu, and turn out “X-Box 360 controller”configuration. For some reason, this causes the framerate to soar on computers). Seriously, if you have time I recommend checking out a couple of sites devoted to some amazing Skyrim shots, including a Flickr stream of some truly amazing ones. You won't be disappointed! The beginning is a nice tutorial; it teaches you the basic movements, while treating you to all the excitement of “HOLY CRAP, DRAGON!” After following the markers on the screen and a companion through an underground cave, you exit the tutorial zone and the real fun begins.
These Skeevers come in packs, but luckily do little damage. Meeting a few bears at once, however...
The game takes off from this point. As soon as you exit the tutorial zone, you're prodded toward a town (Riverwood). At this point I made a mistake. I pushed “M.” Know what “M” brings up? The entire map of Skyrim. I immediately chose a town in the absolute opposite direction and headed out. Skyrim gives you total freedom to act as you wish: sure, you could rendezvous with your companion... but hey, there's a town over there... and some stones in between... and look! Wolves!
Skyrim caters to those who like to get lost. Sure, dragons have reappeared and, as the hero, you need to find out who summoned them, fight them, and kill the biggest, baddest dragon of them all. But doing so will ignore probably 85% of the content of the game. Skyrim instead is all about getting distracted. Want to collect butterflies? Go do it! Want to kill some bandits in mines and then steal their ore to smith new weapons? Totally fine. Want to slaughter an entire village and then run from the guards while cackling maniacally? Seek help, but yes, you can do it. Just realize now you can't receive quests from them!
Skyrim is divided into nine "holds," or territories. Each has its own ruler, questlines, and allegiances.
I'm not trying to take away from MMORPGs here; that would be gutting my own job security. But one of the frequent issues players have with the online worlds they inhabit is that you very seldom see lasting changes; the boss you killed last week is back up this week with another chance at loot. You can't pick up all the food you see in an inn. You kill an NPC and they respawn in a couple of minutes. Skyrim offers the chance to interact with almost every object; to never see a respawning boss; and consequences for killing named NPCs, in that they will never reappear. The only issues I had with the game were the lack of some options from previous titles, and a few small bugs and glitches that should hopefully be squared soon. Outside of that, it's honestly one of the best RPGs I've played. Boasting around 250 hours of content, Skyrim will keep players occupied for a long time.
Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland, Staff Writer.
