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Monday, April 22, 2013
The Elder Scrolls Skyrim
Every game has a single over-riding requirement for its players. Some
demand lightning-fast reflexes and the commitment it takes to master the
depth of their controls. Others ask for a willingness to think outside
the box or some degree of intelligence for puzzle solving.
These are all attributes players will need if they hope to succeed in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. But the one asset players will need above all else is time.
The
reason for this is that Skyrim is one of the most gargantuan
undertakings gamers will experience all year. The sheer size of the
adventure, both in terms of its environment and in the amount of
activities available to the player, is mind-blowing.
This
shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. The game's developer,
Bethesda, has banked a rather lucrative existence on creating open-world
RPGs that are filled to bursting with content. As with Elder Scrolls
IV: Oblivion and Fallout 3 before it, Skyrim is a game that's easy to
completely lose yourself in.
The reason for this is two-fold.
First, the game's production values work hard to immerse the player in
Bethesda's sword and sorcery world. For a game of this size the quality
of the graphics and the attention to detail is awe-inspiring.
As
the player travels through Skyrim, they'll encounter dense woodlands,
snow-capped mountains, majestic cities and crystal clear rivers that run
throughout the map. They'll run into an assortment of interesting
characters and battle myriad monsters.
They'll have to plough through blizzards, find shelter from
thunderstorms and, on a clear night, they can gaze up at the sky and see
auroras bleeding through the darkened heavens above them. The visual
and sonic features of the game completely obliterate any traces of the
outside world.
The second part of this enchantment is wrapped up
in the number of ways Bethesda allows the players to interact with the
world it has created.
Players can while away hours upon hours
creating weapons at a forge, mixing potions at an alchemy table,
enchanting weapons, chopping wood, practicing archery, investigating
subterranean caverns or simply pointing their character at the horizon
and heading over the nearest hill.
They can buy a house, join a
guild, marry an NPC or read every book contained in the library at a
college for mages. Around every corner and at every new town they wander
into, there's a monster to fight, a character to talk to and some new
discovery to be made.
The amount of things to do in Skyrim makes
the player feel like they're a living, breathing part of its world. In
short, you need time by the bucketload to get to grips with Skyrim,
because once you enter its world, it becomes your world.
There's a story, which guides the player's progress to an extent. It
begins with an escape from the headsman's chopping block and then the
player is cut loose in the massive world of Skyrim with the barest
essentials in information about themselves and the land they now
inhabit.
Skyrim is plagued on two fronts – by a bloody civil war
and by the return of a race of dragons that, until recently, were
extinct. The player is also aware that they are the last of a race
called the Dragonborn, and they are also all that stands between Skyrim
and its ultimate destruction.
Still, that's enough to be getting
on with, eh? The plot then proceeds to reveal its pleasures by inches,
one mission and side-quest at a time.
As the player completes one
heroic (and not so heroic) deed after another, they get to grips with
the game's deep and intuitive control system. The right and left
triggers wield whatever weapon, shield or magic spell the player assigns
to them. The inventory soon starts filling up with useful items that
the player can assign to the D-pad for a quick weapon change act in the
middle of combat.
Every time the player uses a weapon or a spell
or skill in Skyrim, their profiency with that item or in that talent
goes up. Once their overall XP hits the next level, they're able to
assign a talent point to the skill of their choosing.
In this way, the game rewards the participant for playing in exactly
the way they want to. If you want cut your way through the land using
just a sword and shield, the game will ensure you become more proficient
in doing so. If magic or sneaking about in the dark are more your
things, you'll get better at both the more you do them.
On top of
weapons and spells, the player has an edge over most opponents in the
form of their Dragonborn "shouts". These are magical powers that are
acquired by reading runes carved into the walls of dungeons and caves
the player will encounter, and which are unlocked with the souls of the
dragons they've killed.
Shouts vary in power and recharge rate;
one enables the player to breathe fire on opponents, another provides
them with a quick-sprint, and yet another allows them to bring a dragon
crashing down from the sky.
There's a price for all this power. Players will have to look past occasional bugs in the gameplay, for one.
These
range from characters attaching themselves to pieces of the
environment, the odd animation glitch and the rare instance where a
previous save needs to be loaded after the game crashes completely.
There
are also a couple of niggles that were present in Fallout 3, too, such
as the unnerving stare plastered over the faces of NPCs or the way in
which accidentally picking up an item that doesn't belong to you can
cause a friendly character to turn hostile.
But the largest cost
that Skyrim wishes to exact from players is that which is measured in
human hours: time. And given the volume of content Bethesda's game
holds, preparations ahead of playing may be necessary.
So, with
that in mind, may your boss believe you when you phone in claiming you
have the plague, may your significant other be tolerant and
understanding, and may your friends know you well enough not to make
enquiries with the police if they don't hear from you in over a month.
Skyrim awaits, adventurers. All it asks in return is your life …
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