First Impression: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
This morning, as I looked at the clock and thought to myself, “Ten minutes until I have to go to work. I have time to play Skyrim!” I realized that I may have a problem.
I have always enjoyed the Elder Scrolls video games in small doses, but thus far the fifth installment, Skyrim, has blown the others out of the water.
For those of you that don’t know, I get horrible motion sickness. The reason I only ever enjoyed previous Elder Scrolls games in small doses is because, even when pulling out of first person, the jarring motions of navigating through the game always left me feeling queasy rather quickly. Even though the crosshair in FPS games does help, it usually does only to an extent. The motion in Skyrim, however, is much smoother than in say, Oblivion, which made me so motion sick that I eventually had to give up the game completely. But with Skyrim, I’ve been playing for hours and loving every minute of it – well, except when my follower Uthgerd the Unbroken died and left my mage tankless in the Fortress of Gloom to fight an entire, well, fortress of mages. Other than that, loving every minute.
I’m not going to go much into the main storyline other than to say that the main character (which is fully customizable from a variety of standard Oblivion races) is Dragonborn, able to absorb a dragon’s powers and abilities when he (or in my case, she) slays it. These magic shouts are helpful, and sometimes hilarious – especially if you’re like me and have a penchant for pressing the wrong button when standing near NPCs.
There are a lot of quests in this game, and quite a few dungeons. Some of them have a very Indiana Jones feel to them, with plenty of puzzles to solve and traps to avoid. Also, it’s pretty convenient that every dungeon has a well-placed exit at the end so that you don’t have to back-track.
Although I’ve heard complaints about the menu system, I’m generally digging it. Pretty much anything and everything (weapons, potions, spells, scrolls, a frying pan) can be added to a favorites menu, which allows you to quickly switch between things that you can equip in your left or right hand. The Perks system, which helps with your various skills, is a nice touch. As a mage, having the cost of some of my spells halved is a good thing. You can put perk points into pretty much anything, from spells to speechcraft to lockpicking to wearing armor. This gives you a high range of customizability with your character and makes it so that you aren’t holed into just one profession; sure, if you chose to be a mage, you won’t be the greatest thief in the world, but you can still put perks points into lockpicking to help with your chest-unlocking skills.
Overall, I have quite a bit more to do in this game. I’m nowhere near the end – but I’m having a blast so far, and really enjoying myself. So here’s a “shout” out (pun intended) to everyone else playing Skyrim – and if you aren’t and you enjoy slaying Internet Dragons and accidentally setting NPCs on fire by shouting at them, then this game is definitely worth giving a try.
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