So. Skyrim.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

...Did anyone else take another plunge into Tamriel over the weekend?

Seriously, this might be my favorite game this year.

[Duffy]

I didn't.

The two people I hang out with regularly in my village did.

It's lonely not being a gaming senescent, not seen either of them for 3 days... :p.

[Morus]

I've been watch Skyrim, and I'm rather excited about it. But I had some questions concerning improvements over Oblivion (I've read a few lists but would rather have player feedback).

Has stealth been improved? I heard it follows Fallout 3/NV rules now. The magic system looks much more impressive now, but it is it fun to play? Does the Radiant AI they've talked about really immerse players more in the game?

[Letho]

To answer the question from the first post, fuck yea!



http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/9628/tesv2011111319483236.jpg

As for Morus's question, I really can't say. As you can probably conclude from the screenshot I generally choose to beat shit down hard instead of pussyfooting around and casting spells. I can say that, unless you're playing on a controller, the interface if rather horrible for the mouse/keyboard combination. Still, the game is awesome so far. I'm about five or so hours in.

[C. H. Ashpool]

This is the best fucking game I've ever played. Hands down.

You can mine. Take the ore to a smelter, then turn it into ingots, with which you then forge armor, which you can then improve upon at a workbench, and FINALLY you can enchant that shit.

Furthermore, my Orc can transmute iron ore into gold. CHA-CHING

[SirArtemis]

This is my chat with Morus to answer his questions on what I could in chat. Hopefully it helps others who want those answers:

Morus: Are you Skyrimming too?
SirArtemis: ask me anything you want to know
SirArtemis: yes. about 15 hours in. level 23. what can i do for you? i'm doing some emails now adn then i'll be playing
Morus: Stealth? How is it, do you use it? I suppose I should ask Race/Class
SirArtemis: i play a khajit
SirArtemis: and there is no class
SirArtemis: stealth is similar to how it was in the 4th one
SirArtemis: you crouch and you are hidden
SirArtemis: however, your skill does not always define your ability. each skill has a "constellation"
SirArtemis: and you put "perks" into that skill to unlock certain abilities within that skill. one perk per level.
SirArtemis: the AI at times is quite stupid
SirArtemis: especially with regard to sneak
SirArtemis: when they notice something, the eye opens up a little bit, and in time, it will close again if they don't see you
SirArtemis: i've stopped moving before in a dark little crevice before and they were 3 feet away from me and didn't notice me, and ... well it wasn't THAT dark
Morus: Are daggers viable? And AI is always stupid with stealth. It was in Fallout 3 but I loved it. I saw there is a reverse pickpocket poison perk that seems pretty cool.
SirArtemis: yup that's further in the tree
SirArtemis: now, you have to unlock advanced bonuses
SirArtemis: i have not yet tried dagger stealth but i presume it's better than sword/mace/axe stealth
Morus: Mace stealth sounds loud.
SirArtemis: basic weapon gives x6 weapon bonus damage when you get the perk, bow gives x3, dagger x15
SirArtemis: with a sword, i've had fatality assassinations where i come up behind them and slit their throat with my sword. i'm not sure what the dagger ones would be like
Morus: Does that stack? Would it be x6 and then x 15 at the later perk?
SirArtemis: thinking to try ti a big later
Morus: If I used a dagger
SirArtemis: no, i think it would be just x15. but agian, i hvaen't gotten there
Morus: Magic?
SirArtemis: i haven't gotten too into it except for the magic they gave me from the beginning, which is healing, and then flame and sparks
SirArtemis: magic takes up one hand, as a shield or waepon would
SirArtemis: you could have a shield and magic or a sword nad magic and in any hand you want.
SirArtemis: i think you can also have different magic in each hand, though i hvaen't bothered with it.
SirArtemis: so healing is a hold spell. as long as you hold it, you'll be healing
SirArtemis: the same works for the falmes and sparks. instead of a ball or a bolt, it's a cone
Morus: That's pretty awesome.
SirArtemis: what else would you like to know? i can tell you some of the things i just noticed that are different or i'd like improved
Morus: That'd be good.
SirArtemis: well, lockpicking is different, and harder
SirArtemis: the 4th had the tumbler system
SirArtemis: i got really good at that and could "feel" the tumblers
SirArtemis: this one has you picking a lock from the front
SirArtemis: you look at a keyhole, and you have a lockpick with a 180 degree movement range above the horizon
SirArtemis: you need to turn the lockpick into the right position for it to turn enough to unlock. the harder the lock, the smaller the range of where the pick allows you to turnt he lock part way and where it won't let you turn it at all
SirArtemis: one of my biggest grievances with this game is the leveling up
SirArtemis: in 4, your 7 primary skills affected leveling. in this game, everything does.
SirArtemis: problem with that? training is the same. 5 maximum per level.
SirArtemis: but you don't sleep to level up. you open up your perks page
SirArtemis: and when you do that, it FORCES you to level up all your "backlogged" levels at once
Morus: Huh, that's bothersome
SirArtemis: so if you were waiting to use your money to train up to 5/5 and then it took to long, you get multiple levels at once and you lose those training opportunities
SirArtemis: i had that happen a couple times, worst being 4 levels in one go, and i'm only level 23 now
SirArtemis: when you level, you HAVE to pick to increas your magicka, hp or stamina by 10
SirArtemis: you can save your perk for later though at least
Morus: The cap is 50, but there's a hypothetically 70 levels to the game, according to the wiki.
SirArtemis: i don't know if hte cap is 50
SirArtemis: i know there's an achivement for reaching 50
SirArtemis: i also was told that horses are bugged int eh sense that they can ride even vertical walls so you can get anywhere but i haven't tested this
SirArtemis: was told this becuase a friend went up a mountain he normally wouldn't have been able to go. just his comment though
SirArtemis: otherwise it feels much teh same. a few tweaks. like the major cities allow you to take carriages for a bit of gold to them for the first time so you can fast travel later. map is larger. game feels like it is very fluid

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

2566

I opted for a Nord who prioritizes melee combat (shield bashing is pretty fucking useful, I should say). I've got some sneaking and marksman skills built up, that way I can soften up any bandits or sabre-toothed cats that come my way. Forging your own gear is pretty awesome, too. Improving it is not as easy as it was in Two Worlds 2, but it's intuitive enough where I have flawless scaled gear (pictured above) and elven shields and maces.

To answer your question, yeah, they improved the stealth game. I found you can direct their attention with a well-placed arrow against the wall, and taking down one person in a room with an arrow from afar won't automatically send everyone else running in your direction. And I got to play around with the magic system for a bit with a brief 2-hour session with a high elf, and i can say that it's very fun. And cheers to Bethesda for making Conjuration and Illusion credible and dangerous schools of magic in Skyrim. Turning two bandits against each other with my left hand, and reanimating the corpse of a third with my right? Yes, please.

I'm playing with a keyboard setup. It's not the most intuitive, and I miss numeric hotkeys for my items, but it's not the worst I've played.

This is by far the best game I've played all year (that isn't called Pokemon White).

Oh, and for the record...

2567

[Vigil]

I don't think I'll be able to focus or do anything else constructive for awhile. Skyrim is definitely on the brain and it ain't leaving any time soon.

[Letho]

Seems like stealing is a pain in the ass, though. You can steal something on one end of the town, wave it around, and nobody is going to get you for it as long as nobody sees you steal the item. But then you get caught on the other end of the town for lockpicking a door (even though there was nobody around to see you actually do it) and if you turn yourself in and pay the fine, they also take away the items you stole that nobody could plausibly know you stole. And you lose a Dwarven Greatsword which you already upgraded. :(

[Silence Sei]

Then don't steal.

And no. I have not, nor will I probably touch, Skyrim. No multiplayer really hammered down the final nail in the elder scrolls coffin for me.

I'm going to be just fine with my Arkham City (Probably Skyrim's biggest competition for GOTY), Sonic Generations (Best Sonic since 2), Revelations (Its AC, what more is there?), and at the end of the month, KoF XIII.

Oh, also, MW3.

[Jack Frost]

I'm thinking it on the 22nd...
It shall be my first game of this massive November game dump to get everything out for the holidays...

[Elrundir]

Then don't steal.

And no. I have not, nor will I probably touch, Skyrim. No multiplayer really hammered down the final nail in the elder scrolls coffin for me.

I'm going to be just fine with my Arkham City (Probably Skyrim's biggest competition for GOTY), Sonic Generations (Best Sonic since 2), Revelations (Its AC, what more is there?), and at the end of the month, KoF XIII.

Oh, also, MW3.
Elder Scrolls games just wouldn't be right if they were multiplayer. Some games are crafted for a stellar single-player experience, and the Elder Scrolls are that type of game.

I haven't gotten as much chance to play as I'd like, but I'm totally hooked. It's a fantastic game. Really, I don't think there are a whole lot of games out there that "no gamer should miss," but this seems like one of them so far. It improves on the previous Elder Scrolls formulae in just about every way. For once, I can actually enjoy being a mage! No more worrying about equipping some slow-moving, expensive-to-cast projectile spell. And they finally got rid of the bloody elemental weaknesses on the Altmer, so I can enjoy being a high elf mage!

Loving it so far. Fantastic purchase. Would recommend to anyone.

[Amen]

Whoa whoa whoa whoa.

Alright, let me preface this by saying I'm really enjoying Skyrim. A lot. I played for twenty hours straight, I literally could not stop (and that's never happened before). It's a great game, but let's be honest, it has flaws (most notably, the stories are a little anemic and the interface is clunky as hell). Despite that, though, most years I'd be 100% with you guys calling it my GOTY.

But I think you're forgetting that Portal 2 came out in April. Portal 2.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Most years I'd be 100% with you guys calling it my GOTY.

But I think you're forgetting that Portal 2 came out in April. Portal 2.

Pokemon Black/White is still my Game of the Year, actually. And I haven't forgotten about Portal 2 or Mortal Kombat. Shame I don't have my Wii anymore, otherwise I'd champion Skyward Sword as a contender as well. All really good games in my book.

[Letho]

Then don't steal.That's not a solution, but avoiding the problem. Now, I'm all for the whole "don't do the crime if you can't do the time (or pay the fine)". If they catch me doing it - and lord knows that happens a lot because there isn't a whole lot inconspicuous about a bigass Nord running into a room in heavy armor and trying to pick a chest - then fine, take the stuff I was stealing. But when they take something I stole an hour ago without being seen just because the system designates it as "stolen", it's bullshit. Still, far from a game breaker. I spend more time clobbering things to death than I do lockpicking, so it's still all good. :D

EDIT: And since we're speaking about potential GOTYs, I'd put Deus Ex up there as well. Had a great time going through that one even if it's not on the same level of awesome as the original (still light years ahead of the second one, though).

[Relt PeltFelter]

Listen, everybody wants to Sky their Rim. It's perfectly normal, nothing to be ashamed about. Lots of people go through this experimental phase.

And everybody wants to be DOVAHKIN, DRAGONBORN. But not everybody can, okay? It's just something we all need to come to terms with.

DOVAHKIN, DRAGONBORN.


Then don't steal.

And no. I have not, nor will I probably touch, Skyrim. No multiplayer really hammered down the final nail in the elder scrolls coffin for me.

I'm going to be just fine with my Arkham City (Probably Skyrim's biggest competition for GOTY), Sonic Generations (Best Sonic since 2), Revelations (Its AC, what more is there?), and at the end of the month, KoF XIII.

Oh, also, MW3.

i hate you and you are a dumb man who makes bad decisions

[Duffy]

Sorry Letho but that's been a mechanic of the Elder Scroll series since, well, it started.

The guards are just clever, deal with it :p.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Sei, Sei, Sei. Son, I am disappoint.

I can't take you seriously as a human being anymore. Especially when you discredit Skyrim for not having multiplayer, than list a few games you're happy with that are single-player affairs.

Why does Skyrim need multiplayer shoehorned into it in order to be worth playing, but not a mode where you can Batman and Robin your way through Arkham City? Or drop-in/drop-out in Sonic Generations like in Sonic 2?

[Silence Sei]

Because skyrim was the perfect opportunity for a mmorpg that could give wow a run for its money.

Sonic co-op doesn't make sense because the only viable second player would be your other sonic, who couldn't work well in your Sonics format.

[Letho]

The Old Republic will give WoW a run for it's money. Leave TES alone.

Also, there's a dude called Elrindir in Whiterun. Elrundir should like sue for copyright infringement or something. :P

[Amen]

I can't say too much about it, but comparing WoW and TOR is like apples to oranges. People are definitely going to enjoy it, but for entirely different reasons than people enjoy WoW (and if MoP is decent, habitual WoW players are likely going to return to WoW at a certain point in TOR's life cycle).

I think the game Blizzard really needs to look out for is Guild Wars 2. I have a lot less experience with that game, but from everything I'm hearing it might end up sort of destabilizing what we consider an MMO today, which is not going to be good news for WoW (which is pretty much the pinnacle of traditional MMO design).

I dunno, being someone who is often stuck in the MMO scene, it was a huge relief to load up Skyrim and not see a guy in his underwear playing hopscotch on the roof of the inn. There's just too much desire to make a successful MMO today and try to tap into that niche for a million billion dollars, when obviously there's great demand for a single-player experience like Skyrim. Still, I would not have complained if they let me play with a buddy or two.

Edit: also re: Skyward Sword. I rarely get an opportunity to mess around with Japanese/Nintendo games anymore, and honestly when I first heard about it I sort of sneered and rolled my eyes because I HATE some of the design choices they made. So it's really blowing my mind that people love it SO MUCH now that it's out. I'm actually going to have to pick it up now, when I expected to skip that one entirely. People are saying it's better than Ocarina of Time which insane, because I still consider that one of the best games ever made.

[orphans]

SirArtemis: i also was told that horses are bugged int eh sense that they can ride even vertical walls so you can get anywhere but i haven't tested this
SirArtemis: was told this becuase a friend went up a mountain he normally wouldn't have been able to go. just his comment though


I am now interested in this game.

My personal opinion on guild wars... it's generally very pvp oriented so.... if you like it, great, if not, well... exploring isn't too "fun" as everyone and their dog can kill you by looking at you (at least in guild wars trilogy, which I have...).

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

I rarely get an opportunity to mess around with Japanese/Nintendo games anymore, and honestly when I first heard about it I sort of sneered and rolled my eyes because I HATE some of the design choices they made. So it's really blowing my mind that people love it SO MUCH now that it's out. I'm actually going to have to pick it up now, when I expected to skip that one entirely. People are saying it's better than Ocarina of Time which insane, because I still consider that one of the best games ever made.

As a gamer who was raised in the House That Mario Rebuilt, the one thing I've learned is to always trust Nintendo's first-party games. The only time I ever felt remotely burned by a game that Nintendo's EAD or R&D1 teams made was Mario Sunshine.

Unfortunately, I have to pass on Skyward Sword because I no longer have a Wii. I reckon I should go sulk in my bedroom and replay Link to the Past for the umpteenth time.

[Amen]

I just want to clarify, Orphans, I don't care for Guild Wars 1 at all. Guild Wars 2 seems to be an entirely different beast. Granted, Guild Wars 1 made a lot of promises that sounded great on paper too, and in implementation they came out pretty weak. That said, I've gone into seeing GW2 every time knowing that and they still managed to impress me, so I'm pretty excited about it. To cite a relevant example, PvP and PvE seems to be further separated out and PvE LOOKS like it's really well supported with systems they picked up from Warhammer Online and Rift (to a lesser degree). I'll let you know if I change my mind when they actually open up the beta.

B&BE: Since I was a kid I've pretty religiously picked up Nintendo consoles mainly for the big first party releases. I got a Gamecube for Metroid Prime, and the only other game I can remember really loving on it was Eternal Darkness. The problem is that as I look back on it, especially with the way Nintendo is going right now, I'm realizing that the consoles are getting too expensive and the games are advancing so slowly that it's just not worth dishing out that much money for a handful of releases across a console's lifespan. I get SO much more use out of my PS3 and my 360 than I get out of my Wii, and Skyward Sword just sounded like more of the some (with a quiet fuck-you to fans of the classics...this is totally a silly subjective example but: no Ganon? Who is this effeminate loser I'm fighting now and why do you think I care). I'm hearing such awesome things about it that I'm going to pick it up now, but the over-dependence on scant first-party titles (and the abuse of said IPs when they hand them to other teams I'M LOOKING AT YOU METROID OTHER M) just totally turns me off Nintendo right now. They keep punching me through my happy nostalgia fog, so it just seems ugly when they wave gimmicky shit like the Wii-U in my face. It's the power glove and that retarded cannon and the Virtual Boy all over again.

Not that I'm hating on people who still love Nintendo! Just voicing how I feel. I'm a little concerned that they're developing the same greedy disconnect from their customers that Capcom is going through.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

(Oh boy! A civilized discussion about Nintendo and the state of the video game industry! This would never happen on NeoGAF or N4G! Or IGN! Or definitely GameInformer! Perhaps on Destructoid, but I don't have much hope...)

I agree with you that consoles are getting to expensive and video games are moving forward so slowly that keeping up this habit almost doesn't seem worth it anymore. I recently was talking innovation with one of my other friends, and I argued that the last truly innovative thing that came along in vidjagaemz was Ocarina of Time's Z-targeting system (back in '98). Everything gaming is doing now has been done before in some fashion, or current-gen games are content to provides experiences that can be gotten elsewhere for less money.

Do I sound disillusioned? I am. Ultimately, all I'm playing nowadays are Pokemon, OMG SKYRIM FUCK YEAH, and my old-school systems (8-, 16-, and 64-bit eras). Outside of those, the last games I truly enjoyed were Earth Defense Force 2017, No More Heroes 2, and Nintendo's trio of platforming asskickery from 2010.

And speaking of Nintendo, and this applies to every other publisher out there, they rely on their small stable of Mario, Pokemon, Zelda, etc. because ultimately they're in the business of making money, and those names bring them in. How well did Pikmin do compared to, say, Metroid Prime? Or that accursed Mario Sunshine? Just goes to show you why we haven't seen a new Star Fox or F-Zero this generation, whilst in this generation alone we're up to three Gears of War games, four AssCreed games, twenty Call of Duty games, etc. Publishers are leaning on their cash cow IPs, and developers are content to rest on their laurels. Why innovate when a sequel will bring in twice or three times the amount of profit?

Gamers don't want anything different either, so they're to blame as well. Call of Duty just set records on its first day of release, pulling in the most amount of money over a 24-hour period than any other video game, movie, or any form of media. The ones who didn't buy it went for Battlefield 3 instead, which by my judgment is the same game save for some minor tweaks in the formula here and there. Then they'll complain about how things change, whilst playing their third Uncharted game in five years, or what have you. Your statements about Skyward Sword fall in line with this. You said it appears to be more of the same, but then complain that the villain is different from past Zelda games. I was actually happy to hear that I wouldn't be plunging the Master Sword into Ganondorf's head again at the end of this game. Ghirahim appears to be a more unsettling and deeper villain according to reviews I've read, which makes him more terrifying than Ganon's rather one-note "acquire the Triforce and plunge Hyrule into darkness" way of doing things. Nintendo (especially) can't win. They try to shake things up a bit, they catch some flak. They keep things the same, the 'net gets pissed.

[Elrundir]

Because skyrim was the perfect opportunity for a mmorpg that could give wow a run for its money.

Sonic co-op doesn't make sense because the only viable second player would be your other sonic, who couldn't work well in your Sonics format.
N...no... I did not just see this. Don't hurt my heart like this, Sei. :( When I said Elder Scrolls weren't designed for multiplayer, that was even setting MMOs aside. They would make horrendous MMOs. They have always been about the lone hero rising to prominence and saving the province/country from some evil. MMOs generally tend to dump on that. You'd have to make a complete, 180 degree departure from most of the series standards in order to make it work as an MMO. In that case you may as well just design a new IP entirely.

Besides, the MMO market is a waste of time to get into right now. Competing with WoW, and now the upcoming Old Republic, you may as well just slit your company's wrists and bleed the money out the old fashioned way.


The Old Republic will give WoW a run for it's money. Leave TES alone.

Also, there's a dude called Elrindir in Whiterun. Elrundir should like sue for copyright infringement or something. :P
Considering I named my character Elrundir, that's going to be awkward. I guess I'll just kill him.

[Jack Frost]

Skyward sword is in a different class from Ocarina of Time. It can never truly live up to the nostalgia of the older games, and at the same time it probably will be more fun to play. I digress. Also, this takes LoZ to a new era. Battles are no longer mashing A, they require thought. Bosses are no longer using a tool you got in the dungeon to open their weakspot and whacking them a couple of times, it's actually hard. Also, stop complaining about the Emo clown dude, he's probably another Zant or Vaati, where they have a lesser villain covering Gannon.

On topic I see some bugs in Skyrim, the whole unscripted Dragons thing is going to be a pain in the ass. The fact that you can drag a bucket over an NPCs head and swipe all of their stuff because they can't see you is entertaining. My younger brother told me about the horse thing, which looks really weird, I hope they don't start patching until I get a chance to see these firsthand...

[Jack Frost]

Skyward sword is in a different class from Ocarina of Time. It can never truly live up to the nostalgia of the older games, and at the same time it probably will be more fun to play. I digress. Also, this takes LoZ to a new era. Battles are no longer mashing A, they require thought. Bosses are no longer using a tool you got in the dungeon to open their weakspot and whacking them a couple of times, it's actually hard. Also, stop complaining about the Emo clown dude, he's probably another Zant or Vaati, where they have a lesser villain covering Gannon.

On topic I see some bugs in Skyrim, the whole unscripted Dragons thing is going to be a pain in the ass. The fact that you can drag a bucket over an NPCs head and swipe all of their stuff because they can't see you is entertaining. My younger brother told me about the horse thing, which looks really weird, I hope they don't start patching until I get a chance to see these firsthand...

[Duffy]

Note to self...

Save often.

I did not expect a novice necromancer to conjure a duplicate of me, let me fight it for hours (immune to ice apparently) and then, whilst my back is turned killing said duplicate, he one hit killed me with a very, very well aimed icicle spear straight through the head.

Had to repeat the whole dungeon...

[Amen]

B&BE: I’m 90% in agreement with you. I don’t want to imply that I’m getting tired of video games at all, because I’m not! My personal and professional lives have been pretty inexorably tied to the industry, so I’m in a heap of shit if I start feeling like it has a problem that can’t be fixed.

Major innovation has inarguably lagged as the business gets bigger, though. You’re absolutely right that triple A titles generally follow the movie industry’s example when it comes to sequels: if it works, keep doing it and don’t change things too drastically. Both of those are key, though. Look at Dragon Age II. It had its flaws, for sure, but on a whole it was a decent roleplaying game…but it diverged from Dragon Age 1 in a major way while trying to improve the shoddy combat, and I think that’s the root of most of its hate.

I think my point is, developers have to think long and hard about maintaining the spirit of the previous games in their series, while also innovating (and I think it’s important to innovate in gameplay while maintaining a coherent story). The Ganondorf thing is totally just a personal gripe; my issues with Skyward Sword had more to do with the limited demos I saw and some of the answers a rep gave us (he was not a great spokesman, if what I’m hearing about SS now is true). In my mind, though, the triforce has always been a keystone part of the Zelda games that just throwing that out (but maintaining Zelda and Link without Ganondorf) just…doesn’t mesh in my mind. It kinda felt like they wanted to reboot the whole thing without actually making a sensible metastory out of it.

Again, totally a personal gripe that is probably entirely misinformed, I’m just rambling at this point.

…I should delete that and start over but I’m not going to.

Rewinding instead: innovation. I don’t blame video game publishers for being businesses at all! I don’t “get” Call of Duty and like I implied, I’m absolutely disgusted with Capcom right now (seriously Marvel vs. Capcom Ultimate how can anyone be okay with this shit), but I also can’t deny that video games are technologically spectacular right now and that has to do with the incredible amount of money going into their creation. I think innovation has inevitably slowed as big-name publishers try to capitalize on what worked for their last game, but I think the expanding indie scene is starting to breathe new life into what we’re going to see in the future as well. Case in point: Portal 2 (again). I already foresee a lot of big-name publishers trying to worm in on Minecraft’s successful (and relatively innovative) formula, we’ve already seen how viable that can be with Terraria.

MMOs sort of exemplify this whole thing, but I won’t go into that yet because this post is already TLDR.

@ Jack: again, this is totally based on what a rep told us, and I’ve already established that I don’t think he was very good at his job, but I’m under the impression Ganondorf doesn’t show up and isn’t mentioned at all in Skyward Sword. The dude was pretty insistent that no, this was not going to be like Twilight Princess. Now that I’m hearing what Skyward Sword IS though, maybe he was full of shit and toward the end they sort of hint at Ganon’s origins, who knows. I’m not going to hate on the game until I play it, I’m just going in cautious. A good habit when you’re reviewing games, regardless, is to go in expecting it to be utter shit.

@ Duffy: dude mash that F5 button constantly. For a Bethesda game, Skyrim is pretty stable, but definitely not without its bugs and crashes.

…sorry for the long post.

[SirArtemis]

dude mash that F5 button constantly.

Fuck yes. Quoted for truth. I also love that they gave you three autosaves. Brilliant little change.

[Silence Sei]

Lemme elaborate a bit on what I had previously said.

While I personally feel that Skyrim should have taken an MMO route, I have always been opposed to the format of all the elder scrolls games. First-person RPGs just aren't my cup of tea, really (it started and ended with Fallout 3 as far as I'm concerned).

Skyward sword has a shot just because it's Zelda, and Link/Mario always gets a pass into GOTY. Samus too, though Metroid is far less 'Lets get a new one out ASAP!'

My God.... how could I have forgotten Portal 2? Definately changing my vote here. Portal 2 to take GOTY.

I still stand by my statement that Arkham City is balls to the walls fun, though.

Speaking of which, we have our GOTY nominees now, and they are:

Skyrim
Skyward Sword
Portal 2
Arkham City
Drake's Deception.

Some pretty decent choices, though I'm surprised MW3 didn't make the list.

Also, Amen, I agree with you on the Capcom thing, but moreso because they canceled Megaman Legends 3, and Megaman Universe, AS WELL AS NOT ADDING MEGAMAN TO EITHER OF THEIR MVC3 GAMES! RAGGHYGSHSG!

Also, they had a legitimate reason for releasing 'Ultimate'. The devs had some of the characters already made, and then JApan got hit with disaster after disaster, remember? So rather than post up 8 different DLC characters at 5 bucks a pop. (which would be 40 bucks), they revamped some stages, tweaked some of the established characters, made the format look cleaner, and gave you those 8 characters for the same price you were going to buy them at anyways (assuming you were planning to buy all 8).

But yeah, fuck Capcom for no Megaman in my MvC. Hell, fuck em for no BoF Ryu.

[SirArtemis]

As an aside, to those who have not played the fourth one, oblivion, you can get the deluxe edition on steam right now for just 6.50$. I just bought it for a friend. It comes with expansions out the wazoo and the full game. so many hours of gameplay. amazing investment.

[Letho]

While I personally feel that Skyrim should have taken an MMO route, I have always been opposed to the format of all the elder scrolls games. First-person RPGs just aren't my cup of tea, really (it started and ended with Fallout 3 as far as I'm concerned).You press the "F" button and presto, it's a third-person RPG. :P


Does anyone find it rather odd that you can wear only one ring in Skyrim, even though you clearly have about ten fingers? And am I the only one who misses the weapon/armor durability? As it stands now, the only repercussion for hammering the snot out of everything is the loss of stamina, which isn't much of a loss since all it does is stop you from doing power attacks and sprinting. Which isn't really that much of a loss for me personally because with heavy armor, I'm out of stamina in about three hits anyways, and three are usually enough to take care of business.

[Duffy]

We have eight fingers Letho dear...just saying...

[SirArtemis]

Still, point holds. In oblivion we could wear two at least. One is a bit dumb.

[Atzar]

That was always the first mod I found for Oblivion: extra ring/amulet slots. Along with a personal pledge that I wouldn't just spam all of the chameleon enchantments that I could find, which I inevitably disregarded as soon as I found more than one of said enchantments. It's just too much fun shredding a room full of bandits/daedra while they milled around, wondering why three of their buddies had arrows lodged in their tracheas.

...Got a little sidetracked there.

As far as the whole 'innovation' argument goes, I think the gaming industry is more or less "damned if it does, damned if it doesn't." In the SNES golden age of sidescrolling platformers and top-down adventures and RPG's, there was an obvious next step that even I could have figured out - 3D. Now, there's no such logical descendant. That's why you see established franchises going for gimmicks in the hopes that they catch lightning in a bottle. Sunshine had FLUDD, Galaxy had the gravity concept. Games like Sonic, Kirby and Donkey Kong have been all over the map looking for a popular, successful successor, and only recently have they returned to what made them successful in the first place. But at the same time they can't be too similar, because that's wrong too. Twilight Princess was criticized for being more of the same thing - "Ocarina of Time 1.5" The new Mario platformers (3D Land aside) "didn't bring anything new." Pardon me for sticking with the Nintendo franchises... just sticking to what I know, but I'm sure XBox and PlayStation have similar cases.

My point is that there's such a fine line to walk. On one side there's "This is the same old shit," but on the other side you have "This isn't even Mario/Zelda/whatever anymore." I think the reason for that is because there's just no clear-cut 'next big thing.' It's not that the major developers have stopped innovating (although some of them certainly have); rather, they just haven't caught their next lightning bolt yet, so the gaming industry doesn't have any new bandwagon to jump on.

Just one man's opinion.

Anywho, Skyrim! I don't have it yet, and I'll probably pick it up further towards Christmas. Skyward Sword comes first for me, if only because I got Skyward Sword and not Skyrim for my birthday - and I can't bring myself to let go of that $60 just yet. But I'll get it eventually.

[Letho]

I agree with most what Atzar said, though I would like to expand a bit on the whole next step in the innovation. I don’t think there will be something revolutionary in gaming any time soon because I don’t think there can be anything revolutionary in gaming any time soon. Gaming has reached a sort of a plateau both in regards to creativity and technology (as odd as that sounds with the constant development of new hardware) where the only thing currently left is refinement of the current situation rather than looking for the next big thing. I mean, you can draw a parallel with the movie industry and see something similar. First you got motion picture, then it got sound, then it got color, then it got better sound (surround, THX), then it got better picture with HD digital cameras and IMAX and whatnot, and not we’re getting 3D. Gaming seems to follow a similar pattern and it also reached a point where there’s no real place to go but just ironing out what we currently have. Better graphics, higher polygon counts, better animation, it’s all creeping forward because it can’t really go in leaps and bounds anymore. I reckon a possible jump forward would come in a shape of holographic projections or even virtual reality of sorts, but that’s at least fifty years away by my prediction.

And creativity-wise, the industry is also running on empty, not necessarily because there are no more creative people around, but because so much of it had been seen and experienced that there’s really little you can do without either doing something stupidly different or monotonously same. Yes, there will always be Portals and Braids and Minecrafts that give us something fresh to chew on, but they are bound to become an even rarer sight because the more we move forward, the more we experience and there is less room for something to blindside us and leave us speechless. Again, similar with the movie industry. When was the last time a movie didn’t follow the plot you haven’t in some part already seen before? And when was the last time the effects really left you breathless? It happens, sure, but it’s becoming so seldom that more and more I regret the time I spend on the next big thriller that doesn’t bring me all that much thrill.

We as a gaming community aren’t helping the situation either, unfortunately, what with the silent support of recycled ideas when we’re buying that same product wrapped in differently colored cellophane. And the game companies, well, they’re not going to say no to profit, that’s for sure. So most of them keep with their Call of Duties, and Zeldas, and Gears of Wars because bottom line is that it's all about the moolah. I’d say we all need a wake up call, but maybe we’re collectively, subconsciously even, avoiding one because on some level we know there really isn’t much that can be done about it, so why bother? I mean, yes, maybe it sounds like I’m overreacting and I probably am, but I sure as hell don’t know where gaming could go from here. Do you?

And so we stick with the tried and true and complain about the lack of creativity.

[Sagequeen]

I think how we play will change first, going beyond mouse/keyboard/controller. And I don't mean Kinect... doesn't do much for the disabled, or for the lazy. Gaming innovation would follow. Maybe it's just wishful thinking though.

[Elrundir]

We have eight fingers Letho dear...just saying...
What, ya never heard of thumb rings?


You press the "F" button and presto, it's a third-person RPG. :P


Does anyone find it rather odd that you can wear only one ring in Skyrim, even though you clearly have about ten fingers? And am I the only one who misses the weapon/armor durability? As it stands now, the only repercussion for hammering the snot out of everything is the loss of stamina, which isn't much of a loss since all it does is stop you from doing power attacks and sprinting. Which isn't really that much of a loss for me personally because with heavy armor, I'm out of stamina in about three hits anyways, and three are usually enough to take care of business.
While I never had much of a problem with weapon/armour durability, I don't miss it either. In and of itself it didn't serve a great deal of purpose; you just had to stop what you were doing every so often and hammer away at your mouse button until all your items were repaired. Armorer as a skill was basically a necessity. And repair hammers were way too heavy, so it was annoying to have them in your inventory. Anyway, personally I feel like they've made up for those little tweaks by increasing the game's difficulty in general. At least for me, I've died way more often in Skyrim than I ever did in Oblivion or Morrowind on a given difficulty, and that's with playing more or less the same kind of character.

As for the rest of the discussion.... am I the only one who isn't bothered by the industry's current level of creativity? I'm not saying I necessarily think they're terribly creative, but it just doesn't bother me one way or the other. We live in an age of franchises and I'm okay with that. I liked the originals, so all I really want is a game that's equally fun and makes the appropriate tweaks here and there to make things seem fresh. The fun level is the important part to me, not the innovation.

[Duffy]

I am currently waiting to afford Disgaea 4.

Played Skyrim for about 3 hours as a Bosmer Lightbringer (my class from Morrowind) and I can see it not being worth the investment for me at full retail.

With SSX, Tomb Raider and a slew of similar games (and me still playing Deus Ex and Guardian of Light) it's not a hook for me.

I DO want to borrow my folk's Wii and play Skyward Sword though...

[Letho]

I think how we play will change first, going beyond mouse/keyboard/controller. And I don't mean Kinect... doesn't do much for the disabled, or for the lazy. Gaming innovation would follow. Maybe it's just wishful thinking though.I've seen a tech show somewhere a while back where they managed to move a mouse pointer with their mind or something. It was a long way from flawless and actually operational, but it's something, a tiny step towards some sort of neural interface, I guess. But I fear that, like the virtual reality, is still some ways off.

While I never had much of a problem with weapon/armour durability, I don't miss it either. In and of itself it didn't serve a great deal of purpose; you just had to stop what you were doing every so often and hammer away at your mouse button until all your items were repaired. Armorer as a skill was basically a necessity. And repair hammers were way too heavy, so it was annoying to have them in your inventory. Anyway, personally I feel like they've made up for those little tweaks by increasing the game's difficulty in general. At least for me, I've died way more often in Skyrim than I ever did in Oblivion or Morrowind on a given difficulty, and that's with playing more or less the same kind of character.I admit you do have a point there. It just seems to me that before I cared a whole lot more whether I hit shield of flesh, because weapons wore out faster if you didn't watch out. But on the flip side, Skyrim is a bit harder in general. Shit, just yesterday I got my ass handed to me in some dark passage by a bunch of poisonous scorpion-looking things that were tough as tits to kill. And no amount of hammering away and gulping potions didn't save my sorry ass. :P


EDIT: A link (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15720178) to an article I found interesting, concerning us gamers.

[Sagequeen]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsqiSknjHK8&feature=player_embedded

I'm not sure how I missed this before. ^^

[SirArtemis]

I think there have been a few creative endeavors that have shown us some alternatives. A game like Heavy Rain where you had so many different paths in the plot, a totally different interface and a story that was like a movie. That was new and interesting. A game like portal 1 and 2 where in reality all it is, is a 3d puzzle game with some fun and humorous characters. A game like limbo that is a throwback to basic sidescrollers with a few hours of fun gameplay.

Personally, I was drawn into Assassin's Creed because the story blew me away. The first game had okay gameplay but the second one, they improved tremendously.

A game like Bioshock had a great story and was fun, but the second one was lacking despite graphical improvements.

Mass Effect 1 and 2 were pretty different games, but the story continued and it still was exciting, and the third holds many promises.

Gears has been fairly similar through all 3 games, with a few weapon changes but the gameplay itself has been more or less the same.

Call of Duty I don't even touch. I've played a couple of the campaigns and I'm not impressed. It's not fun.

I've never played battlefield, but the third one was supposed to have the most realistic graphics ever released in a video game - the new benchmark.

Speaking of benchmarks, Crysis was years ago, and that game was also very fun, and I still love the idea of hte nanosuit and it was fun.


Games don't need to be 100% different to be enjoyed, but they just need to line up in such a way that it makes it fun.



I mean, compare it to Althanas. We have a creativity category, but how creative can we really get when most things we want to create have already been created? It's hard to think of something that hasn't been done without feeling like you're out of your damn mind. All the same, we have to think of what creativity means in the gaming industry. Graphics? Sound? Interface? The witcher tried new fighting mechanics and I hated it personally. You also have physics engines, particle effects, lighting, all which we notice and appreciate. But what about story? Then we want a good story. One that's exciting but not predictable. One that's new.

It's a bit hard to put that all into one.

And we GIVE new games a chance, don't we? Age of Conan was a piece of shit but people tried it because it promised an innovative combat system, but it sucked. Warhammer gave you leveling via pvp, that sucked too. Rift ... another attempt to knock WoW off. Now KoR. Given, I heard WoW is coming out with a "panda" race so you know they're running out of ideas.

Similarly, I tried Brink, and it sucked. I know i talked that game up and it could have knocked off CoD but it didn't.

I think we all want innovation and creativity, and we welcome it on paper, and we welcome it by buying the games sometimes, but so often are our expectations disappointed that we go back to what we know we already enjoy.

Personally, I'm looking forward to Kingdoms of Amular: Reckoning. It comes out in February and if done right it'll be a very fun game.

[Duffy]

Right you lot.

Shut up about games and play THIS game...

[Amen]

Yeah, I think I might have given a bit of the wrong impression: was there more innovation when the medium was young? Of course, we had no idea what we could DO with this new technology. But there's definitely innovation going on out there, the video game industry is fucking awesome right now.

I mean, even in the face of Call-of-Duty style sequelitis, we ARE getting games that are better in terms of gameplay and story. Maybe the gameplay isn't anything we haven't seen before, but it's refined. Heavy Rain wasn't, technically speaking, anything 100% brand new - it was a series of quicktime events - but you can't deny that it was something exciting in the industry and the innovation was in the refined presentation.

Artie mentioned WoW and that's a really good example of refinement vs. innovation. I'm going to try to keep this concise: WoW was and remains nothing new, but the fact is that Blizzard refined the traditional MMO experience and has been very good about adopting emerging genre standards and refining them for their own game. I think the only actual innovations credited to WoW are instancing technology (which existed before WoW) and the talent tree system, which was by no means revolutionary (though it has been seminal in every major MMO since). However you feel about it, you can't deny that WoW is an incredibly popular game, and it owes all of that to cherry-picking what we know works and putting it all together. That's why Rift wasn't "the WoW killer" all the naysayers hoped it would be - Rift did nothing new except complicate the talent tree system and expand the dynamic world event system Warhammer Online introduced three years earlier. No game is ever going to topple WoW by doing exactly what WoW is doing, because Blizzard has a stranglehold on the market and it wisely adopts evolutions in the genre. Why would a diehard WoW player switch to a lesser clone of the game he's already playing, and give up everything he's acquired over eight years of playing the same game?

That's why I say TOR is going to be hyper-popular especially for the first four to six months, but I just don't think it's going to hold on beyond the year mark without a significant content patch - the draw of the game is the Knights of the Old Republic style storylines, but the gameplay is very similar to WoW (with a few innovations from Guild Wars 2). Given the remarkable (and time-consuming) production values, I just can't see TOR keeping up without a ton of engaging endgame content. I think if anything, TOR is going to murder Rift and WAR, and it will certainly put a dent in WoW's subscription base, but topple the giant? Highly doubt it.

This whole debate is actually going to get incredibly interesting when Guild Wars 2 comes out, because that's a game that's actually striving to innovate in a stagnant genre for the first time in ten years, maybe more. If the question is "Are people tired of the status quo and just waiting for something new, or do they hate change?" we're going to have a good answer - will people stick with WoW, the paragon of traditional MMO design, or will there be a mass exodus to the new kid on the block with all the crazy ideas? I honestly don't know! I'm pretty excited to find out though.

As an aside: WoW is doing absolutely fine and I don't see why people seem to want to see it burn so bad. A lot of people are seeing the Panda-Men as a sign that Blizzard is clawing desperately at lame ideas, but the truth is that the panda dudes have been part of the Warcraft universe since Warcraft 3. Blizzard stumbled with Cataclysm because it failed to keep up with the demand for new content, but let's be honest here, WoW is still sitting pretty at the top of the MMO heap.

To wrap up this totally off-topic mess: the first person shooter genre is totally in the same boat, but it's not hopeless at all. Yeah, pretty much every FPS follows the Halo-cum-Call-of-Duty formula today, but that doesn't mean the shooter genre as a whole is doomed. It's a little lame right now (being as objective as I can, the raw gameplay between Battlefield and Call of Duty is not all that dissimilar), but Gears of War rose out of that, and for all its similarities, there was a ton of innovation involved with the first one (and they've progressively refined that experience throughout the series). That alone proves that there's room for innovation in the industry and people enjoy it, though yeah, we will then proceed to ride that innovation into the ground with tons of sequels. I'm okay with that though! We're here to have fun and fun is happening. Let's not be so critical of what's being developed that we can't sit back and enjoy what we have - as awesome as video games were to me when I was 10, I don't want to go back there because there's a shitload of exciting stuff coming.

In closing, Skyrim rocks socks. Also that video, which I'm now going to watch twice more, then go play Skyrim.

[Max Dirks]

Sorry, I just stopped playing Skyrim for two minutes to reply to this thread. I'm more into shooters and adventure games, but Skyrim definitely is my game of the year. I've played for upwards of 50 hours and I haven't even explored the western side of the map! Favorite stupid guard line: "Maybe I'm the Dragonborn and just don't know it yet." Small pause. "That grin on your face seems to indicate otherwise."

Avast!

[Ozoric]

*character not inspired by Skyrim.

Seriously, had this in the pipeline for ages I did...

[Vigil]

Skyrim has earned every cent I paid for it so far. Right now I'm just figuring out how I'm going to wipe the Dark Brotherhood off the map.

.. I'm going to torch that corpse too, mark my words.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

I'm taking enough time off Super Mario 3D Land (priorities, guys) in order to post a link to this beautiful story about Skyrim. (http://www.destructoid.com/two-parents-actually-called-their-child-dovahkiin-216019.phtml)

Enjoy. I did.

[SirArtemis]

I just want to say that I'm level 45 and I'm yet to go to the mountain to talk to the graybeards...

[Max Dirks]

Does anyone have any idea how many damn Thieves Guild quests I have to do to become the president? This is getting quite annoying!

[SirArtemis]

Does anyone have any idea how many damn Thieves Guild quests I have to do to become the president? This is getting quite annoying!

There are four holds within which you will get a unique quest, and in order to trigger that quest, you must do any four mini missions in that hold. Once four are done, you will get the quest and go do it. I believe the holds are Windhelm, Markarth, Whiterun and one other place (Solitude?). If you receive a mini job quest in a hold you've already done, cancel it and get a new one. After the four holds, you'll get the final batch of quests.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

I can't bring myself to do the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood questlines. I'm not entirely sure what it is; a dozen new games started with the sole intent of doing those, and I get out of Helgen and just lose all motivation.

Must be that I'm so much of a nice guy IRL that it transfers into how I prefer playing my open-world games as well.

Prepping for the inevitable DLC campaigns with a newly-minted Imperial. (lol)

[Elrundir]

I can't bring myself to do the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood questlines. I'm not entirely sure what it is; a dozen new games started with the sole intent of doing those, and I get out of Helgen and just lose all motivation.

Must be that I'm so much of a nice guy IRL that it transfers into how I prefer playing my open-world games as well.

Prepping for the inevitable DLC campaigns with a newly-minted Imperial. (lol)
But once you've tried assassinations...

I haven't done the Dark Brotherhood quest line in Skyrim yet, but the one in Oblivion was, IMO, a hell of a lot more fun than any of the other guilds.

[Vigil]

I had a whole elaborate plan of how I was going to dismantle the brotherhood, kill every member and torch that corpse.

.. Then I found out they are all invincible since I didn't bite the bullet and killed the head of the guild before I started lopping off heads in the initiation.

Sad Panda.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

My main problem with Oblivion's group of elite assassins was that I didn't feel like I was a part of a group of elite assassins; rather, every time I stepped into the Sanctuary it felt like stepping into Phi Omicron Epsilon or something. Everyone was just too bright and chipper, and it kind of killed my enthusiasm for being an assassin. Even after they killed what's-his-face--the rest of the hand were naught but sunshine and lollipops. Just killed a traitor? NBD. Who wants to go get ice cream?

[SirArtemis]

I liked the questline... I thought it was fun... I've done pretty much all there is to do in the game, at least along the main quest lines - companions, thieves, brotherhood, college, bards, main, and much more).

Still a lot of bugs. I've gotten 100% achievements on PC. Now I use console to fix bugs freely.

[Max Dirks]

You know, I found Alduin rather anti-climatic.

I went in there with the heaviest armor I could muster (740), but because Skyrim is currently broke on the consoles (it doesn't calculate fire resistance properly) I fully expected Alduin to kick my ass. After the smoke cleared, I ran over to him and blasted him with a Dragonrend. Sadly, he caught me with a fire breath that started eating at my health. I ran a few feet, downed a Potion of Ultimate Healing (my last), and saw my health was still dropping. All I had left was a Potion of Minor Healing and somehow I stayed alive. I snuck behind a boulder while those ancient Nords beat the shit out of Alduin. I'd pop out every fifteen seconds to land another Dragonrend and blast him with some Daedric Arrows. The whole fight took less than a minute without fire resistance, and I know that if the game was working my 85% resistance would have made him child's play. Seriously, the series of Dragr Deathlords leading up to him was far worse (especially when they gang raped me with like five on one).

Whatever, I platinumed. Artemis, please welcome me back into the Sovngarde that is my social life.

[Letho]

I have to agree with Max. I went in with fully upgraded deadric armor, deadric greatsword, about 90+ in two-handed, and all of my points distributed in health and stamina and I got it done in under a minute. I just Dragonrended him, got into his face and smashed him down with power attacks. I'm pretty sure he never got a chance to take off again. Had to gulp down a couple of potions, but seeing as I'm somewhat of a pack rat, I had about fifty of them in various shapes and sizes. I'd go as far to say that I hardly found a fight that was challenging, save for some at very early levels. Except maybe mages, because they backpedal and run all over the place and put up a barrier that makes Fus-Ro-Dah useless for a short while. But they were more of an annoyance than a challenge really. I figure it's much more interesting if you're not playing a brute that kills everything in a couple of hits. :P

But that's not even my main issue with the game. My main issue was the loot. In all honesty, ever since I invested enough points in blacksmithing to make Dwarven stuff, I didn't find anything that would outdo the stuff I forged. This is even more of an issue at later levels, when your smithing is at a 100 and you make dragon/deadric armors and weapons, yet the weapons you get are elven or ebony at best. Even with all the added effects some of the unique weapons have, I still found nothing better than my deadric greatsword. And I did a bunch of sidequests, including the deadric ones that usually give you some nifty stuff. In Morrowind, I knew there was a chance that after a difficult dungeon, I could get something useful. But after some 80+ hours in Skyrim, I stopped believing in it. Probably why I stopped playing.

EDIT: Also, mining is a joke. If you're just a bit diligent about collecting and selling stuff, you never have to mine for anything. With enough patience you can buy just about every ingot (considering you're at high enough level) and even the elusive deadra hearts. I barely had 30 speech and I wound up with 30k gold and never really lacked any, even after spending significant amounts in buying components for grinding the blacksmith skill. Mining on the other hand is a pain in the ass. The veins you usually find are just iron and conundrum or whatever it was called. Everything else is rather rare to find and not really worth the hassle when you can buy it very easily. You just run around from one city with a blacksmith to the next and you can gather more than enough of anything very fast. If they made stuff like ebony more rare in the shops, maybe even accessible only by mining, then it would be worth. As it stands, I threw my pick away very soon. That's 10 pounds of inventory space for other shit to carry. :D

[Duffy]

A mate of mine has 100 sneak and currently ohko's any dragon the game throws at him with his stupid camoflague skills, epically overpowered (but easy to get sneak armour) and...

An iron dagger...

Why Bethesda...why.

[Atzar]

As much as I was hyped about Skyrim during its development, I can't help but feel that my experience with Monster Hunter Tri will just completely ruin a large part of the game for me.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

I downloaded a mod for that allows me to smelt down most every piece of armor and weaponry I come across into their respective ingots, which was how I think it should of been in the first place. Simply because nobody abuses smithing enough as it is.

I thought fighting Alduin in Sovngarde was a nice touch; but I'd have to agree that the battle itself was rather anti-climatic. Did it with unenchanted glass gear, myself. But hey, boss battles have never really been Bethesda's strong suit. Just double the health and power of a standard enemy, re-skin him, and call it a day.

[SirArtemis]

I'm level 75 so far.

100 Conjuration
100 Illusion
100 Alteration
79 Restoration
56 Destruction
100 Enchanting
100 Smithing
94 Alchemy
98 Light Armor
85 Heavy Armor
99 Block
100 One-handed
49 Two-handed
83 Archery
100 Sneak
100 Lockpicking
100 Pickpocketing
100 Speech


I shall max out... EVERYTHING!!!

I'm just bored with life so I'm doing all this. I have nothing to really DO in the game. 113 hours played.

[Duffy]

This is why I will be skipping Skyrim, and finally buying Disgaea 4 and SSX DDescents early January...

Proper games for proper wimminz.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

This is why I will be skipping Skyrim, and finally buying Disgaea 4 and SSX DDescents early January...

Proper games for proper wimminz.

>>talks about proper games; no mention of Rayman: Origins

http://fuuu.us/42.png

[Duffy]

*Babe's meme completely misses...well, the entire European continent to be frank.

Origins looks good, but I prefer longevity in games, and Origins looks like a play once and be done sort of affair - thus, a wait until it's £10 or less game.

[Silence Sei]

Still saying Sonic Generations. That is all.