So I finally completed this epic high fantasy adventure yarn after playing it for several months. Or when I say completed, I mean I completed the main narrative of the game rather than every single quest line I ultimately undertook which could easily have taken me another 100 hours. Now I’m not even a fan of the fantasy genre as a rule but the reviews of Skyrim were good enough that I suspected it would be worth a crack of the proverbial whip. Indeed even though this game is the fifth instalment in the Elder Scrolls saga, it is the first one that I actually managed to get into. I had previously considered playing Morrowind and decided against it, and later I tried getting into Oblivion but it just didn’t grip me at all. So this really is where Skyrim shines, it’s a significant improvement over it’s predecessors in terms of general storytelling and despite being quite a complex RPG to get to grips with, there are no major impediments and the learning curve is never too sharp as to make it seem insurmountable.
I can’t really compare it to previous games in the saga which are all vast in scope. But from all counts Skyrim is allegedly unto its own in comparison. Although the game arena is on a par with Oblivion, the rugged mountainous alpine terrain of the Skyrim territory makes the game feel much larger. The cities and towns within the territory are all designed to make them feel unique as are the dungeons, caves and just about anywhere else you might explore. Each town and village has its own distinctive and unique feel along with innumerable quests and missions you could conceivably undertake, most of which have nothing if anything at all to do with the main quest line of the game. Initially during the game, you have the feeling that the land of Skyrim is vast just for the sake of it but as you progress through the game, this turns out not to be the case. Each part of the map appears to have a story to tell and in this way the land of Skyrim seemingly comes alive before your eyes. It is truly a remarkable feat of storytelling and RPG gaming, an epic to which few other games can compare. Bethesda seems to have come into their element in recent years with a string of candidates and winners of the game of the year award including Oblivion (2006) and Fallout 3 (2008).
The land of Skyrim lies to the north of Tamriel, a cold and mountainous area to explore and the more of Skyrim you explore, the colder it gets beginning with the rugged alpine valleys of the south to the freezing tundra of the north. You begin the game against the backdrop of a bitter civil war being fought between the Stormcloaks and the Imperials. I tried to determine who was the best side to join in this civil war but ultimately it’s a vague moral choice at best. You can sympathise with both sides to an extent and disagree with both sides on many issues so it isn’t a very clear cut civil war between good an evil at all. Being led to your execution, a dragon attacks just in time and turns out to be your saving grace and also the antagonist of this instalment. You later find out that you are the Dovahkiin, a mortal born with the soul of a dragon as foretold in the Elder Scrolls and that using the power of the dragon shouts, a magic available only to you, you are to defeat Alduin, an ancient dragon who was once banished by the power of the Elder Scrolls but has returned just as was foretold and not unsurprisingly heralds the end of the world. That is unless you stop him.
The grandeur of Skyrim is due in no small part to its graphical presentation which is nothing less than stunning. While not exactly a quantum leap ahead of its rivals, it is certainly a step toward the uncanny valley and undoubtedly gives this game cutting edge graphics. The world of Skyrim is majestically beautiful from the finely crafted forests to the snow, rain and fog that will batter you on your long journey through it to the breath-taking night time auroras you will witness. People who think that video games don’t count as art really need to play this game because it proves them categorically wrong. Bethesda ditched the Gamebryo engine in this instalment favouring instead their own engine developed in house – the creation engine which I believe is just a massively tweaked version of the Gamebryo engine but which does offer significant improvements over its elder, the draw distance of foliage being something important to mention. And on a decent PC – say a moderate machine with a 1GB graphics card, it should stop things annoyingly popping into existence short of the horizon. I played this on a Samsung RF511 which whilst was unable to render the graphics on the top settings, did a fair job in high resolution and things popping into existence was rarely something that bugged me. I think that current gen consoles will struggle a little with this game because game houses seem to be wanting to push into the next era but are restricted a little by the hardware configuration of the PS3 and XBOX 360, somewhere the PC is unrestricted so can shine. The graphical prowess of this game nevertheless still shines no matter what the platform.
The level of thought and detail that has gone into this game is astounding. Every area of the map has been designed from the top down so the individual cities, towns, dungeons, you name it have all been crafted purposely and all feel unique and distinct from each other. On the map itself there are at least 640 unique locations, including 5 major cities, 9 towns, numerous villages / smaller settlements and around 130 dungeons. Even the 7000 steps to High Hrothgar and the Throat of the World feels like an epic trek, sort of like climbing Mount Everest or something the first time you do it. And yes there really are 7000 steps to the top – watch out for ice trolls and wolves on the way up.
Composer Jeremy Soule’s haunting score adds a deep, sometimes saddening, ethereal and ultimately perfect atmospheric soundtrack which helps to define the overall feel of the game. It seems to be a rare occasion when a game soundtrack doesn’t work to enhance to the game but that certainly isn’t the case here and Soule’s work definitely enhances the nuances and subtleties of the game’s storyline.
The game’s storyline ultimately revolves around the singular quest for the Dovahkiin to realise their destiny and slay the game’s antagonist. But spinning off from the main quest line (of which there are 3 acts divided into a number of quests in each act), there are also side quest lines for the Companions, College of Winterhold, Thieves’ Guild, Dark Brotherhood, Civil War, Daedric quests and a theoretically infinite number of miscellaneous quest lines thanks to Bethesda’s radiant AI which randomly generates quests based on a certain set of parameters. Add to this all the weird stuff that happens in-between times such the option to become a vampire or werewolf and the playable options increase still. Besides the vast amount of quest lines, also don’t forget that this an RPG which gives you the option to truly play according to your style. If you wish you can play as a knight or a mage, master magic or master combat. It’s your choice and you can update your various skill trees to reflect this.
There are also plenty of interesting characters and creatures to interact with. To this end there are some 60,000 lines of dialogue voiced by over 70 voice actors throughout the game including Christopher Plummer, Max von Sydow and Joan Allen.
I did have one or two gripes with the game. As with any RPG this vast, there are bound to be one or two bugs although I didn’t really notice anything major. When riding a horse across rugged terrain, the movement often seemed to be less than refined but this was only a minor gripe really. By far the most major annoyance I encountered and it was one that I ultimately didn’t solve was the occasional complete crash to desktop without any reason or warning. This happened a few times but it wasn’t long before I was back in the game at my previous location again. If it had annoyed me that much, I would have solved it as I suspect there was a solution out there for it. My only real qualms with the game stemmed from that fact that it wasn’t absolutely perfect, the NPCs in the game typically lacked depth and could maybe have done with a few more dialogue options. I think that would have added a new layer of depth to the game and maybe prevented me from getting a little bored which I was starting to before I pushed on to complete the game. My getting bored with the game stemmed more from it being of the fantasy genre that anything that was really wrong with the game. The fact it managed to hold my interest for as long as it did was impressive.
Overall though this game is a worthy masterpiece of engineering and shows RPGs of the next generation the way forward with this type of game. Bethesda pretty much nailed it.
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