The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim part 1

Ah finally we get the sequel to one of the greatest games of the 360 Oblivion...so why wasn't i excited at all? Short answer is that i hated that game. Nothing i ever did seem to feel like an accomplishment to me and the story was horrible. This is a Skyrim review not an Oblivion review so onto the main game.

Skyrim is a free roam RPG that lets you take control of a hero that is a "dragonborn." You start the game as a prisoner on your way to the chopping block for being at the wrong place at the wrong time, only to be saved by a dragon attack, were you promptly escape and go do...well whatever you please really. My character was an Orc that wore the heaviest armor and the biggest weapons he could find. I decided that he was going to join the companions and the dark brother hood. He was also going to join the rebels but decided that they were Nord supremacist and choose the Imperials instead.

Now usually I mainly focus on the main quest and ignore most other quest until after I finish the main quest line. The main reason for this is because the main quest should be the best quest of
all of them and is also the quest that the developers should spend the most time on because this is were most of the story is derived from. In this game however I was drawn into the companion and dark brotherhood quests. In Oblivion the only quest that i will admit i liked was the dark brotherhood quest, don't ask why the most enjoyment i got from that game was to be sent on a series of quest were someone tells me to kill something and without question my character gleefully runs off to do so. To join the dark brotherhood in Oblivion all you had to do was spontaneously kill an Innocent bystander and go to bed. In Skyrim however its much more complicated, I had no idea what to do...admittedly i had to look up what to do. The quest line for the Dark brotherhood was done very well and in my own opinion it surpassed its predecessor.

However it wasn't just those three quest lines that interested me. I found much glee in just roaming around exploring random dungeons. The problem with Oblivion was that when you went through and Oblivion gate the dungeons were the same, i think there was four different models that you just repeated over and over. The reward you got for completing them wasn't even worth it most of the time. In Skyrim however all the dungeons were different and you were rewarded with not only loot but with a shout. Some of the shouts were useless in my opinion but there were some very awesome ones as well and searching for those is what made exploring caves worth it.

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim part 2

Now the two most important elements of a video game is 1: gameplay it is a video GAME so if the game play is horrible whats the point of playing it? 2: Story as long as the gameplay is good i can overlook a bad story line however a storyline is very important part to any game, to me at least.

So now we must ask how was Skyrims gameplay and story line? The gameplay is a hack and slash dungeon crawler that can be either third person or first person, i personally choose third person. Outside of dungeon crawling you can also practice trade skills such as cooking, fishing, and to the newest and most hyped about blacksmithing. Now I'll be honest i didn't practice any trade skills. I wanted to make dragon armor so i payed for lessons from the guy in Whiterun. The combat (again this is from a person who 99% of the time used a two handed axe the other 1% was shouts) I felt was done very well. It wasn't anything new or ground breaking but it did its job. Run up to opponent press attack repeat until either opponent is dead or you need to heal. After awhile i felt that two handed weapons might have been a bit over powered when there wasn’t much i couldn’t one hit kill. Every dungeon being different made crawling much more enjoyable. The dragon fights while extremely easy in the later in the game, in the beginning was difficult and felt very rewarding when you finally beat them.

The leveling system in Oblivion was pretty much just make whatever class you want, then you can only level up those skills. Skyrim looked at that and said HA just make whatever you want i don’t care, level up all the skills you don’t need a class. I personally liked this route, in Oblivioin you could make any kind of class you wanted to, mine as well just make it more simple for us to use right?

so all in all the gameplay I felt was done well, now that leads us to the other part I look hard on, story.

There’s not much to talk about here honestly. The whole story is explaining what a dragonborn is, and how to defeat the bad guy. The Dark Brotherhood and Companion quest offered some good story. I’m not going to say much more than that because i don’t want to get into spoilers and also it would take many pages to discuss the story, so short version Story was good and the NPCs were well made as story drivers, so in the end it gets a pass.

so gameplay and story was good, I was pleasantly surprised by this game, usually a good game that gets a crappy sequel only gets worse and the games go on but i have to say this game far out shines its predecessor and is defiantly worth getting.

I’m Cody “the Geek” Vermillion and until next time, don’t get owned