Review: Skyrim

So often I review cool but obscure games, this time I thought I'd take on something a little more mainstream.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is, for those of you living under a rock, an action-RPG that was released for the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3. I played it on the PS3 (and am still technically playing it there, as I never did finish everything I wanted to, but who does in this game), and first of all, I'd like to say that I had a ton of fun with it. The biggest draw of Skyrim, and the Elder Scrolls series in general, is the gigantic fantasy world sandbox of things to do. Coming up right below the world is the different ways you can customize your character - rather than a class, in this game, you can pick and choose from many different talent trees, and thus create a unique playstyle that fits you.

The game's huge world has so much to do, it's extremely easy to be drawn off track by something interesting - and indeed, I'd argue that that is the whole point of the game. Getting from point A to point B becomes something else entirely when you pass 8 dungeons along the way that you can clear out and loot - often finding something tied to a bigger quest there. The scope of the game is simply incredible, both in terms of the number of things to do and each of these things remains interesting.

With that said, the game has numerous faults. The two biggest problems with this game are bugs and balance. The game is simply inexcusably buggy, even 3+ months after being released. Companions don't level to your character properly. Quests can bug out and become incompletable, preventing progress in fairly major ways. Companions can become stuck in certain zones of the game, meaning that you lose access to them forever - particularly fun if you've also married them. This is to say nothing of the lag issues that plagued the PS3 version until the most recent patch. I understand that a game this large is going to have some bugs, but there is a difference between some bugs and what Skyrim has, especially what it shipped with.

The "balance," such as it is, is also something of a joke. At least in my experience, I had to actively refrain from doing activities I otherwise would have in order to keep the game moderately challenging. Indeed, I'm using what is considered to be one of the weaker playstyles, blaster mage, and on master difficulty I'm still finding the game to be pretty darn easy. And it's simply the easiest thing in the world to ruin the game's balance for yourself by leveling up smithing or enchanting particularly early on (especially smithing - or, god forbid, both). Conjuration is also ridiculously powerful if powerleveled, as I understand it, and in general I'm given to believe that bow-using stealth characters are a particularly broken archetype. Vampire illusionists, from what I understand, can render every single enemy in the game except for dragons completely harmless. And dragons in general are surprisingly anticlimatic fights. Again, in a game this large and characters this customizable, there are bound to be issues, but Skyrim kicks it up a few notches above that.

But, as I said, I did really enjoy the game. I just think that it could have used a lot more time on bug-fixing and balancing.

Some of the lessons I've learned from this game are:
-Having a very customizable character is indeed great. I mentioned the idea in one of my earlier posts, regarding the ability to create your own class for an RPG, but this game takes that and really runs with it.
-Open worlds, as long as they don't feel empty, can make games all by themselves. Throw in enough decently interesting quests here and there, make the many dungeons each at least a little bit unique, and you've got a really fun game pretty much ready to go.

However, I also learned a few more lessons from this game. These lessons I hope that I am never reduced to using:
-A game can incredibly buggy and still ship to great reviews if it is fun enough. In particular, an open world game with lots of content, so that you can at least theoretically avoid the bugs, lends itself to this particularly well.
-Game balance, at least in single player games, can be almost tossed out the window in favor of other aspects of the game, especially at higher levels.