Skyrim - Released, Review Roundup #1

[CountChocula]

Here's more good info, well not really that good, but factual at least:

errrrr……….

Did you watch Mangg's live streams?

He was really emotionally attached to his horse, which died once being eaten by an ice wolf and a second time from jumping off a cliff. The guy was practically crying into his microphone.

 

[JonNik]

Heh, my copy will probably not be in until the 18th at the earliest but I think I am going to shelve this for a month or two (ala Witcher 2, I started playing with patch 1.3)...

@Thrasher great stuff! (Love the uber Dragonslayer horse of death) keep them coming...

 

[Thrasher]

@CountChocula: I started one of them, but it was too boring. So many loading screens, that I gave up.

The other streams I tried were all kaputt.

My copy comes tomorrow (crossing my fingers that GameStop doesn't screw up again). Looking forward to creating my own crazy AI abuse situations, with liberal use of illusion magic .

ES never fails to deliver on this sort of silliness.

 

[CountChocula]

It should be relatively easy to play around in the console commands and, say, force 20 dragons to spawn nearby. (or an army of undead chickens)

 

[jhwisner]

I bring you PC screenshots posted by some Aussie players:

Comparing low, medium, high, and ultra (note that draw distances are customized to maximum and all are at 1080p resolution):

Low
Med
High
Ultra

While the differences between low, medium, and high are significant (particularly if you notice the foliage and distant texturing) I don't see much difference between high and ultra. The most noticeable variation between high and ultra appears to be the use of shadows. I might be missing something though.

Here's an assortment of some ultra setting images that do seem to indicate better textures and draw distances than on the consoles:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6040/6332164100_6e74f66560_o.jpg
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6214/6331461201_98741a47b7_o.jpg
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6106/6331465615_6579bd3b0a_o.jpg
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6095/6331463617_df7d4fcf0b_o.jpg
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6218/6332051150_91540bb97c_o.jpg
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6108/6331371149_40c3506e52_o.jpg
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6095/6332125190_660174c3d5_o.jpg
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6235/6331457051_fc87b8483e_o.jpg

 

[Thrasher]

It should be relatively easy to play around in the console commands and, say, force 20 dragons to spawn nearby. (or an army of undead chickens)

It's more fun to show how messed up the AI is without resorting to cheats.

 

[Thrasher]

Now that I think about it, really one of the best features of ES is the emergent gameplay. Unpredictable AI crossed with a ton of player freedom can lead to some pretty interesting (and funny) situations.

 

[Maylander]

Reviews related to Bethesda or Blizzard are completely useless. They always get top score no matter what.

That being said, I do have decent hopes for Skyrim, and I suspect it really is a better game than Oblivion. I'll know for sure soon, as it's pre-loading right now. I should be good to go when it unlocks in 3 hours and 15 minutes.

 

[kalniel]

Reviews related to Bethesda or Blizzard are completely useless. They always get top score no matter what.

Eurogamer 8/10

 

[vurt]

Some early impressions,
The UI is terrible, it's a straight port from console, can't even click stuff with the mouse sometimes, have to switch to the keyboard, it doesnt make sense. It's much worse than Oblivion.

The LOD is quite bad, i had hoped they would've improved this a lot since FO/NV, but they havent. It pops in instead of blending in smooth, so it's sometimes very visible how suddenly trees switches from 2D LOD's to real 3D meshes. Fortunately this can be changed in the .ini i believe - larger draw distance for the real meshes. The .ini is exactly like FO3/NV so its very configurable, which is great.

Loading times are short, takes me 15 sec from when i click the icon until i'm in-game playing. All games should be like this.. Havent noticed any stuttering whatsoever, so that's much better than FO:NV for example. Runs @ 60 FPS with everything maxed out, so no complaints there.

I like the animations for the most part, it feels like the bodies has weight to them. The swimming animation was nice too.. i dont care much for those kill "quick events", i like them in FO3 because of how brutal they can be, the animations for these in Skyrim arent that great, i can see how it could get a little annoying after a while.

There's a great feeling of adventure, much unlike Oblivion. Sometimes it feels a bit like Red Dead Redemption or maybe Gothic3, only better. GOTY without a doubt..

 

[Thaurin]

While the differences between low, medium, and high are significant (particularly if you notice the foliage and distant texturing) I don't see much difference between high and ultra. The most noticeable variation between high and ultra appears to be the use of shadows. I might be missing something though.

I've compared high and ultra and at the least, it seems that ultra has shadows farther away than high. Also, one of the trees in the distance has more branches/leaves on it. So I guess ultra is related to those kinds of improvements. Which serves me just fine.

 

[Thrasher]

Eurogamer is actually


"10 / 10"


AND, it also has the distinction of having the most inconsequential and fact devoid review of the bunch. Eurogamer is nothing if not consistent...

 

[azarhal]

Some early impressions,
The UI is terrible, it's a straight port from console, can't even click stuff with the mouse sometimes, have to switch to the keyboard, it doesnt make sense. It's much worse than Oblivion.

I'm so no surprised by this. It was my impression since they first showed it that it was going to be crap…

Hopefully modders can fix it…again.

 

[Thrasher]

AND quickly. I certainly didn't like the scrolling dialog (and other) interfaces. I hope there are home, end, and page up/down hotkeys eventually.

 

[jhwisner]

Some early impressions,
Loading times are short, takes me 15 sec from when i click the icon until i'm in-game playing. All games should be like this.. Havent noticed any stuttering whatsoever, so that's much better than FO:NV for example. Runs @ 60 FPS with everything maxed out, so no complaints there.

Yeah that's one aspect of "accessibility" they have greatly improved with the PC version. I know when people say accessibility they normally mean streamlining and simplification of game-play; I think the ease of starting and smoothly playing the game are an important aspect in making large RPGs (particularly open world ones) more accessible and enjoyable to those unused to them.

Consider someone who normally plays multiplayer action games perhaps casual games trying out something like Oblivion. The tension of the type of game they usually play does not tend to be broken up by long loading screens as most of the action begins and ends in a single map or area. Long start-up times and long load times within the game to a greater extent can make someone already skeptical about a game's ability to keep their interest even less likely to give it the chance to entertain them. Similarly - the inconsistent performance and stuttering experienced by players of Fallout New Vegas could hinder a skeptical or even mildly enthusiastic player's ability to feel immersed. It also could make combat frustrating to say the least.

I am glad that, on the PC at least, a more meaningful kind of "accessibility" than is usually discussed has been improved upon significantly.

 

[JonNik]

There's a great feeling of adventure, much unlike Oblivion. Sometimes it feels a bit like Red Dead Redemption or maybe Gothic3, only better. GOTY without a doubt..

Now that is what I want to hear. Lets hope it stands the test of time…

Couldn't really care that much about the GUI (wasn't a problem with the Witcher 2 either for me. Its the QTEs and "kill events", as you call them that I consider crap and worrying symptoms of consolitis).

 

[jhwisner]

IGN Has some PC version gaming commentary with gameplay video:

http://www.ign.com/videos/2011/11/10/skyrim-pc-gameplay-commentary

In the video it says you can't hotkey items to number keys, but several other sites indicate you can. Hopefully they just didn't figure it out - would be annoying if that were removed. Also the guy playing isn't particularly well-prepated and, in an attempt to demo a dragon fight, gets his butt kicked by a dragon and an undead fire-staff wielding magic-user who sneaks up on him and summons an atronoch.

Since I'm in London for the week I wonder if I should buy it here tonight or buy it and first activate it through my home PC then install it on my laptop while I'm here. I've heard of people buying Steam games outside of the US market having issues with their Steam account in terms of access to US future releases after doing so but that it does not seem to be a problem for people buying steam games while in the US and then going elsewhere.

 

[CountChocula]

Some early impressions,
The UI is terrible, it's a straight port from console, can't even click stuff with the mouse sometimes, have to switch to the keyboard, it doesnt make sense. It's much worse than Oblivion.

Did you try loading items/spells/shouts/etc to your favorites menu, then using Q and then pressing a number to assign hotkeys?

 

[kalniel]

Eurogamer is actually


"10 / 10"


AND, it also has the distinction of having the most inconsequential and fact devoid review of the bunch. Eurogamer is nothing if not consistent…

OOps, yes, sorry. Was thinking of a different game they reviewed that everyone else gave top scores to that they didn't. Still, PC gamer, IGN etc wasn't a 100 for Skyrim.

 

[vurt]

Did you try loading items/spells/shouts/etc to your favorites menu, then using Q and then pressing a number to assign hotkeys?

Yeah that's no problem. It has growed on me a bit, but i still dont like it.