Skyrim Finished Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood questlines *NO SPOILERS*

Well, after spending around 50 hours with the game, and finishing the two questlines I was intent on doing with my first character - I'm ready to give my first "review" of the game:

Best game I've ever played - bar none.

Now, something may come up later during the main quest - or with my next character, but that's how I honestly feel at this point.

It's far from perfect, and it has a lot of quirks and bugs - but the complete package is so far beyond anything else I've seen. I never thought Bethesda capable of making a game this good, I really didn't.

It's like they took every single major complaint to heart, and almost totally rectified every wrong from the past.

The character system is the perfect combination of the freedom the series is known for, and the ability to specialise and diversify your characters. Full of great and significant "toys" and upgrades, ensuring there's ALWAYS something to look forward to.

The combat system is one of the best in this genre, and archery is just perfect. Since I'm an archer primarily - that suits me very well. I really haven't done much in the way of melee combat, but the little I've done has felt really good and tactile.

Animations are much, much better - and apart from a few unfortunate examples with four-legged beasts - they're really impressive. I especially love the smoothness of the humanoid animations - and the sensation of control.

The writing is perhaps the biggest surprise of all. In 50 hours, I've had NOTHING but good-to-fantastic writing. Gone completely is the overly silly and strange-for-the-sake-of-being-strange crap they usually do, and in place we have a very mature and plausible writing style, and every single book I've read in the game is just engaging and interesting.

The level scaling is also much improved, to the point of feeling very natural and with just the right balance between keeping the game interesting and yet giving you challenges and pushovers at appropriate times. I do highly recommend playing on Expert, though. Adept is for casual players. Master might be better, but I didn't want to risk tainting my game with an "unnatural" difficulty.

They did exactly what I always wanted them to do with the magic system. They ditched the bland "be your own designer" and made unique spells instead. Since I haven't actually used magic that much, I can't say if they did it right - but I CAN say that the spells I've had against me have ALL looked fantastic. They did something with the way spells look and animate that just… works very well.

They introduced a significant crafting system. I've only dabbled with it, but it looks really meaty - and it's a very important addition for the roleplaying aspect. I love that everything needs an appropriate crafting station - and that your character (as well as NPCs) have fitting animations when you're making stuff.

The NPCs… What can I say, really. This ties into the writing, but beyond that - they look SO MUCH better. Most importantly, they ALL look different and natural at the same time. Lip-synching is just about perfect - and apart from very few cases of repetition (the Arrrhnuld voice), they all feel like unique personalities. If you stop to think about what that means in a game this big, you should be as impressed as I was.

The content. Wow… Just wow. So much to do. It's almost ridiculous. They've combined a TON of hand-crafted content - with full voice-overs with just the right amount of generated stuff. This means that the game feels like it could go on forever, but without feeling like a random quest dispenser. This is what they tried to do in Daggerfall - but failed miserably. Here, so far, they seem to have done the impossible. I'm sure I'll feel different at the 200 hour mark - but I'm much less interested in an eternal game - than I am in the SENSATION of an eternal game.

The dungeons… One of my primary complaints of the past. Guess what, they're fantastic. So far, every single dungeon has had SOMETHING that made it stand out. Little stories, either told directly through journal-entries or through something visual at the location. They also happen to look fantastic.

Technically, it's leaps and bounds beyond Oblivion. It may not look like a totally next-gen TES - but it certainly plays like one. The streaming is infinitely improved, and it's almost unnoticable when you're playing. It has certainly reached the point where I can stay fully immersed without being bothered by the occasional inconvenient pop-up, and it almost never stutters to load - at least on my rig. It's not QUITE as good as Risen (the best streaming engine I know of) - but it's really quite close.

Visually, I think it's the most beautiful game I've seen. Not on a scene-by-scene basis - but taken as a whole. The Witcher 2 looks better scene-by-scene, I will admit - but it's TINY in comparison. When you think about the visual diversity going on in TES - and the ability to explore the entire world totally at your leisure - coupled with a staggering amount of unique content and locations - it just blows your mind. Well, it has blown mine.

Sound is perfect. It just sounds great and has a fantastic sound design. As far as I can tell, everything sounds exactly as it should - with a very appropriate "meat" to combat and especially spells. Top notch.

Voice acting? Apart from the somewhat overdone Arnold accent, and a few cases of bad (not horrible) child actors - it's perfect. Considering the amount of characters, the bad is almost unnoticable - but it IS there.

Music? Just as perfect. It's a lot more subtle than Oblivion - and it's a perfect match for the harsh-yet-beautiful world of Skyrim. It's melancholy and bombastic in the right quantities. I don't know why, but after 50 hours - the combat music still gets my heart pounding. Playing an archer in third person view, with all the toys in place - as you slow time and zoom in on the Dragon about to breathe fire on you - you will agree about that music.

As for the bad, there's plenty of it. But it's almost all rather minor - and I don't really feel like dwelling on it, because it's SO forgivable given the scope of the game.

Unlike something like Deus Ex 3 - where the boss fights have no real excuse (though they didn't bother me much) - Skyrim DOES have an excuse.

It's absolutely ridiculously huge and ambitious. The flaws are pretty much all a result of that.

Out-of-the-box performance is horrible, primarily due to the extremely poor implementation of AA and AF. For some reason, it's extremely slow with these settings on through the launcher. However, if you manually set them in your control center - it's smooth. Not sure if this is the case of Nvidia cards - but it certainly is for ATI cards.

The mouse controls suck on default, and you need to tweak the game to get it right. It's 100% fixable - but the unfortunate part is that the majority won't know how, and will assume the game just runs like crap on PC. That's piss-poor thinking of Bethesda, and they could REALLY do with some PC love. I can only imagine what a game like this would be with the PC being the primary platform. Think of what the AI could be, and how it would look with DX11 features and PC-appropriate textures.

Yes, some of the textures are very low-res and bad. Just like they were in Oblivion. Overall, it has a relatively minor impact - because the game still looks fantastic, but it's quite jarring in some cases, especially in dungeons. Why they couldn't just make some highres versions of all textures for PC, I'll never know.

The AI is not good - and there is the expected strange behavior often enough. Because of this, things like the stealth gameplay leaves something to be desired after playing DE3 and games like Thief. Do NOT expect fully natural behavior in combat situations or similar. That said, I've had very few cases of NPCs doing silly stuff - but I admit I haven't been looking for it. I've never expected natural behavior in a TES game, given how they work and the size of the games. Actually, I've been extremely impressed with how well they've managed to do with Skyrim, but I have no doubt that some people will find endless examples of inhuman and stupid NPC actions.

Limited C&C. This is probably the most understandable aspect and, to me, the least problematic detriment. I love C&C, don't get me wrong, but it's absolutely nothing against my love for freedom and exploration. You simply can't get a game this big with the right amount of C&C to feel appropriate in this way. I know people think New Vegas does something like that, but to me the price is too high for what they sacrificed. It really comes to down to preferences, but I certainly would have enjoyed some of the quests more with significant C&C. There ARE some choices in the game though, and I've counted at least 2-3 examples of seemingly significant choices - though I haven't had a chance to try the other choices yet.

I think those are my only complaints, really. Significant as they may be, they're nothing against the positives.

This game is a dream come true, and I don't mean that in the cliché and hyperbolic way.

It's key to remember, however, that this is spoken by a huge fan of CRPGs and an even huger fan of freeform CRPGs. People looking for a more guided and "cinematic" experience ala Bioware can look elsewhere. People looking for a heavy C&C experience ala Obsidian can look elsewhere.

DArtagnan is in love.

Nice review, and I pretty much agree with everything you said. I also agree that it's most likely the best game I've ever played. In 40 hours the game has completely blown my mind. I have barely left Whiterun and I'm still loaded with content, with new content popping up in the city all the time. I have yet to even explore most of the 9 holds. If they all have similar amounts of content I'll be playing this game forever.

Great write up .. course I am biased as I pretty feel the same way. This game is going to be keeping me entertained for awhile.

What is "C&C"? I've seen that in a couple threads now.

(good review)

Choices and Consequences.

Fluent said:

Nice review, and I pretty much agree with everything you said. I also agree that it's most likely the best game I've ever played. In 40 hours the game has completely blown my mind. I have barely left Whiterun and I'm still loaded with content, with new content popping up in the city all the time. I have yet to even explore most of the 9 holds. If they all have similar amounts of content I'll be playing this game forever.

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I'm almost 40, have played many games, and I can just agree. Apart from some minor criticism this is the best game I have ever played and I'll probably play it still in a year. It's worth more than EUR 50 [whisper]Even 200 would be alright[/whisper]

Could not disagree less about the statements, except that is good that npc can react and comment about your skills or what have you done, as they heard rumours about you, but you cannot ask rumours in general be talking to any npc and only tavern keepers and you don't have any motives to talk to them any more.
Destroying of objects, I am not sure but I am 28 at moment and haven't broke any single piece of gear, even if I play at master wich I don't know should made objects to be destroyed in fights or something.

And the most important thing the naming of npc, not just bandit or mage or what ever because when exploring something you don't have the feeling of unawareness and just kill it because they have name of mobs

@DArtagnan
I'm a bit surprised you feel that way actually. I always figured finding something unique was one of the most important aspects to exploration players, but I suppose loot isn't a priority as long as there's a decent location or story to find?

For me, exploration lost its value after a while since the amount of unique loot is really low. I ended up primarily exploring based on quests (go into Dungeon A in order to find a new Shout or enter Dungeon B to help someone do something).

I prefer risk vs reward in games. If I kill a massive dragon, I want something fantastic for the effort. Not a few bones that I'll sell for a bit of gold. On the other hand, Dragons are a bit too common in Skyrim to all reward fancy loot. The point remains though, risk vs reward, I don't want to equal loot from Mr. Bandit and Mr. Badass Boss.

PS. I also hate the random/repeatable side quests except the Shout one from High Hrothgar. Getting 100 gold as a bounty for killing some random bandit boss? Give me a break, that's less rewarding than a daily quest in WoW.

Maylander said:

@DArtagnan
I'm a bit surprised you feel that way actually. I always figured finding something unique was one of the most important aspects to exploration players, but I suppose loot isn't a priority as long as there's a decent location or story to find?

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As long as the location itself is unique and there's a reason to explore it, then it's not really important what else I can find there. Personally, I've found lots of unique loot - but not so much by randomly exploring, but rather doing the sidequests. I'm especially fond of the Daedra sidequests. They've been excellent so far, and have given me 100% unique loot.

My "reward" beyond the story and the location itself, is more about advancing my character and getting my toys that way. I find the loot system is more about disenchanting what you find, and enchanting your own loot. I think it's rewarding to find a random piece of loot, because you get to disenchant and use the enchantment for other stuff.

Also, I'm still finding new books and unique puzzle elements after the 60 hour mark.

It's quite like Fallout 3 in this way, which also had somewhat "meh" loot after a while. But the stories and locations make it all worthwhile to me.

For me, exploration lost its value after a while since the amount of unique loot is really low. I ended up primarily exploring based on quests (go into Dungeon A in order to find a new Shout or enter Dungeon B to help someone do something).

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Well, you seem to have a very different approach to these games than I do. Nothing wrong with that, but we obviously play for different reasons.

I'm actually surprised that a player like you managed to enjoy Skyrim like you did.

It seems to me you're a lot more "mechanical" in how you go for clear and separate goals.

The reason I adore Skyrim, is because I'm so much of a freeform fan. I play these games to get lost in the world and let the sensation immerse me. I don't play to complete specific quests in any particular order. I "roleplay" in my own way, if you will.

The game is just beyond anything else for that particular playstyle, so naturally it suits me very well.

I prefer risk vs reward in games. If I kill a massive dragon, I want something fantastic for the effort. Not a few bones that I'll sell for a bit of gold. On the other hand, Dragons are a bit too common in Skyrim to all reward fancy loot. The point remains though, risk vs reward, I don't want to equal loot from Mr. Bandit and Mr. Badass Boss.

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I understand this, but it's not something you can realistically expect from a game like Skyrim. It's the sort of thing you can get in Bioware games, or games of that nature. Games that have a rigid structure with fine-tuned and balanced encounters, as well as appropriate loot for every challenge.

Skyrim is about giving you the freedom to explore at your leisure and "live" in that world. You can't balance that kind of freedom without some compromise, and I think they've handled it very well.

As for Dragons, the soul you absorb is the big reward - which works very well from my point of view. The shouts are among the most powerful toys in the game, and each dragon assures you one more step towards ultimate power. Also, the dragon bones and material is needed for the best crafted armor available.

Not sure how much of a reward you want

It's true that dragons are common, but that ties into the whole Dragonborn concept of the main quest. They probably should have introduced them later - but I think it flows well enough. I certainly love fighting them and the rewards that go with it

I haven't touched much upon the main quest, so I can't say how that will evolve. But please don't reveal anything about to me!

PS. I also hate the random/repeatable side quests except the Shout one from High Hrothgar. Getting 100 gold as a bounty for killing some random bandit boss? Give me a break, that's less rewarding than a daily quest in WoW.

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You sure do seem to be very focused on this reward thing. That's very MMO-ish of you

Nah, the reason I go into dungeons is for the story and it gives me a better reason to play my character and use his skills than just wandering around the wilderness. That's more than enough reward for me, and I find that the stuff you find is worth it in a material sense.

But gold is very obviously not a very important reward in the game, as you can easily earn whatever you need.

I agree it would have been better with a solid economy, and rewards that scaled better. But there's also something to be said for trivial rewards for a trivial effort

Overall, though, I think it's just down to what we like - and how we enjoy our games.

Oblivion had bland dungeons and a bland character system. There just wasn't any point in exploring most dungeons, because only a handful of them felt truly unique.

I won't touch upon Morrowind, because Skavenhorde will just freak out. But suffice it to say that I think Skyrim is so way ahead of the past stuff, that I lack the words.

It certainly feels better/more fun the DE3 and TW2 for me. Dragons are wonderfully animated.
This is the game you were imagining and visualising when playing on the Spectrum 48K - things like "Oracles Cave" and "Underworlde", "Journeys End".

The "invisi - barriers" of Mass Effect / The Witcher 2 are more immersion breaking than some of the Skyrim niggles, I feel.

The environment is a joy to explore.

I have to agree that it does not feel rewarding at all killing a dragon, it seem better to do other thing then try even kill one for a bounty wich is on other side of world, I even recall receiving 2 times more from cleaning a mine out of pests, that where not a treat to world and just to that little village and if they where going out to hunt, basically it feels like a thankless job being a dragonborn as like being a witcher.

I love the thrill of finding a dragon out in the wilderness, if I don't play it well I will die! The reward is also excellent, lot of lovely dragon bits to sell along with the soul.

Nice review.

Daniel.

I agree with Dart. For me, the greatness of this game is the free form exploration in a wonderfully detailed world, just for exploration's sake. Not the "rewards".

My stealth archer illusionist is level 20 now and hasn't even made it to the thieve's guild yet! Just taking my time exploring around Whiterun and the Throat of the World, slowly inching my way into Riften. Only doing side quests that keep me near that area. I've done enough of the main quest to get some extra shouts, but haven't gone NW yet. It's too far out of the way for now.

I've played at least 60 hours now (steam says 79, but that includes pause time), and have felt like I've only scratched the surface.

I am concerned that I am leveling too quickly. Lockpicking and always sneaking seems to be the main culprits.

BTW, Wisp Mothers are still a bitch!

Thrasher said:

I agree with Dart. For me, the greatness of this game is the free form exploration in a wonderfully detailed world, just for exploration's sake. Not the "rewards".

My stealth archer illusionist is level 20 now and hasn't even made it to the thieve's guild yet! Just taking my time exploring around Whiterun and the Throat of the World, slowly inching my way into Riften. Only doing side quests that keep me near that area. I've done enough of the main quest to get some extra shouts, but haven't gone NW yet. It's too far out of the way for now.

I've played at least 60 hours now (steam says 79, but that includes pause time), and have felt like I've only scratched the surface.

I am concerned that I am leveling too quickly. Lockpicking and always sneaking seems to be the main culprits.

BTW, Wisp Mothers are still a bitch!

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Ah, someone who plays like I do. I too try and do sidequests that keep me in the Whiterun area, and I don't travel to various cities just to explore right away, only if I'm in the area or I have some reason to be there. I'm 45 hours in and have only discovered Whiterun, Markarth, Riften, and just recently checked out Dawnstar as I had a quest to visit the museum there. Haven't even uncovered 1/3 of the map I'd say. Loving it so far.

I love how some of the quests are shady. I get a real feeling of roleplay when I tell someone I'm not interested in their shady quest. Some say Skyrim lacks choices, but I find there is a choice in every quest. The simple choice of saying "no" to a quest is in my mind, very gratifying. It's great from a roleplaying aspect, you can really shape your character that way. I've turned quite a few people down because their proposition wasn't in the best interest of my character.

Speaking of shady quests, there's a repeated random encounter I've had with a fugitive that gives you an item he's stolen to hold. He warns you not to tell his pursuer about the item or where he has hidden himself. He jumps in the river and "hides". His pursuer comes up and asks me if I've seen him. I wonder what to say. I take a break, but eventually the pursuer looses patience and takes off. The fugitive has long gone by now after he says "it looks safe now" while I am tying up the pursuer up in the dialog. Don't know if it's intentional, but the use of dynamic time during dialog by the NPCs impressed me in this case!

Personally I think Skyrim is a big improvement on Oblivion. But for me it's also a good example of why these games are "seducing". Now, I've certainly gotten my money's worth from Skyrim so I'm not complaining about value or anything. But once the thrill wears off, once I've seen *most* of what the world has to offer, the sights and landmarks, then the game dies out quickly for me.

And then I look at the other content that's there. And I don't find the vast majority of quests satisfying at all in themselves. If I'm in Riften and get a quest sending me to Markarth, the first time it's fun because I travel the world and see stuff. Once I've been on that path though, there is really very little left of the game but fed-exing with some occasional fighting in between.

I really wish they had extended some of the sandboxiness of the world into the actual quest interactions as well because they really need it IMO. The writing and storylines are just not done nearly well enough to warrant such linear paths through them. The writing has all the subtlety of a brick to the face, the questlines have a way of putting words in your mouth (Thieves Guild was especially guilty of this) and there is of course no way to act upon obvious upcoming "plot twists" in any way whatsoever than to blindly walk into the traps. I also wish they had improved their quest design for the stealthy aspects of the game (Dark brotherhood and Thieves Guild) but nope, you can bludgeon your way through them like a clumsy oaf with no consequence other than giving up some additional bonuses.

Again, I really enjoyed my time with Skyrim no doubt. The world is beautifully crafted and it was a thrill to explore it. The sense of culture and lore is palpable and a very welcome return from Morrowind (and the biggest improvement upon Oblivion) But I have absolutely zero desire to start it up again once the world itself lost its newness and the fast-travel button becomes more and more tempting to use. Because once that happens, what's left is *extremely* simplistic and often quite boring if you ask me.

It the old problem of catering for a wide audience I suppose. I think they struck a good balance. I can imagine a lot of younger console players for example who have not played many proper RPGs, would be put off by the complexities of the Witcher 2, but slide easily into Skyrim. In many ways this is great as I would have loved games like this when I was younger.

But its true, the more games you play, the quicker you can see behind the "magicians curtain" so to speak and see the levers and pulleys (eg. now I am this level, these items are available, and these monsters are upgraded). Once you see that, you begin working/playing within the frame or the mechanics rather than the world (okay so if I wait a day, check the shop stock, fast travel here and enchant this item, then I can make x really powerful, and sell back all of y). Then you realise that certain things are random chance, but you can increase these chances by waiting, checking these shops to get a certain power for you weapon etc.

True, every design made by a human being will be penetrable. I'd still take Skyrim and its breadth and content over that of TW2 in a second.

TW2 was great, but in terms of unique content and especially loot diversity - it's nothing against Skyrim.

That's what I find so impressive about the game, actually.

Every game in existence will run out of content eventually, and singleplayer cRPGs moreso.

But there isn't a freeform singleplayer cRPG out there with more unique content than Skyrim - if you include ALL the content (voice acting, locations, books, quests, and so on). That doesn't mean that every single "content" aspect is perfect. It's true that the loot isn't its best aspect, but I find it to be more than sufficient.

Daggerfall was "eternal" and a game like Frontier was "eternal" - but they had next to no unique content in comparison. The only game I can think of that might come close is Baldur's Gate 2 and its expansion, and that certainly wasn't freeform.