Wednesday, July 18, 2012

FUS RO DAH!

Finally I'm able to talk about something I've been wanting to for a while now.  Most of the bugs in my game have been fixed with patches and it is now more than playable.  I have been sucked back into "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" with their recent expansion "Dawnguard".  Huzzah!  To be honest, I really think this is the best game in the Elder Scroll series to date.

Insert dramatic music here

Game: The Elderscrolls V: Skyrim (with expansion "Dawnguard") 
Dev: Bethesda 
Platform: PC, Xbox 360, PS3 
Rating: 9 So many bodies, so little ketchup. 


"HEY-- YOU-- GUY---S!"


Dramatic landscapes come standard, of course.
And here we have the review that's been a long time in the making, really.  Constant saves and loads, checking back to see if I can progress or not.  Let's be honest.  Skyrim (much like Diablo 3) didn't have... the best nor smoothest in terms of game launches.  It is reminiscent to the issues that Lion Head studios had with their game "Fable 2". When that game got released it was just rough. Both games were riddled with bugs like Swiss cheese with holes.  Bugs were more rampant than fire breathing dragons, and that's saying something.  But now that the game has been out a while, patches galore have pretty much smoothed everything over to a gentile, if not smooth finish.


Ye olde bug spray.
So onto the game: What is Skyrim?  If you don't know by now, it's another in a long long list of open sandbox first person RPGs.  You run around doing quests and what ever at your leisure.  There's a couple main story arcs and nearly endless random quests for whatever.  Pretty simple.  You get weapons and abilities and points and levels and perks and stuff.  Magic and dragon shouts and all sorts of gizmos and gadgets to defeat dragons, poke town guards, and take arrows to knees.


Life force before hos.
The expansion, Dawnguard, adds content in 2 parts.  The 1st part is the more obvious one.  That is like adding a new story arc, new items, new areas, and the usual mumbo-jumbo.  The other part is going back into the old game and adding features.  The biggest of which, and my favorite, are the perk trees for werewolves and vampires.  I only wish the trees were bigger, more complex, and had more perks  thatcould be gained over a longer period of time.  What they have is good, but more would be better.  One other quick note, was that I was a little disappointed in both the werewolves and vampires, in the sense of their end transformation.  What they have is alright, but it would be amazing if they could incorporate hints of your gender and/or race in the final product.  Like khajiit markings in the werewolf fur, skin tones on the vampire lord/lady, making your character design settings reflect into the beast you become, instead of just overriding into X generic stock image that everyone becomes with no differentiation what so ever.


There he goes again, waving around that glowing shit like he owns the place.



"Call me 'Pussy', one... more... time..."
They also revisit some questions that arise from the original Skyrim and refined your knowledge about the lore there, which is always a good thing.  They added a few more "collect x" quests as well.  Still, a way to re-allocate your points to go with the newly added content would have been nice as well.




Overall, there's just a plain satisfaction of screaming at dragons and running your knife/arrow/lance of ice through any given opponent.... That and chowing down on their corpse to feed your wolfy hunger...hehe.


Game: The Elderscrolls V: Skyrim (with expansion "Dawnguard") 
Dev: Bethesda 
Platform: PC, Xbox 360, PS3 
Rating: 9 So many bodies, so little ketchup. 

(All images gained from Bethesda's public website)