Skyrim: Immeasurable Hours of Frustration

Skyrim:

 Immeasurable Hours of Frustration

Hunter Brown

I’ll admit, when I first got wind of a new Elder Scrolls game, I danced around my house with the same excitement as your dog when you come in the door. I eagerly awaited months and months since it was announced, I watched every single demo and video regarding its game play, and even went as far as renting Oblivion to get a quick fix of the epic and expansive world of Tamriel.

As the release date approached, (11-11-11) I could barely contain myself. Unfortunately, I was not able to buy the game on its release date, let alone the month it came out. After listening to in-depth and extremely charismatic conversations at school or with my friends over Xbox Live, I was dripping with envy. It wasn’t until late December that my brother and I decided to head into the Big Apple and trek on down to the GameStop five minutes from Grand Central Station. From there, we both bought a wide collection of well-received games such as Halo: CE Anniversary, Battle Field Bad Company 2, Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, and last but not least, the critically acclaimed Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I was ready to sell my soul to Bethesda’s traditionally large and immersive, open-world video game.

Words cannot describe how much money I had shelled out for food, drinks, and overall “fanboy-ism”. I sat myself down, booted up the game, downloaded the usual patch before starting any game from 2011, and even listened to the blood pumping and epic score at the title screen before even pressing start. As the game started, I was blown away by the amount of detail that went into each character in the wagon beside me. The voice acting was drastically improved from it’s disappointing little sister, Oblivion. (I was extremely amused by the hilarious Nordic accent.) As the intro progressed, I was greeted by imperials that were ready to send me to the headsman. I was then allowed to create my name, race, sex, etc. When I was just about to be executed, a dragon had swooped down onto the tower in front of me and seemingly saved my life. The ever-useful Skyrim Guide then informed me that this was in fact the main antagonist, Alduin. A handful of us escape through a cave, filled with disturbingly large spiders, bumbling Imperial soldiers, and a bear that is just trying to take a nap. When we reach the exit of the cave, I am finally allowed to gawk at the unreal and absolutely gorgeous landscape of Skyrim.

All right, I’m done buttering up Skyrim for you. Much further into my play through, I noticed many problems within the game. First of all, the loading times between locations were atrocious, and made Skyrim’s over-hyped “addictive nature” die very early in the crib. I could only play about 4 to 5 hours before becoming heavy-eyed and in desperate need of sleep. Another gripe I have about this game (and rest assured, there will be many) is the color scheme. During certain parts of the game, I was just completely and utterly bored when exploring new areas because of how dull and grey the background was. I understand that Skyrim takes place in the North-most area of Tamriel, and contains a plethora of mountains and snow, but they could have added a few more bright colors to spruce up the mood. Hell, even the darkest caves were more interesting than the outside solely because of the fluorescent mushrooms on walls, and whatever the hell that bright blue crap was on the ceilings. As for glitches/ bugs that I encountered, the majority of them were not threatening at all, but instead some degree of fun. For instance, during a battle with a dragon, he had pulled up to avoid my onslaught of arrows, and somehow got stuck in slow motion until I freed him with an inevitable and cheap death. But where the glitches hurt, they REALLY hurt. For instance, certain quests couldn’t be completed, or even started because of stupid technical issues. For example, one quest that I was hunting for was The Cursed Tribe, which involved a tribe of Orcs, a Daedric Prince, and giants that could launch you into the next dimension with one swing of their club. (Seriously, you go FLYING.) But, unfortunately for me, I could not even start this quest because an NPC (non-playable character) was stuck in attack mode and wouldn’t even answer me when I spoke to her.

Another group of problems never really annoyed me, but rather kept me disappointed by Bethesda’s performance. Among them were that many characters have the same voice actor, horses can climb up mountains at a 60 degree angle, and poor A.I. for your followers. My list can go on and on, but I suppose I should start giving the game credit where it deserves it.

The story for this game is well written and created very carefully, giving me pleasure in knowing that I was embarking on a humongous quest filled with blood, betrayal, and perfectly designed characters to accompany me on this ride. Even when you finish the main story line, the credits don’t start rolling. You can continue playing the game how you want. You can either finish up quests that you never started, get lost in the expansive and Indiana Jones-esque caves and underground structures, or do what I did, and just go around murdering innocents while wearing nothing but an execution hood and wielding Sheogorath’s reality bending staff, the Wabbajack. Now I’m not trying to completely rag on this game, because I enjoyed it thoroughly, and was extremely impressed by the drastic overhaul that Bethesda had given the Elder Scrolls Universe. The amount of content that this game offers you can completely blow you out of the water. I even lost myself because I felt like doing some “hard labor”, which included helping out farmers by harvesting their crops for them and splitting firewood. If you really want the biggest bang for you buck, then get off your couch, and go buy Skyrim!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRIUk32zYv4