A Day in Oblivion – Unearthing the PS3

The controller’s sticks had turned unhealthily gunky when I removed the controller from its stone sarcophagus. Not sure if the meltiness was because my room is south-facing or a side effect of encasing my old consoles in the cursed sarcophagus of an Egyptian mummy.

But would Oblivion live up to my memories?

I’m a little wiser and a lot balder than I was when I played then back in those heady days before global pestilence had returned. Would time have eroded the delight I recalled, or would the plucky older game hold up well? I heroically decided to spend Sunday finding out.

The several hours I spent in Cyrodiil at the weekend were laced with nostalgia, so it might jut be rose-tinted glasses, but I really rather enjoyed my stay there. I played as a Breton battlemage, going with the suggested class rather than the custom one that I habitually created way back when.

The graphics are still perfectly reasonable (bearing in mind the ag), the major exception being the character faces. One big plus I’d forgotten was that the hotkeying on consoles is miles better than Skyrim. In Oblivion you get 8 (via the D-Pad) whereas there just 2 console hotkeys in Skyrim (up and down, selected from the favourites list accessible by pressing left or right). This came in very handy as someone focusing mostly on magic.

Another nice touch I’d forgotten was the Black Horse Courier, which helped get me back into the world before the empire started falling to pieces. Quests unfolded naturally too, with a couple of people seeking me out in Skingrad (one of whom had walked from the Imperial City), and my nirnroot-harvesting leading to another. There seemed more freedom wandering about this way and that, and I encountered a couple of ruins which I successfully navigated by summoning undead to do the hard work for me.

It was also a little sad to see the Mages Guild in Skingrad appear to have more spells than in the whole of Skyrim.

One diametrically opposing difference was the clear lack of voice-acting variety. That said, the races do stand out a lot more, especially in height terms. In Skyrim, Bretons, Nords, and Imperials look pretty damned similar (although the beast races are orders of magnitude better).

It’s early days, but I really rather enjoyed my Sunday in Cyrodiil. Had to swap the console back for other reasons, but looking forward to joining the Mages Guild and crafting my own spells.

Thaddeus

PS And, for those wondering, a day or two of leaving the controller out plus an hour of playing degunkified my cursed controller.

Oblivion Reminiscing

Occasionally I go back to my old consoles and play games of yesteryear. I was considering doing just that with my PS2 and enjoying classics like God of War, Shadow Hearts, and so on. But lately I’ve been wondering about playing Oblivion.

Made by Bethesda in the good old days when paying for horse armour was laughable and games didn’t take over a decade to be released because studios were too busy dicking about with live service bullshit, Oblivion has a lot of points I remember really fondly. And one I loathed.

Skyrim’s got a more realistic world in terms of paths and mountains, but the infamous sideways mountain-hopping is far easier in Oblivion. What this means is you can go practically anywhere, which means the world’s a bit less realistic but players enjoy a lot more freedom. I’ve gone multiple different ways after leaving the starting dungeon, whereas Skyrim does more heavily lead you by the hand.

Another big plus is that the cities feel larger, and more distinct. The city size in Skyrim is significantly smaller than in Oblivion, and the cities tended to feel like they had their own identities more. Markarth is nice and different, but mostly the architecture and feel of Nordic cities is pretty similar. That’s not the case in Oblivion.

Quests are also better in the Elder Scrolls IV than the next instalment. I won’t spoil it, decade and a half old as it is, but the Dark Brotherhood questline in Oblivion is orders of magnitude better than anything in Skyrim. If you haven’t played it, give it a look. It’s engaging, enjoyable, and compelling.

Creating your own spells is a nifty feature you gain if you join the Mages, but for some reason it was stripped out of Skyrim. Why? It’s cool being able to create your own spells, and the range of spells in Oblivion, even without making your own, is substantially more too. And you can cast them whilst having a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. Plus the touch spells make being a battle mage a cool option.

Character creation obviously comes with inferior graphics, but against this you can alter the colour and length of your hair, and even fiddle cleverly to make your orc red (move the relevant slider all the way right, then left, then repeat until he’s red).

These are all things I like. So, what’s the thing I didn’t?

Levelling.

Now, maybe I’ll view things differently if I ever go back, but from memory the levelling system pissed me off. Enemies level as you do. Which can work. But if you don’t get your skills right then you become relatively weaker, making you less powerful as you level up. Which is insane.

I’m currently replaying Divinity Original Sin 2. Undecided if I’ll take a hiatus upon leaving Fort Joy or keep going, but it’s interesting to consider going back to Oblivion.

And the PS3 also has Dragon Age: Origins as well. Ah, happy days…

Thaddeus

No new DLC for Skyrim

As the title states, there shall be no more DLC for Skyrim. This is slightly surprising as there were quite a lot of rumours about a new, sizeable DLC entitled Redguard. However, Bethesda has said clearly they're leaving Skyrim (save for minor patches and the like) for pastures new. The likelihood is that they'll be working on Fallout 4.

There are 3 DLC options open for Skyrim: Dawnguard, Hearthfire (a mini-DLC) and Dragonborn, which is the largest (I think). Being against DLC generally, and having a dodgy/slow PS3 internet connection, I haven't downloaded them. However, I am hoping that the news that there won't be any more DLC means that we might get a Game of the Year Edition which has the original game plus all DLC included (total DLC cost is circa £30, so if we do get a GOTY edition then that'll probably be £20 and something of a saving).

Patch 1.9 was recently out for the PS3, and enables the Legendary/Suicidal difficulty setting. I've played a couple of hours as a sneaky Khajiit murderer and must say that it's pretty tough. Two examples of what I mean:

1) In the very first fight my one-handed skill increased twice, to 22, because it took so many hits to kill my foes.

2) I very nearly got killed by three wolves on the road. Wolves, by Talos!

Anyway, it'd be nice to get a full version of Skyrim. Not sure if I'll buy it (I decided against Dragon's Dogma's bigger version, Dark Arisen, which comes out on the 26th of this month).

Thaddeus

Preview: Dawnguard (Skyrim DLC)

Bethesda have decided that the DLC for Skyrim is going to be come in a small number of hefty chunks, as opposed to lots of little ones.

Personally, I prefer this approach (as much as I like anything about DLC). The first DLC/expansion is entitled Dawnguard. Spoilers abound below.

Dawnguard will initially be released for the Xbox360, with the PS3/PC versions coming a bit later. It introduces the Volkihar vampires and the Dawnguard, a group of vampire hunters who appear to have nothing to do with the Vigil or Meridia, despite earlier speculation about the name.

These two factions will offer the player a choice. Join the Dawnguard and you get a new fort to live in and crossbows, join the Volkihar and you get a castle to live in and the ability to transform into a vampire lord. The two factions will battle to defeat one another, though how involved this will be is uncertain. The Civil War in Skyrim took quite a while (unlike some other questlines, such as the Companions, which were pretty brief).

There will also be access to a new plane of Oblivion: the Soul Cairn, which is filled with the undead.

Players will also have access to new dragon shouts as well as new skill trees (for vampires and werewolves respectively). There will be about a dozen new enemy types, although it sounds like they'll be mostly modified versions of existing foes.

I really like the sound of the Dawnguard and Volkihar, but I'm also pretty annoyed with the introduction of two new skill trees. That's core gameplay, and should've been included with the game proper. Extra spells, shouts, armour, weapons and so on are welcome additions but the perk trees are not something that should be used as add-ons, I think.

The DLC itself looks like it'll be pretty cool, but I won't be buying it myself. I'm going to wait and see how much the Game of the Year (GOTY) edition is, and how good the extra DLC looks and consider buying the GOTY edition if it looks a reasonable deal.

For more information on Dawnguard specifically and the Elder Scrolls/Skyrim more generally, it's well worth visiting the excellent Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages here: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page

Thaddeus

Review: Skyrim

Review: Skyrim

This is a bit delayed because of an unfortunate issue, namely that the PS3 version reportedly suffers game-breaking lag beyond a certain point. I went for a broad and shallow approach (I have a number of characters with varying play-styles but no one high levelled character) so can’t definitively confirm or deny this. I was going to wait until I had such a character before writing this, but decided it’d be simpler to just give a score with and without the bug (on the basis that it may be patched or not universal, and that it may not apply across platforms).

At the time of playing I’ve played with characters of most races, completed or gotten very far along multiple quest lines (a few guilds and the main quest) and clocked probably 45-50 hours, maybe more.

Character Creation

Much improved on Oblivion, although the humans (Redguard excepted) do all look pretty similar. The scars and war paint options are nice, and the weight slider is very welcome.

The beast races are the best done and most improved, I feel. The Argonians can have a range of skin colours, but also benefit the most from the options to change various face colours (neck, chin, lower cheek etc). Khajiit also look fantastic, and the only race I might have a slight downer on would probably be the Dunmer, who really were beaten with the ugly stick a little too hard.

In the First Impressions post I said character creation was mostly cosmetic, and whilst that’s partly true I underestimated the importance of different skill levels. This is disproportionately important from one skill to another (for example, increasing the skill level with one-handed weapons is a piece of cake, but something like smithcraft takes more time and effort).

Levelling

My biggest problem with Oblivion was the awful levelling system, which made it quite easy to become progressively weaker the higher your level. Skyrim resolved this by axing attributes (Strength, Willpower etc) altogether, and instead make levelling contingent upon increasing skills.

At each level gained you increase Health/Magic/Stamina by 10 points and get a perk (eg increasing the damage done with a one-handed weapon, cutting the cost of Destruction spells etc).

This system is simple, very similar to Fallout and, thankfully, works very well. There are many perks that are either good or great and few fillers. In addition, there are often extra branches to the perk tree (each one takes the form of a constellation, with each perk a star) so if you’re a two-handed weapon sort of chap who only ever uses warhammers you can specifically increase the damage that warhammers do.

Many perks require a given skill level, which makes sense. Skills can be increased through use, reading a skill book (tip: these typically have a value of 50-70 and usually have a hint in the title as to what they improve) or getting training.

The system works very well, I’m pleased to say.

Gameplay (particularly balance of play-styles and combat)

I took a broad and shallow approach to testing this out, so I’ve got half a dozen or so characters, mostly low level, with two at 20+. My higher level characters were a pure warrior (Asgerd Njalsdottir) and a stealthy archer with some warrior skills (Shadowfang).

The pure warrior worked pretty well, but the game was easier (arguably too easy) with Shadowfang. He was able to kill people from a distance, often with a single shot, then kill the other foes who came to investigate what had happened. The use of certain warrior skills (smithing, one-handed and block) also meant he was pretty good in a toe-to-toe fight. I am glad, however, that the archery skill has been slightly beefed up and remains useful throughout, unlike in Oblivion where it became a bit rubbish at later levels. Also, you cannot run backwards (only walk), constantly firing arrows. A strong archer will be able to kill or halve the health of a feeble or average opponent with one arrow, but stronger enemies will be able to close the gap.

I did try a pure magic character, whom I fitted with stereotypical gear (ie enchanted clothes rather than armour). This was the trickiest of all options, as the damage potential was high (both in terms of receiving and delivering). I think the magic skills would work best with a hybrid character. There’s also a big leap between Novice and Apprentice level magic, as I discovered when some vile bugger put an icicle through my character’s head.

On the whole, combat is quite easy, but there will be times when you realise quite suddenly you’re out of your depth. I was climbing a mountain with Asgerd when a certain enemy appeared and kicked her arse. I tried a few more times but it was too tough so I left to level a bit, then came back and introduced its face to her sword.

The crafting skills are pretty damned good, especially smithing. This can seriously improve your gear and you can make your own. Firewood can be acquired with use of a chopping block and woodcutter’s axe, ore by mining with a pickaxe and smiths generally have a range of ore and ingots for sale.

Locks are perhaps a little too easy to pick, but the mini-game (basically the same as Fallout 3) is much more enjoyable than that of Oblivion.

Dragon shouts are excellent. I haven’t found too many, but a few, and most are either ones that are often useful or at least make sense (so, not many fillers here either). Some dragon battles are a bit easy (being a Nord gives a 50% frost resistance, so against a frost dragon this is rather handy) but others, particularly named dragons, can be more challenging.

The World

The world is fantastic. It’s massive (it does feel larger, to me, than Oblivion) and the changing landscape adds to the sense of scale. The mountains are often enormous and the game has a number of different climates (snowier in the north and east, forests in other areas, mountains, tundra etc). It is darker in both tone and colour than Oblivion, which fits well, although can make the world a shade gloomier.

Dialogue is improved upon, with people speaking whilst doing things (sharpening a sword on a grindstone, say) and the world continues to move around you. It’s also very similar to Fallout 3, with options that sometimes appear including Intimidate, Bribe, Persuade and Brawl (a bare knuckle fight that doesn’t give you a bounty).

Most of my characters are law-abiding, but Shadowfang’s a murderous bastard and so occasionally got a bounty. It’s rather immersion-breaking to slaughter someone in broad daylight, get caught and then get asked to, er, pay the fine. If you choose to go to jail then you lose the progress you’ve made towards improving one or more skills but the skill level does not decline.

There seem to be more varied points of interest on the map than before. There are often lumber mills, farms, caverns, mines, watchtowers, crypts and Dwemer ruins. On the whole, dungeons tend to be larger and more distinctive than in Oblivion. There are some puzzles, which tend not to be too hard.

There are 9 cities, 5 of which are major and walled and 4 of which are minor. You can buy houses in the major cities, although this does involve jumping through hoops (some of which are not at all obvious), which is more tedious than engaging. The cities themselves are reasonably large and there’s plenty of opportunity for heroic questing/villainous theft.

I’ve not joined every faction, but have done at least a few missions for most of them. The main quest is better than Oblivion’s, and the other factions I’ve joined have had interesting questlines, although the Dark Brother (so far anyway) isn’t quite as brilliant as it was in Oblivion. The civil war’s particularly interesting, as it’s possible to see both sides of the conflict as reasonable.

Exploration is, perhaps obviously, enjoyable, but also more difficult than in Oblivion. Occasionally you’ll come across a creature that will just slaughter you (my first sabre cat took me to pieces) and traversing mountains is more difficult. You can sometimes go up steep slopes but often there are sheer rock cliffs that cannot be climbed. I haven’t come across any “You cannot go any further” messages, as I think the boundaries are marked with mountain ranges, which fits well with the province and is more natural than a message telling you to stop. An exception’s probably made for the far north, but I haven’t tried swimming to the North Pole to find out.

There are many occasions when you either must have or can choose to have a companion (generally I went without) which can be a great help. You can give your companion(s) superior equipment so they last better in the fights, or load them up like a donkey to free up your own inventory.

Graphics

Generally improved from the last instalment, and the faces and water effects are the biggest changes for the better. Dragons look damned good, except for the rare occasions when they talk to you (and I mean talk, not shout) when their size means their snout is practically thrust into your face and all you can see is the end of their snout, which looks a bit rubbish.

Dogs and other creatures also look good, and inventory includes not only every item but also graphical representations of every magic spell and power (a power is either an innate passive advantage a race has, or an activated once-a-day ability, or something of either type that has been acquired through questing, or a temporary bonus).

The draw distance is better than Oblivion. (Draw distance means how far you can see more detailed versions of things like mountains and trees, and see smaller things like grass and little plants at all). However, sometimes I did see rather long-distance crude tree shapes when I should’ve been close enough for the better version. This wasn’t much of an issue for me, though. Looking around at soaring peaks, winding rivers and varied landscapes was excellent throughout.

The spells look a lot nicer, both single-hand and double-handed, and the effects upon enemies, such as burning, is a bit better. Third person is a lot better, but I think the game’s better in the first person (horses, weirdly, can only be ridden in third person).

A word on armour: it’s a lot more varied than in Oblivion, often with multiple varieties of a single material such as steel or leather. It also looks better and some (I can’t say without significant spoilers, alas) looks bloody fantastic.

Sound

I liked Oblivion’s soundtrack, but didn’t love it. However, Skyrim’s is absolutely fantastic, featuring the best game music I’ve heard for a long time. Everyone knows the main theme, which is great and sounds even better when fighting a dragon in-game, but there are also a number of other tracks that add to the experience when doing everyday things like climbing mountains or exploring caves.

Voice-acting is improved upon and there are, thankfully, many more voice actors. Most of them do a good job, and the proper Nordic accents add a lot to the atmosphere, (only for it to be destroyed by a character with a blatant and strong American accent… oh well). There are few duff characters, though, and having played through the early bits a few times I’ve decided the wizard in Whiterun is one of them.

Sound effects are a little better, although this isn’t an area where great improvement can be made.

Bugs and other issues

First of all, bugs and the like I personally encountered:

Freezes –

Infrequent, as I only have four in total to date. Annoying but not game-breaking.

Lag –

Not a reference to the super-lag mentioned above, but your standard slowing. Happens now and then, more so at higher levels or at certain points (the entrance to Whiterun being a prime example). Irksome, not too bad.

Mini-menu lag –

Occasionally it takes a second or two for menus (including the favourites mini-menu) to respond. Happens reasonably often, and it’s a bit tedious.

Arrow of Doom! –

When Shadowfang first acquired some great armour I’d sometimes flit into third person. It was then I noticed he had a bloody arrow sticking out of his head. Dropping arrows didn’t remove it, but thanks to Juhmel on the official Bethesda forum I found the answer: put all your arrows on a corpse and then retrieve what you want. The arrow disappears.

I have not, as yet, experienced the game-breaking lag bug. Apparently it kicks in around when you have save files of 8 or 9MB, and mine are 7.5MB or so. This would be a pretty horrendous bug.

Conclusion

Skyrim is an epic and engaging game featuring a wide range of potential playing styles in terms of combat, morality and race, all of which is backed by a fantastic soundtrack. There are occasional letdowns when it comes to voice-acting, but it’s a league better than Oblivion.

However, the game is a victim of the 11/11/11 release date, and if it’s the case that game-breaking lag begins at around 8MB saves (which I’d guess is level 25 to 30) then that’s a huge problem as it cuts down enormously on the scope of a playthrough.

Based on my own experience, I’d give it 9/10 (would’ve been 9.5 but for the freeze bug and other small issues).

If the game-breaking lag comes in I’d slash that to 6/10. [Reason for not being lower is that it still gives 30 odd hours or more per character. It’s not any higher because the cut-off means you can never have a really high level character or experience the top end armours, dungeons and so forth].

There’s a second patch out shortly, so maybe that’ll address the super-lag. If not, it’s a terrible shame.

Thaddeus

Skyrim: First Impressions

This is a preliminary review based upon a few days’ play. I will give a proper, full review later, but there are certain elements of a game that can easily be reviewed very quickly, and it’ll be a while before I can do a proper review due to the size of the game. The version I’ve got is the PS3 (mine is an old, fat 40GB one). Install size is, contrary to reports, 4.3GB.

My initial character was a lady Nord (my favourite race in Oblivion, so it’s nice to be in their home province) named Asgerd Njalsdottir. I focused upon a primarily warrior approach with a sword and shield. When I write the proper review (which will also cover factions, wider ranging exploration, how the game feels at higher levels and so on) I will also have some experience with a stealthy character and a mage.

Character Creation

Mostly an improvement, although given Oblivion’s character creator was amongst its weakest points this doesn’t mean much. They’ve shifted to a more Dragon Age type system where you get to choose various eye, nose, mouth etc presets and then fiddle with them.

Pleasingly, the spray-on beards have gone. Particularly nice are the options for scars and war paint. However, it’s not all for the better as gone are the RGB options for hair (you get a number of preset colours now), hair length changes (must admit this doesn’t bother me much) and skin colour, where you also have just a few preset options. I’ve not fiddled extensively with all the races, but I’ve got to say that the Argonians and Khajiit have very nice ‘skin’ tones, with the cats able to look like Siberian or Bengal tigers or very dark, almost like black panthers. It’s also great to be able to choose weight/muscle.

Because stats have been thrown overboard, and encumbrance and speed are equal across the races, the racial option is largely cosmetic.

User Interface (menus, conversations, first/third person)

The menu’s pretty user-friendly, although the removal of the ability to see your own character in-menu as you equip or remove items is a step backwards. This can be gotten around by going to the third person and then fiddling (the menu is transparent, so you can see what stuff looks like on your character).

I would’ve preferred a menu that wasn’t quite so generic, however. It’s functional and pretty intuitive, but Oblivion’s was instantly recognisable as a fantasy/historical game menu.

Conversations work in a similar way to Fallout 3, with options to try and intimidate or persuade people, or just beat the crap out of them until your fists make them see reason.

I did play with the third person briefly, and it’s clearly a lot better than Oblivion. Personally, I prefer first person, because I think it fits the game better, but the alternative is now a reasonable option.

Levelling system

The worst thing about Oblivion was the damned levelling system. From what I’ve gathered in a day or two of playing, Skyrim’s is much, much better. Levelling depends upon skill increases, which occur when you use a particular skill or get it trained by an expert, or when you read a skill book. Higher skill increases lead to faster levelling, I think, so a narrow character (like Asgerd) levels more rapidly (she’s level 10 right now).

It’s quite hard to choose between different perks even with an archetype warrior (my only non-Combat skill is lockpicking, which is identical, basically, to Fallout 3). Some have multiple levels (usually 3 or 5) and most require a certain skill level to be acquired. There also appear to be very few ‘dud’ perks. The first time I levelled I didn’t take a perk, because I pressed the ‘back’ button and it closed the menu rather than returning to the constellation list. The use of constellations, incidentally, is simple but excellent and dovetails nicely with the destiny theme of the Dovahkiin.

Combat and crafting

I was surprised by how different melee combat felt compared to Oblivion. As I wrote in an earlier piece on Skyrim, it’s essentially unchanged (except that you can dual-wield now, if you want to). However, you can only really tell the difference when you play the game. Everything’s a little slower, and at first it feels clumsy, but later it becomes more enjoyable because it’s rougher round the edges and more realistic because of it.

There’s been much talk of the finishing moves (which come in first and third person regardless of which you use for playing). Occasionally they can be irksome (like when you’ve got six more people to kill) but sometimes they’re a very satisfying end to the fight, particularly when it’s been close and difficult. There’s nothing better than a miniature scene of you ramming your sword through someone’s torso and reminding them who the Dovahkiin is. On the whole, I think they’re a decent addition.

Being a good Nord, Asgerd’s very into ye olde smithing. It’s the Combat crafting skill and can be used to both improve weapons and armour and create your own, as well as making bits and pieces that can be useful (leather and leather strips, for example). The system’s easy to learn and enjoyable, and really can improve your gear. At level 7 or 8 I improved the damage of my weapon from 11 to 15 using the grindstone, and used some components I had to make a shield that was 5 points of defence better than the one I had equipped.

I haven’t fiddled with alchemy or enchanting yet, but imagine that they’re also not too hard to learn and of great use (my second character will be a Khajiit rogue, so I’ll learn about alchemy then).

Graphics

Better than Oblivion, basically. The biggest difference isn’t with the landscape and plants, better though they are, but with faces and water. Faces are now more varied, especially between races (admittedly, Imperial and Bretons are bloody hard to tell apart) and realistic. The water was a pleasant surprise, and looks great (with the slight exception of rapids, which look not quite so good).

Level/landscape design is greatly improved. Even within the first hour or so it’s clear that the game has more varied regions, with lots of mountainous areas, flat tundra and so on. It’s also worth pausing occasionally and just looking around at the jagged mountains piercing the clouds. Regarding dungeons, they’re distinctive and (on average) larger than those of the predecessor game.

The world is much more alive and active than Oblivion. There are wild goats, deer, rabbits, foxes, fish, chickens and probably more. Wolves are back, as are rather vicious sabre-toothed cats.

Sound

The music is very good, as might be expected and sound effects have been improved upon. Voice-acting’s harder to assess without many hours of gameplay, but I’d say it’s a bit better than Oblivion. What jars is that, initially, there’s a nice effort to go for a Nordic accent by many characters, and then someone appears with a blatant American accent. It’s like The Hunt For Red October where everybody has a Russian accent except for Comrade Connery. However, generally, voice-acting is better than Oblivion. A special mention is deserved by the wizard in Whiterun whose voice actor sounded like he really couldn’t be bothered. I’d like to think the character’s meant to be disinterested (it would fit, as he’s haughty and a pratt) but even the very nice Asgerd wanted to murder the bugger.

Bugs, quibbles and other things that fit nowhere else

After six hours, I had a freeze. Obviously, this was not to my liking, but, at the time of writing, I haven’t had another (touch wood). Occasionally the frame rate could be a little better and there’s sometimes a little tearing, but these two points aren’t major negatives (for me, anyway). I’ve briefly read about others’ experiences and it seems that the freezing has been more common for others, so it might be that the fat 40GB model is luckier (I’ve also turned off auto-saving, as this irritated me and I’m a compulsive saver anyway, and it seemed to work for Dragon Age 2). Incidentally, the first auto-save lasts longer than most and may make you think it’s frozen. It hasn’t (unless it has, obviously. Ahem).

Encumbrance is much much much better. All characters have 300 to start with which is plenty for quite a long time, and increases by 5 every time you improve your stamina at levelling up. Furthermore, weapons and armour seem to weigh a bit less and the absence of degradation means you don’t need spare shields or sword, or repair hammers.

Early conclusion

The freeze pissed me off, but if it’s a rare occurrence or a one-off I can live with it. The game’s enormous, combat feels more dangerous and exciting, there’s a huge range of possibilities and I like it a lot. On the downside is the freeze, some lacklustre voice-acting and, er, I think that’s it.

If the freeze is rare or a one-off I think the game will end up being 9/10.

Thaddeus

Skyrim presets, streaming updates and Sauron’s blog

I’ll begin at the last of those. Recently I came across Sauron’s blog, which is/was an entertaining diary of the evil lighthouse from the first days (well, before the first days, actually) all the way to the arrival of the Numenoreans. Unfortunately, the blog (around five years old) appears to have suddenly died, as the eagle-eyed Mr. Llama pointed out in the comments to the last post. There’s still a twitter feed (http://twitter.com/#!/SauronsBlog) so hopefully it’ll just be a technical issue and Sauron will return to http://www.sauronsblog.com/. If it does return I’ll provide a heads-up here.

Bit disappointing to find a witty blog only for it to disappear shortly thereafter. Still, Sauron does have a habit of coming back.

In happier news, the presets for Skyrim’s races have been revealed. There are 20 for each of the 10 races (half male, half female). People have mixed views about the Dunmer, but the Argonians and Khajiit have been very well-received and the races generally are a substantial step up from Oblivion. I’ll link to a UESP forum thread (I can recommend the forum, incidentally) with links to the full pictures, but I’ll just post a sample of each race/gender here to avoid an overly long loading time.

http://forums.uesp.net/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=24249

As you can see in the picture above, eyes can vary (and can be blind), there’s a wide variety of face paint and scars can be added. In-game character customisation (like in Fallout 3) appears unlikely, but may be added later. Individual races do get specific bonuses (Argonians can still breathe underwater, for example) some of which are passive and others of which are activated.

Luke Skyrimer (on the official forum) made a very nice comparison picture (below), showing how much the faces have evolved from Morrowind and Oblivion to Skyrim.

However, there’s some potentially bad news too. The 11/11/11 release date is set in stone, with Bethesda offering streaming quick fixes to any bugs identified. I’m sure the firm will seek to eliminate any serious bugs prior to release, but this does sound like putting a release date ahead of actually getting the game sorted. Big bugs can sometimes be worked around (the pit stop and research bugs in F1 2010 were both substantial but could be gotten around mostly), so hopefully this won’t disadvantage people (like me) who don’t have an internet connection for their console.

There may also be some release date DLC, which is a pet hate of mine. If it’s ready for the release date, it should be part of the game. It’s like a surcharge for spoons when you buy a cutlery set.

Those grumbles aside, Skyrim looks fantastic and promises a better levelling system, greater customisation and an even more in-depth game than Oblivion.

To kill the time between now and the release date I’ll be getting Chris Wooding’s The Iron Jackal (Tales of the Ketty Jay), which is out in October, and may make a start with volumes 4-6 of Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Thaddeus

Skyrim: updated info and Dunmer and Argonian screenshots

After a drought of new information, there’s been a little from the recent QuakeCon. For those after screenshots of races other than orc and khajiit there’s a new one released by Betheseda of a dark elf thief (which I’ve trimmed down and put below), and the journalists who got to play the game will each get a screenshot of the characters they made (one of which is an Argonian).

The dunmer is definitely less human and better than its Oblivion counterpart, but I prefer the orc and khajiit. However, my dark elf characters are usually female so we’ll have to see what they look like.

Naturally mini-spoilers abound below, so if you want to go into the game totally unaware of what awaits you, better stop reading here.

Skyrim is split between those loyal to the Empire and Stormcloak rebels, who are a faction that can be joined.

When doing character creation the creator remembers your settings, so if you make a khajiit and move away then return your khajiit creation will be waiting for you. There are tons of creation options (I’ve previously mentioned facepaint and so forth, but two new ones is that dark elves, and maybe others, can have eyes of different colours and laughter lines can be added).

Crafting an item is a six-stage process, and alchemy occurs with a lab.

As with Fallout 3, there are travelling merchants, who set up camps along riverbanks.

Companions (similar to Fallout 3) exist, including animal companions.

There’s a mysterious black door which sounds reminiscent of the Dark Brotherhood’s hideout in Oblivion. It’s probably them, but some reckon it might involve vampires.

Last but not least, here’s a rather good spliced together Skyrim theme, created by smeagol92055:

Thaddeus

Update 12^th August:

The journalist screenshots are now being released. I’m not going to post them all now, but as the Argonian has been eagerly anticipated I thought I’d put it up. (For those wondering, she’s Lizzle-Bob, created by the Destructoid journalist, and I got the picture from the excellent UESP forum):

For what it’s worth, I think the Argonian looks bloody fantastic.

Skyrim: new gameplay video

A new 7 minute video of Skyrim gameplay has emerged. Huzzah! The video and some interesting observations are below, so if you’re wanting to minimise spoilers you should probably stop reading now.

The video is on the Xbox 360.

The third person protagonist seems to have more fluent movement, making that style of play (as opposed to the first person default) a real option rather than a slightly clunky poor relation.

The video also showed the combination of two identical spells (one per hand), which yields a more potent result together than singly. Staves are shown to be one-handed, so you can have a staff in one hand and a blade in the other.

Giants herding woolly mammoths (peaceful, unless you try murdering them) and a number of dragon fights are shown. The dragons look fantastic, and are dynamic in the world, attacking not only the player but other NPCs as well. Dragons are included throughout the game (not right at the beginning, but thereafter). Sometimes multiple dragons must be fought at once.

Landscapes included in the video are an alpine forest area, a snowy mountain and tundra. There will be seven major regions of climatic difference.

Todd Howard stated that the game has at least 300 hours in it. I suspect blogging may be light in November.

Main factions are:

College of Winterhold, for mages

Companions, for warriors

Thieves Guild

Although not in the video I’ve read elsewhere that the Dark Brotherhood make a return. I certainly hope so, as those quests were the best in Oblivion, in my opinion.

More than 150 dungeons confirmed as being in the game.

So, lots of nice footage and juicy info. I’ll leave you with a new screenshot, of a giant herding mammoths (naturally, it’s owned by Bethesda Softworks).

Thaddeus

Early preview: Skyrim

There are just under six months to go until Skyrim’s released, but there’s already quite a lot of interesting info to chew over. Unlike Dragon Age, which had a very fast (too fast, in fact) sequel, the follow-up to the epic Oblivion has been a long time coming. Oblivion came out in 2006, and has been one of the defining games of the RPG genre and the latest generation of consoles/PCs. It sold in droves, deservedly so, but was not without flaws. So, how will Skyrim compare and contrast to its illustrious predecessor? 

Size matters: Oblivion was pretty damned big. In terms of area, Skyrim will be very similar, but will seem a bit larger because it’s very mountainous, making certain areas more inaccessible and, effectively, further away. General approach: Pretty similar, if you’ve played Oblivion or Fallout 3 it should be very easy to get up to speed. Single player, first person by default (the third person has been improved if you opt for that), free-roaming, tons of side-quests and a huge number (120 plus) of dungeons.

Ten races: Happily, we get the full 10 races of Oblivion back. These include the human grouping (Nords, Redguards, Bretons and Imperials), the elves (Dark, High, Wood) and the beasts (Argonian, Orc and Khajiit). Early

screenshots of an Orc and Khajiit have emerged, and they look significantly better than their Oblivion counterparts.

Sound: The same composer from Oblivion has returned, and the trailer music sounds pretty damned good. Very little info is out about voice actors right now, although it has been confirmed that Swedish actor Max von Sydow will play an important character.

Two hands, two weapons: Oblivion had a typical weapon set-up, whereby you could have a one-hander and a shield or a two-hander, and always had a spell ‘open’, as it were. Skyrim will allow players to have two one-handed weapons, or two spells (one per hand), or one spell and one one-handed weapon. 

Archery is improved: Early on in Oblivion it was great being a stealth archer. You could kill or seriously injure opponents with one shot but later on in the game it became less enjoyable as opponents survived the initial stealth attack and then hit you in the face with an axe. It sounds like Skyrim will give a bonus to attacks from stealth, with different levels of alertness (from oblivious to the enemy staring right at you) offering higher bonuses. Arrows will be more powerful but fewer in number. 

Levelling: A pet hate of mine was the loathsome Oblivion levelling system. It was overly complicated, and any levelling system that can lead to your character becoming progressively weaker (in relative terms) is clearly flawed. The Skyrim system sounds simpler and more sensible, and will include a number (280, to be precise) of skill-related perks, like in Fallout 3. I believe that perks are attainable based on how proficient you are in a given skill, rather than just what level you are.I’ve not gone off games, but my enthusiasm for them has waned a little over the years. However, Skyrim is one that I am very much looking forward to, and hopefully it’ll be even better than Oblivion.

Thaddeus