Hour 0: Picked up my copy of Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The game is a sword-and-sorcery fantasy set in the nation of Skyrim. Like most American role-playing games, Elder Scrolls allows you to customize the playable character. In fact, it gives you an incredible number of options when designing your digital avatar, including race, gender, and every minute detail of your face. I’m going to take my time and make sure that my avatar reflects the heroic Inner Me.
Hour 1: Fuck it. After spending an ungodly amount of time adjusting the size of my digital eyebrows, I’m forced to acknowledge that Inner Me looks like an asshole. I’ll just go with the default character design.
Hour 2: Killed a dragon. That was awesome. Also killed a merchant by accident. That was not quite as awesome, but fun nonetheless. I then spent several hours just wandering around and killing stuff. It’s the American Way.
Hour 5: This game is big and beautiful. There are rugged mountains, lush valleys, and vast forests containing the occasional cave or village. And there are countless non-playable characters (NPCs) to interact with. In general, the population of Skyrim is heavily armed, suspicious of outsiders, and hostile to the central government. So Skyrim is basically West Virginia without the strip clubs.
Hour 10: The main quest is rather dull. Even the stunt-casting of Maximilian Von Sydow can’t hide the fact that this is a third-rate rip off of Tolkien. Fortunately, the game has no shortage of side quests. Every person I talk to seems to need my help with something. And I can join up with the various factions (warriors, mages, thieves, and assassins), each of which has their own storyline unrelated to the main quest.
Hour 20: Between all the caves, ruins, crypts, cities, factions, and random dragon attacks, I’m starting to feel a bit overwhelmed. I have a backlog of about 50 quests I haven’t had time to get to. I’ve completely forgotten what the main quest was about. I vaguely recall some “good vs. evil – fate of the world” bullshit.
Hour 40: I’ve come to the conclusion that mages and warriors are boring. All the cool kids are thieves. Plus, you save so much money by simply taking things instead of buying them.
Hour 60: I decide to get married. In Skyrim, marriage consists of putting on an amulet that indicates you’re single, then asking the first person you meet to marry you. The marriage has no emotional significance, since the spouse has only three standard lines of dialogue. On the plus side, she does bake you a pie every day. But there’s no divorce option, so the only way to end a marriage is murder.
Hour 70: I’ve completed all the warrior quests, the entire main quest, and over one hundred side quests. I’ve lost track of the number of dungeons I’ve explored. I’ve “divorced” my wife, earned a title of nobility in six different regions, and purchased homes in three towns. I’m barely halfway done with this insane game.
Hour 90: The Dark Brotherhood (assassin) storyline more than make up for the tedious main quest. It’s so wonderfully vicious. I kill a bard just for being bad at his job. I murder an innocent woman on her wedding day. I assassinate the emperor and then kill the guy who hired me to assassinate the emperor. What does it say about me that I enjoying snuffing out lives more than saving the world? Perhaps it says I’m a bad person, but I prefer to think of myself as a free spirit who won’t be bound by society’s arbitrary rules.
Hour 1o0: Sweet Jesus, I’ve been playing this game for weeks and I still have 20 more quests to finish. I’m going to finish this last set of quests for the Thieves Guild and then I’m done …
Hour 120: Okay, I finished all the faction quests, city quests, the civil war quest, and the main quest. I’ve purchased every home, and acquired a title of nobility in every region. So now I’m going to explore the last few crypts, and then I’m done…
Hour ???: I’ve gotta hand it to Bethesda Games, they make good crack. But I’m burned out. The only way to keep feeding this addiction would be a second playthrough, and … no. I can’t do that shit. I’m done. I’m over it. I’ve had my moment of clarity and I’m moving on with my life. Unless Bethesda provides some downloadable content. Then maybe just one more taste.
Still not quite sure why everyone seems to spend 120+ hours playing this. I’m pretty sure I’m the target demographic, but isn’t it all a bit…boring? It takes the whole high fantasy world a bit too seriously to just be a bit of fun (except when its unintentionally hilarious – like the marriage thing), and however many storylines there are, they’re all tedious enough that there’s no appeal in tackling them beyond avoiding the existential despair that occurs when you realise you’ve spent an hour of your life walking up a virtual mountain to look at the virtual scenery while sitting in a room with your curtains closed. I played it for a few hours, blew up a village by accident, then wandered off and never thought of it again.
Now, Bastion on the other hand…
I didn’t really like Bastion that much. The art design was attractive, but the gameplay was repetitive. And the “dynamic narration” gimick couldn’t sustain it for me.
My take on Elder Scrolls is that it remains closely rooted to the origins of RPGs in tabletop games like D&D. And like those tabletop games, Elder Scrolls is only as fun as you’re willing to make it. For example, I liked the Dark Brotherhood quest, but it only gets really good if you plan out elaborate ways to (over)kill your targets. I killed one guy by launching a cow at him.
I’ll concede that, overall, I prefer games that devote more time to plot and character, or have a sense of humor. But those tend to be few and far between.
Mmm, I just don’t see the point of games which allow me to ‘make my own adventure’. I can do that anyway. Though probably without the lethal cow attacks.
Not that I played, but didn’t D&D players demand decent storylines to play? I thought that GTA and Saints Row showed the two ways the ‘sandbox’ games were going: you either go back to cinematic story driven stuff, or go into really overblown tongue in cheek fun mode. Skyrim is just sat in a really awkward middle bit for me.
Bring back Planescape Torment.
I like that HU now caters to the whole range of my geeky instincts.
I played D&D only briefly when I was about 11 years old, but I definitely don’t remember anything resembling a decent storyline.
I like GTA well enough, never really cared for Saints Row. I really, really enjoyed Red Dead Redemption and L.A. Noire. I’d say I enjoyed both those games more than Skyrim. Dragon Age is less open-ended, but it has a better story, better characters, and more humor.
So Skyrim isn’t anywhere near my favorite game, but I suppose where we differ is that I can find things to enjoy in a game even when the story is weak. YMMV, of course.
Dungeons and Dragons was about the mythical storyline over the rainbow, I think. There was always this teasing hope that you’d actually achieve narrative, but for the most part the actual game experience involved thuggishly killing whatever wandered into your path and taking its gold.
That sounds like the D&D from my youth, except my experience was mostly getting killed rather than killing (I wasn’t a big fan of the game).
For better or worse, most electronic RPGs have followed in D&D’s footsteps. But in recent years, RPGs have tried to branch out from the killing by adding more quests or tasks that don’t require violence. But violent confrontation still remains the centerpiece of gameplay.
Richard — Thanks for all of the interesting poop about Skyrim. I’ve been toying with the idea of buying it, but have yet to pull the trigger, so to speak. Interestingly enough, a friend of mine just mentioned to me that his son was playing it, and that, if his son ever finishes it, he’d let try out the game using their copy. He earlier let me try out “Assissin’s Creed II,” which wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t something I felt I had to finish.
Earlier this week, I was within an eyelash of buying “Alan’s Wake” at a Best Buy, but stuck it back on the shelf. It was the limited edition version, and it was priced at $47. I’m thinking about going back today so I can start playing it this weekend.
I enjoyed and completed the Rock Star games “Red Dead Redemption,” “Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare,” and “L.A. Noire,” so when I saw “Grand Theft Auto IV” for $20, I finally decided to try one of the GTA series games. A looong time ago, my youngest daughter — who was about 17 at the time — called me into her room and said she was playing a great video game. I Think it was either GTA I or II, and I watched her play it for a few minutes. When she started racking up points for running over innocent pedestrians, I said something like, “What a terrible game,” and walked out. In the current version, you don’t get points, per se, for running over pedestrians, but you can run them over, stop, and then jump out and pick up the cash bundles that occasionally fall out of their pockets. I avoid this, because it just doesn’t seem right to run over innocent pedestrians for money — especially since there are plenty of other ways to rack up cash as (ahem) a car thief, hitman, drug runner, or enforcer. Ah, yes. GTA is just such a charming game. It’s comforting to know that what I like to call “GTA morality” is slowly replacing those stuffier, more traditional, and less cool forms of morality us old farts grew up with.
Hey Russ. You might enjoy Alan Wake. It’s about astruggling writer fighting demonic forces. It’s decent pulp. If the special edition comes with all the DLC (downloadable content), then $47 is a fair price.
I don’t really agree that GTA morality is actually replacing traditional, “killing is bad” morality. I doubt your daughter is a sociopath, and I don’t see any statistical evidence that there’s been an uptick in violent crime (quite the opposite in fact).
I think the appeal of GTA is the same as the appeal of gangster films or slashers. Even decent, law-abiding citizens can feel the need to indulge in virtual sadism (Noah talks about a similar phenomenon in his review of “Breaking Bad” today).
On a side note, while Rock Star funded LA Noire it was produced by a smaller company, Team Bundi. Unfortunately, Bundi went out of business so we’ll probably never get a sequel.
Richard — I knew I should’ve bought “Alan’s Wake” yesterday when I had the chance. It was the last one, and during lunch today, I went back to buy it and it was gone. Oh, well. Ya snooze, ya lose…