Ben said:
I love Zelda and will probably hate Skyrim Phil >__<
If it's anything like Oblivion, that made me want to die.
Although, haha, rim.
LOL! Yeah, probably true. I never played Oblivion though, or any other Elder Scrolls games so I couldn't tell you how it compares. I tried Fallout and found it laborious and a chore, yet Skyrim just works...
Ploddish said:
Phil, I think they're different sides of the same coin. Zelda doesn't really let you stray off the path too much, with there not being that much content besides fetch quests and the like, whereas Skyrim has whole arcs of plot contained in cities that you don't ever need to visit on the main quest. I absolutely love that you are able to do *absolutely anything you like* 10 minutes after the game has started, so much so that one of the writers of rockpapershotgun has spent 50+ hours on it, and hasn't seen a single dragon.
I think it's "rich". After a while, you think "I've done this dungeon before, and been down this corridor, and I'm about to get attacked by dead people from here..." kind of thing. It's obvious and repetitive, only...
The way the game allows you to play the way you want to play changes it completely. You find a grove that works for you and go with it. Do you sneak and use light armour but great big weapons to kill in a single stroke? Wade in heavily armoured with shots from a bow and a follow up with sword and shield? Use double magic? Double singe handed swords? As you say Ploddish, the freedom that adds richness to the gameplay. That's compounded then by the fact that just as you think it's yet another dungeon grind, the story arc you sit in throws you completely off. There's a greater story you're suddenly involved in, and the way you approach it has to change on the fly, and it allows it so fluidly, it's superb.
Minor_Furie is playing it without using any magic! How the hell is he doing that? But it's how the game works for him.
Then yes, there's the game world and story richness. The sheer scale of the game is unreal. So many story arcs criss-crossing, everyone with their own tale to tell (and an almost decent amount of taped on conversation pieces for the drones) and so many ways to just waste your time in the wilderness making up your own stuff to do. Fancy becoming a mammoth hunter today? Why not? Just watch out for the giants guarding the herd!
So yeah, it's just huge, but that wouldn't work unless the controls and action system held together too and they do. The menuing is a little clunky at times, but you have so much to work on (left and right hands for both weapons and magic, armouring, shouts, scrolls, potions, etc) that it works as well as it could do.
It's a grind, but the combat system melds to you, rather than you trying to shoehorn into it. It reminds me of both the original Thief and Deus Ex, only with the scale of a GTA game - this is a long way from a bad thing
