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sea's (Mostly Technical) Skyrim Initial Impressions

sgc_meltdown

Arcane
Joined
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Remember to post your hate mail here
 

Trash

Pointing and laughing.
Joined
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29,683
Location
About 8 meters beneath sea level.
Ah, not only is the UI terribad it's also rather bugged. Especially if you have a gamepad connected which means that sometimes you have to switch from keyboard to gamepad and back to get the controlls working again. Apart from that I'm having some mild fun with this Oblivion 2.0. Mainly with the dungeons and the enjoyable hiking but apart from that a big meh. I lost interest in the ES games after Daggerfall and this isn't likely to rekindle it. Still, unlike Oblivion it does not immediately fill me with a feeling of boredom. Meh.

CK2 is brill btw. ;)
 

Castanova

Prophet
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sea said:
My Skyrim impressions:

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/EricSchw ... C_Game.php

You may notice I don't talk about the actual game much. That's because I spent most of my time tweaking INI files and trying to figure out which parts of the interface work and which ones don't.

Nice article. One inaccuracy, though -- you can change the FOV in one of the .ini file. It's the one in "My Documents" (not the one in the steam folder).
 

sea

inXile Entertainment
Developer
Joined
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Messages
5,698
Well everyone else was posting their opinions, didn't meant to derail or take over things. Apologies if I gave that impression.
 

thesisko

Emissary
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Messages
354
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2
sea said:
That's right, the first time you boot up Skyrim, you won't be afforded the luxury of using the mouse to start the game - you'll have to use the arrow keys like a schmuck.


Hold on - you based your impressions on a pirated copy? :lol:
 

hanssolo

Educated
Joined
Apr 28, 2010
Messages
863
sea said:
My Skyrim impressions:

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/EricSchw ... C_Game.php

You may notice I don't talk about the actual game much. That's because I spent most of my time tweaking INI files and trying to figure out which parts of the interface work and which ones don't.

This is great, thanks for the effort. I particularly like the linked comment by Hines talking about driver/hardware issues making PC's a problem platform. It's like we're still living in a time before ATI and Nvidia ate all their siblings.
 

msxyz

Augur
Joined
Jun 5, 2011
Messages
296
I played all the tutorial dungeon till the end.

First, the PC requirements published are way too high. If you disable blur and set shadows to high, a computer that can play Oblivion can also play Skyrim. Duh, the engine is almost the same.

At any rate, on my 3 years old Core Duo 3GHz with a GeForce9800 1GB I can play at full detail (except those two settings I mentioned) at a decent 1360x768 (the max my plasma TV can take).

Onto the game, them...

The UI is atrocious... I cannot even say consolized because I've seen much better interfaces on console game restricted to a game pad. Graphics look like Oblivion 2.0 (somewhate better but nothing earth shattering) sound AND voices are good.

Elves are ungly, but in a good way... they look alienish, totally distant from the usualt LOTR/D&D cliches

The game is pretty (sub) standard H&S... Fights with multiple enemies still remain a bit messy and I don't think I'm really in control of my character. In doubt, spam click on everything that moves on the screen.

It seems that Bethesda has changed a few aspects (some spells removed, enchanting mechanics reworked, perk system) in an attempt to balance skills and prevent too powerful characters or easy exploits. The verdict on that is still open... I'm only level 3 and it's too early to say how the new system will work out.

Overall, first impression is positive... for a Bethesda game. I still have to assess the new scaling system. In Oblivion, scaling was probably the single worst feature that made the game unplayable for me after a few hour sunken into it.
 

Andyman Messiah

Mr. Ed-ucated
Joined
Jan 27, 2004
Messages
9,933
Location
Narnia
My impressions so far: JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ON A KANGAROO SMOKING HARDENED SHIT OUT OF HUGH HEFNER'S RIPPED OFF SHRIVELED UP MUMMY DICK I WANT TO MURDER EVERYONE AT BETHESDA WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS FUCKING GARBAGE

Review coming soon. It might be majestic.
 

sea

inXile Entertainment
Developer
Joined
May 3, 2011
Messages
5,698
thesisko said:
sea said:
That's right, the first time you boot up Skyrim, you won't be afforded the luxury of using the mouse to start the game - you'll have to use the arrow keys like a schmuck.


Hold on - you based your impressions on a pirated copy? :lol:
I'm pretty sure it's because Xbox 360 controller is switched on by default.
 
Joined
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Villainville
MCA
Not removed from the inventory but I'm too busy playing Majestic Popamole 3. It's shit. But levels look crazy good. Always have. Somebody gotta hire Infinity Ward / Treyarch / Whatever people and put them to designing the game world in an RPG. Without the corridors, of course.
 

Tel Velothi

Cipher
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May 12, 2011
Messages
828
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beneath a lonely desert sun
It random crashes on me after 5-10 mins.

Andyman Messiah said:
My impressions so far: JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ON A KANGAROO SMOKING HARDENED SHIT OUT OF HUGH HEFNER'S RIPPED OFF SHRIVELED UP MUMMY DICK I WANT TO MURDER EVERYONE AT BETHESDA WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS FUCKING GARBAGE

Maybe I should be glad.
 

hoopy

Savant
Joined
Oct 12, 2011
Messages
1,547
Location
Suspended in a ghost jail
Mastermind said:
Someone take a hit for the team and play an archer.
I've been doing almost nothing but archery and it's still difficult to hit targets. The arrows arc in a strange way and it's hard to see where they land. Being forced to use a gamepad doesn't help either.
 

thesisko

Emissary
Joined
Jan 3, 2011
Messages
354
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2
sea said:
I'm pretty sure it's because Xbox 360 controller is switched on by default.

360 controller boxed is checked. Main menu works fine with a mouse and I can exit the load menu by clicking on any of the other menu options.

The first leaked version had really buggy menus, are you sure that's not the one you're reviewing? :P
 

sgc_meltdown

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2003
Messages
6,000
Andyman Messiah said:
Review coming soon
Zy2BA.gif
 

AlaCarcuss

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 6, 2008
Messages
1,335
Location
BrizVegas, Australis Penal Colony
Excidium said:
I don't think that's much incline when the game is designed with the compass in mind, do NPCs even give you full directions?

Yes, as a matter of fact. On picking up a quest or learning about a new area from an NPC, there is usually an option added to dialogue selection like "Where can I find....".

Select this and the NPC with give you detailed directions on where to go. That's incline right there.

Haters gonna hate, that's the codex way. Yes, if you look hard enough you're going to find all sorts of retarded shit - the UI being perhaps the worst of them. Look too closely at the ground/trees/textures and you'll see the flaws. Radiant AI is as retarded as ever... etc..etc...etc....

That's not playing the game though - that's analysing it through a microscope. Taken as a whole, it's pretty good fun - the exploration aspect is great and dungeon crawling is a real blast with traps, puzzles, some pretty tough enemies and generally good design. No cut'n'pasta here that I've seen so far - and some dungeons are fucking huge!

But anyway, carry on... I've go some faces to melt with my dual wield flame spells.... :salute:
 

Eyeball

Arcane
Joined
Sep 3, 2010
Messages
2,541
So far for me, this game is Oblivion with a return to the stupider Morrowind spellcasting and more SHIIIIINE! Seriously, my eyes hurt just playing this game for an hour, why is everything so damn shiny?!

I laughed hard at the new stat system - perk trees? Go eat a dick, you fucks, this is not first-person WoW.

The most telling sign of how half-assed this game is are the books. The books in this game are copied. From. Morrowind. No new books, they are copied. The Wolf Queen, the Real Barenziah, they are all here, but there are far fewer of them now. "Oh, we wanted to pay homage to a great classi- " No, fuck you, you wanted to add spice to the gameworld without doing any fucking work for it, you assholes.

So yeah, GOTY, 10/10 so far. Will have to play more to comment on how story and the more elaborate game mechanics actually function, but at least the Nordic Wastelands are more interesting to fuck around in than Generic Fantasyland from Oblivion, although what they SHOULD have done was of course to return to the strange and amazing art and creatures like Morrowind had.
 

Mastermind

Cognito Elite Material
Patron
Bethestard
Joined
Apr 15, 2010
Messages
21,144
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
After playing for a few hours:

1. This feels nothing like Oblivion. Fuck all the faggots who can't tell the difference. It feels like a somewhat improved Dark Messiah, only without kicking enemies into spikes.
2. The UI is indeed atrocious and someone should be shot for putting a console UI on the PC. And this is coming from someone who had no problem with the oblivion UI.
3. The game is fun to play and the environments look very well, as do the dungeons. As far as hiking sims go, I expect it to surpass morrowind.

I'm not that far into it so it remains to be seen how the gameplay evolves.
 

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