The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Muito bom

Received PS3 version

Bethesda has a pedigree of great games; the entire Elder Scrolls series, going back 17 years to Arena, were all great games not just in their time but even today. Fallout 3 in 2008 showed that Bethesda had some versatility in them as well, making another amazing game with a completely different fictional universe. Suffice it to say, all of this made sure the hype was BIG for a game like Skyrim–the game that’s been giving gamers boners since it was announced at the 2010 VGAs.

Tamriel, the continent on which Skyrim takes place, is a world that just begs to be explored. The most fun in Skyrim is searching every nook and cranny in a house, or walking across a green plain. 20-30 hours of the 90 total I have spent in the game have been poking around someone’s house, in a cave or inspecting each new landscape. While Skyrim has a lot of great content, the best content is the “blank content”: that random stuff you wind up doing even if you had no intention to, like chasing butterflies, hunting deer, or just walking along admiring the clouds. It’s not completely unlimited, but can easily last dozens of hours if you let it.

Shifting attention from the screen to the controller, controls are solid–walking and basic movement feel floaty, but not as much as before. Sneaking is slightly better with the new detection reticle but enemy AI, in my experience, has screwed up most sneaking opportunities time and time again. Combat is decent–Bethesda added in weight (or at least the illusion of weight) to make it feel more realistic and dynamic. Characters stagger, you carry through powerful swings, etc. HOWEVER, combat is still clunky–sometimes I wonder if my character is swinging a sword or a tree trunk.

The developers also created a quick menu system, where you can select certain items from your inventory to place in a menu that can be summoned in the middle of battle with the press of a button. This makes it easier to switch weapons in the heat of the moment. It works decently, although once you start to put too much in it, it defeats the point; a couple, maybe three or four items in there are fine, but once you favorite more than that it can get confusing. Since the number of items you can put in this quick menu is high, many times I find myself favoriting 10-15 things that I use at least somewhat frequently and I get overwhelmed when I freeze a battle with a Draugr Deathlord to find that enchanted ebony sword.

Of course, if you want to make a powerful weapon smithing is a great way to do it. It can be a bit tough to get a hang of. It’s not a perfect system; but improving weapons is fun, well-designed and rewarding. Since I have to acquire the hardware to make/improve weapons and armor I feel more invested in what I create or upgrade. Overall, it adds depth to items and gameplay; however, it’s a bit unbalanced because if you just make iron daggers over and over again you can get 100 skill in smithing in no time.

Unlike forging weapons, I Haven’t played around too much with enchanting them. However, it seems a bit counter intuitive that I have to sacrifice an enchanted item in order to learn & use an enchantment. There could definitely be better ways to learn and more importantly EARN enchantments.

Unfortunately, I haven’t touched alchemy at all.

However, I have experienced a lot of dragon battles, and they are fun. They can be a bit hard to kill in the air as they move around a lot and when they are on the ground their tail lashing and fire breathing can be deadly. However, once you’re powerful enough this shouldn’t become a problem. Once you kill one, you get a dragon soul and can spend that on a “word of power” which is basically a special ability. I’m not sure if the dragon encounters are completely random; there are spots on the map where there is one of those shrines with the dragon writing on them and usually dragons can be found there; I guess its done so that you can get learn a new word of power to spend on a dragon soul. I think I recall a couple random dragons no where near words of power.

Graphically, the game looks great. It isn’t groundbreaking, but overall the world is beautiful. Textures look amazing at mid-range and long distances, but the quality degrades a bit as you get up close (however this is to be expected). Character models look ten times better than in oblivion, but overall are average or above average when compared to other games. Certain characters look a lot better than others and most NPC’s still stare at you but at least they’re not the death stares from oblivion.

The game has beautiful vistas, and standing on top of a mountain looking down at the green valleys spreading around me in every direction is simply one of the most serene and majestic moments I’ve had in a game in a long time. The atmosphere is absolutely engrossing and amazing.

Skyrim obviously has it’s own feel, and the architecture for each city/town is part of this. The buildings in each settlement feel different enough so that you can tell where you are from the structures, but they are similar enough so that you always know you’re in the cold, harsh lands of Skyrim.

Audio wise, Skyrim is thorough and detailed. Your feet crunch in the snow and the clanking of hammer on steel when you walk by a forge is very well done. The music is BEAUTIFUL–the orchestrated soundtrack is full of awesome moments and great sound. I’m definitely going to buy it when it comes out in itunes. Every time the main theme comes on I feel like I AM the dragonborn and I am a hero and I can do anything.

Skyrim oozes atmosphere–from the sound of a fox panting as it runs by you to the blue sky above you, the game oozes quality and personality. When you’re in a cave you feel creeped, when you’re in an inn standing by the fire you feel as if you could sit back in one of the old creaky wooden chairs, close your eyes and relax as you listen to the bards sing songs of legend and tales of yore.

On smaller note, the menus are good too. They seem more natural, look cleaner and are presented better than in Oblivion or Morrowind. When you’re looking at your skills, they are set against the backdrop of constellations; each new perk is a new star in that constellation. It’s a clever twist on how to present skill trees to the player, and I appreciate the effort. When you are shuffling through items in your inventory, you can see the model for each and even examine it up close. Spells are even drawn and animated.

Story wise, I have completed the main quest, the storm cloak questline and the Companion’s quest line. I have completed the first few quests for the college of winterhold (which is the Skyrim equivalent of the mages guild) and the dark brotherhood; I have only begun to dabble in the thieves’ guild and have completed 7 side quests and 50 miscellaneous tasks.

The narratives for the 5 major questlines are well-written; they are not Pulitzer-prize winning quality, of course, but they still succeed in engaging me with plot twists and at times even emotional weight. Character development doesn’t occur too much; must characters stay flat but in the end that’s ok. If someone is a goofball, they remain a goofball. If someone likes to kill things, that’s pretty much all there is to them.

What these characters say is realistic, memorable or a mixture of the two; the writers definitely did a superb job with most dialogue.

HOWEVER, Skyrim definitely has some technical issues; this game, like every Bethesda game, is riddled with bugs. Most are silly, stupid ones, but some can get in the way of the game itself and in some cases can actually break the game, such as the FPS stutter glitch on PS3, where the game would slow down to a few frames per second when a save file got too big. The vast majority of players haven’t experienced this, however, so at least these aren’t wide-spread issues.

Overall, I have really enjoyed Skyrim. At the time of this review, I have spent 80 hours with my main character and about 10 hours with my secondary character; that equals 90 hours spent in this game and quite frankly I probably have only gotten through about 50% of the content. But, then again, like I said before, the best content is the blank content–and you can’t put an hour timer on that.

This is the type of game that you spend hundreds of hours in. This speaks volumes in itself–obviously, if a player is willing to dedicate several work weeks of their time to a game, it means that it oozes quality and is really fun to play. Only the average combat, blank NPC stares and the technical issues hold this game back from being a true masterpiece–however, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a beautifully crafted work of art.

First and foremost, I have to give props to the art department at Bethesda. The art direction for this game is so far above earlier titles that even comparing them to this game is utterly pointless. Its literally in a class by itself and this is evident everywhere you look. The most obvious and impressive improvement has to be the design of the clothing, armor and weapons. The intricate designs are truly breathtaking. Even the cheap equipment you first start off with is stunning. For example, one of the first shields your introduced to in the game is the Hide Shield and its absolutely beautiful. Large metal rivets circle the outer diameter and intricate designs adorn the leather. It even has the dents and nicks one would expect to see from a shield that has seen its fair share of battle. This attention to detail is seen everywhere and it goes right down to the bindings of the books and the crackle glazed dishes and pottery found adorning most tables and halls. When you add this to the significant improvement in graphics….well, what you get is a level of realism that simply blows earlier titles out of the water. This is hands down the best art direction I have ever seen from a video game and ultimately it gives this world a level of realism that we simply haven’t seen before.

The world itself is absolutely beautiful. One of the first open scenes I came across was a large flowing river that had huge rocks jetting up creating white water/rapids. Large mountains were in the background with wisps of clouds running all up and down the side of the mountain. It was absolutely stunning. I had to just stop and stare for a few moments. The draw distance has been significantly increased and the detail, as I wrote up above, is amazing. The landscape itself is just one big work of art. Traveling around and discovering the land for yourself has always been one of the big enjoyments for fans of this series. Well, Skyrim doesn’t disappoint in this regard. In fact, this is easily the best title yet in regards to this aspect of the game. No other game series can compete with the size and scope of the worlds that Bethesda creates for this series and no other game in the Elder Scrolls series even comes close to matching what Bethesda has achieved this time around with Skyrim. They have significantly leapfrogged anything and everything they have done in the past.

An issue I feel compelled to discuss is the huge improvement with the 3rd person perspective in this game. As I am sure people are aware, 3rd person perspective in Oblivion was pretty bad. Actually, it was awful. You could switch over for short periods but the game was pretty much unplayable from that perspective. Well, the improvement Bethesda has made in this aspect of the game is nothing short of amazing. Your character no longer looks like he is walking on air and your easily able to interact with your environment. Basically this game is now wholly playable from this perspective. I prefer playing in 3rd person perspective when I am just traveling around and its just really nice to see Bethesda finally take the proper steps to fix this aspect of this series. If your going to include it than at least make it playable and Bethesda has done just that.

You can immediately tell that this is an Elder Scrolls game but dont let that fool you. There are a lot of changes behind Skrim. One of the most obvious changes is with the skill system. The skills themselves are pretty much the same. You have Alchemy, Illusion, Conjuration, Destruction, Restoration, Alteration, Enchanting, Heavy Armor, Light Armor, Block, One Handed, Two Handed, Archery, Sneak, Lockpicking, Pickpocket, Speech and a new one Smithing. The big difference lies in the fact that you now have specialty skills for each skill category and there are multiple branching paths one can take. For example, the Stealth skill has two different branches that one can take, one that focuses on stealth (Muffled Movement, Light Foot, Silent Roll, ect.) and one that focuses on blade skills (Backstab, Deadly aim, and Assassins blade). This ultimately adds a significant amount of depth to character progression and it also adds to the games re-playability factor as there are now so many different avenues one can take. On top of this there are no longer character classes. You still have the different races of character to choose from but choosing a class is history. What kind of character you become (Spellcaster, Fighter etc.) is solely dependent on the skills you choose to upgrade or in other words its dependent on how you play your character. Personally I love this new system as it doesn’t lock you into a specific mold for your character and it leaves everything open for you to explore. Its just a far more organic system and ultimately I think its a significant step forward for this series in regards to character development.

Another big change is with the menu system and this is easily one of the best changes made in this game. The new menu system is just far more intuitive. Basically the menu system has been broken down into 4 distinct categories. There is Skills, Items, Map, and Magic. You have to press the menu button to access the menu but once you do that, you no longer need to press buttons. Simply press the left stick in the direction of the menu you want and it automatically changes. Once you have done this, a new subsystem of selections will come up and pressing the left stick to the right will take you to the next menu and so on. No button pressing needed. Basically the left thumb stick controls all of your movements within the menu system, with no button pressing needed. I may not have described it very well but its hands down one of the best menu systems I have ever used. Again, its just a far more intuitive system and it just has a great feel to it. You never leave the main screen when accessing menu’s. It just blurs out a bit and acts as a background to the menus themselves. This basically does two things, it helps to keep the menus from detracting from the game itself and it ultimately makes the menu system far more attractive. They have also updated the item menu with 3 dimensional representations of the in game items. You can now spin items around a 360 degree axis, both vertical and horizontal. Its a small detail but a very cool one, especially for the weapons and armor.

I also have to mention the skill menu as the way they have graphically laid this system out is…well, its nothing short of stunning. Each individual skill is represented by a constellation in the sky and beautiful gaseous nebula act as a background to the constellations. The visual effect is gorgeous. You can cycle left or right through the skills/constellations and when you access the branching skill set associated with each skill, you suddenly zoom into the constellation itself and the different branching skills are suddenly represented by the individual stars in that particular constellation. Its kind of difficult to properly explain but trust me, the effect is not only stunning, its also nothing short of ingenious. Its EASILY one of the best, if not the best, molds of form and function I have seen yet in videogames. Words simply cant do this games art direction justice. It really has to be seen firsthand to be fully appreciated.

Combat has also been overhauled and what we wind up with is a system that is far more fluid, and ultimately a lot more fun, than previous releases. Characters are now able to duel wield both weapons and spells and can even mix up the two. In other words, you can assign a sword to one hand and a spell to another hand or you can go with a staff in one hand and a spell in the other. You can mix it up anyway you want. This new system fits perfectly with the new character system (that being one with no character classes). By adding so many options in regards to how to approach combat, they have essentially added strategy to the mix, something that was entirely lacking in Oblivion. Well, short of actually picking what character class you were actually going to play in oblivion. Basically the combat is just far superior to what we had with Oblivion. Unfortunately you can no longer assign weapons and spells to the D-pad and this is really one of my only complaints with the game. I dont understand why Bethesda decided to get rid of this. They could have even split the D-pad field in two, to accommodate the dual wielding nature of the game. In other words, they could have made the 4 slots on the left for the left hand and the 4 right slots on the right for the right hand. That would still have given you 4 quick slots for each hand.

There are lots of other aspects to this game that have been updated but I will leave the rest of them for the player to discover and while there are lots of new additions to Skyrim, fortunately there is also a lot that hasn’t changed. Traveling is still done the same way. Once you have actually discovered a location you have the option to fast travel to that location. There are still lots of different factions that one can join, all of which have additional quests associated with them. You can still go about playing the game as you want. You still collect herbs and ingredients for potions. There are still hundreds of different books that one can read. I could go on and on and on and on. This is an Elder Scrolls game after all and Bethesda has kept the heart of the game intact and that is a very good thing indeed. I wont go into the story aspect of this game as I hate spoilers. I will just say that the main story line is fantatstic and is really the icing on the cake.

Bottom line – I am a huge Elder Scrolls fan and I have been watching this game since it was first announced. To say my expectations were extremely high would be a massive understatement. With that being said, Skyrim is everything that I hoped for and then some. It hasn’t just raised the bar, its launched it into the stratosphere. If your an Elder Scrolls fan then buying this should be a no brainer. This is the kind of game people buy consoles for and this is easily Bethesda’s best work yet in regards to this series. They have just taken this franchise to a whole new level. Thankfully, I have lots of time in the coming months to discover all that this game has to offer and make no mistake about it, what this game has to offer….well, its limited only by the amount of time you spend with it.

Outstanding, simply outstanding!

5 Stars!