Skyrim: The Gameranx Review

So I've spent most of this week playing Skyrim.

And I'm going to tell you all about it, but first I must warn you, gentle reader, that much of my recount pertains to the explorations of an exquisitely detailed virtual world. I'll probably go on at some length about the flora and rock formations, as though I've been out hiking. There is an observation which is likely to be made upon hearing such descriptions, which of course is "Well if you like nature so much, why not just put down the controller and go the hell outside?".

Regardless of whether this question is asked in earnest or in trollery, the answer is the same: Because there is not a goddamned forest, mountain or valley on earth where I can set out for a romp only to find that by the end of it I've killed a flying, fire-breathing reptile the size of a mead hall, absorbed its sweet dragony soul, and taken its bones for a trophy.

So trolls are barely an appetizer at this point. In fact, I ate rendered troll fat out of a wooden bucket my very first hour in Skyrim. But more on that in a moment.

As I've probably mentioned previously, I'm not much of an RPG fan, in general. Although I love a good story as much as the next guy, I've always found things like companion and inventory management to be tedious. And frankly, sometimes the story isn't all that good, anyway.

The Elder Scrolls series has always been ambitious in this respect, with general success, relative to the genre as a whole. There are those who will happily point out all kinds of flaws with various entries from the series, but to my eye, these flaws are often the result of designing such expansive, ambitious worlds, and simply not quite having the technology to perfect them.

In this respect, Skyrim is a definite leap forward. The environment is damn-near photorealistic, and though there are some Minecraft-ish moments when perhaps gazing through the window of the top floor of a tower that's been besieged by and subsequently cleared of bandits, these are few and far between. Obviously, Skyrim is meant to be a fantastic realm (because you know, it has dragons, trolls and wizard school), but it was clear that some inspiration had been drawn from the landscapes of northern Europe. For the most part, moving from landmark to landmark actually felt like journeying across a natural terrain. Even insignificant environmental features were distinct from one another: Cairns marking the footpaths that diverged off the main roads, trees, boulders, hot springs, all unique, all beautiful to look at.

Beyond the environment, there were a lot of references to Norse folklore sprinkled throughout the game, but with liberal doses of fantasy to keep things interesting: Mages in the employ of Jarls, horned helmets (okay look, there is no actual evidence linking horned helmets to denizens of northern Europe during the viking age. That kind of thing is for Elmer Fudd and the NFL. Maybe Denmark in the late Germanic age, but that's completely different), and plenty of draugr.

Draugr used to terrify me, to be completely honest. My mom told me the story of a fisherman who was out late one stormy night, and as he was trying to sail back to land, he spotted a boat out on the waves heading towards his own. As the boat came nearer and nearer, he was able to see that it had actually been chopped in half, and was captained by none other than the reanimated corpse of a dead man. It was said that draugr guarded their treasures fiercely, and any man killed by them was doomed to become one himself. Fun times!

To find myself set upon by draugr in various parts of the game was, to me, quite effective in its creepiness, and induced a lot of swearing. I can't say if it was because of personal association, or simply because these monsters were done particularly well, but either way—mission afuckingcomplished.

And I've already mentioned the dragons, who we learn after some exploration, snooping, and a whole lot of mountain climbing, aren't just randomly showing up, but have been awakened by someone or something. Apparently, dragons don't really die unless a dragonborn kills them and sucks out their souls at the moment of death. And it just so happens that I'm dragonborn, as I find out after being summoned to the Throat of the World by the Greybeards. No, not the guys from Something Awful, but an order of monks so powerful that they are sworn to silence, because their voices will kill every living thing in a 100 foot radius. Try to talk to them and they simply shake their heads, that's how serious this business is. And that is what you will be soon too, after some training, grave-robbing, stealth-doing and alchemy-learning.

By now you'll have seen the brilliant skill tree, so I won't even get too deeply into that. Suffice it to say that the design is breathtaking and functional in way that I previously thought impossible. It's a complicated system, but one which works. My only real issue with it is that it's quite easy to back one's self out of the menu by accident, which is a mere annoyance in the face of such a vast improvement over Oblivion's system.

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