Why I Kinda' Hate
Skyrim
Today we're talking about a videogame. A videogame that is completely unique as far as I'm concerned. A videogame that had a very significant impact when it first came out, and the effects of its presence are still being seen. A videogame that I don't like very much...
Today we're talking about The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Before I start ripping this game apart I'd like to say that this is one of my favorite all time videogames. I personally tend to play more puzzle, sandbox, or cooperative games than anything else. Minecraft, Portal, TF2, stuff like that. To me games like these are more creative outlets than your standard "SHOOT IT! SHOOT IT! SHOOT IT! SHOOT IT!" affair. I like games that don't necessarily require skill, but instead some intellectual effort on my part (or teamwork in a group) to play it. One of my favorite games is Robocraft, because while the point of the game is to drive around shooting people, you get to build the tank. That is the kind of game I like.
On a surface level, Skyrim is very similar to every other game with this visual atheistic, but when put under a microscope it uses its saminess to accentuate the tremendous freedom it gives the player. The core concepts of story, exploration, stealth, and combat from its piers are definitely present, but the game lets you choose how to play. You can be a ninja and sneak around assassinating everyone, or you can be a tank with a humongous ax, or any other type of character on this spectrum, and the game plays just as well for one type of character as any other. Not just that, but the job system and the sheer number of sidequests in this game are astounding and impresses me to no end. I haven't played this game to completion, but with the time I've played I probably could have done so a few times over when taking into account the sheer level of running around doing stuff that isn't relevant to the plot. They were tasked with making a COUNTRY from scratch and it is, for the most part, seamless. It is amazing as a feat of game development, and I'm constantly flabbergasted at just how much effort got put into every single facet of this world.
So, this is a great game. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a wonderful game that everyone should get the chance to experience, but whenever I play it there's one tiny problem that breaks everything for me: you're always fighting somebody.
This is a big problem for people like me. The reason I don't tend to play shoot 'em up games is because that's not what I'd do in that situation. I treat game characters like they're real people so mowing down waves of them is not what I want to do. Very few people share this mentality, but in Skyrim it's a difficult mentality to avoid since the world and all the people in it seem so fleshed out and interconnected.
In Morthal there's a quest which involves a house that burned down. You start this quest and it involves vampires and putting spirits to rest and tons of really creepy stuff that I was absolutely devouring. I was having the time of my life unraveling this mystery and connecting the dots. This sidequest ends with a short trek to a cave outside of town followed by an insanely hard vampire boss that (at the time) I couldn't have beaten if I wanted to. This is where Skyrim utterly fails. Yes, it is a game where you can roleplay a character, but if that character isn't a stone cold bad-ass who solves problems with a comically large sword, you will have a desperately boring experience.
My power fantasy is to make my enemies run away at a mention of my name, not because I'm the strongest, or the fastest, but the cleverest. My power fantasy is to walk into a room completely filled with people that want to kill me and find some creative way of avoiding death that isn't a violent solution. I want to be the Doctor, and I'm sad that there practically aren't games that provide me with that opportunity.
So when a game like this rolls out and it seems like it'd let me have the chance to play that way, I'm incredibly excited, but when you finish a very story driven quest with a boss fight that is probably impossible if you don't have a level above 35, it seems disingenuous. I understand that most people don't share this power fantasy with me, and most completionists would probably be happy that the game ends a relatively boring exposition dump of a sidequest with a challenging piece of combat, but to someone like me this is legitimately disrespectful.
There is simply never a pacifist option in this game. I know that the tone is dark and gritty, and to expect any quest in this game to be anything different is a tremendous stretch, but it seems like a game this non-confining would have pacifism be a more prevalent option. Instead you can't walk 5 feet without something trying to kill you. I'm always looking for a non-violent solution in this games random enemy encounters, but it's simply something I never find.
I don't want to just kill everybody, that'd be stupid. I don't know anything about these people other than they're attacking me for no legitimate reason. I don't want to kill somebody just because they have a beef with me. If a character's trait is that they're a bandit, or a wizard, sure these are helpful labels, but just killing them seems like a wasted opportunity for a heartwarming complicated amazing story to unfold, and I'd much rather talk to them and get to know them instead of burning them half to death and then cutting their head off which is what the game forces me to do!
Here's the way that you fix Skyrim: design sidequests around the different possible play styles. Have some quests where you need to tank it in a boss battle, have some quests where stealth is better because you need to evade a lot of enemies, and then have story driven quests that don't involve a ton of combat for people that either aren't good at the game, or would prefer to leave people alive. Skyrim's sidequests are a mixture of all of these and it drastically suffers for it. In fact, almost every popular game I can think of except for Minecraft and Watch_d0gs have this problem.
Skyrim is a fantastic game and a testament to what we've been able to achieve with the technology, but when you get down to it, it fails to encapsulate those who don't want to kill without reason.
Today we're talking about The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Before I start ripping this game apart I'd like to say that this is one of my favorite all time videogames. I personally tend to play more puzzle, sandbox, or cooperative games than anything else. Minecraft, Portal, TF2, stuff like that. To me games like these are more creative outlets than your standard "SHOOT IT! SHOOT IT! SHOOT IT! SHOOT IT!" affair. I like games that don't necessarily require skill, but instead some intellectual effort on my part (or teamwork in a group) to play it. One of my favorite games is Robocraft, because while the point of the game is to drive around shooting people, you get to build the tank. That is the kind of game I like.
On a surface level, Skyrim is very similar to every other game with this visual atheistic, but when put under a microscope it uses its saminess to accentuate the tremendous freedom it gives the player. The core concepts of story, exploration, stealth, and combat from its piers are definitely present, but the game lets you choose how to play. You can be a ninja and sneak around assassinating everyone, or you can be a tank with a humongous ax, or any other type of character on this spectrum, and the game plays just as well for one type of character as any other. Not just that, but the job system and the sheer number of sidequests in this game are astounding and impresses me to no end. I haven't played this game to completion, but with the time I've played I probably could have done so a few times over when taking into account the sheer level of running around doing stuff that isn't relevant to the plot. They were tasked with making a COUNTRY from scratch and it is, for the most part, seamless. It is amazing as a feat of game development, and I'm constantly flabbergasted at just how much effort got put into every single facet of this world.
So, this is a great game. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a wonderful game that everyone should get the chance to experience, but whenever I play it there's one tiny problem that breaks everything for me: you're always fighting somebody.
This is a big problem for people like me. The reason I don't tend to play shoot 'em up games is because that's not what I'd do in that situation. I treat game characters like they're real people so mowing down waves of them is not what I want to do. Very few people share this mentality, but in Skyrim it's a difficult mentality to avoid since the world and all the people in it seem so fleshed out and interconnected.
In Morthal there's a quest which involves a house that burned down. You start this quest and it involves vampires and putting spirits to rest and tons of really creepy stuff that I was absolutely devouring. I was having the time of my life unraveling this mystery and connecting the dots. This sidequest ends with a short trek to a cave outside of town followed by an insanely hard vampire boss that (at the time) I couldn't have beaten if I wanted to. This is where Skyrim utterly fails. Yes, it is a game where you can roleplay a character, but if that character isn't a stone cold bad-ass who solves problems with a comically large sword, you will have a desperately boring experience.
My power fantasy is to make my enemies run away at a mention of my name, not because I'm the strongest, or the fastest, but the cleverest. My power fantasy is to walk into a room completely filled with people that want to kill me and find some creative way of avoiding death that isn't a violent solution. I want to be the Doctor, and I'm sad that there practically aren't games that provide me with that opportunity.
So when a game like this rolls out and it seems like it'd let me have the chance to play that way, I'm incredibly excited, but when you finish a very story driven quest with a boss fight that is probably impossible if you don't have a level above 35, it seems disingenuous. I understand that most people don't share this power fantasy with me, and most completionists would probably be happy that the game ends a relatively boring exposition dump of a sidequest with a challenging piece of combat, but to someone like me this is legitimately disrespectful.
There is simply never a pacifist option in this game. I know that the tone is dark and gritty, and to expect any quest in this game to be anything different is a tremendous stretch, but it seems like a game this non-confining would have pacifism be a more prevalent option. Instead you can't walk 5 feet without something trying to kill you. I'm always looking for a non-violent solution in this games random enemy encounters, but it's simply something I never find.
I don't want to just kill everybody, that'd be stupid. I don't know anything about these people other than they're attacking me for no legitimate reason. I don't want to kill somebody just because they have a beef with me. If a character's trait is that they're a bandit, or a wizard, sure these are helpful labels, but just killing them seems like a wasted opportunity for a heartwarming complicated amazing story to unfold, and I'd much rather talk to them and get to know them instead of burning them half to death and then cutting their head off which is what the game forces me to do!
Here's the way that you fix Skyrim: design sidequests around the different possible play styles. Have some quests where you need to tank it in a boss battle, have some quests where stealth is better because you need to evade a lot of enemies, and then have story driven quests that don't involve a ton of combat for people that either aren't good at the game, or would prefer to leave people alive. Skyrim's sidequests are a mixture of all of these and it drastically suffers for it. In fact, almost every popular game I can think of except for Minecraft and Watch_d0gs have this problem.
Skyrim is a fantastic game and a testament to what we've been able to achieve with the technology, but when you get down to it, it fails to encapsulate those who don't want to kill without reason.