Skyrim - Assorted Round-Up
I've tried to avoid this because everyone is talking about Skyrim and nothing else, including myself, but I know you guys are itching for some more Skyrim news so here you go:
Kotaku: Skyrim is the Pinnicale of Short Attention Span Gaming - This is an aritcle from Kirk Hamilton about how in all the previous TES games he's been able to finish them by sticking to the main quest and finishing the game, but Skyrim has him just wandering around the game world and loving every moment of it. I can relate to his frustrations and joy of just wandering around. Many times I'll be headed to a quest area when I'll get distracted by something along the way.:
These days, I mostly just wander around. And it's great! This isn't a complaint. But I don't believe I've ever played a game where I would forsake the story that's been written for me, or even the sidequests that can help me level my character, in favor of aimlessly wandering around.
Skyrim drives me to distraction more perhaps than any other game I've ever played. I'm still getting my head around why this is, but the fact remains: the more I discover, the more I get distracted. I boot the game up with the intention of doing something—anything!—and find myself staring at the map for a good five minutes. I look at my frankly insane list of miscellaneous quests, blanch, and exit the quest-selection screen. I start walking again.
Rock Paper Shotgun: Skyrole: 29% of You are Warriors - RPS did a survey on what kind of character their readers played in Skyrim and fighters came in first at 29%. Wizards 22%, Assasin 15% and Thief 14%.
JTM Games: The Psychology of Skyrim - A slightly funny article on the different psychology aspects your character goes through while playing the game. It's better than reading another review of the game:
Kleptomania
Kleptomania is an impulse-control disorder characterized by an irresistible urge to steal. Kleptomaniacs feel the need to take things, usually items of little or nearly no value, but often move onto shoplifting and incidents of more significant theft. The Doväkiin seems compelled to steal almost everything he sees.
That is troubling enough, but the province of Skyrim is altogether geared toward nurturing this unfortunate mental disorder. (I’m looking at you, Thieves’ Guild.) Furthermore, kleptomania is often categorized under the umbrella term of…
Speaking of reviews. There are literally hundreds of them out there from every website imaginable. They basically all say the same thing. Skyrim is great. It has flaws. Buy it now:
The Yorker - No Score: Overall impression is "With Skyrim, Bethesda has given players a world, and a full one" with some slight flaws.
Manapool - 9.6/10: The reviewer listed the top seven things they hate about Skyrim, but in the end he had a hard time coming up with seven. Here's a protion from the conclusion:
I struggled to get as far as seven, really, I was aiming for ten. This is a monumental game, landmark stuff, and it’s hard to think of how to actually improve it. All of my above points are thoroughly true and I stand by all of them. But as the score below reflects, my heart is not in the criticism here, I’m just being perverse. It’s really that I’m just desperate to find reasons to spend less time playing it. I wish it was worse, I really do, because it’s going to be a painful draw on my evenings for some months to come. 14 hours of play has merely scratched the surface of something utterly huge and engrossing.
7outof19.co.uk - 9/10 Odd name for a website
Gamer's Intuition - No Score: Overall impression is that it's a great fantasy RPG.
Comics and Gaming Monthly - 85/100
Gamefront 85/100: This reviewer tries to be edgy by saying it's the best console game he's ever played. Basically he's mad because of the UI.
Information about
SkyrimSP/MP: Single-player
Setting: Fantasy
Genre: RPG
Platform: PC, Xbox 360, PS3
Release: Released