Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Review (Xbox 360/PS3)

So basically, the Apprentice level fire spell (there’s only one) is a little ranged jolt that does decent damage to one enemy. The next level up is a big fireball that does twice the damage and does splash damage to surrounding enemies. Sounds great, right? Well, it is so long as you’re not doing one of the great many quests that give you a mandatory NPC ally. These guys don’t often take kindly to getting caught up in your attacks and you can’t make them not charge the enemy head-on. All Destruction spells (the others being lightning and ice) tend to follow a similar pattern, so your only choice becomes to use the powerful spell and risk pissing off your invincible idiot of an ally or use the focused spell for half the damage. Even a significantly watered-down version of Oblivion’s spellcrafting system (one that, say, just let you tweak damage output relative to mana cost) could have fixed this, but there’s nothing of the kind here.

And I know why it was removed: because people found ways to exploit it and essentially give themselves god-like upgrades that could in essence negate any semblance of challenge in the proceedings. But, really, who cares?

Everybody apparently. There’s this sort of omnipresent multiplayer mentality in this generation, likely because this is the first console generation to have online multiplayer as an expected feature. It’s a kind of competitiveness where participants butt heads and boast their successes; and so it’s a mentality that demands fairness in the game, which is why cheating devices are all but extinct now: they could lend to unfair advantages in the online outtings. And that makes sense, really perfect sense, in multiplayer games. But it’s seeped into strictly single-player affairs as well (one obvious way being achievements) and it naggingly insists that one player finding an exploit that significantly reduces the challenge in his experience reduces the quality of the experience for everyone.

And here I am dead.

Now, I don’t have a problem with challenge. One of my clearest memories of Morrowind was being sent into the sewers of Mournhold to kill off a few goblins. “Goblins,” I thought, “Bah, how tough can this be?” I went into that pit wearing a collection of the strongest heavy armors in the game; I came out wearing Wraithguard and a right pauldron. That was nuts, it was fun, and psychologically reaffirming. So I get the appeal.

But maybe for some people the “broken” toy is the better one. Maybe being able to saunter through dungeons slaughtering everything with a wave of your hand as they feebly try to pierce shields that cannot be pierced is just as much fun as barely escaping a subterranean gauntlet. And maybe in a game largely about player agency, about defining your own style and forging your own destiny in a fictional environment, the inclusion of a system that allows clever players to actually bypass the fundamental checks and balances of the game itself isn’t so much a weakness as a strength, a full-out fulfillment of its underlying premise.

After all, Elder Scrolls isn’t about the violence, right? That’s why we keep forgiving the utterly crapilicious combat system in all three games. It’s about exploration and discovery; so why couldn’t finding exploits and cheats count as part of that? It’s not like it’s hurting anybody and it’s not as though spellcrafting were mandatory or that using it invariably overpowered you; it just could if you knew what you were doing. Regardless, the removal of its legitimate functions effectively gimped the magic system here and nothing is offered to replace it. Even if you agree with its intention, this was clearly an excessive countermeasure.

Here I am presumably tripping balls.

And the funny thing is that after all that, it still didn’t work. People have already figured out how to exploit Skyrim’s enchantment and alchemy systems to give themselves infinite mana, which – considering the whole point of leveling up magic skills is to reduce mana cost – was probably not intended.

Of course, I’m nitpicking really and it’s not like the other two games were entirely flawless. I still don’t see how anyone can play through the console version of Morrowind as anything other than a warrior without pulling out their hair. And as much as I liked spellcrafting in Oblivion, I don’t hate that Skyrim gave the spell effects a bit more flash; and dual-wielding certainly doesn’t suck. But then that’s the thing, neither of these games are perfect; in fact, they each seem to pick up where the others are lacking. And so while Skyrim may not have the breadth and bizarre otherworldliness of Morrowind, it also isn’t as stilted, nor as determined to play as the pen-and-paper RPG it clearly isn’t. And while I may also miss the clever quest design of Oblivion, I sure as hell don’t miss the cookie cutter dungeons.

So the changes to the gameplay really don’t bother me. But the story stuff does and that’s the stuff that may not actually be worse this time around. And yet for some reason the flaws stand out more to me this time than before. Maybe it’s because the novelty of this type of gaming is starting to run dry; but I kind of doubt it. One of the wisest conceits of Elder Scrolls after all is that each game takes place in a new land built entirely from scratch and devoted to a new (but still familiar) race. It should always remain novel because there’ll always be something new to explore.

And here I am after a long night binging on alchemy ingredients. I just woke up in the middle of nowhere: no robes, no gold, no potions. Yet another vacation ended naked on an ice flow. It's like Aspen all over again.

So I think the problem is just me. I think I’m just getting old, that this is the sort of game that impresses so much more in those twilight yesteryears before adulthood comes along and sucks all the wonder out of life. I want to see Skyrim as a lush and vibrant open world jam packed with things to find, places to explore and epic quests to complete; but all I see is an endless mass of ugly, boring obnoxious people demanding things of me. Maybe it’s too much time spent in retail. Maybe I’m just a dick these days. Maybe I’m just too cynical, jaded and moody to allow myself to be immersed in fantasy worlds anymore. In which case, sorry for the rant.

Or maybe the writing really has taken an extreme downhill turn this time, maybe everything story-related really is more half-assed than it used to be and maybe with Skyrim, The Elder Scrolls really has made a move toward the hokey, the hammy and the hackneyed. In which case, it seems digital reality has just synced itself up with actual reality, in that the world is great, big and exciting. If it just weren’t for all those people in it…