Starwars

If you hold the E button, you can move things around in the game-world as with Z in previous games.

As it turns out, I think I was on the second-to-last Thieves Guild quests (think I have one more to do *now*). I quite enjoyed this quest though. Still, I wish there was more of a penalty in any of the TG stuff to actually getting caught... The companions in this quest just tells you straight up "you can sneak if you want to, but you can also murder everything." At which point I think the thrill of sneaking gets taken out of it... Some of the dungeons are very atmospheric this time around. I just wish the majority of them weren't so damn linear. Many are literally just a long corridor (with an occasional locked side-door with some loot in it). Really wish they had opened up more of them. Aside from that, I'm actually looking forward to seeing what's inside in Skyrim, whereas in Oblivion I thought it was damn boring each time I had to go inside one.

The mansion quest is the one I remember the most fondly. I enjoyed that one. As for the Dark Brotherhood, I've only just joined them, and yeah... The first thing you get when you enter the sanctuary and meet your guildmates is them standing around talking about 'oooh killing things is so much fun!' The writing is about as subtle as a brick to the face. Not a surprise though I suppose. I've done the first 3 filler quests (assassinate 3 specific people, no conditions or anything interesting) and completed the first "main" quest in the storyline. Nothing exciting there, no fun conditions or anything unfortunately.

I've been making my way through the Thieves Guild quests and have now started what I believe is the final one. And I have to say, I'm pretty disappointed. I might be misremembering since it's been a long time since I played through the them, but the TG quests in Oblivion was some of the best content in the game. Some of those missions were quite tense and well designed (again, from what I can remember). But none of the TG quests so far have made me feel especially bad-ass or sneaky. Pretty lackluster overall. And of course, the "twist" in the middle of the quest line can be seen from miles away... but of course we have to go along with it. The sidequests (I guess these are randomly generated) are a joke. Very disappointing to me since Thief characters are my favorite "class" to play in TES games.

I think there are plenty of problems with the game, many carrying over from Oblivion. Reviewers either don't see them or don't care about them but I definitely think we'll see a similar reaction as with Oblivion as time passes when people get past the whole "star-struck" feeling of such a beautiful world. Definitely think Skyrim will be better regarded overall though, amidst the angry RPG pessimists as well. The world is very well done though, it's actually *fun* to explore this time around. This is easily the biggest and most important improvement for me personally. Which says something I think since I'm not usually one to "hitchhike" in games but really enjoying just travelling around the world in this game. I consider it a great purchase as I'm definitely enjoying myself. However, once I've seen most of the world and completed the majority of quests, I don't think I'll see much reason to return to the game beyond messing around with mods. Which is a shame since I consider replayability to be an important part of RPGs. But I mean, I can't complain about the length of the game. It's huge.

It's pretty weird I think as many of the dragons take way less damage for me than some of the tougher critters and/or dungeon bosses. That said, I also spread my skills a lot to things like Speech, Lockpicking and Pickpocketing. Which unfortunately are completely useless in the game. Hopefully there'll be some good mods redoing the level system a bit. I'm really liking the base idea of it with the perks and all, but... yeah. Some of it is just beyond useless.

I'm 25 and I think I'm starting to feel the effect of bullet-sponges in the level scaling which is kinda annoying and tempting me to lower the difficulty level a bit for some fights which take 20 minutes of running around like an idiot, keeping my health up and bringing the enemy's health down one pixel at a time.

I think the reactions are also done pretty well so far, though I'm not too far into the main quest. The barks from guards commenting on you what you're wearing and such is pretty nice as well, though some comments tend to be a bit dumb. Also, I'm really digging the random encounters this time. They really make the wilderness come alive at times. Like a thief ran out to mug me at some point and I was like "hey bro, I'm in the Thieves Guild as well!" and he's like "oh yeah, I think I've seen you hanging around." Stuff of small consequence of course but fits well into the sandbox nature of the game. Given that TES game are different in nature, one shouldn't compare to the Fallout series, but what I mostly miss from New Vegas is the variety of "social gameplay" that game had and getting on a faction's good or bad side. The factions stuff as done in NV especially could fit very well into a TES game in my opinion and I would gladly welcome the social gameplay element as well, being able to solve more things through diplomacy or what have you.

Kinda agree with what Lexx says. They really don't sell the illusion of Skyrim being a big place in terms of the quest content. Which again, is also the reason I wish there was more actual city-gameplay, more varied in missions inside the actual cities. A lot of times it's like "oh hey, this city looks freaking AWESOME!". Then when you're inside, nearly all the non fed-ex quests are like "hey, get out of the goddamn city, walk across half the country and fetch me the holy thingamajig".

One thing I would really wish for in upcoming Elder Scrolls games is more variety in quests, though I think many people find the core experience of it all to be the combat/dungeon raiding. The Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood is all well enough but it just seems like 90% of quests are of the "go there, retrieve this (which means killing a dungeon full of enemies)" or "go there and kill everything there". I think it does get repetitive rather fast. Went to the Bard's College since I thought they might offer something different but... First quest is go to cavern, retrieve thingy. The additional burglary jobs and such in the Thieves Guild are a nice addition but most offer no challenge whatsoever. They've done a brilliant job on diversifying the world more since Oblivion, and I really enjoy how different the environs feel despite it all being part of the "cold northern lands" type of place. But I would love for quests to get an injection of some Fallout, some diversity, into them with more ways to solve things beyond killing everything. Still, I suppose that's not what the series is about but... eh. I'm already getting tired of killing wolves and pelting Draugr's with arrows before they can get out of their coffins, sad to say. Such a beautifully crafted world (and it really is stunning at times) needs more varied stuff to do to really fulfill its potential if you ask me.

I have to say that, as bad as some textures look up close, there are also moments where the game looks absolutely amazing. Was doing some stuff in Riften and headed north to... uh, whatever the town is that is north of it. Crossing the Tundra there... wow, some amazing sights. Also makes me wish that they had done the UI more in tone with the game's culture instead of that "clean" look. Reminds me of Assassin's Creed for some reason, just hate that overall look. Also, reading some other posts provides some nice insight into the fact that the world is more hand-built in terms of loot as well. I'm higher level than Tigranes' character but haven't seen anything approaching Elven armor yet (well, one dude had a dwarven axe, really hurt). But I haven't really been off into the wilderness, I've mostly been following the roads and quests. So it seems that exploring could definitely be worth it. On the negative side, I'm already starting to get fatigued fighting wolves again...

I must say that I'm not a fan of being offered the fed-ex/kill this dude quests at every turn. I suppose this is where the Radiant story stuff will provide some randomization if I understand things right but it still really feels like filler. I suppose it's my own fault for expecting but my journal is now chock-full of "fetch me 10 of these/kill that person/retrieve this item" quests. But if you're looking for a good sandbox experience, I'd say that it's hard to go wrong with the game. It really feels a lot more... crafted than Oblivion ever was. If you're looking for a sandbox game, I think it'd have to be a pretty special case for someone to find the game so bad as to not be worth the money. There are still a lot of annoyances for me in the game, and lots of things I miss coming off from New Vegas, but ultimately Bethesda really stepped up their game from Oblivion (and Fallout 3 as well I'd say). Though again, the test of longevity will be seen a few weeks from now I suppose. But yeah, hard to imagine a scenario where I wouldn't feel this isn't worht the money at the moment.

As per tradition, it seems the main quest is the worst part of the game. Not only does it unlock the Oblivion Ga-, uh, I mean, Dragons appearing and being annoying after a certain point... Some parts of it are just boring. I suppose someone thought the climb to the Throat of the World would be all kinds of epic but really, it was just boring as hell. And learning how to Shout was just time consuming and again, boring. The Shouts are sort of interesting lore-wise but it all seems to come down to "you are teh chosen one with awesum powahs, and omg you can learn all this stuff so quickly that us mere mortals takes YEARS to learn." It's not surprising, it's just... not interesting. Also, while some quests have multiple solutions, can't help but miss the faction intricacies and freedom of choice of New Vegas. Still, I'm quite enjoying myself. The world is a *huge* improvement over Oblivion, so much more fun to explore. The voiceacting is OK, the writing for NPCs is better than Oblivion but still kinda bad in many places. But you can tell that they focused on the lore of the place this time around which makes one care a bit more about everything. Also, fun times when a giant one-shotted me so hard I flew up through the stratosphere.

Don't think so. The texture quality really does seem to be all over the place. It's very noticeable in some places, mostly interiors. You'll be seeing a good texture and right next to it is a horrendously bad one. It's not very consistent.

Yeah, you can really, really tell that it's built upon the same kind of building blocks as Oblivion/Fallout 3. It does feel a lot... better overall though. Don't really think it warranted the name-change to Creation engine though. Something I was surprised by is that I ran into an invisible wall where it looked like I would be able to pass. It was a minor issue since it didn't block me off (could walk around it quickly) but was a bit surprised since it was obvious that I would've been able to jump over it. I wonder if we'll see more invisibile walls due to the mountainous areas. The mountains do look nice though I must say. They feel fairly majestic as you look up on them.

I've done some running around and am definitely finding it a superior experience to Oblivion, though I agree with most of what Tigranes said. I think the Bleak Falls place has been shown in demos (haven't followed it too closely), but I definitely enjoyed going through that at least.. There are also other, smaller touches, that are really nice on the first playthrough at least. Like I had some bounty on me, fairly low. Talked with a guard and he was like "hey... wait a minute, I recognize you! You're wanted!". Had a few different options, paying the fine, going to jail and so forth. Tried the option basically saying "Come on... You don't want to do this either." Not sure if this made use of the Speech skill or not but the guard was like "Yeah... you've only got a low bounty. I'll let it slide this time." Felt much more natural than the "Stop criminal scum!" version in Oblivion. Not great but a lot more belivable. I don't believe I've heard any "randomly generated" convos though like in Oblivion. The ones I've heard are specific to quests or locations and those sound good enough. There was a minor annoyance though. In the first time there is a "smithing tutorial" where a blacksmith shows you how to smith. Trouble is, there is also a child nearby. So when you walk back and forth between the forge, the tanning station and so forth, you'll hear their greeting barks like a million times. But yeah, very minor annoyance compared to the comments in Oblivion.

I unlocked my copy via an Australian VPN. Played the tutorial and some after. Seems pretty nice so far, liking the perk system. Worst part of it? Holy sh*t, the interface for PC users is horrendous. It's really, really bad.

I can't get excited about reviews that give perfect/near perfect scores any more. I don't trust reviewers enough to believe that it's anything but the "star struck" feeling that open-world, hugely hyped games gives. Give me a review that awards a lower score, also lists out the bad things along with the good things, then I can get excited. Still, will be playing the game for myself tomorrow so I guess we'll see.

Two really big improvements I hope we'll see from Oblivion to Skyrim are A) hopefully a lot better level scaling system B) a better sense of culture and place I think the scaling will be better than Oblivion, but I think it was still rather noticeable in Fallout 3 for example. Don't have confidence that Bethesda will get it right, though hopefully it'll be decent. On B though, this is where I really do believe they will come through judging from what I've seen. And to be frank, it's a really big thing for games that go for a scale similar t Oblivion, Fallout 3, New Vegas Morrowind (something more "zoomed in" than Daggerfall for example). I also like the idea of the perks, and some of them look genuinely interesting. I *hope* it will make characters different from one another, and not just that my Light Armor character will be *slightly* more succesful than if I were wearing Heavy Armor with no skill in it. Not a lot of faith here though but hope I'm wrong. Still, just the world and culture alone. If they get that right, then that will win me over in many ways.

After Oblivion, it's already been called several times. The RPG enthusiasts are prepared this time around, mwahahah. Still, I think the game will be fun and all but yeeeeaah... The hype is pretty damn incredible I think if you look around the net. I think it'll live up to it for many people no doubt but there are a lot of people who are setting themselves up for disappointment as well. It's to be expected I guess.

New trailer: Voices and characters still pretty damn iffy if you ask me but the world looks really nice. Will probably be fun to explore it.

Here's my take on the situation. DS3 fallsshort of sales expectations unfortunately. Creation of one DLC was baked into the original contract for the game, thus we get Treasure of the Sun. SE however doesn't feel it's worth it finanically speaking spending the PR money on it.

I actually dreamt that OEI was working on a Tiny Toons beat'em'up game.

I didn't have enormous trouble with the main campaign encounters with the increased difficulty tweaks aside from a few. Namely, Maru-Yatum had me going fricking mad, don't know how many times I had to reload that fight. Also, some of the automaton fights in Stonebridge (when the city is burning) were also downright maddening. And of course, the first fight with Jeyne and her handmaid. That fight is such a pain in the behind. But yeah, going into the DLC just after reaching Stonebridge... I had to turn the difficulty down to Normal for several of the boss-battles. I just wasn't good enough.

I was pretty disappinted with the tutorial bits as well. Dunno. The biggest improvement is that the world just looks a lot more... believable or gritty I suppose. It feels a lot more atmospheric than Oblivion. But other than that, it's just not too exciting. Voiceacting is still rather bleh overall. Obviously one *really* can't judge the game based on just its tutorial though. I'm already tired of the dragons though.... bets on how long it'll take before they'll be as boring to slay as going through the Oblivion gates were?