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[drizzle]

If Oblivion did it for you, Skyrim would be a step up from that. Those of us with more RPG experience don't have a lot to latch onto in the last two ES games. I like running around Oblivion's grassy world, and I like Skyrim's mountains and forested trails. It's a shit RPG, though.

And yes, hypothermia can be annoying. It can also be a lot of fun. If you like, you know... Roleplaying. Since the game doesn't provide much danger once you're slightly leveled, and the only truly great thing about it is how nice the overworld is to walk around in, I turned it into a sort of survivalist RPG experience.

See, that's what I don't get. You're all bashing Skyrim saying how horrible it is, based on the fact that you all like hardcore RPGs and like Roleplaying (I know what RPG stands for, it's just that RPGs haven't meant Roleplaying Games for a while) and saying that you guys don't understand how people can still play and and how it still sells.

If Skyrim was a stone-cold RPG with RolePlaying elements, you guys would probably say it was the best game ever created and I would think it's the most unplayable piece of shit ever. It would also probably not have 50k people playing it right now.

The same way I can't understand, for the life of me, why people play Counter Strike. It's boring, slow, twitch-gameplay oriented and has idiosyncrasies that I can't wrap my head around (you run faster with a Knife even though you have a rifle on your back, what?). Only difference is that I'm not openly bashing it for no apparent reason on the thread.

That's what I think anyway.

 

[Rickenslacker]

I really don't agree with you there. I played mostly vanilla Skyrim for 186 hours and pretty much everybody in my gaming-circle friends also love it. All on PC.

To put this into context, we came from 200+ hours of Oblivion Gameplay and we also loved it.

I've never played the earlier Elder Scrolls, so I don't really know how they are RPG-wise. I know that reading about "hypothermia" mod sounds like the most annoying thing in the world to add to a game, so I'll just say that you're all crazy and that's that.

The problem is Bethesda's game design this gen making their output feel little more than Content Tourism: The Game, which is why people want to impose some survival through mods or whatever else. Something to make it feel like something other than Progress Quest with graphics.

I just think that the moment you put instant fast travel in your open world is when you concede that your open world is pointless. I don't mind some conveniences, Morrowind had Stilt Riders to get around, but it makes me ponder what purpose the design of the world serves if you're going to let everyone just click past it.

 

[Dr Dogg]

The love Sleeping Dogs gets around here is something I can't understand. It's an average open world game, better than GTA4 for sure, but so are Saints Row 3 and Just Cause 2, both much better games than Sleeping Dogs.

Just finished it the other day. Despite me being very biased as Sleepy Dawgs was my fav game of last year the story in SR3 and JC2 have not a patch on it. GTA IV was quite the snore fest for me though I did warm to it a lot later but I hated pretty much anyone Nico came in to contact with where as Wei had a great crew to kick around with. The story got pretty dark for the last few missions. The only complaint I'd make is that it was over too soon.

Each to there own though nobody can like every game.

 

[Hispanicguy]

Anyone else playing Ultratron? My favorite Steam game at the moment.

Just finished a session...reached level 50, killed the boss but died as well, lol.

My highest score is 1,993,730.

What I love is that I can start from level 41 if I wanted to...with the same score and skills I had when I first entered the level. I believe every 10 levels is a checkpoint. If I beat level 50, then I would be able to continue from level 51.

It's on sale for $4.99 until Friday, where it'll go to $9.99.

There's a demo on their site (http://www.puppygames.net/ultratron/) which I think you should try before the sale is over.

I love high score/leaderboard games so this is perfect for me.

 

[Amneisac]

How do you hide keys in a quote? I have a few silly keys to give away and don't want lurker to grab them.

 

[scorpscarx]

The only complaint I'd make is that it was over too soon.

This right here, I seriously didn't like how much they compressed the ending of Sleeping Dawgs, I wanted to keep playing it but just bunny hopped some cars and then uninstalled it.

 

[Rickenslacker]

How do you hide keys in a quote? I have a few silly keys to give away and don't want lurker to grab them.

[email=insert your code here][/email]

Do that.

 

[TronLight]

How do you hide keys in a quote? I have a few silly keys to give away and don't want lurker to grab them.

[*EMAIL="key"]name[/EMAIL]

Without the *.

Edit: Beaten.

 

[drizzle]

Well, except you did just openly bash it. Because it came up in conversation. Sort of like Skyrim did.

Thankfully, The Witcher 3 seems to be attempting to address almost every problem I have with recent open world RPGs. So I'll play that, and you can play Skyrim, and we'll both probably find things we enjoy about the other game.

Will Witcher 3 have Hypothermia? If it does, no sale!

I'll give you this: What I don't understand is why people buy Skyrim (or any game not being released at any given month) for full price. With the amount of sales PC gaming gets (not only on Steam, but everywhere else, for gods sake), those are the real crazy people.

 

[SteveWinwood]

Somebody call David Bowie and Queen for Bioshock's sake!

 

[Of All Trades]

I just think that the moment you put instant fast travel in your open world is when you concede that your open world is pointless. I don't mind some conveniences, Morrowind had Stilt Riders to get around, but it makes me ponder what purpose the design of the world serves if you're going to let everyone just click past it.

The purpose is to explore into it, not be constrained in one direction, but also not be overly punished for unintentionally going an undesired direction.

I also don't consider Skyrim's approach to fast travel to be particularly different than, say, Geneforge's approach, with the one exception that Skyrim made fast travel to cities available from the start (and since I didn't use that function my experience wasn't necessarily impacted).

 

[Amneisac]

Red Faction: Armageddon
Darksiders
Red Faction: Guerilla

Not exactly popular games I'm sure, but hey, they're free to a good home! (Quote for keys)

 

[Dr Dogg]

This right here, I seriously didn't like how much they compressed the ending of Sleeping Dawgs, I wanted to keep playing it but just bunny hopped some cars and then uninstalled it.

I still love the story but after

Spoiler

Broken Nose lady tells you Uncle Poe is dead

it started to feel a little riushed until it's conclusion. Still that last but one level where

Spoiler

Wei is getting tortured and his knee caps drilled

really made me want to ice every last member of 18K. Can't wait for Sleepy Dawgs 2: This Time It's Sleepier.

 

[drizzle]

The purpose is to explore into it, not be constrained in one direction, but also not be overly punished for unintentionally going an undesired direction.

I also don't consider Skyrim's approach to fast travel to be particularly different than, say, Geneforge's approach, with the one exception that Skyrim made fast travel to cities available from the start (and since I didn't use that function my experience wasn't necessarily impacted).

See, that's the thing. People that fast travel everywhere in Skyrim are plainly playing it wrong. Sure, the game allows it and it's not technically wrong, but you're just not experiencing the crazy shit the AI makes on the open world, you're not exploring anything, you're not finding this sweet spot that has the goddamn Death Lotus (or whatever the fuck is the name of that goddamn purple flower that I can't find anywhere ever goddammit).

Most of the times I'll just walk to places in Skyrim and find the craziest things. So, for one, thank god I'm not suffering from Hypothermia while I'm doing it...

 

[SloaneRisette]

Red Faction: Armageddon
Darksiders
Red Faction: Guerilla

Not exactly popular games I'm sure, but hey, they're free to a good home! (Quote for keys)

Someone already snagged Darksiders. =\

 

[TechJunk]

Here's a steam key for Darksiders. Dunno how to quote to reveal, so first one gets it. Please advise once you've redeemed the key.

CFRFW-C6L2W-567WB

 

[Twinduct]

Somebody call David Bowie and Queen for Bioshock's sake!

Nice

 

[drizzle]

That isn't necessarily what I want in every RPG, it was just an easy way to add in some danger to the Skyrim world. Sort of a shitty but kind of exciting band aid.

I know, it's just the idea of it. I'm mostly talking about this a lot because they just introduced Hypothermia on Don't Starve and it's a motherfucking bitch. It literally restricts my gaming sessions to 10 in-game days, because it makes food impossible to grow and makes you have twice the hunger.


Another example of it is Supression on Battlefield 3. We were talking about it on the other thread, and a poster described it perfectly: "Certain gamers hate having control taken away from them or having a condition imposed on them that limits their abilities." Seems like it's there only to be another checklist of things I have to worry about. And that's how I envision it in Skyrim: Preventing me from walking from Whiterun to Dawnstar at night, if I chose to.

Unless that's the part of the game you enjoy: Dealing with small things created to prevent you from doing whatever you want to do. Then again, I want nothing to do with that.

 

[allansm]

Just finished it the other day. Despite me being very biased as Sleepy Dawgs was my fav game of last year the story in SR3 and JC2 have not a patch on it. GTA IV was quite the snore fest for me though I did warm to it a lot later but I hated pretty much anyone Nico came in to contact with where as Wei had a great crew to kick around with. The story got pretty dark for the last few missions. The only complaint I'd make is that it was over too soon.

Each to there own though nobody can like every game.

After each main story mission I completed in Sleeping Dogs I felt that the developers were trying to create a GTA IV in Hong Kong. I agree that the characters in Sleeping Dogs are better than in GTA IV, but the story follows the same style. After a few missions I already knew how it would end. I don't expect a story as good as a novel in a game, I usually don't even mind plot holes either, but at least I want to be surprised. Just Cause 2 and Saints Row 3 had enough over the top moments to surprise me and keep me interested in the main story, even though the story wasn't that good. Sleeping Dogs' story was predictable and the gameplay was not good enough to compensate that, it's exactly the same with GTA IV.

The game is certainly worth the $15 I paid, but like I said, the praise surprises me. Every now and then I see someone praising Sleeping Dogs here and rarely I see someone criticizing it. To see so many people praising a game I considered to be average in almost every way is really surprising. It's like a reverse Quantum Conundrum: there is a consensus here that it is one of the worst games released in the past few years but I played and I can't see why it is so bad; I agree it's neither good or great, I personally think it's just average, but there are other games out there much worse than Quantum Conundrum.

 

[Ledsen]

Alternatively it's none of those things except the last.

I'd say it's pretty objectively all those things except maybe horrible combat (which is more subjective).

I know, it's just the idea of it. I'm mostly talking about this a lot because they just introduced Hypothermia on Don't Starve and it's a motherfucking bitch. It literally restricts my gaming sessions to 10 in-game days, because it makes food impossible to grow and makes you have twice the hunger.


Another example of it is Supression on Battlefield 3. We were talking about it on the other thread, and a poster described it perfectly: "Certain gamers hate having control taken away from them or having a condition imposed on them that limits their abilities." Seems like it's there only to be another checklist of things I have to worry about. And that's how I envision it in Skyrim: Preventing me from walking from Whiterun to Dawnstar at night, if I chose to.

Unless that's the part of the game you enjoy: Dealing with small things created to prevent you from doing whatever you want to do. Then again, I want nothing to do with that.

Yeah your tastes are pretty much the opposite of mine, that explains why you love Skyrim.

 

[Stallion Free]

Fuck abbreviations. TWD is similarly low anyways.

 

[Rickenslacker]

See, that's the thing. People that fast travel everywhere in Skyrim are plainly playing it wrong. Sure, the game allows it and it's not technically wrong, but you're just not experiencing the crazy shit the AI makes on the open world, you're not exploring anything, you're not finding this sweet spot that has the goddamn Death Lotus (or whatever the fuck is the name of that goddamn purple flower that I can't find anywhere ever goddammit).

Most of the times I'll just walk to places in Skyrim and find the craziest things. So, for one, thank god I'm not suffering from Hypothermia while I'm doing it...

Now that I can appreciate. Though I don't hate Skyrim, hell, I haven't even played farther than the character creation. They make games that you can just shut your brain off and whack things and that's coo', I need that sometimes. It just doesn't end up being very meaningful to me outside of being the game equivalent of comfort food.

 

[scorpscarx]

Speaking of JC2, it's only 3 bucks right now on sale for some reason, probably already noted.

If you haven't played it, JC2 is one of those games that you will just fall back on all the time when you don't know what else to play.

Grapple or fly around, load in jets or a cigarette boat and cruise it up, sublime.

I would not compare it to open games like SD, where story and presentation are much more important, I think I played JC2 for 20 hours or more and haven't even done the first mission.

 

[Dr Dogg]

After each main story mission I completed in Sleeping Dogs I felt that the developers were trying to create a GTA IV in Hong Kong. I agree that the characters in Sleeping Dogs are better than in GTA IV, but the story follows the same style. After a few missions I already knew how it would end. I don't expect a story as good as a novel in a game, I usually don't even mind plot holes either, but at least I want to be surprised. Just Cause 2 and Saints Row 3 had enough over the top moments to surprise me and keep me interested in the main story, even though the story wasn't that good. Sleeping Dogs' story was predictable and the gameplay was not good enough to compensate that, it's exactly the same with GTA IV.

The game is certainly worth the $15 I paid, but like I said, the praise surprises me. Every now and then I see someone praising Sleeping Dogs here and rarely I see someone criticizing it. To see so many people praising a game I considered to be average in almost every way is really surprising. It's like a reverse Quantum Conundrum: there is a consensus here that it is one of the worst games released in the past few years but I played and I can't see why it is so bad; I agree it's neither good or great, I personally think it's just average, but there are other games out there much worse than Quantum Conundrum.

Sure can totally see where you're coming from.

For me because I grew up with and still love lots of Hong Kong cinema the whole game feels like a big love letter to fans of the genre (films not open world games). While the developers were talking more about Infernal Affairs and the Departed as influences of the story I found that the story bore more resemblance with John Woo's Hard Boiled. You even have a shoot out in a warehouse and a hospital for christ sake and short of having to escort out the maternity unit is pretty much shot for shot. There's lots of of cinema references and nods along the way as well (a few Godfather winks as well).

While it doesn't stand head and shoulders clear in any one department it does everything to a level where I can have fun. Every other game that gives you an open world I have always at least had a problem or a gripe with one or more of the mechanics. Shooting is good with some nice abilities like bullet time for flashy moves and head shots,. Melee combat is better than any other sand box game with some mental context sensitive finishers. Driving is just arcadie enough and not the floaty mess that GTA has become. The soundtrack is obviously subjective but for the few songs that exits they fitted the game just right (even if I have heard that Yellow Fever song a 100 times).

I can understand it's not everyone's cup of tea but I feel any praise I'll heap on it is justified as it is one of the few games I have played in the last 5 or so years that every time I fired it up I had fun. That's why I like to play games, besides the unique interactive native that no other medium provides.

 

[nexen]

I finished Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier last night.

Mixed feelings but mostly positive.

You know the part in action movies where the heroes silently kill off the guards 1 by 1, working their way in before they start the real firefight? This game captures that trope absolutely perfectly. Once started, the firefights themselves are very enjoyable as well. The guns feel a little bland but the enemy AI is honestly some of the best I've ever seen.
The downside is that every now and then the game tries to mix it up with an ill-advised shooting gallery sequence where you move on rails and mow down dozens of bad guys while scripted sequences are popping all around you. These sections are uniformly terrible. They feel like someone dropped a light gun shooter in the middle of the game.
Also some of the levels feel over constricted. I found a couple of cases where I wanted to get a better flanking position or avoid an enemy patrol all together but was unable to due to level design or arbitrary "That's outside of our AO!" messages.

Still, I'd say that overall it stands toe-to-toe with GRAW and is almost as good as RB6:V / V2. Very underrated @ 71 Metacritic.

 

[Of All Trades]

I'd say it's pretty objectively all those things except maybe horrible combat (which is more subjective).

Not really unless you can provide definitions of depth and RPG mechanics and examples by which Skyrim comparatively fails to meet those definitions.

 

[Isaccard]

my problems with infinite so far:
* the two hours I've played were extremely linear and didn't have enough skyhooking on shit
* no quicksave, fuck that
* it doesn't seem to be anything remotely close to sneaking, which feels weird because it'd be really cool to be able to sneak past some of these parts
* no subtitles on audiologs.
* it chugs like crazy loading stuff on my PC. it's weird because it runs at a perfect 60 FPS but every couple seconds it freezes and then lets me play again. it's very annoying and didn't change as I lowered the settings

also rofl at all the tomb raider dlc

what the actual fuck at this

there's no pleasing some people

 

[Ledsen]

Not really unless you can provide definitions of depth and RPG mechanics and examples by which Skyrim comparatively fails to meet those definitions.

Definition: earlier games in the series.

 

[Snuggles]

The game is certainly worth the $15 I paid, but like I said, the praise surprises me. Every now and then I see someone praising Sleeping Dogs here and rarely I see someone criticizing it. To see so many people praising a game I considered to be average in almost every way is really surprising. It's like a reverse Quantum Conundrum: there is a consensus here that it is one of the worst games released in the past few years but I played and I can't see why it is so bad; I agree it's neither good or great, I personally think it's just average, but there are other games out there much worse than Quantum Conundrum.

Hey, I'm right there with you, man.

I didn't strongly dislike anything aside from the driving, but I found it average across the board. The setting was nice, but the city felt like a lifeless backdrop. Interaction was limited and I didn't have any desire to explore. The story had good production values, but it was mostly by the numbers as a crime tale. The melee-focused combat was a nice change of pace for the genre, but it didn't have enough depth or variety to stay interesting for long. The mission design was pretty much everything you'd expect from an open world game in the GTA mold. I don't regret spending time or money on it, but once the credits hit I was honestly glad to be done with it.

 

[nexen]

Expectations matter a lot going into a game. I think that explains a lot of the swing on QC and Sleeping Dogs.

QC had Portal-level expectations. Sleeping Dogs really didn't have many expectations attached to it at all. Reskin of a cancelled True Crime sequel by a studio that had only shipped Modnation Racers.

 

[Da DreadLord]

Bioshock is beautiful.

Mouse is a bit sensitive though XD Do they expect people to be high while playing?

 

[SapientWolf]

Is there a way to disable the giant red, glowing counter-attack prompt in Sleeping Dogs? It's making the game way too easy now.

 

[Rapstah]

Bioshock is beautiful.

Mouse is a bit sensitive though XD Do they expect people to be high while playing?

Is acceleration on? It felt weird for me until I turned that off. Auto-aim when aiming down weapons apparently doesn't turn off, though, I didn't see that option anywhere. Seems like a strange thing to omit when they've added options like turning off health bars at the request of people.

 

[Glass Rebel]

the BioShock Infinite storepage is pretty hilarious with some old-ass screenshots. Elizabeth looks nothing like that!

 

[Prezhulio]

FUUUUUU my hard drive holding bioshock infinite (and about 1.5TB of steam games) just died...at least i got a couple hours in last night before the next 5 hours of downloading :/

 

[Sportbilly]

Damn, I really wish I'd pre-ordered Bioshock Infinite now. Is Green Man Gamin the cheapest place currently (I'm in the UK)?

Also, I decided to fire TF2 to see what items I had. Is Bill's Hat really worth the £60+ it's on sale for currently in the market?

Edit: 'worth' isn't the best word, I mean are people actually paying that much?

 

[Sajjaja]

Damn, I really wish I'd pre-ordered Bioshock Infinite now. Is Green Man Gamin the cheapest place currently (I'm in the UK)?

Also, I decided to fire TF2 to see what items I had. Is Bill's Hat really worth the £60+ it's on sale for currently in the market?

Edit: 'worth' isn't the best word, I mean are people actually paying that much?

Is the text blue? Or is it yellow. (Yes, the colour of the text matters...believe it...) AFAIK, regular (yellow) were worth like $10-12, but I know nothing about the martket anymore cause its just stupid.

 

[Salsa]

looks like im playing as Natalie Portman

 

[MMBosstones86]

looks like im playing as Natalie Portman

i see what you did there

Spoiler

Black Swan ftw...

 

[Grief.exe]

I'm completely not shocked in the slightest by this. The episodes are each like 2 hours, they were spaced out in release and there is zero reason to boot up the game otherwise. Oh and it took a while to build up steam in terms of awareness.

Two different games.

There is the Walking Dead

And the Walking Dead: Survival Instincts.

One is really bad and only has 400 concurrent users on release.

The other is really good and had a lot more on release.

See, that's what I don't get. You're all bashing Skyrim saying how horrible it is, based on the fact that you all like hardcore RPGs and like Roleplaying (I know what RPG stands for, it's just that RPGs haven't meant Roleplaying Games for a while) and saying that you guys don't understand how people can still play and and how it still sells.

If Skyrim was a stone-cold RPG with RolePlaying elements, you guys would probably say it was the best game ever created and I would think it's the most unplayable piece of shit ever. It would also probably not have 50k people playing it right now.

The same way I can't understand, for the life of me, why people play Counter Strike. It's boring, slow, twitch-gameplay oriented and has idiosyncrasies that I can't wrap my head around (you run faster with a Knife even though you have a rifle on your back, what?). Only difference is that I'm not openly bashing it for no apparent reason on the thread.

That's what I think anyway.

By RPG-mechanics we don't mean actually roleplaying as someone.

We are referring to leveling up, selecting attributes, picking the best weapon, talking with people, character building, min/maxing, strategic combat, etc.

All of which is pretty much non-existent in Skyrim.

Its hard to actually call it an RPG when compared to similar games in the genre based on mechanics alone.

Sounds like, from your post, that there are too separate ideologies at place. Especially after reading your CS comment.

You enjoy games to be very easy and what we would call 'dumbed down.' Others, myself included, would prefer an easily approachable game with a lot of depth.

 

[Rickenslacker]

Damn, I really wish I'd pre-ordered Bioshock Infinite now. Is Green Man Gamin the cheapest place currently (I'm in the UK)?

Also, I decided to fire TF2 to see what items I had. Is Bill's Hat really worth the £60+ it's on sale for currently in the market?

Edit: 'worth' isn't the best word, I mean are people actually paying that much?

Regular Bill's Hats are 10-12 as Sajjaja mentioned and aren't marketable. The ones you see on market are priced that way because they're glitched vintages, supposedly back in the day when people would accidentally delete theirs or whatever, Steam Support would restore the item in vintage quality. Only a few exist.

 

[Sportbilly]

Is the text blue? Or is it yellow. (Yes, the colour of the text matters...believe it...) AFAIK, regular (yellow) were worth like $10-12, but I know nothing about the martket anymore cause its just stupid.

Er, not sure, I can't see any text on it. This is what it looks like in my inventory-

 

[Grief.exe]

Bioshock is beautiful.

Mouse is a bit sensitive though XD Do they expect people to be high while playing?

Go to your my documents/my games/bioshock infinite/xgame/config/xuseroptions.ini

Exchange

MinMouseLookSensitivity=0.001000
MaxMouseLookSensitivity=0.200000

I go for higher DPI, lower sens.

You might want to go from min of .01 to max of .5

 

[Salsa]

Weirdly enough I got used to the mouse lag. No fix for me though since im forcing V-sync and triple buffering

it's not that bad really, and there's not much twitch shooting involved anyway

 

[Sportbilly]

Regular Bill's Hats are 10-12 as Sajjaja mentioned and aren't marketable. The ones you see on market are priced that way because they're glitched vintages, supposedly back in the day when people would accidentally delete theirs or whatever, Steam Support would restore the item in vintage quality. Only a few exist.

Ahh, I just noticed it says 'not marketable' at the bottom there. As you can tell, I'm a n00b at this

 

[toddhunter]

See, that's what I don't get. You're all bashing Skyrim saying how horrible it is, based on the fact that you all like hardcore RPGs and like Roleplaying (I know what RPG stands for, it's just that RPGs haven't meant Roleplaying Games for a while) and saying that you guys don't understand how people can still play and and how it still sells.

I don't like it because it is boring. The problem is it kind of teases you making you think that there is a bit where it stops being boring. That bit never comes. The result is you can easily buy it and play it for 50 hours and ultimately hate it...like I did.

However like I've said before, I blame myself, not the game. If I was younger and still had an imagination, I'd probably fill that 50 hours of game time in with all sorts of wonderful adventures and plots and little back stories for the characters and whatever else. This would make it a magical game.

But I'm old now, so Skyrim sucks.

Finished ME2 last night, really enjoyed it a heck of a lot more than ME1. Whilst it would have been better if they took all the poorly implemented RPG ideas in ME1 and did them right, at least taking them out made for a fun game. Looking forward to the "ending" and seeing how it could really be so bad. I still don't feel all the invested in what is going on, so might be able to get a different perspective on it.

 

[Dr Dogg]

Weirdly enough I got used to the mouse lag. No fix for me though since im forcing V-sync and triple buffering

it's not that bad really, and there's not much twitch shooting involved anyway

V-sync? Ewwwwww. Saying that forcing it through nVidia inspector is usually 9 times out of 10 the best option if you have to.

 

[Salsa]

V-sync? Ewwwwww. Saying that forcing it through nVidia inspector is usually 9 times out of 10 the best option if you have to.

im forcing it through d3doverrider. The in-game option is borked and I dont like tearing brah

 

[nexen]

By RPG-mechanics we don't mean actually roleplaying as someone.

We are referring to leveling up, selecting attributes, picking the best weapon, talking with people, character building, min/maxing, strategic combat, etc.

All of which is pretty much non-existent in Skyrim.

Its hard to actually call it an RPG when compared to similar games in the genre based on mechanics alone.

Yet the Ultima games had even shallower mechanics than that of Skyrim, and they formed the basis for the RPG genre.

But who really cares? Call it an adventure game with RPG elements, if you'd like. It is just a label. Some people play RPGs for the stat crunching and tactics. Some people (like me) play RPGs for the feeling of adventure. *shrug*

I don't like it because it is boring. The problem is it kind of teases you making you think that there is a bit where it stops being boring. That bit never comes. The result is you can easily buy it and play it for 50 hours and ultimately hate it...like I did.

However like I've said before, I blame myself, not the game. If I was younger and still had an imagination, I'd probably fill that 50 hours of game time in with all sorts of wonderful adventures and plots and little back stories for the characters and whatever else. This would make it a magical game.

But I'm old now, so Skyrim sucks.

Finished ME2 last night, really enjoyed it a heck of a lot more than ME1. Whilst it would have been better if they took all the poorly implemented RPG ideas in ME1 and did them right, at least taking them out made for a fun game. Looking forward to the "ending" and seeing how it could really be so bad. I still don't feel all the invested in what is going on, so might be able to get a different perspective on it.

I played for about 160 hours and I loved it. I liked Oblivion more, though.
Being able to meet the game halfway with your imagination makes all the difference.

For me games like ME1 don't do it as well because if you step off the linear path you immediately meet invisible walls everywhere. They polish the hell out of that narrow hallway. Skyrim is less polished, but I can do so much more.

edit: I'd bet good money that I'm older than you. I'm a dinosaur.

 

[eyeless]

skyrim is a good video game